A Week in Review (September 15-21)

A Week in Review (September 15-21)

Watched: The Jayhawks get a 2nd win.  It was such a close game and they won on a 52 yard field goal.  The offense still played pretty poorly and the defense looked weak at times, but they found a way to win. Let's hope they take that momentum into the buy week and come out ready to play. I think that Texas Tech is one of our best shots for a victory in conference play.

Read: A book ended up coming off hold, so I never even started Seduction and Snacks. Instead, I started Reconstructing Amelia.  It is a story about a girl who has supposedly committed suicide, but then her mother starts getting anon texts saying she didn't jump. It's told through a mix of point of views and venues, such as traditional writing, text message histories, and Facebook status updates. I'm not sure where it is taking me, but it's kept me interested so far.

Listened: I ditched A Prayer for Owen Meany for Dad Is Fat.It's a good little book that makes you laugh about parenthood. Sure, there were things I couldn't relate too, but no parenting book outside of one you would write would be 100% relate-able.

Made: A lot of to-do list. We are refinancing the house and want to get a good appraisal so we are doing lots of little things and a couple major things to try and get the highest appraisal possible on the house.

Felt: Thankful for my handy husband. He is good at so many different things. This week he put in a new door and a storm door. I never would have guessed all the work that went into that process. He also startled tackling the other major project. A new patio door.

Planned: The Fall Fun Day in detail. I always forget how much work there is too be done, but the kids always seem to have a great time.

Loved: That Nick finally let me have a storm door. He doesn't like them, but he knows that I have been wanting one for quite some time and since we were already ripping off the front door, he went ahead and caved.  I think it will get lots of use.

Here are the pics for the week. I only took two all week. That's how busy we've been!

Jack preparing to mount the bar over the foam pit. This is his favorite part of the Parent's Night Out Event at a local gym. 

Jack with his green curls. This was at one of less exciting portions of the KU game. 

A Week in Review (September 8-14)

A Week in Review: September 8-14

Watched: Jack get to play tailback for his flag football team. He was very excited to get to play a special position. I really like how his coach rotates the "skilled" positions each week so that the kids get to experience different things on the field.   Ended up changing the names of the positions so that the kids could remember them more easily. So the tailback became The Rocket and halfback became The Bruiser.  He was also excited that he had another +2 in his cheering section because his Great Aunt Debbie and Uncle Kevin came to watch him play.  He was also surprised that his teacher was there too. Her son was playing on a field close by and she recognized one of the cheerleaders as her student, so she came over to see them. 

Read: I finished up The Silver Star. This book was nothing special for me. It was a decent story about a girl who has to overcome a lot of obstacles to life with a messed up mother. It didn't paint a rosy picture of life, which I did appreciate. Not sure I would recommend it to others, but isn't something I would caution people to stay away from either.  I also began and finished Uncharted (On the Island, #1.5). While I was totally surprised by On The Island, this novella was just okay for me. It was a bit too cookie cutter for my taste.  It was a quick read and did answer any questions you might have about the bones from the original story.  My next book that I started was Seduction and Snacks(Chocolate Lovers, #1). 

Listened:  I'm still plugging away on A Prayer for Owen Meany.  I don't think I will finish it within the next week.  Guess I will have to see if I can renew it yet again.  It is a long story, but the tale is good. I am hoping that it starts to get to a climax soon though as I am heading into the last 1/3 of the book.

Made: A yummy recipe inspired from Pinterest. It was an Avocado Egg Salad. I used 1 avocado, 4 boiled eggs, some diced cilantro and onion, crumbled bacon, and garlic salt. It was quite yummy.  We ate wrapped in the best tortillas that we get from a local Mexican bakery.  I highly recommend giving it a try!

Felt: Proud of Jack for rocking the dentist!  He has always had a fear of it and usually it's quite the production just getting the teeth cleaned.  Luckily, last time his dentist told him that he had some Superhero teeth in there and she started naming off different ones. As we were talking about the upcoming trip, he brought up that experience and seemed to be more at ease with going.  It was nice because most of the kids were at school and so there wasn't much else going on to overwhelm him.  He just sat down, got to business, and enjoyed a quick cleaning with birthday cake flavored toothpaste.  Also thanks to his Sonicare brush, we've been cleared to now go the traditional every 6 months :)

Planned: To help Jack get better with personal responsibility. Now, I just need to come up with a concrete plan. As a kid, I was extremely bad about forgetting things like lunchbox, bike, backpack, homework, etc.  As an adult, I have to make lists or I forget it or won't get it done.  Therefore, I feel this is a bit like the pot calling the the kettle black. Nonetheless, I am hoping to teach him early that only he will suffer the consequences from this. But is that really true as a parent?  For example, Jack was supposed to be coming home with sight word lists that we would review at home and send back to school so he could check them off with his teacher.  One day, I saw a student come out with one and asked Jack about his. He said he didn't have them yet because he knew those words. Seemed reasonable to me, so I didn't think about it again.  This week, I was checking his teachers website and saw she had posted a newsletter and calendar. I thought it was odd because I had never gotten a paper copy. I stopped and asked his teacher and she said that he should have brought  those home when other papers that I did get had made it home. Also, he should have had his sight word list quite some time ago.  I apologized, saying Jack had failed to bring them home.  Consequently, I looked like the parent who wasn't working on sight words with her son. However, he got that worked it out, and had a couple good days bringing home the lists and returning them.  But on Friday, he forgot not only his next list, but also his teddy bear that he had taken to school. I'm not sure how to fix it (as I never found a way for myself), but maybe YOU have ideas to share?

Loved: The email that I got from the speech path at Jack's school.  She said that he has what is known as a frontal lisps, which is something that should clear itself up as he gets his adult teeth in.  She will continue to check on him on a regular basis to make sure that the issue is correcting itself.

Here are the pics for the week:

As reward for rocking the dentist, we went to Chuck E Cheese. The new mascot just creeps me out. Someone said he looked like the bunny from Donny Darko. I so agree!  But notice the lack of people in the picture--perfect reason to visit in the middle of a weekday. Dreading when Jack wants to go and we won't have this time frame available!

I am bummed this picture turned out blurry, but Jack had fun playing with Callum. While the mostly played with balls, they did take a small break to camp  out underneath the desk together. 

Here are some shots from Jack's game. I actually used my real camera to take these since the other ones were so hard to see!  The first one is Jack in the middle of a block.

 Here is lined up as the rocket!

 Here is with the flag he got with a tackle.  He had the high for his team with 2.  haha  I totally wasn't prepared to grab this shot, but I am glad I was able to capture a little something!

A Week in Review (August 31-September 7)

A Week in Review (August 31-September 7)

Watched: The Jayhawks play in their season opener.  While they looked a little rocky in the first quarter, things started click in the 2nd and were looking good in the 3rd quarter.  I don't feel they've got what it takes to be in the Top 25 year this year, but I am thinking we could win up to 5 games.  What a nice change that would be.

Read:  I started reading The Silver Star.  It is a short little book with a simple story.  I am not reading it very quickly because I am usually falling into bed two exhausted to read for long.

Listened: I picked back up the Owen Meany book on audio CD.  And while it is a good story, I just can't get through it very fast. It isn't drawing me in though.  I will probably return it when it's three weeks are up and just put myself back on the hold again.

Made: A genius kitchen move if I say so myself.  I was making a quick batch of rice krispy treats and was trying to figure out how to handle the cutting and bagging of them while at the game.  I decided to put them into cupcake tins.  It worked beautiful.  It was so easy just to twist out one and eat it.  No cutting, no bagging, just a quick bit of tin foil on the top.

Felt: Excited for Jack to start his flag football practices.  While I was a little shocked by the original email that I got, I think that his coach is going to be great.  He really seems to know his stuff and his personality really keeps the kids in line.  I am sure it will be an interesting season.  Their first game was against a team that I don't think could have followed the age cap.  They were huge. They got beat pretty badly, but none of the kid's seemed to notice.

Planned:  I am in charge of planning our school's party and special event days.  We have our first event in three weeks.  It is so hard to think Fall when the temperatures have been in the high 90s.  It feels like middle of the summer.  It makes it very hard to be productive.  However, I think we are going to have a great time on our day Called All Things Fall.  We will make an owl craft, make some apple sauce,  play some football, go on nature walk scavenger hunt, and play some pumpkin sweep and pumpkin bowling.  Should be a good time.

Loved: Getting see my nephews.  Roy decided to bring them with him for his yearly trip up for the Jayhawk home opener. I kept it a surprise from Jack knowing that he would never be able to go to bed if he knew the cousins were coming.  He was so excited when he woke up and found the three cousins were here.  They had such a good time playing together.  I wish the weather would have been a bit cooler, but they were so awesome through all of it.  I love that they are such good friends!

Here are the pics for the week:

First practice

Here are two pics of the game. In the first one, he is on the left side of the screen and in the 2nd, he is linked up on the right side of the screen.  He is number 5. 

Jack and his three favorite cheerleaders. 

My escorts to the schorcher of a KU home opener. Aren't I a lucky lady?  I think so. 

Week in Review (August 25-30)

Week in Review (August 25-30)

Watched: KSU lose to a Division II school. I couldn't believe Nick wanted to watch a the game, but it was Friday night and we didn't have much else better to do.  I even ended up getting goosebumps because I was so excited for NDSU. 

Read: The Shining Girls.  It was an awesome book. It combined a mystery book with The Time Traveler's Wife. Definitely an out of the book thriller, which I enjoyed. The ending really reminded me of The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7). 

Listened: With driving to work all week, I was able to finish up Assassination Vacation. I did learn quite a bit that I had never heard about the Garfield and McKinley assassinations   She is a unique author. I did enjoy hearing Jon Stewart reading the part of Garfield.   

Made: My traditional Fruit Loop necklaces with my students. They are such a great group of kids and I think we are going to have so much fun this year. 

Felt: Itchy. The mosquitoes are horrible and my legs can tell it. The worst part is that the gnats also seem to be horribly bad and they are attracted to the scabs that I have from the aforementioned bites. Yuck!

Planned: I attempted to fugue out how we would spend Labor Day weekend without any KU football game to go to. It just doesn't feel right. I didn't come up with anything special. Guess we might just chill and enjoy being home together.

Loved: How helpful Nick has been to allow me to keep working much longer hours than we are used to. He has watched Jack during the day, cooked dinners, and just been so supportive of me.

Here are the pics for the week. Sadly, this is the only one I took. I posted this pic first because its a better pic of Jack. The second one shows the saying better. He was a bit bummer because his teacher, who is a huge KSU fan, didn't say anything to him about it. Oh well!  He knows he did the right thing by not wearing purple. 

Week in Review (August 18-24)

Week in Review: August 18-24

Watched:  Jack have a blast messing around in the stream of Lake Olathe. This inspired us so much that we went to Hillsdale Lake, which was much warmer than I would have thought. Also, the water was extremely shallow and Jack could walk out about 100 yards before getting up to his chin. We played in the with rocks, did some high water throws, played with a huge piece of driftwood, and felt the mud squish below our toes.

Read:  With the library's due date looming over me, I finally pushed through and finished Children of the Jacaranda Tree. This book did nothing for me. There were too many characters told in a disjointed fashion. I was thinking that this book would move me to tears thinking about the liberty that we have in the US and how fortunate we are to have such a place to speak our mind. Instead, I was left with a bunch of half stories that left me feeling wholly unsatisfied. Not a book I would recommend.  I also began The Shining Girls and I am loving that. Sadly, I have went to bed so exhausted this week that I didn't get very far, but I am loving it.

Listened:  Since I am going back and forth to work so much these next couple weeks, I am sure I will make good progress on my new audiobook,.  I first saw this author when she appeared on The Daily Show. Her voices annoys me a bit, but she gets all of the perfect inflections to tell her stories, so I am adapting to it.

Made: A new recipe from Pinterest because I wanted to use up this chicken that had been in our freezer. It was a crockpot meal so it had been smelling wonderful all day. So at close to dinner time when I sample it, I am sadden to learn that chicken had gotten that freezer burnt taste and was not edible!  So, we turned off the crockpot and went out to eat. When I was cleaning up the kitchen, I decided to give it the chicken to Barley. He was in hog heaven!  So while we didn't eat the food, it didn't go to waste!

Felt:  Busy. This week had a lot of work functions that I had to be at and lots of things I needed to wrap up for work at home. Jack also needs to be on a much more tight schedule and so it has been interesting to get it all in and working.  I've been waking up early to have my downtime.  Less sleep, but I think the time I spend relaxing is necessary for my brain!

Planned: On doing something fun for Nick's birthday, but then life just got in the way!  He is such an awesome husband and dad that I really think he deserves a special day to know how wonderful we think he is.  So while we didn't do much out of the ordinary, I hope he enjoyed just chilling with us.  I know that we enjoyed it!

Loved: Snuggles. I know as Jack gets older the snuggles will stop, so I try to remember to thoroughly enjoy these moments. Like Monday, when I had been up and moving early, he woke up and came to find me-- just to curl up in my arms and fall asleep.  I love just staring at his face while he is lost in sleep. There is no more peaceful way to start a hectic week.

Here are the pics for the week:

Here Jack channels the Virgin Mary at Christmas look.  Well, she most likely wasn't ever topless, but you get the drift. 

Jack in the stream. It was a lot of fun!

A Week in Review (August 11-17)

A Week in Review (August 11-17)

Watched: Jack sink two hole in one putts to win us two free mini golf games from Cool Crest. We have been reading a Curious George book about mini golf and we decided that would be a fun way to spend one of our last summer days. He had several hole in one putts!  It was a great time.

Read:  I finished up Fly Away.  I really enjoyed this story about redemption and forgiveness. I know that some people did not enjoy the back and forth, but I thought it was a good segue between this andFirefly Lane. I cried like a baby at the end of the book. It just made me so sad for when the time comes that I have to say goodbye to my mother. This book just made me want to reach out and hug all those people important to me. Great follow up book! I enjoyed it more :)  Didn't make much progress on my other two books. Back to school always slows the reading pace way down.

Listened: To Jack ask almost all of the KU players to write To Jack along with their autograph. It was interesting to see the different players reactions.  Most were very good with the younger set. Jake Heaps, who should be this year's starting QB, wrote his name huge up in the corner and was very talkative. Another player said he was going to call him Big Jack and addressed it as such.  Hoping to have more than a 1 win season this year!

Made: A Happy 1st Day of Kindergarten goodie bag. It had a crystal making kit from the dollar store, a bigger bouncy ball with a light inside, a bunch of hair ties (so hopefully he will stop picking up the random ones he finds!), a pack of gum, and some hugs. He loved it all and I was happy to help him celebrate his special day.

Felt: Glad to have our entertainment back. With Nick having limited mobility, we really missed having Jack around to provide the energy in the house. He has been great about Nick's knee, even getting down and helping him do his exercises.

Planned: On Nick being able to drive himself by the end of the week, but he still isn't comfortable doing that. He had his staples removed on Friday.  Right now, he is paranoid about still splitting his wound open by putting to much pressure on it. He is looking forward to showering without being all covered up on his leg, but he has to wait until Sunday morning for that!

Loved:  Watching Jack start his official school career with such ease.  He had no jitters at all. By the 2nd day, he was fine walking himself in and back to his classroom. Having done his last two years at a public school, I think the hustle and the bustle just feels normal. All last year, he wanted to walk himself in and now that he gets to, he feels very proud.

Here are the pics for the week:

Leg Lifts

Jack's First Hole in One!

Jack's First Day of School

Jack and Jake Heaps

Week in Review (August 4-10)

Week in Review (August 4-10)

Watched: A lot of Breaking Bad.  Nick picked up this show when he first got injured and we were out of town.  Since he has been laid up, I have been watching it with him.  We have gotten totally caught up and are looking forward to the new episodes which begin Sunday night.

Read:  Finished up The Lightning Thief. Maybe I just heard too much hype surrounding this story before I read it. I did think it was a good read and would be a good recommendation for a young adult struggling to find something to read. I am sure that I will complete the rest of the series, but I don't have a burning desire to rush right out and do that. I also began Fly Away.  I am enjoying it and have a feeling I will be wrapping it up in the coming week.

Listened:  To the doctor give me a good report on Nick's surgery.  He said that he felt the repair was made easily and he was able to clean up the damage to the other area as well.

Made: A fun little welcome present for my students. Since I am also in charge of getting things together for the office, I won't be in the rooms for my students to meet me. Hopefully, they will each come say hello and get this fun treat for me. 

Felt: Thankful for all the wonderful support we received this week.  Nick's Aunt Debbie and Uncle Kevin came and brought us Oklahoma Joe's and some movies.  We also had several people check on us and offer help.  It means the world to us to know we have so many people who care.

Planned: All Nick's physical therapy sessions. We aren't sure when he will be able to drive so it was hard to get times that worked for in everyone's schedule. Glad that's done for now!

Loved: Nick getting out his femeral nerve block out. It was such a huge hassle to deal with. He was much happier when he could actually bear a little weight on his leg.  He also was sick of carrying the bag around too. I think it was worth it, but glad that portion of the event is over.

Here are the pics for the week:

Jack and his cousins fast asleep. Aren't they so cute?!?

Nick and his sexy shaved leg!  I won't post the after pics. They are a bit gruesome!

My view for most of the week

My Krazy glad creation

Loved coming home to this fun sign in the yard. What a great way to build the school/home relationship.