November Favorites

It's getting near the end of the year and I've been taking less pictures lately. So much so that sometimes I struggle to find 7 good pictures to put in my Project Life for the week. That means I have even less to look through at the end of the month, maybe making it easier to find the best ones quickly. So here they are: my favorite Project Life photos for November.

 



This is a typical night in our house. Kyle loves music and dancing and so he is constantly feeding balls to his ball popper so that it will play music and then he runs out to the middle of the room and starts to dance. Then Tyler follows with his classic disco moves.

 

Socks. In Kyle's opinion, they're a completely unnecessary article of clothing. Who needs them. You certainly can't keep them on his feet for more than 5 minutes before he pulls them off and says, "Here Mommy, Socks".

Kyle doesn't always hang out with me while I'm doing my workout. Sometimes he'll go downstairs and watch Sesame Street or play in his room, but on this day he was acting as my equipment manager, keeping my slide disks and firewalker bands in queue and ready to go.

Earlier this month I took Kyle to Randall Park to feed the ducks and to just enjoy the nice warm weather while it was around. As soon as we got out of the car and the ducks saw Kyle holding a bag of bread, they all started to stand up, quack and head in our direction. We only had two hamburger buns so we ran out of food fast!

Then it was off to play on the swings for a little bit. I love seeing how big Kyle is getting and that he's not afraid of the swings anymore. Instead of crying to get down he says stuff like "Wheeee" and "More".

A few weeks ago we went to Tyler's school to let the boys play and it was so windy that the leaves on the ground were being swirled around as if in a tornado. Tyler kept grabbing leaves and throwing them into the wind. I think he had more fun with the leaves than playing on the actual equipment on the playground.

Also this month Tyler went to school one day with a mini Mohawk that he styled himself. All his friends thought it was pretty cool, but I cut his hair soon after that and now it's too short to do much with anymore.

And lastly, poor Coco Bear. She can't even wait until I'm done with my workout before she comes and begs for some love. I had no idea cats were such extreme love bugs.

Thanksgiving 2013

This year we were aiming for a 5:00 dinner, so while the turkey was brining in the morning, I ran my 5K Turkey Trot on the treadmill and Rick spent 30 minutes on the elliptical. Then once the turkey went in the oven around 1:00, I spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen working on this and that while the boys were in the living room watching a Mythbusters marathon on Discovery. We sat down to eat right at 5:00 and filled our plates with the usual favorites: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, candied sweet potatoes, deviled eggs and homemade rolls. Sparkling apple cider for the boys and a Moscato d'Asti for the grown ups. For dessert we had a pumpkin cheesecake. And now that everyone is stuffed, we'll probably spend our evening sitting around playing Yahtzee or Dicecapades.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

No More Braces

Oh my gosh, I seriously thought this day would never come. It's been 18 months since I got my braces put on and now I'm finished and the braces are gone. Yay!

 

I'm so much happier with the way my teeth look now, but WOW, having braces was way more of a pain than I'd ever imagined. I'm so glad to have all the wire out of my mouth and I'm looking forward to not having to cut up, rip or break every piece of food into bite sized pieces. I feel like going out and getting a hamburger just for the sake of being able to sink my teeth into something.

Nobody seems to remember what my teeth looked like before braces so this is the best picture I could find that really highlights the problems. I'd always hated how my cuspids (canine teeth) were so pointy and how the bottom ones were sitting sideways. They look so much better now. Now I just have to remember to wear my retainer so I can keep them looking good for a long time.

Cold Turkey

Kyle had a dentist appointment last week and everything was fine with his teeth except for one thing:  he's used a pacifier since the day he was born (mostly just for sleeping at night and napping during the day) and now he has an open bite. That means that when his teeth are completely shut and touching in the back, there's an open gap in the front. His teeth protrude forward to accommodate sucking on a pacifier and that's not such a good thing.

 

I was afraid that was going to happen, but the idea of taking his pacifier away was never something Rick or I wanted to think about. He loves the thing and literally cannot sleep without it, so taking it away was not going to be an easy task. However, after our visit to the dentist, my mind was made up. I came home and collected all of his pacifiers and I couldn't bring myself to throw them away, so I just put them in a bag and hid them.

We were going cold turkey. No more pacifiers. No matter what. NO MATTER WHAT!!

It's been a week now. 8 days to be exact. We're getting there I think, but it's been rough. It's almost like having a newborn baby again. Night after sleepless night, only now we have an inconsolable toddler on our hands. Last night after he woke up for the 5th time, crying bitterly and endlessly I almost broke down and gave him his pacifier. In fact, Rick had already tried, but he doesn't know where I hid them and he couldn't find them. Mercy! Please tell me we're making progress and this battle will be over soon.

What We're Reading

This month I really haven't read any of my own books. I started reading Into the Beautiful North, but just couldn't get into it, so instead I've been concentrating on reading to the boys. I read for at least 30 minutes to Kyle every night, which translates into at least 10 picture books. Then once he goes to bed I read to Tyler for 30 minutes to an hour. After that I'm too tired to read anything else.

 

So while I haven't even finished a book of my own in the last month, I'm at least able to finish about one book per week reading out loud to Tyler. Here are a few of the books we've read:

 

At Mom's suggestion we read The Phantom Tollbooth and it's just like she said...How is it possible that I've never read this book before? It's so good! Tyler liked all the crazy characters like the Spelling Bee, Chroma, The World's Smallest Giant, the Decahedron and so forth. I loved the witty writing, the wordplay and all the little bits of wisdom spread throughout the book. So much fun!

And we read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I remember trying to read this book as a kid, but didn't like the whole fantasy aspect of it, so I never did finish it then. 25 years later...it's not so bad. What's the bid deal? And then it got me thinking. If The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe isn't that bad, maybe The Red Badge of Courage isn't so bad either. I'm not about to read that one again though, so I guess I'll never know.

Currently we're reading The Year of the Dog, which is by the same author as Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. So far so good.

 

And of course all this reading turns into AR points at school. In Tyler's class the goal is to reach 100 points by the end of the year and once you do reach 100 points you get to paint your handprint out in the hallway. Then for each additional 100 points you get to add a star to your fingertips.

 

Well, guess what? Tyler reached 100 points this week and got to add his hand to the others already on the wall (mostly from previous years).

 

Yes! Now we just have to get to work on getting some stars on those fingertips.

And to make the deal even sweeter, he also got a coupon for a free Blizzard at DQ. He cashed it in for the Pumpkin Pie blizzard of the month. Yum!

Fall Leaf Piles

If there's one thing we have plenty of around here during the fall, it's leaves. All over the place. Between the purple leaf sand cherry trees in the front yard and the oaks and aspens out in the back, we have plenty of leaves to go around. To me it's usually just an annoyance, something I need to clean up, but for the boys it's FUN, FUN, FUN.

 

Silly hooligans! Now if only they enjoyed raking up the leaves and putting them in the garbage bin half as much as they enjoy spreading my neat little pile all the way from here to there, then I'd be in business!

3rd Grade

Tyler brought home his school picture the other day and I could not have been more pleased. For all the crazy smiles and odd looks he's given me over the years when I try and take his picture, at least I can count on him taking an excellent picture at school.

 

So handsome! And you can hardly see the scar above his eye, which is much more red and prominent in person. Hopefully it fades in time and becomes less visible.

Also we had the first parent-teacher conference of the year this morning. It's nice to see the things he's been working on in class and some of the assessments that show his placement levels in math and reading. Seeing his achievements spelled out on paper, it's remarkable considering his grade level. But then to balance out the good stuff, we also heard a lot of not so good stuff, like all the behavior issues we've been struggling with at home that have been mirrored at school. We're working on it. I don't know what else to say. We're working on it.