Bad Attitude

Today Ethan has graced us with a bad attitude. I don't know if he's just tired from his first full week of school but it hasn't been a good day. Finally I decided in order to change his thinking he needed to write a grateful list. In the past this has worked like a charm. Tonight I don't know how much it changed his attitude, but we tried. Here is his last hours work. It seriously took him about that long. I will add that we only made him write 10 things. I should have said 30 and told him I would write my own 50 later tonight.

Wii, family, lego guys, food, water, friends, room, bed, house, cheese. Of course cheese would be on the list. He must be related to his grandpa!

Miss Jane

I started this post over a month ago and couldn't get the pics to load so I thought I would try again today.

Her flower is so big she can hardly hold her head up!
On a chilly morning. she looks like a cute little elf.

It's a month later and I am finally finishing this post about our sweet Jane. Jane is now 5 months and On Oct. 1st Jane cut her 1st two teeth. They are the bottom two in the middle. She is still trying to cut her third and have a really hard time sleeping day or night. That means I am not sleeping much at night either. That's ok she is sweet enough to make up for it. She can now roll over from her back to her front all though not a lot. I still think these hard floors deter her from wanting to roll around much. The kids still adore her thankfully and we are glad she's around to give us her pretty smiles.

On August 21st, Kate's 3rd Birthday, Jane turned 4 months. Clear as mud right? Jane continues to be a sweetie pie and we adore her. We sure are glad she joined our family. She is just now rolling over from her tummy to her back and only on one side. I'm one of those parents who let their kids take their time in reaching their milestones. Well, I guess with Ethan I was really anxious for each new phase, but knowing Jane is our last I want to enjoy every little tiny sweet moment. Realizing especially recently how quickly the kids grow and change I am good with not pushing her to sit up, crawl etc.

Some things about Jane. She loves when you pump her legs like she's running or riding a bike. She adores Anna. Anna talks to her constantly and loves to "take care of her". In fact Ethan is a tad jealous that Anna can get Jane to smile so easily. Jane also loves mama, but that goes without saying. She loves to be carried in her sling or baby bjorn, not a huge fan of the stroller, and basically hates her car seat :(

School's in Session

Ethan waiting for the bell to ring on the first day. Too bad we were standing in the wrong area. Thankfully I realized before it was too late.
On our walk to school. We are in a walking district and I just loved watching the cute scene of all the families walking their children to school. Especially along the tree lined streets. One of my very favorite things about living here.
This year Ethan insisted he had a "bag that goes on just one shoulder" that must be "cool" or something, he would know, he's very into "cool".
With his friend Isaac from our ward who moved from Utah just a month before we did. They are in the same class. The weird thing is we registered at different times and didn't request them be together and they still are. Not to mention Isaac's Mom's name is "Tyra" the same as my mom...weird.
Brayton elementary. I love these old schools. This school opened in 1911 so this year we will have the 100 year "celebrayton" get it?

Anna with her new backpack. Kate had to be in on all the pictures and it was making Anna so mad.
Does she look nervous? She kept saying her tummy hurt, poor thing.

I think this is a pretty cute candid shot.

Kate needed her turn too of course.

These pictures were taken walking home from school orientation. This was totally candid and I was trying to push the stroller find the camera and take pictures all at the same time. It was just a sweet moment the two of them holding hands strolling down the street.

I absolutely love Anna's school. It is called Jefferson. I don't know what year it was built but it's pretty old too. She actually attends the primary school behind the elementary school.

The "primary center" has pre-k and kindergarten only. They even have their own principal. They have hand sanitizing stations about every 5 feet in that building and outside every door and classroom. Pretty smart I think.


I love the old architecture and spire above the school.
Yesterday 4:45 am. I'm awake wondering what our day's going to bring. We have been counting down the days for school to start since well... school let out. Ok, so it's not been that bad, but we have had an extremely long summer and I think we were all ready for the kids to have school start again. I didn't really want to get out of bed but Jane started to cry signaling me to crawl out of bed. I fed her and decided I don't have any more excuses not to get myself into a good routine as well. I did some reading, exercised for 30 minutes, showered and was ready for the day by 7am. An awesome start to the school year if I may say.

We all got out the door in great time and everything was going great, until I starting thinking. Thinking about my little boy who is now 8 years old and going to a new school in a new place where the teachers may not have the same values and morals and won't love my little man the way we do. I wondered if he would struggle, if kids would be mean, what if he's teased? I started to loose it. So in an attempt to over compensate I quickly said out-loud and with a tad too much enthusiasm "you're going to have a great day!" An attempt I'm sure to convince myself that he would be fine. And fine he was.

At 3 o'clock when the bell rang I was right outside waiting for him. I wanted him to know I was there just in case he had a hard day and needed me. He came out with a smile on his face like no biggie. The school has a tradition of having a "popsicle party" right after the bell the first day. It is meant to be a little fun thing for the kids and a chance for parents to informally meet the teacher. It was a total joke. There were mobs of people and the teacher's didn't have name tags on or anything. I never even saw Ethan's teacher, still don't have a clue who she is.

The worst part of the day starts now. Ethan and Isaac head over to get their popsicle, and that's when I lose him somewhere in the crowd of people. He knew we needed to hurry so we could go pick up Anna from her school across town. I had a 15 minute window. I looked everywhere forever trying to find Ethan but couldn't see him anywhere. I was starting to panic. I needed to be on my way to get Anna but didn't want to leave Ethan. I thought he may be looking for me too so didn't want to leave. I finally called my friends house who lives just down the street. She answered and said Ethan was there. I was so mad/relieved. I started just running down the street to get everyone in the car to get Anna. Don't mind the crazy lady with the double stroller. We all jumped in the car and got over to Anna's school just as my "window" for pick up time was closing. I was so worried she would be the last to be picked up and think I had "forgotten" her on her first day. Thankfully she was oblivious and all was well. The only bad thing was when I picked her up they told me I forgot to pack her a snack. I was thinking "what?" I was never told anything about a snack. I thought to myself that would have been a nice thing to tell me at orientation! Anyway, now I know.

On that note, Ethan is also asked to pack a snack everyday. The principal is a big believer in fueling your brain and says that some of the kids go 5 hours between breakfast and lunch and they can't learn or pay attention well when they are hungry and their blood sugar is low. I think it actually makes a lot of sense. Another thing they are big on here is reusing, recycling etc. We are asked not to use brown bags because that is "waste". Even juice boxes are frowned upon. We are asked to have them have a reusable water bottle in their bag at all times. They are pretty extreme on somethings but I also think it's good, just another little adjustment. They have a whole "green" committee at school to help the students be more aware of how to reduce, reuse, recycle.

So, on the whole we had a good first day. No big trauma's oh, other than as we were putting Ethan to bed last night he said he hadn't done his homework. I told him to forget about it and he totally freaked out saying how he's in 2nd grade now and he'll be in so much trouble. Truthfully I didn't even ask him if he had homework because I thought there was no way he would on the first day. Thankfully it was just some journaling, and he was able to get it done quickly.

On another note. I thought I would just be the perfect mom yesterday and have freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and nice home cooked meal for the kids when we walked in the door. I had planned to make the cookies with Kate in the afternoon while the kids were gone so we could spend some quality one on one time. Problem was when we got to the egg's portion of the recipe I realized I didn't have any. Whoops. Then after the mix up with Ethan and picking him up late, then Anna late I had thought we would pick up eggs on the way home, but by then poor Jane was starving and it wasn't an option. Skip to today and again Kate and I were having our bonding time making the cookies having gone to the store this morning to get eggs. Go down the recipe only to realize, yep no baking soda! Seriously?! I had two things of baking powder but no soda. I even knocked on my landlords door to ask her, I was that desperate but she wasn't home. I called a friend who lives not far from here and no answer. So I put the almost complete dough in the fridge, until I could get some baking soda. I got some from the friends where I pick up Ethan and then came home. By then the dough was too cold to mix the soda in so I had to basically let it thaw all afternoon until I could mix it in. By 7 o'clock tonight we finally had our not so fabulous cakey cookies. The dough was so gooey compared to Utah that I kept adding flour and they weren't that fabulous. At least I gave the good college try, right?

Gas Station Gauntlet

Tonight we pulled into to a gas station to get fuel of course. Well it's a law here that you can't pump your own gas, so we gave our card to the attendant and told him to "fill er up". While we waited we witnessed a rather funny scene. The attendant, who was an older gentleman suddenly became rather upset with the other attendant and was yelling in a foreign language at him. The younger attendant was walking away and then walked back towards us. The older man continued to yell and when the young man walked away again the man ran after him and kicked him in the rear!!! We couldn't believe it! We laughed so hard. We were of course rather shocked and didn't quite know what to think. Ethan of course thought it was the best thing ever and just kept saying "he just kicked him in the butt"! We don't know what it was all about but we sure got our money's worth tonight. Gas, and free entertainment.

A month ago today

A month ago I boarded a plane with my Mom and the kids to move here. What an adventure it has been. We have been really blessed and for the most part are really happy to be here. There are a lot of things that we really like about being here. A few that we don't but we still feel like we are supposed to be here and we will make the best of it.

This week the kids finally start school. I am anxious for them in a good and bad way. Anxious for all the fun and new things they will do and learn. Anxious that they have to adapt to a new place, home, school, friends, environment, teacher, etc. They have been so brave and great throughout this transition and I think they are amazing. Not one of the kids has ever made mention of "home". I almost find that strange, but choose to see that as a blessing that they seem comfortable here and that as long as we are together as a family then we are in fact "home".

In a months time we have been very, very busy and done and seen a lot of things. That is one thing I really love here, so much to see and do. We will never be bored, that's for sure. When we first came here everything was purely excitement and new and novel. It still is fun and exciting but reality is also settling in and quite honestly it's hard sometimes to think this is our new life, away from all of our family, our friends, and normal conveniences we take for granted. For example, we don't have a disposal. I had no idea what a beautiful thing a disposal was until realized I didn't have one. Now when you wash your dishes and try to drain you sink you have to stick your hand down and try to grab all the gross little slimy, wet particles that are clogging the little holes that don't allow the water to drain. It isn't pretty. It's not a big deal I realize but I don't like it. I sure do have so much more respect than I already had for our friends who live over seas in China, Hong Kong and Australia. Way to go girls you are amazing!!!!

Police beat, Jersey style

Today was one of those days. It started with Jane waking up way too early from her nap. I thought if I let her fuss for a minute she would go back to sleep, but she just kept crying. When I went up to check on her Ethan had taken it upon himself to get her out of her crib, and carry her into our room and put her on the bed. A total no no. I was not pleased to say the least. I thought we better get out of the house and do something before I beat somebody.

We decided to go to our ward "playgroup". That would give the kids a chance to run around outside and me to be social and meet some new people. I really wasn't in the mood to say the least but figured I should do it anyway. The playgroup was in a neighboring town at a park I had never been to. I put it in the GPS and off we went. This town has crazy weird roads where it's two way then changes to 3 lanes of one way all the sudden and people are passing on all sides and it's just hard to keep up with all the changes. The GPS told me to turn left at the next intersection, so I barely to the left and look up just in time to make sure it was the right road and turn left. Before I can even finish the turn I see a police officer flagging me to pull over. Are you kidding me? Sure enough you can't turn left on that street! I told him I am new in town, like that wasn't obvious, with my minivan with Utah plates, Utah drivers license and frazzled looking mom in the driver's seat?! I told him the GPS told me to turn left there. Apparently the law changed the end of July, awesome. I get a sweet ticket and have to go to court. The only thing that made me feel a tad better was he "waved" another lady over while he was still processing my license, and she at least had Jersey plates. I pull away and the GPS is saying "arriving at destination" and yet there is no park in site. I decide to just flip around and look again. When I do, I see nothing and at this point am definitely not in the mood for playgroup and decide to head home. I don't have my home destination in the GPS yet and figured I would just return the way I came. BAD idea. I turned right onto a 3 lane one way road. Two people immediately started waving their arms and yelling. One lady in a convertible in the 3rd lane over was laughing hysterically. For whatever reason it was the woman laughing at me that put me over the edge. Thankfully traffic was light and I was able to quickly get turned around without it get "hairy". The other good thing is the officer was just over the corner from me now with head down writing another ticket. Thank heavens. What would he do if he saw me now? Impound my car? Good news is I went down another street and accidentally ran into the park I had intended to go to.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I go out my front door to check my mail and there are two plain clothes officers, two "real" officers, one marked police car and one "under cover" car right in front of my house. Wow, what's goin' down in my hood? I guess they had pulled him over and looked in his trunk and called for backup or something. I don't want to know why. It couldn't have been too bad though because a while later, the police left and the guy just stood around his car until another guy was dropped off and then they both jumped in and drove away with the new guy driving. Maybe they took the first guy's license. Who knows. Pretty exciting.

The worst part about all this is I finally decided I need to get serious about losing some weight, but as we all know I eat when I'm stressed and today certainly qualified for some treat of sorts. I was good though and tonight when we walked downtown to Dunkin donuts, I went over to Starbucks and opted for some flavored warm milk. The bad news is I gave it to Kate to take a sip seeing that warm milk is totally her thing and she dropped it spilling it all over the sidewalk. The funny part was she immediately shouted "dang Starbucks!" A nice ending to a fairly lousy day.