School is In!

Well it's all sorts of official we now have a school aged kid. I told Adam this was the last summer we could enjoy before we had to worry about any school stuff. Now we will always have kids to get to school when summer is over. That makes me a little sad. It's exciting and sad all at once. 

Gabe was ready. This was the card she had to make for her class to hang on the wall by her picture. You could decorate it however you wanted. She of course wanted jewels, and glitter, and anything glamourous. Cute girl. We went to the open house this day, where she got her picture taken, did a classroom scavenger hunt to get familiar with the room, and met her teacher. Her teacher is Mrs Nielson. She is supposedly wonderful. We've heard only good things about all the kindergarten teachers, so we figured we couldn't go wrong. 

For FHE on Monday we talked about goals and how to behave at school. Then we got Father's blessings. They were so wonderful. Then we did these cute questionnaires while we ate our dessert. I had Ollie do one too. 

Finding her class list. She is listed under M for Male. Gonna have to get that changed. Her best buddy Brianna is in her class, so Gabe was stoked. Also Afton's mom requested she be in the same class as him for bus riding purposes on Mondays. So that works too. I didn't know that she was going to request the same teacher, just that they both had AM kindergarten. Oh well, we don't mind. 

I made her walk me from the bus dropping off place to her classroom like five times. Other parents laughed at me, but I don't care. I want her comfortable, cause I know if she is, she'll do amazing. When you prep Gabe, she kicks trash. 

Poor girl on her first day was so nervous she was making herself sick. She had a tummy ache most of the day. When she realized things weren't a big deal, it'd go away. 

No surprise she wants to be a Ballet Teacher right now. She loves Ballet. She does however occasionally say dentist. 

Well I didn't cry, and neither did she. I was super anxious for her all day though. My nerves were fried by the end of the day. 

The boys with me walking her down the street to her stop. Daddy followed the bus and parked at the school and walked her in to make sure she knew where she was going. The bus ended up stopping somewhere different than where I showed her. Whoops. So I was glad Daddy went, not that she needed him. :) Two older kids volunteered themselves to help her, even though she didn't need help from them either. :)

Brianna's mom took this picture and sent it to me, and called me and told me when she dropped off Brianna Gabe was doing amazing. I love that Brittany does things like that. She knows what it's like to be a first time mom going through things, and she is SUPEr considerate. This little boy is Afton, who we watch Mondays, and rides with Gabe. He didn't do so well, but it helped Gabe was there. 

Heather, Afton's mom made us a peach pie that day. It was like a peach cream pie. Not sure exactly, but it was amazing!

Ollie struggles a little having Gabe gone. I got him some new play-do and other things to do on his first day as well so he could excitedly tell Gabe what he did too. It worked well. 

Writing his name. 

Well so far so good. We are still adjusting to bus schedules. The Kindergarten bus won't drop off your kid unless the parent is there to get them. The teacher also walks them to their bus, which is super nice. So we don't stress too much about her getting home. She now tells me the bus is one of her favorite parts. :)

She did on her second day have boys at recess tease her about being in love with this one boy. It made her uncomfortable and frustrated. They also kept trying to get her to kiss him and be his girlfriend. Gabe told them, "No thanks," and walked away. :0) Thata girl! Then when they had to line up they wouldn't leave her alone and she was super sad/mad. She couldn't get out of line to tell her teacher, cause that's the rule, so she just sat there and got teased. Not ideal, she was upset about it. So I told her when to tell her teacher and had a nice long chat about the importance of sharing kisses and doing it when we are old enough to date. And we aren't old enough to date until we are 16, blah blah blah. She didn't even know what a girlfriend is. Cute thing. I told her she can think boys are cute, but she doesn't need to kiss them or date until she is older. She agreed. I love her innocence and the fact she is so open enough to tell me when things happen at school. 

I do feel like her preschool homework was more challenging than kindergarten stuff for her, but she likes doing it so that's good. 

Around the House

We've had a pretty busy week. We've just run around like crazy or have had something going on. We had weekend visitors, which was a nice way to take a break from our chaos. Thanks Nana and Papa for the quick visit and allowing Adam and I to go to the temple together. It's been forever, we usually go separate. We loved the new temple video, and the kids loved having you as usual.

I have started watching a friend's kids on Mondays. It's a little chaotic, but we manage. A 7 year old, 2-5 year olds, a 3 year old, a 2 year old, a 1 year old, and a 4 month old. So 7 kids total with hers and mine. She does pay me, so the little extra money is super nice. Luckily the older 3 do school, and there are a lot of naps mixed in. It's good just hectic. I told Adam I could do 4, cause my boys just love their baby and trying to help. But I'm not sure I could handle more than that on a regular basis. Adam says he knows I could do 7, but it doesn't mean we need more. ;)

Ollie helping Embrie eat her noodles

Milo loved their baby and was so sweet and soft with him

We got Ollie's stitches out. It wasn't as dramatic as getting them in, but at one point we did have to restrain the poor boy again. He was happy to be done, and was proud of his bandaid. 

With Gabe back in school the boys have observed her backpack. So they both like to put Ollie's play one on. 

I finally got new glasses, got a 2 year old broken tooth crowned, and gave blood. Phew busy. I was so afraid of the needles they use when you give blood, so I've never donated. Now that I've had babies, and given blood plenty along with a lot more intense things, giving blood didn't seem too bad. And it wasn't. Hurray! Go me! Another one of my 30 goals down, a million to go. :)

Around the House

The kids have always been into artsy stuff, so we tried some puffy paint we had. I'm always tying to some up with new stuff they'll love. Yeah, not sure we'll be doing those again any time soon. I couldn't get the paint off anything. AH!

I'm not usually one of those moms that lets their kids run around in a diaper or not dressed. Milo has seemed to by my exception. No matter what bibs he has or how I try and prevent spills, he gets covered in food every time he eats. He has just stained and ruined so many clothes!!! More than my other kids did. It's kinda a lost cause. I end up stripping him down before or after eating, so he ends up in a onesie a lot. A stained one too. So sorry they are kinda random pics, but he's cute. And it's hot here, so it's kinda nice. 

We decided that Ollie's eyes are too big and round to pull off the robot look of iron man. :) Gabe was wonder woman.

We went to the back yard to cloud watch. Gabe's idea, and a fun one. 

This little cloud they decided was a fish and wanted a picture. 

Daddy introduced the Limbo. 

Ollie thought he was so tricky going under this way. 

Loving playing on photobooth right now 

This is Gabes buddy Briana. She was in preschool with Gabe. She is kinda the ideal friend for Gabe. They have a lot of the same traits and temperaments, so they get along great. (Better than any other of her friends) They've played some this summer. Her mom made sure they were in the same ballet/tumbling classes so they can hang out more. The chances they'll be in the same school class are pretty slim so we're glad they can still see each other some way. 

Ollie is the best helper. Every kid likes to help and every kid goes through phases, but we really think it'll always be in Ollie's nature to want to help clean and be a worker. He just loved to help. If you tell him no thanks, he insists or helps clean something else. He's helping me fold laundry here. 

Kindergarten Drama

So this is our first year as parents dealing with a kid going to school. We are nervous for her, even though we feel she is ready. It doesn't help that we still don't know what's going on, and there is too much drama. The rest of the kids started on the 14th, and Kindergartens first official day is the 20th. I think I should explain that there was a charter school that opened in Hurricane last year, so a lot of kids switched over to go there. So last year in Three Falls Elementary where she will go had very small class sizes. This year a lot of the families who went to that charter school decided to come back. So this made them postpone assigning teachers, cause they wanted to wait until they had a count of students. Well about a month ago the district rezoned the boundaries as well. So now they get to wait to see how many of those kids sign up. They supposedly are still signing up. So last year they had like 60 kids total. This year they have 125+ kids. So they now need more teachers, which they had to get approved. This also delayed Kindergarten testing too. So Gabe has tested and did well, but still won't find out her teacher until the day before school. It's all been very unorganized and a little stressful. THEN the district approved another teacher, which is great cause that mean smaller class sizes, but they have to have the job listed 5 days before they hire. This means whatever classes this newly hired teacher will teach, will have a substitute for their first week. Not ideal for a Kindergarten class, and super confusing for young kids. They also don't know where they will put another classroom if they have to make four morning classes. This also means that if you requested mornings, you won't necessarily get it. Its all kinda a stressful mess. We get told something different every time we go. It's annoying.

So then we were zoned for a bus so we weren't stressed cause that means we automatically get morning Kindergarten. We were gonna have her ride the bus. I got asked to watch my neighbor's kids on Mondays while she works. Meaning I'm in charge of getting them on the bus to school, and feeding them, watching them after school, etc.  Gabe would go with all the neighbor kids on the morning bus, then ride the kindergarten bus home with some kids she knows. Then the district decided to get rid of our stop without telling any of the parents. So I guess the first day of school was chaos, with freaked out kids, and mad parents trying to locate kids. This lead to most of my neighbors calling the district to complain, and they reinstalled our stop. Phew, although most of the papers don't say it, and the school couldn't give me any info about what time the bus was even supposed to stop. It's been non stop drama I tell you. I don't love the secretary already at that school. :/ I know everything will work out and we'll get into a routine, and life will float by, but I just kinda wish the stress August has brought will be over soon. I don't know that August will be my favorite month in the future.

More Stitches for Ollie

So yesterday we had to get more stitches for Ollie. In his defense, this time wasn't completely his fault...

We had just got done folding laundry and putting most of it away. It was almost time for Milo's first nap, the only time the kids get to watch shows. So I was telling them how Netflix has this new thing where you can assign shows under individual names. So we can have Gabe click her name and it has girl shows, Ollie boy shows he likes, etc. I asked them to show me some they wanted so we could get them ready for nap time. After they showed me I started doing some for Milo. (He wakes up much earlier and we usually cuddle and "watch" something) 

Gabe and Ollie started running around in our bedroom cause that's where we were at. I had just got done telling them to stop cause there wasn't room. I had just told them to go run down the hall or play in the front room as Gabe was swinging Ollie around in a circle by his arm. Well, Gabe let go, Ollie went flying and tripped over a folded bathroom rug we hadn't put away yet and tripped. This made him dive forward into a shelf on our TV stand. :( I turned to Gabe and said, "Gabe! This is why I asked you to not do that in here!"

I turned back to Ollie and his face was covered in blood. Ah! He had sliced his forehead open pretty deep. It wasn't very fun. Gabe helped me get towels and I called Adam and told him Ollie needed stitches. Luckily Adam wasn't in an appontment, but he did have to cancel one. Not ideal either. We decided to all go. Last time he got sitches Nana and I both had to help hold him down. So both of us went not wanting the other to have to do that alone. We figured Gabe could push Milo in the stroller or play peek a boo or feed him snacks to keep him entertained. 

Poor Gabe kept blaming herself. We spent all day telling her it wasn't her fault, and still are today. 

Ollie does NOT love doctors. Want to know why? Cause of the last time he had stitches and had to be wrapped up and held down. It was dramatic. So he was not happy to go and screamed and cried a lot before we even got the stitches. 

They have this numbing gel they can put on wounds. If they get enough on they don't have to do the numbing shots. The doctor had him get the gel like three times cause she saw how nervous he was. Which is nice, cause last time they gave him shots. Unfortunately after ever dose you have to wait 15-20 minutes. So we were there for a bit. We read books, ate snacks, walked around the lobby, and looked at the fish tank a bunch. They said we could go to the ER and have him sedated if we wanted but we opted out of that. 

Ollie started playing games on my phone which made it easier cause the doc just had him sit up and cuddle Adam and play. This worked through most of his stitches. He had like two left and he just freaked out. Screaming and wanting to be done. This required me to help hold him down. Gabe was assigned Milo at the same time she told me she needed to go potty. :/ I told her shed have to wait and prayed she wouldn't pee her pants. Adam held his body, the nurse his head and I held his arms while he kicked me with his legs and yelled at me. He would yell, "Mom let go of my arms! Let go! Please Mom I want to be done! Please can I be done?! Don't like this!"

I was trying not to bawl cause he was so super sad. But luckily she only had like two stitches left and it went pretty fast. 

Seven stitches later we were done. Phew. We survived. We have to go back in 5-6 days to have them removed. Not looking forward to that. We passed our bishop on the way out who was goig to get stitches himself for a drill slipping and cutting his arm. 

Showing off their muscles. He was showing me how brave he was. 

We promised ice cream for being so brave. So he got a big root beer float. Gabe did too for being such an awesome helper. 

When we got home Gabe went to a play date, Milo took a very long nap after missing his first one, and Ollie and I cuddled on the couch and played games and watched shows. He was on meds and content to not move. I was ok with that cause his head was still bleeding. 

Later that night he just wanted to run around again and be himself. It was nice to see but I was paranoid he'd hit his stitches, which he came close to doing a few times.

Well, not our first stitches experience, and most likely won't be our last. I do hope he'll stop getting them on his face though. We'll take a once a year stitches visit over broken bones any day.