1st Day

Tuesday was Daniel's first day of his afternoon preschool. If I could summarize yesterday in a few bullet points it would be these:

• No one cried
• It was completely opposite of last year
• We were happy to drop him off and pick him up
• It was a successful first day

That's it. Today, he fell asleep before school and was a little grouchy. He didn't want to go but managed to hold an assistant's hand and walk into school without me.



 

All the kids got a book from a bin and got to "read" while waiting for all their friends to arrive. He said "Ths one has too many words

  

Then it was time to celebrate at night with some gooey ice cream.



Weekend and getting ready

Last week we went to explore the possibilities of soccer. My friend along with son, Daniel's age, asked if we wanted to go see how boys their age play soccer. I said "sure, but he's not into sports" right off the bat. We went, actually Daniel wasn't bad at all. He tried bouncing the ball off his head and his knee and I was proud. We'll consider joining in the Spring, for now we have swimming, gymnastics in the winter and good old Polish school to keep us busy. We were caught off guard last week when he was asking to play soccer in the back yard daily. Of course we are trying to push our luck by purchasing a football this weekend. When he asked "how do you play with this ball?" the gleam in Ryan's eyes were priceless. Time will only tell.

We moved on to other celebrations this Saturday, Ry's XX birthday. We spent his day enjoying lunch with my in-laws and chatting for 3 hours at John Barley Corn. The free dessert for the birthday boy and his cute apprentice were nice as well.

Daniel taking pictures of his $12.99 Costco purchase right before we got to the restaurant. He needs 5 smiley faces to get another one. We're working on talking back and this was an appropriate bribe.

Today we had orientation at preschool, Daniel's afternoon school. We get to have 2 firsts this year.His AM school and PM school.
We met the teachers, talked to parents, found his cubby, found the bathroom and played a ton. I think when we heard "I don't want to leave, I love this school" we knew he would be fine.
Tuesday is his official first day. He asked today if we would leave him there and we said "no, but tomorrow we'll drop you off and you'll have so much fun and then we'll be there to pick you up in two hours". Showing him two fingers somehow makes it look like a small amount of time.
We're not new at this, we did this last year. Daniel had such confidence today that Ry and I were just beaming with how easy it was going to be.
His outfit lays in the bathroom ready to go, his backpack with a blue folder with all forms filled out is in it. He's excited about his Hot Wheels backpack that he picked out by himself. I think the free hot wheels car that came with it was a selling point.
We read him the appropriate night books to prep him and we talked up preschool like it was the best thing since sliced bread.
He's ready. I'll get teary eyed, no doubt, but knowing I get to do this again in 4 years puts a smile on my face. My little man is growing up, he's blossoming into a spunky little guy that tests boundaries, has self confidence on the playground and the biggest, warm heart a mom could ever hope for.
Here's to another year of preschool. Full update in a day or two AND maybe a reveal of the kitchen. We are about 24 hours away from a full complete kitchen.
The back splash went up today and we just starred at it, it was our own personal orientation day with our new kitchen. We like her, we like her a lot.

Happy Birthday!!!!

Happy Birthday to my hubby!!!
Although you are closer to 40 this year, you are also wiser, more good looking and even a better husband and daddy than last year (if that's possible). :)
I wish you all the best, since we are closer to saying that we survived a kitchen remodel, I couldn't imagine going through any renovations with anyone else. And we have had our share of renovations.

Happy Birthday STUD!

Quote of the week

I believe in hard work. It keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and spirit.

-Helena Rubinstein

We are under construction

Literally. The kitchen is almost done. I can smell it.
This past weekend all of our plans for the weekend; pizza at a friend's house, furniture shopping, Union, IL for Thomas the train rides all CANCELED.
I picked up D on Friday and within 20 minutes he had a fever of 102. Saturday morning I took him to the Dr. and it looked like Strep, even though his swab test didn't show up positive, his throat was "a classic case of strep". It was weird that all weekend D complained that his tongue and mouth hurt, he never did that with his other gazillion strep cases (prior to his surgery). It was just odd. Monday his fever was gone and so he went to school, he felt better, another kid came down with the same thing and his Dr. diagnosed him with Herpagena. Sure enough when we looked in Daniel's mouth with a flashlight (for the hundredth time) he had sores all over.
He was taken off the antibiotics and is feeling much better.
So, that was our wonderful weekend.
We only got out to look at furniture for Daniel/baby. Still not sure what we want to do.
I'm officially in my third trimester! Yay! I'm feeling bigger, more tired and getting antsy to organize.

That was my riveting update!

Progress

Since my last post on the kitchen demo we have made some progress.
The window is out. The door has not yet arrived.

Drywall is up and behind it is nice insulation to keep us warmer and our plates and glasses too.
Electrical wiring is done.
Patching is complete. Ceiling is painted.

Tile floor is down (for the most part).

I picked up extra paint yesterday (no new colors, thank goodness).
So far the progress has been good. Once the tile is set the cabinets will start going up. Right now all the cabinets are in the garage.
Some of you have asked about the individual pieces I chose for the kitchen. I would link to the individual items that I chose such as tile, backsplash, lighting... but they just don't look the same on websites as in real life. I will take pictures of them individually once it's all done and link to where I got them. I have a fear of someone thinking it's ugly but in the end I hope it will look better pulled together, know what I mean?
We have a good team of guys working on the house and that has helped a ton. They communicate well and set our expectations. Most importantly they show up on time everyday. I have heard horror stories of contractors demoing a kitchen and then not showing up for a week or two and you're stuck waiting. So far, we have been lucky.
We hope for a completion date of a couple more weeks. We'll see.
Have a good weekend. We have some fun things planned.

Why didn't I learn

how to crochet when my grandma tried to teach me. She would make socks for everyone in the family, we had scarves and gloves. She constantly would be in her chair knitting or crocheting. My mom only makes scarves. One winter she went nuts and gave all of us scarves. Maybe she can add a few inches to make a blanket. HA! Now I see stuff like this for $30+ and I hate that I didn't pay attention to the lessons. Thank God for www.etsy.com because my Lord there are some talented folks out there.

I have ideas brewing in my head for our X-Mas card and Announcement.
How sweet are these?!
Pictures courtesy of Etsy.

Weekend

Our weekend consisted of visiting 3 granite places only to go back to the first place and keep the first choice of granite. Well, not our first but second since our first choice all of a sudden was sold the morning we showed up to the granite place. We took it as not meant to be and called it a day.
We went out to dinner Saturday night. It was the quietest dinner EVER since Daniel slept in Ryan's lap the entire time.
We have two new priests at our church and one of them is very lively. He talks with enthusiasm and expects everyone to participate. So, there is a lot of Amen's and Yes's. If the congregation doesn't answer loud enough he repeats himself. Well, after a few requests to repeat, Daniel asked me "Mommy, is Jesus mad?" I guess I have to do a better job at explaining the difference between Jesus and a Priest. After getting holy we decided to be good Catholics and go to the racetrack and gamble some. HA! I looked on line and found that every Sunday is family day so how can God argue with that?!
We had a wonderful time.
Daniel got to sit in a police car. The ONLY time he gets to sit in the back of one, the policeman told him. He got a tattoo out of it too. 

Daniel bet on his first horse and won, the last 2 were losers.
We stood in line for the fu#$#$ pony rides for over an hour. Thank goodness the weather was great.
You know what entertained D the most? A HILL! He rolled down it so many times it was ridiculous.

 While Daddy waited in line we went to the petting zoo.


 And then there was more hill climbing, running, rolling and some tickling with daddy. I stay behind the lens these days A LOT!


 Some races in between all the fun.

and more tickling and rolling down the hill

Finally the pony ride happened.


 We overpaid for some food and lost the last 2 races.

Someone couldn't even walk on their own back to the car.

and that's a rap!

Livin' La Vida Loca

It's been crazy around here, I hear hammers banging in my head at night. I actually wanted to go back to work after being in my office on Monday while the demo took place.
We've been handling it well. Although it has only been 3 days. HA!
We have a new place for eating breakfast and dinner together. It works great, prayers are still being said as we share our daily happenings and try to force information out of Daniel about his day. I forsee quiet teenage years with him with lots of "I don't remember" and "I don't know" comments. (Sigh). This is our morning and evening spot to eat. The dinner trays were ruined when my mom and I painted doors on them 2 years ago. They still work.
Check out D's glasses!!! He only needs to wear them 4 hours a day. He looks super cute. I need to take a better picture of him in them.

Floor tile and backslpash have been picked and ordered. Granite, well that was picked but now I'm second guessing it and we're going to look at another warehouse in hopes that the slab we like is better elsewhere. Who knew the same stone could look so drastically different from slab to slab.
I bought the first 1/2 dozen donuts for the workers in hopes of buying their sympathy if something goes wrong. We've been lucky and have had no major surprises. We hope it stays that way.
Dust is everywhere but so is our hope that we will have a new kitchen that overlooks our two littles playing come Christmas. Thankfully it's supposed to cool off so we can open the windows and air this place out. I bought Daniel an air purifier for his room. He started coughing the day of the demo and of course my guilt is at its peak.
So, that's that. I'll take pictures of the progresss (not much to see now) besides new electrical outlets and more clutter that has filled the living room. D loves taking a flashlight and shining into all the holes and saying "hmmmm what's this hole for?"
So, here's to another 4 more weeks of "FUN".

Destruction

This weekend was the big push to pack up our entire kitchen for the demo to begin on Monday.

I packed, Ry hauled boxes into the basement and D, well he just got in the way. We all survived and managed to meet my friend Laura and her cute family for lunch on Sunday. We enjoyed our quick visit, it was so quick that we didn't even take a picture. We did enjoy some down time at the mall after our delicious meal at Cheesecake Factory. 

 On Monday morning this began...

View from the top of our stairs into kitchen/living area.

View from front door. There was a wall right where those electrical wires are, the wall was blocking our entire view. Now the light just beams in and I LOVE IT. The hope is that as I'm cooking I will be able to watch my two little beans playing and keep an eye on things. I picture entertaining guests by our new island and having many family nights playing games together.

 It's exciting and frightening at the same time. So far no major hiccups, but it is the first day.
Wish us luck!