Veggie Tales

I am excited to announce that my little garden has finally produced something we can eat! Broccoli! Steven, my little broccoli lover, insisted on eating our first fruits of our labor. Since he has been very helpful at destroying the evil weeds that insist on entering our garden, I allowed him to eat it.

And I suppose the fact that I don't like broccoli also might have been another reason for letting him eat it but anyways, here he is proudly showing off his broccoli:

Now take note of Ben in the background of these next few pictures....

Since Ben has to do everything that Steven does, while I was busy focusing on photographing Steven, Ben got into the trash can and found an uneaten, old, grilled-cheese sandwich. He, of course, insisted on being photographed with it and insisted on taking a bite of it so he could be just like Steven. 

I, being the amazing mom that I am, allowed him to eat the garbage sandwich. Aren't I a great mom!?

And here is a preview of what is to come at Steven's 4th Birthday party:

That's right I made that free hand with some poster board, paint and sharpie! We're gonna play some "Pin the Beak on the Angry Bird" yo!

Complaints

So I need to complain a bit and then I'll move on to happy and positive posts. Life can be so frustrating so sometimes I just need a good vent.

1st: I took Ben to the ENT and of course he magically stopped drooling the day before leaving me with no evidence to show the doctor. Now I would like to be excited and say it's done but this happened before (remember when I blogged what I thought was the end of the drool?) and it was only temporary. With no evidence and no physical signs of anything wrong, the doctor's verdict is that he will out grow it (or already has). Is it bad that I really wanted something to be wrong? The amount of drool that kid produces just can't be normal.

2nd: I took Steven to the dentist. He did SO good! I was so proud of what a big boy he was being- proud to the point of near tears (yes I am becoming one of those emotional moms). Then...the dentist came to look at his teeth and it was problem central. By the end of his visit I wanted to cry for completely different reasons. His teeth are a downright mess, just like mine. A couple crowns and quite a few cavities. And teeth are so expensive to fix, especially when an anesthesiologist has to come in and to put him under (which is apparently not covered by medical or dental insurance). It'll be over $1000 to fix his teeth which is hard to swallow when you know he will eventually loose them anyways. At least we have a savings or I have no idea   what we would do about his failing teeth.

3rd: My laptop's wireless card has died. This means I am now sharing a computer with Tyler (since all I ever use is the internet anyways). And with homework to do, he gets priority. No more spending my evenings on Facebook and Pinterest. I suppose that's one way to end my addictions...

4th: My back is still giving me grief. Which stinks because I was finally enjoying running. Running was, at long last, not feeling so torturous and I finally felt like my speed was improving. Maybe the quicker speed is the culprit of the pain, though. Ugh.

5th: We moved to a new place for tutoring. At first I was excited- it's always fun to be somewhere new! But it's not so fun when the new place is much smaller and I am now less than a few feet away from my boss with little separating us as we tutor. This means me and my first grade clients have to be quiet. So hard to play fun learning games AND be quiet. Lousy.

Now I'll stop whining and post something super positive and happy that you must read so you don't get annoyed by my negativeness. Thanks for listening friends :)

Spontaneous

Last night while the boys were away cleaning the office I decided my hair was in desperate need of a change. A hair cut wasn't the change I wanted since doing anything drastic with it would mean I would probably need to actually style it every morning so I came up with a different option. I headed over to Target, bought some dye for $6.99 and when Tyler came home I enlisted his help in dying my hair. I tell you I am so hair retarded that I can't even dye my hair on my own. Anyways, here are the results of this spontaneous change:

I now have dark brown hair and have decided that I may make dying my hair a monthly ritual because it's a pretty fun to have new hair in less than an hour. Maybe next month I'll go purple...what do you think?

Preschool Field Trip

On Friday Steven's Preschool went on a field trip to the Fire Station. The kids had fun listening to the alarm go off in the station, seeing the firemen's awesome exercise room, sitting inside the big fire truck and watching a fireman get decked out in all his gear. They, however, weren't so focused when the chief was telling them all the ins and outs of how the station functions- that was definitely more for the moms. One of my favorite parts though was when the fireman called on one child to stand up and instead of just getting one standing child, he got the whole class standing. I also liked how timid they all were to touch the geared up fireman's hand. He definitely looks scary through the eyes of wee ones. It was a totally different experience than when I took my second grade class to the fire station but still way fun. Our preschool class is SO cute!

Lessons Learned

 When I woke up today with an aching back that required an excess amount of Ibuprofen to be subdued, I should have taken that as a signal of what was to come. But I didn't. Maybe even the sore jaw from getting 3 cavities filled yesterday or the fact that my monthly curse was still cursing me should have clued me in. But nope. I was still excited to sub in a 5th grade class because I love 5th graders!


Even in the beginning I was feeling good about this sub job. We had an awesome assembly with author Obert Skye (of Leven Thumps series) and at the assembly I saw a ton of my students from when I taught second grade. So neat to see them all grown up and now sixth graders. A good day! Right...?



http://www.abituneven.com/leven-thumps-and-the-gateway-to-foo/


But then there was kickball. Oh, kickball. The teacher had on his plans for us to play kickball since they had no specials. This was all fine and dandy until a child with anger issues decided to throw the ball over the fence and into the parking lot. But we were able to safely retrieve it thanks to someone walking by. However, the other students were still feeling upset with this child and they voiced those feelings loudly. 






Their frustrations only served to further anger this child. He then decided to make a mad dash to the opposite end of the playground, scale the fence like a monkey and plop down on the other side of the gate, off school grounds and right next to a street. I panicked, I ran and then I desperately begged that child to come back. I was a lonely, only with no walkie talkie to contact for help and terrified that this kid was going  dash into the street or get kidnapped, or.... Thankfully I was able to persuade him to climb back over. Disaster averted. 


Sadly there had to be one more blemish in my day and it was due to my own stupidity.  It's never a good idea to break rules so when I allowed the students to listen to their I-Pods I should have expected what followed seeing how electronics are banned from this school. It's just I figured their chattiness would easily be cured with headphones in their ears and that maybe they would actually get some more work done. And honestly, it was working like a charm. The students got quieter and they got down to business. It was fabulous...until the principal walked in.





I was busted. And what's worse is I used to work at this school and she used to be my boss and she was never very nice to me anyways...So I got reprimanded. I felt embarrassed, the students increased in volume again and I had to tattle on myself in a note to the teacher. Ugh. What makes it worse? I know this teacher. What makes it even worse? This has been by far the school that I get requested to sub at the most. So I am both worried about having to see the principal and this teacher again and on the same side worried that I won't because the requests might diminish after these fiascoes.


So kids there you have it, don't anger a child that can scale a gate and it never pays to break the rules. Two great lessons I learned today.

My New Wall Art

So today I finished those unfinished craft projects I spoke of yesterday. Here is our bedroom's new wall art:

The key to my heart made of random objects I spray painted & I spray painted the frame to match- I really wanted to add some color to our room.

 Here is a butterfly. The wings are made from my boy's hand prints. And once again I spray painted the frame.

I got the wooden letters and frame from Hobby Lobby- both on sale!

And with the help of 2 pictures I had hanging around the house here is the final result:

This Week....

I have wasted many hours "pinning" on Pinterest and FINALLY this week I decided to do a few of those things. I have a couple things that are still in process but these are a few things I finished:

These will go up on the wall in our room where they will hopefully look better than they do sitting on the floor. I made them with Styrofoam blocks, scrapbook paper and ribbon.

 This is hanging up outside our door. I made it using a wooden H, river rocks and a little ribbon. It cost me $1.15! I only wish our house was painted blue so that it stood out a little better.

This week Steven has grown even more fond of his bird (if that's possible). It must go where he goes and it is constantly making a high pitched "Tweet!" One day I asked Steven what it was saying and he said it's saying "Tweet!" Man I can be so oblivious! 

Thursday evening we were driving home from grandma's house and Steven was flipping out because he thought we left his bird there. When we arrived home he said, "Mom, I can hear my birdie. He's saying: Tweet! Tweet!" And lo and behold he clearly could have heard him because I found him smashed in the diaper bag where I had forgotten I had put him.

Ben is Ben. He is still drooling like crazy so I have finally decided it's time to set up an appointment to meet with an ENT- he is almost two and I hate that I still have to put him in bibs. 

This week he also found the perfect hidey-hole for diaper changing time. He does not love it when I need to change his diaper or his clothing.

But unfortunately for him, not only have I been on a crafting kick but I have also been on an organization kick. And I was very tired of those colorful drawers because they were always falling off their track and the boys were constantly mixing things up. So I destroyed his hiding place and now we have this loveliness instead:

Lastly, this week I got another client to tutor! That makes 5 now and I have 2 more consultations! If those pan out I will only need to sub 1 day a week instead of 2- Yippee!

P.S. Yes, I still have a husband. His days are filled with school, work & scouts. Although he did switch it up and take me out Saturday night to Olive Garden & Hobby Lobby (and he especially loved going to the latter place :) )