First day of school!

Today was the kids' first day of school! Brett went all day (9-1) and Kate only went 9-11 - the two's class gets out an hour early the first week. After that, she'll get out at 12. I don't blame them not wanting to feed lunch to a class of 12 different 2 year olds!

Drop off went beautifully - no tears, energetic kids, ready to go, no looking back. Right as I was leaving, the kid standing next to Kate freaked out, which I think sent Kate into a tailspin herself. I didn't stick around to find out. The director and assistant director said that she cried off and on today. When I made it down to her classroom, the assistant teacher was holding her and gladly gave her to me! She said that Kate had a good set of lungs. Really? I hadn't noticed... ha!

As soon as Brett's classroom opened up, he made a beeline and never looked back! When I went to pick him up at 1:00 he ran out with a smile and said that he had fun today. I still don't really know what he did today, but that's no different than last year. I do know that he ate his sandwich and his cookie, but not his peaches. Funny enough - the container that had his peaches was not in his lunch box. Another mom sent me a facebook message saying that his peaches container was in her son's bag. We did, however, end up with an extra ice pack. Gotta love those crazy little boys!

Last week of summer... days 5 and 6

Friday and Saturday were definitely action-packed, fun-filled, and completely exhausting! Friday morning, we had Meet the Teacher day at ECLC. We already know Kate's teachers since they were Brett's teachers last year, but I wanted to make sure she got some time to play in the classroom for a little while before Monday morning. I also wanted to talk to Donna & Shelley about her lovely gag reflex. Donna said she's "on it." Apparently, her family has a gagger too, so she knows our pain well! Brett had two classrooms to visit - one classroom for Monday and Wednesday and a different classroom for Tuesday and Thursday. It should be a fun year! He seemed right at home!

Friday afternoon we hung out at home - kids napped, we worked, etc.

Kate got her computer and told Daddy that she had to work too!

We took the time to finish our "car" that we've been working on periodically for the last couple weeks. Kate really loved it!

Brett thought it was cool, but he wasn't as into as much as Kate was.

Saturday morning, we had our usual fun time at TFS Soccer Field. It rained early in the morning, so the fields were pretty wet, but it was super-hot, so they dried off pretty fast. The kids had a great time and played a great game, but they were definitely tired by the end - so tired that the coaches agreed to call the game 5 minutes early because both teams were having a tough time convincing the kids to get out there and play!

After the game, we headed home, ate lunch, got cleaned up, took naps, and headed to my god-son, Drew's, 1st birthday party! They had Elmo come out and perform. It was great! I really thought some of the kids would've been afraid of the big Elmo, but most of them warmed right up to him in no time! The adults were another story... who knew that so many adults were afraid of a child character?!

Birthday boy, Drew, was not feeling the party spirit!

The Elmo congo line!

Drew with his Mommy, my friend, Tammy, since we were 16!

Brett, Kate, and Elmo!

They had jump houses, ball pits, and all sorts of great things to play on!

Flanagan family with Elmo

The birthday boy did pretty well with some help from his Mommy and his big cousin, Savannah

Last week of summer... days 3 and 4

Days 3 and 4 were spent at Target, at least on my part anyway. The kids, on the other hand, continued to have an action-packed week. On Wednesday morning, Memere, Brett, & Kate were meeting up with Aunt Mary and Hayden (my cousin's youngest son) to go to Pullen Park. On the way there, they ran into Target to drop off Poppy's prescription and said they'd swing back by on their way home from the park. No biggie.

Fast forward about 2 hours.

The phone rings at work for the 954,358th time that day. One of the girls said, Jenn, it's your mom with a screamer in the background. Lovely. Brett had been stung by something, possibly a bee. Of course, he's never been stung before, but his entire hand will swell up in under an hour from a simple mosquito bite, so I told mom that I'd give him a dose of Benadryl when they got to Target. Now, most kids get really sleepy and drowsy from Benadryl. Kate is one of those kids. Brett is not. It makes Brett cranky and crazy and hyper and impossible, on a good day. But it stops whatever reaction is taking place, so you deal with the other and hope for the best. Backing up, the kids hadn't really had anything other than water in the past 2-3 hours... no milk, no snack, mostly just running and playing and having fun. We all know how *lovely* a toddler can be with an empty stomach. Couple that with the possessed-Benadryl-induced behavior and Brett was nearly impossible for my mom that day.

I was stuck at work until 9 that night, but Todd managed to get home super early and relieve Mom from munchkin-duty that day. I'm pretty sure she was relieved. I know I would've been!

Wednesday continued on at home with no other incident. Todd reported that both kids were good eaters, mostly good listeners (as good as you can expect with a 2 year old, a 3 year old, and only one adult), and they went to bed relatively easily.

I came home from work, ate dinner, and went to bed. Brett woke us up at 1:30AM because he had to pee. Kate woke us up at 3:30 and 4:45AM for an unknown reason.

I think that Wednesday can be summed up by a "less than stellar day by all."

I'm sure they had a great time at Pullen, and I'm almost sure that Memere took pictures, but Memere and Poppy are on vacation in Texas right now, so we'll just have to hold off on those!

Moving on to Thursday - it had to get better, right?! Definitely.

Thursday morning was spent playing at home with no major incident. Finding Nemo is a lifesaver. As are hair bows and Mommy's long-enough hair to entertain. We'll just leave it at that. I headed into work around 10:45 so that I could get out a little early since Memere & Poppy had a plane to catch. Work was nice and easy, and I made it home about 3:30, expecting a nice, quiet house. HA! Both kids were already up and had been for quite awhile. Naps apparently did not go well that day.

Memere & Poppy left for there trip and we were all playing nicely. About 5pm I decided to go start getting things ready for Todd's soccer game. We're 2 seconds from walking out the door when Brett decides that he needs to go potty. No big deal. He poops. We pull up his pants. I think that he's going to wash his hands, so I flush the potty and all chaos begins. With the amount of tears and the decibel of his screams, you would've thought I was trying to physically harm him. Nope. I'd just flushed the poop down the potty. Finally, 20 minutes later, I had things calmed down to a whimper and I was going to throw the kids in the car since we were already running late. We went outside, and Poppy's car was sitting in the driveway. Immediately, in under a milli-second, all tears were gone and he was smiling and excited. Seriously?! All because Poppy's car was sitting in our driveway. If I'd known that's all it would've taken, we would've gone outside a LONG time ago! Anyway, after a detour to Chick-Fil-A (pronounced Chick-uh-fluh by Kate) and a discussion of why we had to drive on 2 different big roads, we finally made it to the soccer game, in the rain. At this point, I didn't care that it was raining. We were going to eat our chicken nuggets and watch the IBM soccer game. Period. The end. The rain quickly let up and the kids had a great time.

After the game ended and we got home and we all got clean and I finally got Brett into bed, he said, "Mommy, thanks for taking us to Daddy's soccer game. I love you." All is right in the world.

Stay tuned for day #5 and 6, including Meet the Teacher and Brett's 2nd soccer game!

Last week of summer... day 2

Day #2 of our last week of summer vacation... we went to Planet Child in Cary. The kids have been with my mom before, but I've never been. It's kind of like a small version of Marbles, which made me think that the kids might get bored with it, but they certainly didn't seem to get bored at all. They ran hard for over 2 hours and they still weren't ready to leave!


Brett stayed at the train table for almost an hour!

Kate thought the "aquarium" was awesome!

The pirate ship had babies in it... not quite sure of that connection, but Kate was excited about the dolls.

Moving on to the kitchen... she told me this one was ugly and the one at home is pretty. At least she likes the one that we OWN better :)

She wanted to "drive" this car so bad, but everytime we went near it, there were big kids playing. She finally got her turn and said she was done after about 3 seconds.

Brett and I thought this lighthouse was pretty cool. Kate was scared to death up there! I think she still has a fear of heights after falling off the changing table at 3 weeks old.

Brett had fun climbing in and around the pirate ship

"Mommy, look at me!"

An attempt at a cute picture... close enough

The "big" train table was a "big" hit... thank goodness Brett didn't find this until the end! Otherwise, he wouldn't have played with anything else!

Brett was fascinated

Kate was almost equally fascinated!

Princess Kate found the dress-up stuff right before we left

Last week of summer... day 1

The first day of the last week of summer vacation - we went and walked around Lake Lynn and, more importantly, fed the ducks and geese. One duck in particular was so hungry that he literally jumped up and tried to take the bread right out of Kate's hand. I thought Kate was going to freak out, but she just laughed!

Brett's first soccer game

Yesterday morning was the first of many upcoming Saturday mornings spent at the TFS soccer field. Yep, Brett had his first game! Despite the heat and humidity, a little bit of rain, and numerous goals scored for the opposing team, the kids had so much fun! Brett was smiling and laughing the entire time on the field. I don't think he could've been any happier, even playing with his hundreds of cars!

Dribblings drills with Coach Todd (aka, Daddy)

Shooting drills were next

High fives from the coach

There were water breaks every few minutes - even the fans (aka parents and siblings) were sweating bullets in the heat!

The start of the game

Brett needs to work on Rule #1 - Don't use your hands.

Kate thought it was great fun... pulling rocks out of the dirt. She didn't really care much about the game.

Listening carefully with his teammates

The little sisters made new friends too!

Look at our team run!

No game is complete without a trip to Chick-Fil-A and a chance to play on the slides (with soccer gear still on...)

Take me out to the ballgame...

It seems like all things "fun" fall on my work weekends. I know I only work one weekend a month, and I know we do fun things on my non-work weekends, but it still feels like it falls that way. This weekend, it sort of worked to my advantage. Todd was the person in charge for the Marquette Alumni Club of the Carolina's night at the Carolina Mudcats. It's tough for me to work until 6 and him to be there at 5, so I had a great excuse to take off a few hours early. It really worked to my advantage though... we had a record-breaking Saturday at work, so I was more than ready to hit the road at 3:00 and not look back! It was 90 degrees and probably close to 90% humidity, but I think everyone had a great time. I know that the kids thought it was great, even if they didn't watch more than 30 seconds of the entire game :)