Things

Last Saturday evening Tyler had to go chaperone a stake dance so I decided to get the kids out of the house and we took a walk down a trail by the YMCA. While we were walking, we decided to look for a geocache that was supposed to be just off the trail. It was a tricky one (especially since it was covered in camouflage, but Steven found it. He was so proud of himself!

Penny, as usual, had me carry her a lot but she did walk sometimes so that she could find some super rocks!

The weather was perfect and it was such a nice walk, that when Tyler said he had a fireside to go to Sunday night, I thought we would do a second round. I should have known better. Nothing goes quite as well the second time around. There was also a geocache off the trail we walked on Sunday but it was a nano one and we had absolutely no luck in finding it. This made Steven extremely angry and Lucy extremely fussy and it was really just a miserable walk. I should have just stayed at home with them.

On Monday, Steven gave me some major attitude and ended up vacuuming the car, mowing the lawn and doing other misc chores as punishment. This meant we had to postpone FHE until he was done with all his work. While waiting Ben was a very good sport and let Penny push him around in a stroller and Lucy feed him fake food:

This week we started story time at the library. This is my attempt to get Lucy in free learning activities. She loved it so much and it made me wish even harder that we could put her in preschool. She is so ready for all that fun! And she is so constantly bored, this is going to be a rough school year. 

Also, boredom apparently causes Lucy to get creative in what she wears to pick up the boys from school.

During Penny's Mom & Tot Speech class Wednesday I asked the speech therapist if she had any tips for how I could help Lucy. She said doing repetitive phrases (like "I see...") or looking at a pictures and having her say what the person is doing in each picture or just really enunciating when I spoke to her would all help. So this week we have been doing a lot more talking than normal and I have really had to focus on slowing down my speech and enunciating words. For some reason this has been more challenging than I thought it would be! I also printed out some picture cards that would help us with all our speech practice. Lucy (or should I say Spider Lou) decided she wanted to "help" me cut out the cards. She was super helpful...

Wednesday I had Bunco and was once again mediocre and won zero prizes. I always have one really awesome round (I got 3 BUNCOs and 3 baby BUNCOs in one round) and then my rest are really lousy. That means I don't do good enough to win the high score prizes and I don't do bad enough to win the lowest score prizes. Regardless though, it was so much fun and I love getting out.

Thursday Tyler headed to Woodbadge Scout Camp and he came back Saturday afternoon. The kids were actually pretty good so it wasn't been too hard having him gone. The only bummer is that I have had a cough and the girls have had runny noses so we haven't been able to go out and socialize.

Lastly, I am still slowly trying to become a substitute. I got all my letters of recommendation and so I decided to start the application Thursday night. That ended up being quite traumatizing. It was late and I was tired but I figured I could handle filling in blanks. Turns out there was an aptitude test that required THINKING-- like MATH thinking!! I am pretty sure I did a terrible so...great. Then I got to a part that asked for contact info from my previous employer and since I don't have their current info, I had to stop. I am still waiting for her current info so it seems like this is going to be a long process. I don't know why I was thinking it wouldn't be. I also saw that I will need to get fingerprinted so that's another step. But on the bright side, I did find someone in the Ward who would be willing to watch my girls so that is one thing taken care of...

Speech Delays & Things

This week was busier than last week and that was good, especially for Miss Lucy who was struggling with boredom last week. It was also challenging since I had a pretty fun cough that I had to douse out with Dayquil in order to not miss out on all the fun things that we had to do.

One of the fun things that we had on our agenda was Penny's first Mom and Tot class. We had done a speech evaluation for Penny and the end result was that she was delayed but not delayed enough to qualify for speech services. I was frustrated but the Evaluator did offer to let Penny join a Mom and Tot class (and Lucy could tag along too). So this week we had her first one and I wasn't sure what I was expecting but it was essentially it was play date with a few other kids and 2 speech teachers where they  had a word of a day ("play"} that they said and signed a lot. The girls had a blast though and it will be good for them to have this once a week.

Also this week, Lucy took her turn and got her speech evaluated and she got exactly the same verdict as Penny. Delayed but not enough to qualify for services. They recommended I put her in preschool but that is just not financially in the cards right now so I started going through other options...

Option #1: A co-op with ladies in the ward- not enough interest, one of the ladies kind of scared everyone away with an intense approach to a co-op.

Option #2: I start my own preschool. Except I would have to do it under the table which would making getting students challenging and I don't want to risk getting myself sued or anything so no go.

Option #3: I find a cheap one day a week preschool or mom/tot thing that I can get Lucy in. The closest thing I found was for 2.5 year old's and thereby no good for her. 

Option #4: I get into subbing again so I can make some money to put away so that Lucy can go to preschool next year. 

In the end Option #4 seemed the most feasible so that's my current plan. I'm working one step at a time towards starting to sub again (because if I think about the big picture of how I am going to make it work logistically I start panicking). We'll see how it all pans out and though it scares me a bit, I also feel a bit excited at the idea of being in the classroom again. 

On another note, the weather has been fabulous this week and so we've been outside a lot which is apparently dangerous for Penny. She tripped and literally fell on her chin, causing herself to do a pretty serious bite down on her inner lip. There was lots of blood and it was super deep and a I panicked and called Tyler. He was so good to me and came home from work to check it out, and he was concerned too. So we sent pictures to a doctor friend who determined she would probably be fine without stitches. She was super fussy the rest of the day but it seems to be growing back together, poor girl.

And let's end on a more fun note...I went to Curriculum night at the boy's school this week and another mom informed me that her daughter calls Ben, "Benny Boo" and has told her that she is going to marry Ben. Oh my little charmer, getting the girls already, ha ha! 

So Penny discovered the shoes above in her closet and has been wearing them everyday since> They are church shoes with a small heel so it's been pretty funny having her wear them to super unfancy places like Walmart and the park. And Lucy discovered that bib in her closet (it was with the doll clothes) and thought she was soooo funny wearing it!

Labor Day Fun & Back to School

I am a big fan of exploring Michigan (because it is huge and there are so many cool things to see) and I am also a big fan of lighthouses! So on Labor Day we drove 2 and half hours up north to Tawas State Park and saw this beauty of a lighthouse that was there:

This was the first lighthouse that we went to that was not right up on the shore. They had moved it because it had issues with sand building up around it so we took a short walk to the shore and I got this super fab pic of my kids there ;)

Penny had some fun picking up and throwing wet sand:

Then we ate some lunch (with no bees swarming, it was geat!), changed into our swimsuits and went to the beach at Tawas State Park. I feel like this was the prettiest beach we have been to in Michigan. The sand was clean, and perfect for making sandcastles and the water was clean and not all green and gross like a lot of beaches we have gone too. The temps were in the 70's that day so the water was WAY too cold for me but the rest of my family ignored the cold and had fun playing in the waves, even Miss Penny got in on the action!

When Penny wasn't in the water with her dad, she was hanging by me filling up buckets of sand. And after Steven got his fill of chasing waves, he built 2 sand mounds in separate locations and watched to see which one would last the longest.

I also had the boys write their names in the sand and I love how Steven's shadow photo bombed Ben's picture.

 After Ben had decided it was just too cold to be in the water, he built this amazing sand castle:

After Penny's second run in the water with her dad, she was soaking and freezing and she literally burrowed down into the warm sand. Lucy decided she wanted to join in on the fun so I got this funny picture of my girls all snuggled down in the sand. They literally had sand everywhere after this pic:

Our drive home was less than fabulous. We ended up stuck in frequent traffic with all the other traveler's who were coming home from being up North. It added a good hour onto our already pretty long drive. Thankfully we left the beach early enough that we didn't get home too late. I wish we could have stayed at the beautiful beach longer though, I would love to go back there!

 The Tuesday after Labor Day, my boys went back to school. This summer has been super hard and so I thought I would be feeling super relieved to have the boys back in school but oddly, I wasn't! I almost started to cry when the bell rang and Ben turned around and gave me 2 thumbs up and his heart melting smile. He did so much better this year with going to school, better than I did! Both the boys have been excited to go to school each day this week and I am glad that they are liking their new classes!

My poor girls are not involved in anything this year so they get to hold up the "1st Day of Nothing" sign. I am really wishing I had Lucy in something though. She has been super bored with the boys gone and this makes her whiny and hard to deal with. I am having a hard time with the idea that she still has 2 years before she goes to school. I am so hoping that somehow we can swing the cost of preschool next school year.

After dropping off the boys, me and the girls went and joined some church friends for a Back to School Breakfast at The Breakfast Club. I had eaten there once before and thought their food was amazing, but this time I was less impressed. At least my girls did fairly well until the food was gone and so were their manners. We quickly paid the bill and slipped out before any real meltdowns could happen. I swear going out with these girls is like going out with a ticking time bomb

On Thursday the dealership picked up our Traverse to check out the breaks (because they had made a funny sound before we bought it) and they left me with a red Chevy Impala. Well it took them forever to check out and fix the problem (which was a bit annoying) so I ended up picking up the boys from school in the small 5 seater Impala. My boys had NO problem determining that that was our car and getting in it, yet when I got my Traverse back the next day and picked them up from school, they took forever to get in the car because, and I quote, "it was too clean to be our car." Thank you dealership for washing our vehicle because apparently after 2 weeks of owning it, we had really mucked it up! **Also Steven insists that we should buy that Impala too. That kid has a major fetish for shiny new cars**

After school the other day, Steven chastised Ben for chasing girls at recess and also informed me that Ben has a girlfriend. Ben insists he doesn't and from the sounds of it he really doesn't, he just happens to have a girl that is a friend which in Steven's eyes just doesn't make sense.

And lastly after an errand where I literally had to buy ONE thing and Lucy threw a major fit BEFORE we could even get in the store, I started seriously hunting for some curbside pick up and discovered that Meijers will do all my grocery shopping for me for the small fee of $5. I AM SO IN. It's  a bit further than Walmart and sometimes pricier but it is so worth it because I just cannot seem to run errands without some sort of frustrating incident. I am hoping this helps make me just a little bit less crazy! 

End of Summer

Some moments I forgot to mention from last week...

As I was taking Steven and his friend to Scouts for some geocaching in Kensington I happened to not be paying attention to my speed and I got pulled over for some major speeding. I told the cop that I honestly was not paying attention to my speed and I apologized and somehow I got lucky and left with only a warning. My second warning here in Michigan and I have a feeling my last one. I'm sure next time it'll be a ticket! I must do better at watching my lead foot!

I also forgot to mention how easily sold Steven was on the Chevy Traverse we got. The moment he stepped foot into it, he said "Let's buy it" And for the rest of our time there he kept asking me if we could take it home. When the salesperson was showing us the price with the warranty and price without, he pointed to the lower price (the price without) and said, "Do that one." Smart kid.

And now for this week...

This week was our last week of summer vacation so we made sure to fill it out with fun times. Monday night we went geocaching for family home evening. I was terrible at it, I could never find the caches, but Tyler was great at spotting them. And Ben was very excited by the prizes inside. Lucy and Steven didn't always trade for something in the cache, but Ben ALWAYS did. He collected a prize out of each one. The kids are now addicted and want to do it constantly.

Tuesday we went to a swim birthday party and it was all going really well until Ben got his first ever bee sting (first one of my kids to get stung too). Poor kid was in some pretty good pain but after putting on some topical Benadryl he felt much better.

Wednesday we went to a splash pad in Indian Springs Metropark. We had such a good time and no major malfunctions, it was great! We splashed, attempted to find a geocache (and failed), climbed the "spider web" and rock wall and ended our fun at the playground. For lunch I forgot a spoon for Penny's favorite Spaghetti O's and so she problem solved and used her dirty, sandy shovel instead. So gross but genius right? 

On Thursday I arranged to meet some friends at Greenfield Village. They were having this awesome promotion, pay for one adult admission and all kids are free. We had such a good time hanging with friends there, the weather was perfect, and once again no major malfunctions from my kids. We spent over 4 hours there which was amazing, we have never lasted that long there. 

After 2 successful outings in a row, I pushed my luck and took my kids geocaching in Kensington. Steven knew where some caches were from Scouts and wanted to show us them. The weather was perfect and I thought it would be another great outing but it was less than fun. Penny was tired from all previous outings and did not want to walk. I ended up carrying her on the trails and it was exhausting. She also fell at one point and got super fussy. I was glad when we reached the end of the trail and were able to go home.

Saturday Tyler went out fishing, leaving me alone with the kids for the day.  So we decided to get out and go to a playground in Kensington. The kids made a friend there and had lots of fun. Unfortunately I had to run to Kroger's afterwards and Penny threw an epic high pitched screaming tantrum. So although Kensington was fun, the tantrum shortly afterwards left me cranky. Oh Penny, she is lucky she is so cute!

Monday is the kids official last day of summer and I think we'll end it with a little daycation to Tawas to see another lighthouse and enjoy another beach. Summer has been both fast and long and I am both excited and sad for my kids to start school again. We have had some really awesome moments and some really terrible moments but I know I am still going to end up missing those boys of mine and the sweet moments that they (sometimes) have with their sisters.