growing up

Oh, this girl of mine.....she's growing up!

That is her third grade picture.  She looks so much older than this one from last year:

Right now she's really (REALLY) into Minecraft.  I only let her play 20 minutes a day, if at all, thinking I could keep this obsession from taking over her life, but even though she hardly gets to play, she talks about it all the time.  She reads books about it, plans her strategies, makes masks in order to act out Minecraft, makes her own Minecraft books....even makes Minecraft things out of legos....

She always has gotten stuck on things and talked about little else while she's in that phase.  I guess Minecraft is just the flavor of the month.

boo at the zoo

A few days ago we took the girls to the zoo to their special halloween thing they have called Boo at the Zoo.

Rebecca, aka Wonder Woman, had a blast having people call her Wonder Woman (she would say stuff like, "Yep, you got my name right!" or "Wow, they really think I'm Wonder Woman!" when people would call her that.  She's so funny.

Rachel, on the other hand, who insisted on being a witch this year, even though we don't really have a witch costume (and she didn't really want me to buy anything special when I DID offer!) got upset at one point and said, "How come everyone is talking about Rebecca's costume, and not mine?"  It made me sad, but right after that someone said, "Wow, look, it's Wonder Woman!  And look, a witch, too!" and that made her smile that someone noticed.  She's still the cutest witch I know, even if her costume isn't all that original....

mourning

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/toledoblade/obituary.aspx?n=charles-breeden&pid=172945156&fhid=5503

He was one of the smartest men I knew.  He's always been one of my biggest cheerleaders, helping me with sports, coaching my basketball team with my dad, sitting on the sidelines at my track meets, helping me with math and science homework, cheering me on in whatever I've done.  

Growing up he took me on a number of trips, and I have so many memories of the places we went together.  The first time I saw the Grand Canyon was with him.  We went to Disney World a number of times.  No matter where we stayed, he made sure I had a pool to swim in, because he knew I loved to swim and dive.  They are all trips I'll never forget.

He called me "Wendy Jane."  No one else calls me that.

My grandpa was a big reason why I've continued writing this blog.  I don't think very many people read it anymore, but he always did, and loved seeing the girls' pictures and hearing about their lives.  He was the blog's biggest fan.  A lot of times I would write, even when I didn't have a lot to say, just because I knew he would be checking and want to hear something about them!  

We lost him on Friday.

I love you, Grandpa.  I love how much you loved my girls and me.  I will miss you.

Family fun

We took a trip this weekend to the farm where we've gone several times over the last few years.  The girls were too busy having fun to notice that it was windy and freezing cold!  They had a great time.

Wonder Woman

I've been searching and searching for a Wonder Woman costume for Rebecca for weeks.  She wanted to be her for Halloween, and a friend had a costume she could borrow, but I really wanted to find her one of her own so she could play dress up whenever she wanted in it.  I knew I'd get my money's worth out of it, but I also didn't want to pay full price, because they're expensive.  But not only are they expensive, but they're also hard to find.   Especially gently used, which is what I was looking for.  No one seems to be into Wonder Woman.  Lots of Superman, Supergirl, Batman, etc, but no Wonder Woman.  But I finally won one in an ebay auction, and it arrived today (after Rebecca asking me every single day if it had come yet).  

When she got up from her nap, I had it all laying out on the table for her to see.  She was more than thrilled.....ecstatic!  She's had it on all afternoon and evening, except when we made her take it off to eat dinner.

I need to fix the boot coverings--they're too big--but otherwise, it fits great (I was worried it might not fit).  She's in heaven.

catching up

I feel like I'm constantly playing catch up lately.  Things feel so busy that I get behind on everything, and then it takes a day to catch up on something.  Last weekend I caught up on laundry.  Wednesday I caught up on some cleaning I'd been wanting to do forever (there's still tons to clean, but this was cleaning out the fridge, freezer, and pantry, which really needed it, and I'd been putting off for months). I've been trying to catch up with various friends.  Catching up on errands....you name it, I'm playing catch up.  So here I am, playing catch up on my blog.

I guess fall always feels like this, to some extent, but this year it's harder to keep all of my ducks in a row.  Rachel's busier, so I'm always running places, it seems, plus I'm working two days a week, which adds to my to do list on the other days of the week.  My job has required lots of different trainings, too, so I've been trying to knock those out.  I have two more nights in a couple of weeks that I'll be gone for that, and then I can be done with that for awhile.  Whew!

We had to start a Google calendar online that my husband and I can both access, because we have so much going on that we each need to consult it before we add something, so he was calling me and asking, "What's going on on such and such a day?"  Now we can each just look there and figure it out and it's working well....as long as we remember to add the new stuff to the calendar!

And our lives are definitely less busy than most!  I don't know how families do it where both mom and dad work full time, and kids are in sports and dance and music lessons, and so forth.  Rachel only has two activities and that feels like a lot.  I wish she could do dance and music, because she'd love them, but I honestly don't know how I'd handle it all.

So.....catching up.....  Rachel is loving school.  I think she'd be happy anywhere, but she does love her new school.  Lately she's discovered a love for geography.  She's always loved maps and so forth, but she's been learning a lot of geography at school, and not only does she know everything she's supposed to know for school, but she's taken it upon herself to learn so much more, too.  I'm thrilled that she's interested and doing so well.  She's also really loving reading and is reading above and beyond what she's asked to read for school (which seems like a lot anyway).  She still struggles with math, and we spend LOTS of time on it in the evenings, doing her homework, and it will probably never be her favorite, but I'm happy that she has areas where she's excelling and feeling good about herself.  

Rebecca is still happy, snuggly, and TALKATIVE.  Man, can that girl talk.  She enjoys preschool, although she also loves it when she asks, "Do I have school today, Mommy?" And I tell her no.  She loves playing at home, but loves being at school, too.  Her teachers say she's doing great, and I'm thrilled to hear that she's listening and following directions, as I didn't really know how she'd do, being as talkative as she is.  She loves Super Heroes right now.  I guess she's been on a kick for awhile, all starting with The Incredibles a year or so ago, but she's also developed a love for Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman, especially.  She checks their books out at the library all the time and has been watching old episodes of Super Friends from the 70s.  Rebecca is to Super Heroes right now as Rachel used to be to princesses.  Obsessed.  Rebecca likes princesses, too, but not to the level that Rachel always loved them.  (Rachel still loves them, though she's a little more reluctant to say so now.  Her favorite show is still Sofia the First, though I doubt many other third graders have much interest in that show anymore, so she probably wouldn't tell many people that.)

We finally got the rooms switched, so Rebecca is in her new purple big girl room.  She plays in her room much more readily now, and she really likes being in there.  It means a lot less mess and noise downstairs (sometimes--there are times she'd much rather be with us downstairs).  There are still a few lingering projects, like putting her closet doors back on and putting stuff up on her new walls, but we're almost there.

So that's what's going on here.  Maybe it won't be so long before I can catch up on here again next time.

fall fun ( before fall even officially begins!)

We went to visit Grandma and Grandpa this weekend to celebrate my day's birthday.  They took us to the apple orchard and pumpkin farm.  

At the apple orchard they each got to choose a ride.  Rachel code the barrel train ride.

Rebecca chose the ponies.

At the pumpkin farm they loved the huge corn box.  

Look how filthy they got!

Filthy kids is usually a sign of happy kids.....and they had a great day!

Happy birthday to Grandpa!

under the apple tree

Rachel had a day off of school today, so my co-teacher and I decided to take our kids apple picking.  Today was Honeycrisp day, and I knew it would be crowded, but I had no idea the kind of crowds we would end up fighting.  Whew!  It was crazy.

But the kids had a great time and we have a huge bag of delicious, juicy, Honeycrisp apples.

Yum!!!

first day!

First day of preschool!!

She's so excited.  It's my first day, too (no, I didn't take a first day of school picture of myself).  

Here we go!  It'll be an adventure, I'm sure!

the great room switch

We've been talking about it for close to a year....  Moving Rebecca out of her room, which is our tiniest bedroom, and only ever meant to be a baby nursery, and into the extra, bigger bedroom, which has been our guest room/computer room/junk room for the last eight years.  It's been all talk and no action for a long, long time, because we knew it would be a big ordeal.  We became a little more serious about it when Rebecca moved out of her crib and into a bigger bed.  She got some new bedding for her birthday, meant to go with purple walls, which she had requested for her new room.  But it still wasn't happening.  

But FINALLY last week, we shifted into high gear and got started on The Great Room Switch.  First, we started moving stuff out of Rebecca's current room.  The poor girl has stuff in every room of the house right now, including the hallway.  She has to go into her sister's room to get dressed, because all of her clothes are in there right now.  Then we built new shelving in her closet in order to store all of the junk we would be moving in there.  Then we primed and painted, and painted some more.  Oh, and somewhere in there, Rachel and I started painting my old desk, which we moved out of the "junk" room and will become hers.  

After painting Rebecca's old room and closet tan (my husband didn't want a pink office...imagine that!), we then started moving all of the junk into that room.  Rebecca's now sleeping in her new room, but her bed is the only thing in there right now, and it's still not purple.  But we bought the paint the other day and plan to paint it by this weekend.   After that, we can move her furniture in, and the project will be complete. Finally.  

It's been a ton of hard work, but the end is in sight.  I can't wait until it's done, and she finally has her new big girl room.

In other news, Rachel is home sick today. This is already her second cold since school started (less than a month into school!) and now she has a fever.  And so it begins....all of the germs.

third grade and other news

A week in to third grade at a new school, Rachel comes home from school every day and says school was, "Great!"  She's loving it.  Loves her teacher, loves what they're doing every day, loves the newness of being at a new school, just loves it all.  I'm so glad (and relieved, since I wasn't sure how she'd do at a new school).  

Socially it's a little bit of a struggle, but she's getting to know some of the girls and making a few friends.  Mostly she's been playing with her friend, Taylor (who is in another class, but they have lunch and recess together), but Taylor had to miss a couple of days last week, so she found some other girls to play with those days, and it sounds like she and Taylor are playing with some other girls, too, so I'm happy that she's not just sticking to Taylor's side.  

Last night was curriculum night, where I heard about what third grade will be like.  There's more homework (not looking forward to that....she already had a lot in second grade!) but I'm happy to hear that there are weekly spelling tests (they didn't learn spelling in second grade, which bothered me) and that her teacher is a stickler for neat handwriting (they'll be learning cursive this year--a practice most schools around here are phasing out, so I'm happy Rachel will have to learn it!).  

My biggest qualm about this whole thing is the bus. She doesn't get home until 30-45 minutes after when she used to get home--the bus was really late all last week, but it's been a little better this week, so it's more like 30 this week.  By the time she gets home and tells me a little about her day, she has about 10 minutes to play, and then it's dinner time.  Then homework time.  Then a little playtime, then bedtime.  And extra curricular stuff hasn't even started yet!  I don't know what we'll do when she has Girl Scouts or something--I think I'm definitely going to have to pick her up from school on those days, but that means a trip up to her school (40 minutes, round trip), dinner, then a trip back up into the same town for the evening activity (another 40 minutes round trip).  That's a lot of driving!  We talk sometimes about moving closer to where her school is, but that would lengthen my husband's commute quite a bit (and he already drives 50 minutes ONE WAY every day for work!), plus property taxes are a lot higher up there.  So I kind of doubt that will happen, unless he'd get a new job (and he did apply for one he saw, but nothing ever came of it, and positions like his don't seem to come up a lot).  

But she's happy and loving life, so I'll put up with the bus situation.  On Saturday she was sad that she couldn't go to school!

In other news, I don't think I've written about the fact that I'm going to be a preschool teacher this year!?  It's a long story, but I decided not to go back to where I taught last year, and then this preschool opening came up where Rebecca is going to school this year.  They were willing to take me with only elementary experience, not preschool experience, so I'm giving it a try.  I'm only teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the same two days Rebecca will be at school, so it works out well.  I'm still just "Mommy" the rest of the week.  

I have a partner teacher  (also new to the school, so we're the blind leading the blind--though she has at least taught preschool before!)  and we'll have 12 little three year olds in our care.  Yikes!

So Rebecca and I have been spending many of our mornings at the preschool, getting ready for the start of school (Sept 4 is the first day, so it's coming up fast!).  She can't wait for school to start (she asks me every morning, "Is TODAY my first day of school?")  I'm a little more reluctant.  I'm anxious to get into the swing of things and figure things out, but I'm also worried about how I'll do and whether I'll like it.  Everyone else seems to have more confidence in my and my abilities than I have in myself.

here we go!

First day of school here....lots of firsts.

First day of Third Grade.  

First day at a new school.

(This is a picture of her new school...isn't it the coolest building ever?  She's so excited to go to school in a castle!  You can barely see Rachel, Rebecca, and her friends, Taylor and Ali, out front.  This was taken yesterday during "Meet the Teacher" time.  Taylor will be there, too, but in a different class.  It's the first time they haven't been in class together since kindergarten.  Sad.....but I'm happy they'll be on the bus together and will get to see each other at lunch and recess.)

First day transferring busses (because she's not going to her home school, she has to take a bus to a transfer location and get on another bus to her new school--this mom's super nervous about this part, but the alternative is to take her myself every day, and a 20 minute drive one way each morning and afternoon isn't really ideal).

First day for this kiddo to have to entertain herself again after a whole summer of having her sister to help entertain her.  They've played together SO much this summer and for the most part they get along really well. She'll really miss her playmate.

School doesn't start for her until September, so it'll be a few weeks of just the two of us.

at the fair

Last week my husband was gone on a missions trip in Honduras, so my parents came down to help me out with the girls for the week.  

One evening they took us to the state fair.  Rachel, especially, remembered it from the year before and couldn't wait.  

Here is Rebecca on a ride--Rachel was too tall for this one, and was very sad that she couldn't ride it this year.   :(

But they did ride a few together.

(They didn't sit next to each other because Rachel wanted the pink frog and Rebecca wanted the red one!)

We saw the band perform, a horse and carriage competition, ate some fair food, and walked all around seeing the sights. 

Columbus Commons

On Fridays this summer I've been watching Rachel's friends, Taylor and Ali.  I try to take them somewhere to help break up the long morning.  Today's adventure with the girls was to check out the Columbus Commons.  On Fridays in the summer they have Commons for Kids, which is all free, and they put out all sorts of things for the kids to do.  Today there was mask coloring, in addition to the things they usually have.

Free carousel rides (I stood next to Rebecca and we took this selfie!)

Building with these big blocks

Showing off their masks....

There was also a bounce house.....no good picture of that one, but they enjoyed it.