Nalani's First Day of Preschool

Nalani started preschool this month. She is so excited. She thinks she should be able to go to school as often as her sisters...twice a week just IS NOT cutting the mustard! She loves her teacher and especially loves all the toys at her school. She comes home singing the cutest songs! Songs about turtles in the tub, songs about washing her hands, even songs of prayer before they eat their snack:) I love to hear her cute little voice! She always tells me how much homework she has to do. She's always coloring and saying, "Mom, I gotta do my homework!" I love to see her little eyes crinkle up with excitement when I tell her it's finally time to go.

Fall weather

After school, my kids love to play outside. Bronson and Nalani can't wait for their big sisters to get home from school so they can hang with them. Here are a few pics I took of them today.

Here is Bronson sporting his new haircut...he HATES getting his hair cut, but looks oh so cute when it's done!
Here are "the girls" playing with "the neighbor girls". They were pretending that the little sisters were sick and the wagon was the ambulance:)

Check Yes or No

Holy Moly! Maika came home with a fist-full of love notes today. They are just starting out in first grade, so they don't actually say anything. Just paper hearts with hearts drawn all over them. When I asked who they were from she said, "Just this boy named Christopher. Ew!" I think she thought they were pretty funny, but insists that she doesn't like any boys yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'll feel that way for a loooong time:) P.S. Maika is doing a lot better with going to school. She is happy when she wakes up and happy when she walks back in the door. I think she still struggles with the long days because she is practically begging me to go to bed at nights. I'm like, "um, yeah, please go to bed!"

Homesick...

My little Maika...what can I say? The girl just can't get enough of me. Who knew she thought I was so cool? This past week has been pretty tough for our first grader. Every morning she wakes up and almost immediately, the tears start. I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what the problem is and have come up with a few ideas.

1. She is not a morning person. She went to afternoon preschool and kindergarten. This is the first year she's had to get up and going so early. The poor kid is tired!
2. She misses the security of having Logan around all the time.
3. She misses being able to come and go as she pleases. I wouldn't see her all day long during the summer. But, at least she knew that if she wanted to she could come home. She feels stuck at school.
4. She is/was afraid of her teacher or some Duty Aides at school.

We tried coming up with a few solutions as well. The first day she cried at school, the teacher called me to talk about it. Maika told her she felt sick and wanted to come home. Mrs. D. thought it was just homesickness and wanted to make sure. When Maika got home that day I asked her about it. She said, "I just got these feelings that I wanted to come home." Aw, that made me feel so bad for her, but I also knew I couldn't lose this fight!

The next morning was BAD. A full hour of tears and tummy aches, and I still made her go to school. I was throwing all sorts of ideas at her. I finally let her wear my ancient ID bracelet that my little sister gave me for one of my long ago birthdays. It has my name engraved on it, so I told Maika she could wear it and when she got sad she could remember that I love her and want her to be happy at school. That got her to at least stop crying and out the door. I also told her that we could make cookies together after school if she was brave. It worked!

Until the next morning. Then we came up with the sticker plan. I also called and talked to her teacher. We had a very good conversation. She told me that even when Maika was crying she was still doing her work and being a good student. It made me feel a lot better after talking to her teacher; now we are both on the same page and being supportive of each other. Now, when Maika has a good day, her teacher sends home a sticker that she can show me. Then, Maika gets to put a sticker on our calendar and at the end of the week, if she has all stickers.....drumroll....a trip to "Dollar Tree"! This might be the best dollar I've ever spent:) Now, we've had three days in a row of very little or no tears before school and NO tears during school. Yay! I hope it goes as well or even better next week! It broke my heart to make her go to school when she was so miserable, even though it secretly made me feel good to know she missed me during the day:)

Now that I'm a mom

I was tagged to list 10 things about me that have changed since I've become a mommy. The list is vast, but here goes.

1. I have a lot more patience than I used to have. Which, still isn't much.
2. I'm good at spelling things out. I remember the first time Logan broke the code:) I was so busted! I wish Kelly and I spoke the same foreign language, now that my older kids can spell too.
3. I've given up my security blanket and just rub the silky edge of my kids' blankets when they let me cuddle with them.
4. My favorite tv channel is Noggin. I love the Backyardigans!
5. I get choked up when my kids make me proud.
6. I've learned to have simultaneous conversations with two or more people at a time while another person is on the phone.
7. I've grown eyes in the back of my head.
8. I'm a human lie detector.
9. I know I can't do this on my own. I'm glad my kids have a good daddy! And, good grandparents, neighbors, teachers, etc.
10. Even when I go shopping for ME, I always end up looking at the kids stores and they end up with the stuff at the end of the day.

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes

This past weekend our family took part in a really cool fund raising event for the local SARC (Sexual Assault Resource Center). Two years ago, one of my best friends, Rochelle, was raped. During this tragic event and the time following, Rochelle has shown me how strong the human spirit is. Our family wanted to help support such an important cause. Especially now that it has hit so close to home. Rochelle was the top fund-raiser for the event; raising more that $2,000!

Now to the fun part. The point of this fund raiser is to have men walk a mile in women's shoes. Earlier in the week Rochelle and I took a trip in to Nordstrom Rack to find some high heels, big ones. I was surprised at how many size 13 women's shoes they carry:) We found Jeremy some really pretty pink ones and Kelly got some leopard print slings with sparkles on top.

We even went the extra mile and gave our guys a pedicure, flower stickers and all. The morning arrived and the crowd gathered. I was really surprised at how many people were there. They also had a table full of large sized high heels for the men to choose from. They must've gone to Drag-Queens 'R' Us, they had quite the selection. So, since Kelly's heels were hanging off the edge of the shoes we got him, I decided to see if they had some that would fit better. Boy did they! Patent leather, red, and 4 inch heels:)

There was quite the assortment of people. They had lawyers from the DA's office, tv reporters and photographers, police officers, family, friends and victims of crimes. It was pretty entertaining to see tough cops with the standard issue mustaches walking around in platform ruby slippers. They were all such good sports for such a good cause. Thanks for letting us take part!

Kelly and Rochelle even made it on the weekend news casts and did a really good job in their interviews. Here are a few pictures of the fun. I think the boys enjoyed this event a little too much. I hope they don't start borrowing our clothes on a regular basis!

After school

Today "the babies" and I were waiting out on the lawn watching for Maika to come walking around the corner. We were so excited to see how her first day of school went. She walked home with Hayden and so I asked how their first day went. Hayden said, "Awesome!" Maika said, "Not too good. My teacher was acting like a total Psycho!" When I asked why, she told me that she was screaming at a girl to put her chair away and that it made Maika jump.

I have to admit that I was a little worried when I found out who her teacher was. I remember helping in Maika's kindergarten class and hearing this particular teacher screaming at some kids from clear across the hall. I just tried to play it off and tell Maika that she better always listen, so she wasn't the one getting yelled at. I also asked if hearing a screaming mad woman made her homesick for me...She said, "No! You are way nicer than my teacher!" Good answer, Maika:)

So does anyone have advice or know of this teacher? She's a first grade teacher. Her name starts with a "D".

Logan, on the other hand loved her teacher. She came home chomping at the bit to do her homework! She said she had a blast doing the crossing guard. Mostly because she got out 10 minutes early. She got her calculator out and added up all the pages in her chapter books because they have to read 3,000 pages this year. I told her to start reading the Harry Potter books. She wasn't too excited about that because she says "they're boring!" Whatever. She is a good reader, but doesn't love to read. She would much rather run around outside, than sit quietly reading a book. I can't blame her, she's a kid! But, hopefully this year, she'll develop a little more love of reading.

This morning went well again. Hopefully we are all this chipper by the end of May:)

Bak two skul

Today was the long awaited day. My two oldest are back in school all day long! Maika is starting first grade and Logan is starting fifth! They were both really excited about going back to school. Logan told me the other day that she thinks she's a nerd because she likes school so much. I told her I hoped she would always be such a humongous nerd:)

Last night we packed their lunches, laid out their outfits and backpacks, and got them into bed at a decent hour. I think it went pretty smooth because they both awoke with smiles, and I didn't have to yell (I mean kindly remind them to) "hurry up!" once!

Maika is excited to get to walk to school with some friends from the neighborhood and Logan gets the fine opportunity to ride the bus this year. Logan was also picked to be a student crossing guard one week every month and this is her week, so she has to be there extra early and stay extra late. We were telling/teasing her that she could be the "Good Day Crossing Guard" because she could smile/say hi to every one she helped cross the road. That way every person would start the day off right.

I hope they both have a great day and can't wait to hear all the news when they get home. Nalani and Bronson are going through withdrawals right now, but once Nalani starts preschool I think she'll be okay. Bronson, on the other hand is stuck with boring ol' mom.