Happy Halloween!

First Day of Kindergarten

Off to kindergarten

The last two years have passed so quickly. I can't imagine that the next 9 will go by just as fast. It seems like yesterday he started preschool. I just want to bottle him up and cherish these days. Ry and I love this age, he is fun, carries on a conversation, has a great imagination and keeps us on our toes.

Preschool Pics

We got our pictures back from Daniel's schools. This one is the best that came out. I know we are not thrilled with it now but 10 years from now we'll think it's the cutest thing EVER.

Baby Update: He's an angel, he is eating, sleeping and pooping. PERFECTION!! I'm so in love with him I pinch myself everyday.

I'm working on the birth story and trying to get a handle on all the pictures we have taken. I'll be back with some baby pics soon.

School is cool

Daniel has been doing great with going to 2 schools. I have been adjusting. One annoying thing is the amount of paper work I have to go through from 2 schools and a Polish school. Oh yeah, we get other children's clothing in his backpack too and our sweaters are given to others. The permanent markers came out this morning to initial his tags. Hopefully, this helps everyone.

I ordered Daniel's fall shoes on line. We'll see if Zappos delivers. Ryan picked the colors. How adorable are these. They got great reviews.

Pimp my ride and nesting

This weekend was a full schedule.
Friday, while daddy enjoyed a Bruce Springsteen concert, D and I ventured out to IKEA. I quickly realized after a full day of 2 schools it was not the best idea to take Daniel out of the house past 6pm.
A full blown crying session ensued by the cash register with fat tears and a little guy that was yelling "I'm just too tired". Bless his heart...after a warm bath, a movie, warm popcorn and milk, he was out by 8pm and I quickly followed.
Saturday, started with a crazy morning. D started Polish school, except I went to the wrong school. 30 minutes late we got to the right one. I'll spare you the details of what went wrong. I got the sympathetic look of you're preggo I'll forgive you and left. In the next hour and a half I found a crib for baby #2 and ordered it. We were going to give Daniel's bedroom back to the baby but realized a cheaper crib just made more sense. My head started spinning at the stores, I just want the nursery done already but we need to figure out what to do with all the toys in there. To be continued...
Later, we drove to a birthday party. I overindulged on pizza and cake.

I came home and was thrilled to see the shirts I ordered for Big Brother/Little Brother arrived. Super cute!! I won't share yet. The onesie is 3 months but it looks so darn tiny, it's just crazy.
As I straightened up the house the men ventured out to the park.
D ended up being quite the popular guy at the park, picking up local girls for a ride. We were proud he shared. He wanted to go to other parks later on, we decided to charge his battery before another trip and hoped he forgot about it. He did.

Oh yeah they were fighting over it



Sunday was time for church and more errands for baby's room.

A hot mess of thoughts and happenings

Thank you for all the compliments on the kitchen. We still love it.
I made our first dinner Monday, spaghetti. I felt like I was on a cooking show, using ingredients that before were hidden in the back of our disgusting pantry. Now all my spices are in a cool spice drawer and I got all crazy and used spices that probably shouldn't have been used in spaghetti. Daniel has been running around the island like a nut. We are back to having dinner at a table and not on TV trays. Getting information out of Daniel about his days at school during dinner..., well that hasn't changed. He is tight lipped, a new kitchen didn't change that.
I think all that cooking has been making my heartburn worse though so I need to chill with the spices. Just sayin'.

The last 3 mornings I have set my alarm clock so I can get a walk in before everyone wakes up. I have listenend to that alarm clock twice and once I pounded it and covered my head with a blanket. I love morning walks. The air is crisp, it's just me and the sound of my shoes hitting the pavement, my belly leads the way. That last five minutes is tough, I may look like a lady going into labor because I start to make faces and rub my round belly and slow my pace but I feel great afterwards. I'm less tired all day, I love walking into the house when D is ready for breakfast and Ry is getting ready and my day officially begins. It's too bad I didn't make this routine when the freaking sun wasn't rising at 6:45am.

In other earth shattering news, D started his AM preschool today. This is our church preschool. He is super excited to go back. I think the hot, blond teacher may have something to do with it.
He will go there 3 times a week for 3 hours. 3 times a week for 3 hours with a 2 hour break before he goes to his PM preschool. He gets speech at his PM school. The speech therapist emailed me and said he has made such a huge improvement over the summer so he's off to a good start. I'm sure if she heard his smart mouth talking back to me she would have him in honors speech.

My calendar is filling up. Yesterday I spent most of my evening filling out paperwork for 2 schools and adding 'important dates' to the calendar. I have 3 calendars. Our calendar on the fridge (I gave up and attached that sucker to our stainless steal fridge and ruined the seamless look I posted the other day. I'm a mom and it just works), then my Outlook calendar and then my hardcover purse calendar. You should see my confusion when one calendar doesn't match the other two, it's a disaster. I need to find a way to consolidate better but I refuse to be squinting at my phone calendar. I haven't made that leap yet.
Where was I? My brain is just a mess today.
Ok, I think this post is long enough.

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.

Polish school

This summer we decided to put Daniel in a Polish summer school. He calls it "Pani Yola's house" since it's a home school and the teacher's name is Yola. He has only been there 2 weeks but we are seeing some progress in his Polish.
Friday, was his first performance.
It was 45 minutes long. I cropped as much as I could but the kids were too darn cute.
The kids were dying at the end. There were some tears shed and of course the famous running off the stage also happened. None of which were by Daniel, thank you very much. He did GREAT considering he doesn't understand everything and was only there 2 weeks to learn the songs. The girls were fighting over hair pins and one took her musical instrument so there was a breakdown. I just laughed my little heart out. The boys did the best. The older boy is the assistant's son and was embarrassed throughout the whole thing being dragged into it.
I just loved it.
Personally, they could have done 4 songs and called it a day. It was hot and 5:00pm and they were ready to go home. They were rewarded with pizza, donuts and tons of fun in the back yard afterwards. Oh yes, baby and I enjoyed some pizza and dessert as well.
I'm super proud of my little Polish boy and see some Saturday morning Polish school in his future. I'm pushing myself to speak more to him but I struggle to remember.
Enjoy the lengthy video.

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Let the summer begin

Daniel's preschool had a little end of the year party yesterday.
I had to drop him off at 8:45am, go back at 9:50, then leave at 10:30 to get to work. Fun times of a working mom!
He's fighting a cold so after 2 hours of being outside he was DONE.

the kids enjoyed games

and snacks

they received adorable memory books from their entire year of school filled with pictures and art work. I'm glad they did my job of scrapbooking.

The kids had to bring 3 crayons each to make this work of art for the teacher as a gift.

Daniel's favorite girl at school. Jessica will be going to kindergarten. He'll have to find a replacement.

Grandma and Grandpa came too so mommy could dart back to work.

I was hot as hell, my allergies have kicked in. D and I were pretty miserable outside.

We are ready for the weekend!!
Have a safe and wonderful Memorial Day!
We are going appliance shopping for our hopefully happening soon kitchen remodel. (GASP!)

Top 10 things to know about the first year of preschool

This post is intended for adults, although I'm sure the list might be similar if you ask any 4 year old.

10. Making creative lunches sucks when peanut butter, GoGurt, anything that MAY spill or get your kid dirty is on the list of "We suggest NOT to pack these for kids" that is handed out at the beginning of the year. Daniel has stopped eating his jelly sandwiches all together.
9. The amount of paperwork in the "red folder" to review, fill out or remember can make any scatter brained mom nuts.
8. This may be specific to private schools but I doubt it...the amount of fundraisers and requests for donations is crazy. I have never gone through so many checks in one year.
7. I need to ask my boss to double my days off next year just to account for the amount of days D gets off of school during the year. That's not including X-Mas and Spring break.
6. Teachers and their assistants remember cute shirts you put on your kid, then they mention it to you, then you think you have to keep it up and continue to dress him in cute shirts and you drive yourself nuts at night picking out outfits.

5. Kids pick up the good and the bad. Everyday D brings something new home, usually a new attitude.

I'm sad mommy

I'm angry

I'm happy

I'm excited

I'm smiling one last time and then I will lose it. He did!

4. When your kid's teacher is like 8 years younger than you, slimmer, blonder and more tanned you can't help but to step it up at every parent/teacher conference with a cleaner pony tail, some lip gloss and a pair of non-stained pants. Especially if hubby is coming along.
3. Every notification that says "The Health office would like you to be aware that we have (insert illness, virus here) in our school, please ensure your child is vaccinated" makes you want to pull them out ASAP and disinfect the entire house.
2. Get ready to be invited to tons of parties. You'll be excited at first until your budget takes a beating and right in the middle of a Saturday you have to drive your kid to a party and stay there because that's what good parents do. Your entire day is shot to hell. Your kid is cranky and tired afterwards and wants the toys he just saw his friend open. FUN TIMES!
1. You'll meet tons of moms that become great friends because they have done this roller coaster the year before and you'll cling to them and collect their numbers so you can one day ask them "what kind of a F#ing flower are we supposed to bring again?" or "when is this SH$%# due?"

I survived the first year of preschool. Tomorrow is his last day of the year. Now for the summer...