First day of school

Toddler Princess started "School" today. A 2-day a week program called "Parent's Day Out" at a local church. She was thrilled, Mama was trepidatious. We got to the school about 20 minutes early, but I wasn't concerned. They have early dropoff available and I figured I would take at LEAST those 20 minutes to ease away so she wouldn't be upset or feel scared. We walked in the doors and there was her classroom! Covered with kittens on the door and with her two teachers and few of her classmates already inside. I signed her in and we went inside to find her cubby. By the time her teacher had introduced herself and I'd hung up her backpack and stowed her lunch and nap mat, the Princess was playing with toys on the other side of the room. I called her over for a bye bye hug and reminded her to obey her teacher. I went across the hall to pay her fees and figured I'd hear her calling for me. Nope, she just wanted Beau and Dadoh. Her teacher leaned over the door and asked quietly if she could have them when she asked and I said that's fine, whenever! I stayed and listened a few more minutes, but she was obviously not upset. She'd not progressed to laughing and chatter yet, so I know she was feeling a little insecure, but I have a feeling the lure of the toys overcame her shyness fairly quickly. I left the school and by the time I'd taken 3 steps I was sobbing. I cried all the way home. >sigh<

My baby is growing up too fast!

Putting a positive spin on life

A Beautiful Mess has a challenge/idea on her blog to set yourself Four Simple Goals to achieve before the end of the year.

1. choose simple goals that will make your life richer and happier on a daily basis. choose things you may not otherwise get done, but that are not difficult to accomplish.
2. do not choose result oriented goals, choose activity oriented goals. for example…. instead of “lose 10 pounds”, choose something like “eat fresh fruits and vegetables every day”. get what i’m saying? positive actions instead of just the end result!
3. choose goals that are personal that you believe will truly make your life richer just by doing them! they can be daily, weekly or one time experiences.

I found this through Zoot's site this morning, and decided to jump on the bandwagon myself. In a way, I'll be following Zoot a touch more than Beautiful Mess, because I'm going to try and keep these goals to things that aren't usually on my list of "to do by X day". If I did the usuals, it would be modifying the "lose weight" "better mom" "cleaner house" goals, and as they are everpresent, there is no need to rehash.

1. Write for ME at least 1 hour each week. This includes blogging, poetry, lyrics, and my novel.
2. Organize one area of the house each week. This doesn't mean a full room, which could get overwhelming, but simply an area. This week, I'm going to organize my desk. Next week, perhaps the bookshelves or the entry way. Eventually, I'll find the pretty, organized house languishing beneath the clutter.
3. Cook for fun each week. I make meals every day, but its been quite a while since I was able to just pick a random new recipe and set a day to make it. My new goal is to gather all of those recipes I keep wanting to try and just do one each week. It won't overwhelm my shopping budget if I stick to only one specialty buy menu item, and if the Toddler Princess doesn't want to eat it, it's only one meal lost.
4. Look for the positive in each stressor. I have a bad habit of allowing stressors to get to me. I end up with tense shoulders, headaches, bad sleep, fatigue, and a generally grumpy self who then doesn't present the best of herself to the people who matter most (Toddler Princess and Hubband). I'm aiming not to eliminate stress (which would be kind of like eliminating all crime at one fell swoop--impossible), just to take each stressor of my life and find the positive. Like... a side project I've taken on that was to be done by the end of June and is still lingering on taking far more of my time than advisable. Well, the positive? I'm getting a good bit of extra money in August that I never expected! There. :-) One goal done!

Actually, just in writing this post, I have accomplished 2 of my goals. And that's a positive spin on the loss of an hour of work time!

See you soon...

Ella taking pictures....

Adoration

Can you tell they adore each other? I love this picture.....

Pumpkin patch time!

We went to a local pumpkin stand and corn maze this afternoon. At first, she was more interested in the gravel on the driveway of the orchard than in the pumpkins, but once she realized she could take one HOME, she was thrilled. The maze itself was extremely muddy, but we'd come prepared and all of us had boots to wear. El got a big kick out of stomping through the mud in her froggies and splatting water and mud all over Mama and Dada's jeans!

Froggy boots like deep squishy mud.

It's fun to tromp through the mud with Mama and Daddy!

Can you tell she was excited to go to the Bouncy Castle? It was her favorite part of the day, and she sobbed when we took her away from it.

Living large

I actually took 24 hours off. I don't like to think of myself as a work-a-holic, but there are occasions where my overly developed sense of responsibility kicks in and I work myself to the bone. The last few weeks have been more on the overwork side of things. My husband made the comment today that he was proud of me for actually leaving dirty dishes in the sink for 2 full days. I watched The Ugly Truth this evening with my college roomie, who is visiting for the holiday weekend, and have been giggling to myself ever since.

Playing catch-up

Unfortunately, playing catch-up is not near as much fun as Ella playing in ketchup. It sounds similar. But not as much fun. In fact, I feel almost like I'm writing our Christmas card letter because it's been so long since I blogged!

Our trip drained our energies, and we came home to be thrust back into the fray of life far too quickly for my taste. Work is insane for me right now, as we are getting close to our launch date and preparing all the final materials as well as doing QA/QC runs on the entire site. Because the site is dynamic, I also continue to work on developing materials for the refresh schedule after launch. I'm putting together a basket of goodies and a carrot cake as a thank you to our friends who cared for Priscilla while we were away, catching up on clerkwork (I'm the church clerk), sorting through bills, trying to keep the house clean and the inmates of the house fed and clothed in clean garments... and spending at least a couple hours of each day this week relaxing with Ronnie, my college roommate, who is visiting us until Labor Day. We girls also went to Julie & Julia this week and the story, if not necessarily or specifically the people involved, renewed my resolve to build/write a family recipes cookbook. I'm even contemplating setting myself a specific time in the weekly calendar in which to work on it! (Note: I haven't said I SET a time yet... but Im THINKING about it!)

Hubband started school on Monday, and his 18-credit class load is intense. Even more intense than that was the feeling in the pit of our stomachs when he went to update his VA status and found a note on his file stating that he'd never been accepted to his degree program! None of his degree path advisors could figure out what was going on until they'd reviewed all of his paperwork. He's been taking degree classes for 2 years so there was a lot of confusion! Once they figured out where things had fallen apart (communication, mostly), he was able to enroll without incident. His classes are, for the most part, fun and interesting and will keep him busy! Of course, on top of that, he continues to help me with the housework, repair what breaks, and try to get ahead on the renovation projects that remain. He also cares for the cars and yard, and is in the process of building a computer (from scratch, so to speak!).

Ella has been growing and developing in leaps and bounds. She is learning and using regularly approximately 5-6 new words each week. Today alone, she added "bright" ("STACE! bight. bight!" when the light was in her eyes) and "water" (wuhwer). We also had another huge milestone this week....Ella PEED IN THE POTTY! She's shown interest in what we are doing and wants to "sits" with us when are using the restroom, so we decided to put the little potty Grandma CMom gave her in our bathroom. For the last couple of weeks, she would sit on it a couple of times a day, most usually when she was waiting for the tub to finish filling for her bath. Yesterday, we undressed her and let her do the naked baby run from her room to the bathroom (its a blast to dash naked around the house giggling, you should try it sometime!). She arrived in time to see me using the restroom and immediately sat on her potty. She then kind of smiled and patted my leg and I looked over at her to see that she had peed! We were VERY excited and praised her mightily, which got HER excited and she leapt off the potty.... and finished her peeing on the floor. BUT! It was still a big fun first for us that signals potty training for real may very well begin within the next few months. She also has started trying to get out of her crib in the morning, and I think the day is near when we will need to convert it to a "big girl" bed. This evening, she experienced another first and used fingerpaints (while wearing daddy's tshirt)! I'll post some shots once I get them uploaded. It was VERY cute.

For now, I am off to bed. Leaving you all with this very long post to contemplate---and the idea that in just one more week I am being flown to an entirely different state to bake a pair of birthday cakes (it sounds so awesome to say that... the rest of the story is that I'm thrilled because the cake is for my niece and I will be able to see her, all the other Eastern nieces and nephews, and attend her Dedication service as well!)

Good night all... photos... will come someday.