PJ Day at school

L got to wear her PJs to school and take a book and a stuffed bear. She was so excited. She looked so cute that I just had to take her picture.

A tour...of sorts

I have not been ready to take house pics and post them since we are still working on the house. However, reality kicked in and I had to accept that the house will be an on-going project so it was time to take pictures of how it looks now. It will be different as we hang pictures and finalize curtains and do all the other details. However, this is how it looks at this point...

921 Plumeria
The welcoming committee is waiting for YOU to come visit!

This is the view from the front door looking into the study and then beyond that to the living room.

Here's our living room, from the kitchen angle.

And looking all the way to the study and the front windows.

This picture was taken from the same spot as the last photo only now we are looking into the kitchen.

Here's our half bath just off the kitchen.

Now we are looking at the eating area and living room beyond it.

D is showing off his room. (I hate the way the light distorted the pictures but instead of trying to get better ones, I just went with what I got so that I could actually post house pics on the blog.) D absolutely loves his room. He thinks it's great to curl up in the massage chair by his window and read or climb into bed at night and turn on the lamp by his bed and read before he sleeps. He's waiting for blue curtains to complete his room.

E is in her purple room. I hope to find a valance to complete her curtains but not sure when that will happen. She has no idea anything is missing. She enjoys playing in her room and is getting better and better at "quiet room time" when the kids are to stay in their respective rooms and play quietly for an extended time.

This is the window in L's room and it shows off our fabulous back yard. We absolutely love playing out back, but it will be some time before we can make it what we want. The previous owners loved the "wild" feel. We tend to prefer a cleaner look so we continue to clean out when we get the chance. It already looks so much better than when we bought the house!

L thinks her pink room is wonderful. It helps that Grandma made her curtains and her comforter is a silk material which she snuggles under at night and often removes from her bed so she can play with it and her babies. L is my pack rat so the fact that you can see the top of her dresser is an absolute miracle!! She just treasures everything!! I have been known to sneak in and clean out when she is busy elsewhere.

This is the master bedroom. It's a fabulous room, but it's the one which has received the least attention. I finally got curtains, but they are not complete.

I'm still missing 2 curtain rods but I do have the curtians. I have a comforter for the bed, but I should return it to the store as it cost more than our mortgage...okay, maybe not but no one should pay so much money for something to just sit on their bed! I continue to look for another comforter but for the picture I put the one I bought since I like it so much and our present one doesn't match at all. You can still see some boxes in the corner. I did say that this has been the last room to see any attention.

Here's the other end of our room.

I just remembered that I didn't include pictures of the school room, but I did put some on another post so you can scroll down and see those to complete the house.

D's favorite time of the year

It's soccer season!!! D lives for soccer season.

He's ready to start the game.
Coach Jackson lines the Silverhawks up to play. Yes, I realize they have red jerseys. Apparently in seasons past, they had silver jerseys but this year they got red, which is ironic because this will be D's third season with a red jersey. He doesn't care as long as he can play!

Here's my sunglass princess.

D is in the middle going for the ball.

D is receiving his award for hustler of the game. Last week he was awarded defender of the game. This kiddo is unstoppable!

Pumpkin Patch Flop

Every year we have an October tradition of driving quite a distance to this really awesome pumpkin patch! We found our weekends quite full this year but we didn't want to skip our tradition so we squeezed in our annual trip. Well, things didn't go as planned. When we arrived the original pumpkin patch was closed. (We later learned there had been a tornado and really bad storm the night before our arrival). We went to the pumpkin patch next door which was one big flop!! Activites/rides cost $ (the other place is totally free), there were ant piles, not many pumpkins and just overall disappointing. However, I did my best to capture some shots of the kids looking like they are enjoying themselves.

The pumpkins were gynormous!!

The first pumpkin D sat on was in the middle of an ant pile! Yikes!! After that we were SUPER careful!

Girls trying to lift the pumpkin.

The only matching shirts we all had. Don't look too closely or you'll see the girls belly buttons!! The shirts were a bit on the small side.

The hay ride was free...truly amazing!

I must say that it was a memorable trip and it'll be talked about each year from here on.

Updating and settling

We have been working on the house! Mom and Dad visited us and helped us tremendously!!

Mom made curtains.
Dad hung fans and then...

hung more fans for a total of EIGHT (8) fans...Yes 8!

The he hung some pictures and mom helped us decorate a bit for fall.

Then D and E helped me decorate the school room for fall.

Here E shows off more fall decorations

and all the letters she has already learned. Today we learned the letter "p" and she made a princess puppet who is sitting on E's chair.

Hopefully house pictures will follow shortly...

What happened to the 2?

L has reached a stage where she doesn't nap every day. Therefore we have established a plan that she can rest for the first hour and if she's still awake at 2:00 then she can read for the next hour.

One day as she lay down, she complained to me that she always missed the 2 on the clock. I thought that maybe she was mistaken and was watching the minutes instead of the hour. So, I explained that the 2 was the first number on the clock.

She assured me that she understood it was the first number and that's the one she kept missing. Whenever she looked, it was already a 3.

Well, sweet girl, that means your body was tired and you SLEPT at naptime!

Number Rhymes

I have taught the children some rhymes to help them remember the numbers...

Around a tree and around a tree
That's how you make a three.

Well, E is allowed to get up from nap at three o'clock. I have showed her the three on the clock and written a "3" next to the clock and reinforced many times that she may get up at three.

One day she was struggling to take a nap. I was called for many different reasons to go to her room. At one point, E actually came out of her room and declared it was three o'clock and that she could get up. Unfortunately she was mistaken and it was only two.

That evening as she told Papi about her day, she explained her naptime troubles this way...

"Around a tree and around a tree
That's how you get up."

Yes, honey, but it must actually be a THREE!