Happy Momma

Here's what came home with us! Her name is Bella and she's just the sweetest little puppy. Madison is head over heels in love with her and we're so excited to have her. The humane society was at the festival and I walked through all the kittens and three kennels full of of puppies, but when I turned to my right and saw her my heart just melted. I had to bring her home with us!
She had her first appointment today and we got started on everything she needs to be healthy and happy. We're crate training her and she's doing really well. It's only day 3, but I think she's done great for such a small thing. They're guessing she's about 11 weeks old and a shepherd mix and as of today she's 8.9 pounds.

Isn't she cute!?!

The girls and I met my parents at a Fall Festival yesterday. The weather was great although we dressed a bit too warm as it got hot later in the day. We've had some fantastic cooler weather here lately and I'm loving it!

Here are some pictures of the girls at the festival....of all the animals in these pictures, can you guess which one went home with us?

Was it a goat?

A guinea pig?

A puppy?

A bunny?

A pony?

Chester the horse?

Peekaboo...I know something you don't know!

Madison was very excited to start Girl Scouts last week. There are 13 girls in her Daisy troop and everyone was a bit nervous the first night. It went well though and from what the moms have told us, the girls are excited for the next meeting.
One of the projects the girls worked on was a Good Deed Daisy where they made necklaces that looked like Daisy flowers and when they do a good deed at home their parents need to write it on one of the petals. It's working out pretty well and Madison is not only learning about good deeds, but she's also trying to find things to do around the house to fill up her Daisy.
Chloe was sad she didn't get to go with us, but she had a game night with Daddy so it was ok in the end.

We're planning an end of the year camping excursion for all the girls...in our backyard. That should be a blast!

Here's a picture of her troop!

Madison got her first progress report for Kindergarten yesterday! She got E's in all subjects, but was pretty close to an S+ in two of them. I don't have anything to compare it to, but they seem to be graded on a lot.
Social Studies
Music
Science
Language
Penmanship
Math
Reading
Work Habits
Physical Education
Citizenship
Art

After volunteering yesterday I did learn that all the kids in Kindergarten are divided by reading level and go to the respective teacher for a 90 minute block each morning. She stays in her room and is in the top reading group. I attribute that to her preschool last year teaching the Abeka program for phonics.
The note her teacher wrote on the progress report said:

Terrific Beginning!!
Very pleased with Madison's entry level skills. These are excellent building blocks for the work we will do this year.

She is a very social little girl though so I'm hoping she can keep her grades up. She's very concerned about what everyone else is doing, if she's missing something and making sure she talks to everyone. After a drop off mishap last week I walked her to her class Monday and when she walked in the room 5 little girls ran up to her screaming her name and covering her with bear hugs. The same thing happened when I stayed yesterday, but since we were there early, she got a scream and hug everytime one of her friends walked in to class. Sarcastic me smiles for her happiness, but the thought is already hitting me each hug is yet another birthday party we're going to be invited to. We have another one this Saturday! Not to mention her Daisy Girl Scout troop starts meeting next week and there's 13 girls in her troop!
Anyway, she's loving school and she's doing great at it, so that's all I really care about.

I had a wonderful eye-opening experience today. Mark was off, so I volunteered in Madison's classroom. Oh. My. Lord. I don't know how these teachers do it. She has 25 kids in her class and they are all at such different learning levels and need different help. Her teacher really is fantastic and I had confirmation today of how important is was that Madison got this teacher. All of that though wasn't my eye-opening experience, it was seeing Madison at school. Home is naturally her comfort zone and I've joked before that she saves the special crazy for me. It's true. It's so true, it's absolutely what I know for sure. Seeing her today just gave me goosebumps, I teared up a bit on the way home and my heart is just beaming. She is an angel and she absolutely earned her title as the first student of the week in her class. She was always the first to clean up when told, the first to sit where they were told and she waited patiently for 10 minutes while the rest of the class did what they were told. She used her manners, she shared, she raised her hand, she just did everything any teacher would love to see. When it was time to play, she played her heart out. When it was time sing, she sang loud and proud. She was a kid and had fun, but she also knew when it was time to obey. I just couldn't have been more proud of her.
And she was just as proud to have me in her class. I saw her telling anyone who would listen that I was her mommy as she pointed to me. She blew me kisses across the room, she asked her friend to scoot over at lunch so I could sit next to her and if she hugged my leg once, she did it twenty times.
Her teacher tells me every afternoon at parent pick up how wonderful she was that day and how much she helps her by being so good in class. But seeing it was a different world than hearing it.

Now, that eye-opening experience brings me to my second point. I need to find an outlet for her after school. She drives me crazy after we get home because she's wild, she's mean to Chloe a lot and she just runs around the house demanding things. Mark and I talked just last night about how snippy her attitude has become.
Today answers all of that. She spends almost 7 hours being good, doing everything she's told, standing in lines, staying quiet, and obeying that I think I would be crazy to expect her not to need to vent! I certainly won't accept the mean and snippy behavior, but that little girl needs something to get her energy out and most importantly have some one-on-one time with mommy or daddy since she's just lost in the crowd at school.

I am so happy I was there today and I'm going back Monday and whenever I have the opportunity. I can't wait to get Madison from school today and tell her how proud I am of her!

The year was 1990. I was twelve and I was madly in love. My room was covered with his pictures. His voice could almost always be heard in my $30 Memorex boom box. I had every tape, hundreds of trading cards, magazines, even video tapes of interviews and concerts all cluttering my bedroom. He was my Joey and I was going to marry him. I only had to find a way to Boston, knock on his door, ask him to dinner and the rest would be history. That�s what I wrote in my journal anyway.
I used to know what his favorite ice cream was, I knew his 8 sibling�s names, I knew everything and anything that was ever put in print about that kid. And really, it only made sense to learn everything I could about my future husband.

My heart officially did a little flutter last night. The rumors are true, New Kids On The Block is back and 30 something women everywhere recently felt their hearts flutter a bit when they too heard the news. Admitting it or not, they felt it! That flutter was the little embarrassed smile at the memory of the biggest crush in my life. The memory of all the giggles with my girlfriends, the sharing of the latest magazine article at the sleepover party, and the phone calls consisting of screams about the latest concert out on video. Do you know how much I worked at perfecting my begging skills when NKOTB was coming to a town near me!?! I never did get to go to that concert and you can bet I blamed my mother for ruining my life and not letting me finally meet the man of my dreams.

So, here�s to you Joey McIntyre and all the NKOTB. And since it pains me to admit I threw out every piece of my very cool collection, I�ll be buying the new CD just to make amends with my sweet girl-hood memories.

I had two conversations today that made me laugh.
The first was just before lunch and it was with Chloe.

Me: Chloe, stop running in the house.
Chloe: But mom, I'm a superhero.
Me: You still need to stop running.
Chloe: Chloe's not running, Super Chloe is.
Me: Super Chloe also needs to stop running.
(I'm well aware she's enjoying this little conversation game)
Chloe: But, mahhhhm. Superhero's need to run.
Me: Then run right on into your room.
Chloe: Ok, I'll stop running.....Can I walk/run?
(This is a technique she's tried many times lately)

Then she just started laughing because I started laughing. I succeeded in distracting her with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which is her idea of bliss.

The next conversation was after picking up Madison and on the drive home.

Me: How was school today?
Madison: Good.
Me: Did you work on any letters or shapes?
Madison: No. But Luke tried kissing me.
Me: You wanna run that by me again?
Madison (while she's laughing): Some boy who's name starts with D kissed Savannah so then Luke wanted to kiss me. He tried all day but I wouldn't let him. Then he was upset because I was laughing at him so I told him I would stop laughing at him if he helped me zip my backpack.
Me: So, did he ever kiss you?
Madison: No, but he zipped my backpack.

She thought this whole thing was funny as all heck.
I was thinking, oh sweet Lord what are you doing to me?

Holy crap this letting go thing sucks! Today started week two of school and Madison made the loooong walk to her classroom all by herself. Last Thursday I only walked her down the first very long hallway and she did the second by herself. Of course after she made it to her room I still walked down as well to peek in on her and make sure I saw her settled in the classroom. I felt foolish, but I just needed to see her in the room. Friday school was cancelled because of Fay and today she wanted to try the whole walk herself. I pulled up to parent drop-off, got her out, gave her backpack and lunch to her and gave her a kiss. She had that great cheesy smile plastered on her face and she was on top of the world. Her smile was contageous because even though I was dying inside, I smiled great big right back at her. There's something unsettling about not seeing her in her final destination for the day and not seeing her actually go into the classroom.
I guess there are so many stages to letting go and I don't anticipate any of them getting any easier. If seeing her walk into her school by herself makes me cry I can't imagine what seeing her walk down the aisle on her wedding day will make me do.
This morning served as just another reminder for me to soak up every minute of her childhood I possibly can.

I actually slept last night! I really didn't think I'd get a wink of sleep last night knowing Fay was on her way to us. The only thing that would have had me awake and worried was the chances of tornados. I have a few knee-buckling fears and one is tornados. I've never been through one, I just fear waking up to that sound I hear is unmistakable and not being able to get across the house to the kids in time. I went to bed around 10 while it was rather quiet hoping to get some good sleep in while I could. I didn't wake up until 5:30 though and that was to the sound of the power going off and on. I am such a light sleeper that the sound of the house getting quiet combined with the new sound of the wind woke me up. When the power went on again I got in the shower very fast so I didn't miss an opportunity. I also made my coffee just in case that couldn't happen later either.
But, all is well for now. Thankfully the girls love pajama days and I'm also thankful Mark is off this weekend, it should turn out to be a very relaxing family weekend.

I was chatting with some neighbors this afternoon when some rain started rolling in so I went in, shut the garage and went about my afternoon. The rain stopped so I went back out to finish what I went out there in the first place to do. I walk through the laundry room, talking to Mark as we're heading out, I open the door from the house to the garage and step out....and ON a snake. I won't lie. I screamed the word "shit" so loud the whole street probably heard me. By the end of the afternoon and after many attmepts to get him out of the garage he ended up in a garbage bag. It actually does make me a bit sad that we had to kill it, but he wouldn't leave the garage and even after Mark threw him out by using the broom, he still tried heading back in. We actually had a conversation about killing it or not. It came down to how we would feel if it crawled up into the truck (it made it up in the tire wheel during one attempt to get it out), or if it got into Chloe's ride-on car or even somehow snuck in the house if the door was left open, which it often is. Well, I don't mind harmless snakes one bit, but if that thing had found it's way into the truck or into the house, I mind. It was about 5 feet long and not intimidated in the least with us pushing on him and he even came after Mark once. We didn't know what it was, but figured it was harmless since it didn't rattle or strike at us, thus we really didn't want to kill it.
Well, anyway, it's dead and after looking up the pictures online, it was in fact a harmless grey rat snake.

Here are the pictures of the one that I stepped on.
Did I mention I was barefoot? Yeah, my shoes were on the shoe shelf in the garage. Go figure.

I need to preface this little post with a reminder that I don't watch much television, so if this show has been on for a while, I'm going to sound VERY "behind the times"
I was sitting on our bed last night folding laundry and when I turned the tv on it was still on ABC, which is the morning news I had watched. I sat there for the next 45 minutes laughing so hard I thought I was going to wake up the kids. I couldn't control my laughter and I started crying I was laughing so hard. I even snorted once or tw...well, snorting once is embarassing enough. I don't know how this show started, why it started or really what it's even about besides winning some money. I just have to believe that somehow these foolish people got tricked into signing some paper and they had NO clue what they were getting into. The commentators are just as funny as what they're commenting on and I will be setting our DVR recorder to this show. The show is called Wipeout.
F-U-N-N-Y
Here's the link to the site about the show
Clicky Clicky

Oh, and if you're ever asked to be on the show...say NO!

Chloe has been begging me to let her do some kind of electronics lately. Mark has Madison hooked on the Xbox, she plays her Nintendo DS when we're in the car for a while, she plays Webkinz whenever she has a chance and she still enjoys the occasional PBS kids computer time. Chloe hasn't had a chance to do any of it except when she's "helping" Madison play.
Until yesterday. I promised her when Madison started school she would get to start playing computer games. It took all the patience she could muster up yesterday to wait for me to get done with the computer so she could play something.
She chose SuperWhy on the PBS site and did this paint by letter game. Not only did she love it, she did so great! She's doing amazing learning her letters and she's able to write some too. I was leaning over the desk to help her and she said, "mom, I want some alone time, go away".
We printed it and put it on the fridge after she was done. When Mark got home she had that famous "you know what?" comment and told him about the computer time she got.

As you can see, I didn't give her alone time

First Day of Kindergarten!!

Madison came in our bathroom this morning jumping up and down chanting something about starting Kindergarten. She was so excited to leave and not happy that we have a lot of time in the morning before leaving for school. She's an early riser so she'd be happy if we left at 7:30 each morning, but we don't need to leave until about 8:40.

Getting those teeth ready to smile big!

We�re almost ready to leave, Mommy�s stomach is churning up a bit by this point.

Her teacher! I can�t tell you how excited I am that Madison has her as a teacher this year. She�s our neighbor, she sings in our church choir, her daughter is our babysitter and she�s just such a sweet person.

One of Madison�s best friends is in her class too!

Chloe had to get in on the action

Not a single tear about us leaving, she�s so big! (I held �em back too)

Now that it's over, I'm home with Chloe and Mark went in to work...I feel like doing a happy dance. I've already had to go find Chloe because she just sits quietly doing things when she's left alone. She was in the playroom building with the blocks just being the sweetheart that she is. I'm enjoying a cup of coffee and relaxing to the sounds of a quiet house again.
Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Madison had Open House on Friday and she's officially excited for school. I'm not so sure though. I've done pretty well keeping it all inside and fighting back the tears, but I'm mainly just pretending it's not really happening. I can't believe my baby is starting Kindergarten! She did get the teacher we requested-YAY! and she knows someone in her class as well as 6 other kids going to school there. I'm very excited to see what this year brings for her and I think she's going to have so much fun.
Another big thing going on around here is that a good friend of mine wanted to start a Girl Scout Daisy troop and I'm going to be the co-leader for it. That too should be a lot of fun for Madison and the 12 other girls already signed up, but it's going to be a lot of work for Melissa, myself and the other moms helping out. There's a lot of training for it, but I'm very excited! The best part is that one of the moms volunteered to head up the fundraising portion, which if you've ever been involved in this kind of stuff you know that's the most difficult aspect.
I've also started a Bunco group with some friends around here. We had our first one here at our house and it ended up being 13 ladies, so we had one extra who just kind of floated around and jumped in the game when someone needed a break. The next one is already on the calendar for September and everyone is looking forward to it. We had so much fun, we laughed A LOT and we were so loud nobody even knew the radio was on until everyone was winding down and saying goodbye!
Let's see, what else...OH YEAH...I'm starting a clogging class this Thursday with some friends. Since I've never even worn a clogging shoe I have zero expectations for it, I'm just interested in what it will be like and having one night a week out with other ladies. I'm hoping to branch out and try new things now that I'm settling in around here. We still don't fit in since we don't hunt, fish or camp, but at least it's not impossible to find things to do.
Speaking of things to do, we have another birthday party to go to this afternoon. It will be the second of 5 weekends in a row of parties. The more people we meet and start hanging out with means the bigger our budget needs to get for birthday presents! And with the school year not even starting yet, I can't imagine what's in store for us.
I hope tomorrow goes well for all my fellow mommies out there dealing with the same butterflies I am. Don't forget the tissues!

Chloe just cracks me up. She turned three on Saturday and I just can't believe it!! Both my girls are growing up so fast.
I took one video after the other because Madison needed me for something.