Two weeks

Here come the most hectic two weeks out of the year. Lila has just decided she wants Santa to bring her a Barbie. That is doable. That way Santa brings the kids the same size of gift. Grant has been asking for a Bumblebee transformer for the last three months. David and I need to take an inventory on what gifts we have for the kids. We still have money from the Ashby Grandparents that needs to be used and we are running out of ideas. Gifts for most of the family are finished. Neighbor gifts still need to be put together. I keep forgetting to buy holiday ziploc bags.
I caught the kids wearing the Christmas stockings yesterday so I brought in the Santa pole to hang them up. I can't blame the kids for playing with the stockings. I did the same thing. I think everyone has done it at least once. We have a Church Christmas party tonight, the Teamster party on Saturday, Grant's school holiday program on the 16th, and his class party on the 17th. Things are going to be busy this coming week. Then Grant is out of school for two weeks. How will I keep him busy? The second week he will have all his new stuff from Christmas which should help him pass the time. Then two weeks after Christmas is Grant's 6th birthday. My child is turning 6? He is such a smart kid. He is learning to read at an amazing rate. He can sound out words without trouble. I am trying to teach him some of the crazy vowel rules for English. However those rules are always broken. How we ever learn this crazy language is anyone's guess.
Must get to work on the house and Christmas preparations. We are having lots of family to our house this year. David has been wanting to have his family up for Christmas ever since we bought this house. Now that the basement is finished we have the space to put everyone.
Time to put on the Christmas tunes. Music is a good motivator.

Christmas projects

I always seem to do this to myself. I don't feel like working on Christmas gifts until the season hits and then I do too many projects and eventually run out of time and some things get left undone. I have neighbor gifts to finish, family gifts to make, and other gifts still in the planning stage. I don't think cards will be sent this year. I would have to have family pictures taken and that is too much work. David is busy with work already. Being the Brown Santa is a time consuming job this time of year. I might as well get started. Here come the holidays!

Spring Cleaning

Okay, I know we are months away from spring, but I feel the need to organize some things in my house. I managed to get Lila's room done yesterday. I put away her clothes she has grown out of and had some teary moments. We put her mattress on a bed frame yesterday. She slept in her bed all night long for a change. Maybe this will be a good thing. I need to work on my closet and my craft room. When walking into both places you are uncertain if you will be able to find your way out. Sometimes you just have to dive in. So here I go, into the pool.

Begin the countdown.

Here come the holidays. Am I ready? In no way at all. Do I have ideas for gifts? Some. Will I get everything finished in time? Probably not. All I can do is try. But I am finding motivation just as difficult to obtain as a Black Friday limited quantity doorbuster. I may have to get up early to get some. Not looking forward to the work Christmas entails. Christmas cards? Probably not. Homemade gifts for close friends? Looking dicey. Something special for my man? I'm plum out of ideas. I have a feeling I might be changing how we do Christmas.

Ready to drop!

We have been a very busy family. Every weekend since the first of August we have had something going on. Here is a list of our activities:

This is the Place
Kearns hometown parade, then a bridal shower
Primary activity
Teresa's baby shower
Family reunion and 12th anniversary
Lagoon
Peach Days
State Fair
Crystal in Vegas with Teresa, Dave and kids at Toys R Us birthday party
General Conference
Boo at the Zoo in Willow Park (Logan)
Early morning hike for my birthday with the girls, then craft day, then Treehouse in Ogden
Kids Halloween party
Halloween
Going to the U of U football game
Pow Wow for Cub Scouts
Crystal back to Vegas to see Baby Sam

My first weekend without any plans happens to be Thanksgiving weekend.

That accounts for my entire fall season. I have been slacking about putting pictures up anywhere. I am currently getting them off the camera and onto a computer. I feel like I am busy all the time. Every Thursday Lila and I go to Grant's school and help out for the day. Grant likes having Mom come I think. Lila likes to be with the big kids and is very well behaved. I like going because I get to see what Grant is doing in school and I feel more connected with what is going on. Last Thursday we had a Halloween party for the entire class time. We has 6 stations of activities and I got to read the same story 6 times. It was a long story so the other stations were always waiting for me to finish.
I've also been going nuts getting the house cleaned and decorated for the 2 Halloween parties we had, one for kids, one for adults. Now my house is looking better, but still gets messy if I turn around.
Lila is talking up a storm. Her new favorite sentence is "I do it myself." I was carrying her down some stairs and halfway she said this sentence. I put her down and she proceeded to go up to the top of the stairs so she could come down all of them by herself.
Grant is learning how to read and picking up on it quickly. As long as he doesn't let himself get frustrated too quickly we can get him to read simple books now. He knows a good number of sight words and is picking up more by the day. School is a good thing for him. He has never been much of an artist, but he has started to draw pictures. He even entered a picture he drew into the Reflections contest for school. I was so proud of him. The theme is 'Beauty is..." and he drew himself standing in front of his house with green grass and a blue sky with a very colorful bird flying by. He titled his piece " Home". I forgot to take a picture of it and am sad because he probably won't get it back. Maybe they will have it displayed at the Reflections awards assembly and I can get a picture then.
David is going into the Christmas season at work. He knows long days are on their way. I am trying to plan accordingly. This means I have to find sitters if I am going to do things on a weeknight. That's just they way things work when your husband works for UPS.
Maybe things will slow down for us soon. What am I thinking! Bring on the Holidays!

Update on School

Grant enjoys getting on the bus. He doesn't like to talk about school. I decided to volunteer in his class so I would have some idea of what was going on and how he was doing. I like helping out in class. Lila comes with me and there are times she causes a disturbance and has to be dealt with. Grant does pretty well with listening to the teacher and his does great on his school work. He gets homework every day. Not what you would expect from kindergarten but he is picking things up quickly and is getting faster at reading words. I didn't push him to learn to read before school and he is still doing well in his class.

My house on the other hand has been steadily getting worse. I am so overwhelmed that I mowed the lawn instead of cleaning the kitchen today. I still need to fold laundry and make some headway on cleaning my bedroom. My craft room is also a disaster and needs some attention. We'll see what gets accomplished today.

School

Grant is very ready for kindergarten. He starts on Monday the 31st of August. Grant gets to ride the bus. He has watched it drive by for the last few years and was so excited for the day when he would get to ride. The school is 1.4 miles away from our house and he has to cross two busy streets in order to get there. He isn't going to walk to school unless he misses the bus and the car isn't working. He gets to go to the new school that just was finished. He will be going to Diamond Ridge. The mascot is a rocket. Grant couldn't be any happier. The school is wonderful and the kindergartners have their own entrance and playground. We saw the school st the open house and it looks like a great school. The kindergarten kids have two rooms they get to learn in. One for learning the core stuff and one is an activity and play room. There are only 19 kids in his class right now. Not bad for a kindergarten. He had his evaluation and I think he did okay. He doesn't like to answer questions when I ask him about it. Silly boy.

The next few days will seem like an eternity. He is already bored with the activities we have been doing all summer. He is bickering with his sister all the time. He is just ornery. We are going to be able to go to someone's house today to play. I have special prizes for him if he can be good, but they are still sitting on the shelf, waiting to be earned. School should help with the bored part of his day. I know Lila is going to miss him. Last year when he went to preschool, Lila took a nap because he was gone in the afternoon. Now he has morning kindergarten. We will have to see how things work out.