Back to Work

School has started.  Jack is in Kindergarten and he says he likes it.  The first week was a little tough but I think he's getting the hang of it.  His favorite part is recess-of course.  He sits at the Owl table and knows maybe four kids' names, or at least that's how many he's told me.  I worry so much that he won't be able to make friends but he seems to be doing fine.  I don't know if he has friends or not but he's not telling me he wishes he had more friends or anything so I guess it's not on his radar so I just leave it be.  I'd hate to get him all worried about something he wasn't worried about in the first place.

his new watch

 

not the real first day of preschool

Claire started preschool.  It is across the street (cue heavenly choir singing).  I absolutely love it.  It's three hours twice a week too.  Jack's was three times a week for two hours and I like the three hour schedule more-it gives me more time to get stuff done.  I accidentally got the first day mixed up so I took Claire over a week early.

I felt horrible.  We had been so excited for her and then had to walk home because I was wrong and school started the next week.  It was super anticlimactic.  She was a good sport about it though.  Claire also started dance.  We've only been once but I think she's enjoying it.  She enjoys the leotard at least, ha.  She loves to dance so much, I hope this is a good experience for her.

Her REAL first day of Preschool

Just wearing her new leotard

Kate is being her usual self.  She loves Loves LOVES to dance.  It cracks me up.  She gets her hips moving and then she throws one arm up in the air and sways along.  It is hilarious to watch but I'm glad she does it.  It brightens my day.  I think Kate might be able to say Mama and Dada but I'm not sure.  She really isn't talking yet but I'm not too concerned about that.  We need to get rid of her binky but I'm kinda dreading that.  Don't most parents?  I direct the music at church and so Kyle sits with the kids through the first part of church and I don't know if taking away the binky is such a good idea right now because of that.
 Speaking of which-Kate also likes to open books and sing and move her arm around and sing.  I think she just might like me.

I've been enjoying this new structure in my life. I forgot how nice it was to have a schedule to follow but having Jack in school everyday has made me a bit more productive.  It's been so long since I was in school or since I had a formal job.  I'm glad Jack enjoys kindergarten because I enjoy having him in kindergarten too.

Oh and Kyle loves his job...as always...We just recently went to the SolutionRun where they do a fundraiser for a child lymphoma, leukemia treatment foundation.  It was a little crazy because it was on a Friday and Jack it started before Jack got out of school so I had to come down a bit later.  It was super hot that day and I was just signed up for the open course so we just did a lap, Kyle had done some laps before we came down. They had a lot of fun activities for the kids like a bounce house, a giant slide, face painting and a dunk tank Jack was REALLY looking forward to.  The next day was a ward party where the kids ran around and played on a playground, drowned themselves in lemonade and gorged on brownies.  I think they had a pretty good weekend.

At the SolutionRun

Splash Pad Drama and Family Reunion

So Kyle has an older sister, Jill, that lives in Utah too.  Most of our kids' ages line up so we hang out together a bit (not to mention we are both incredibly cool so of course we would hang out- duh!)  This last week we took the kids to a splash pad up in South Jordan.  The kids had a lot of fun running in the water.  Even Kate participated in the action.  I didn't take any pictures while there but trust me- a good time was had by all.

At a trampoline park

When it was time to go, Jack and Claire wanted to ride in Jill's minivan.  I'll admit, it's a pretty cool minivan but Jack and Claire just love riding with their aunts, grandparents, cousins.  They seize any chance to ride in someone else's car.  So they grab their booster seats and take off running to Jill's van.  After making sure it's okay with Jill, I had to get them all settled in.  It took some finagling (basically jamming Claire's seat down) but I got them buckled in.  I jumped out of the minivan and told Jill I would follow her back to her house to pick the kids up then ran back to my car where Kate was waiting patiently to go.  As I reached into my purse I realized I had put my keys down next to Jack in the minivan when I was getting Claire into her seat.  CRAP.  I jumped out of the car and tried to run after Jill but she was outta the parking lot lickety split.  No worries, I could just call her and it would be no problem.  I grabbed my phone and as luck would have it, it was completely dead.  We have a phone charger in the car but I couldn't charge the phone without turning on the car and I couldn't turn on the car because my keys were in Jill's van which is why I needed to call her but I couldn't because my phone was dead.  Of course.  Of course this would happen to me.  I literally had to laugh at the situation and I was glad I was an adult because I know as a child I would have been freaking out.

Just being cute

I contemplated walking to her house but it was a ways away and I had Kate with me and just the umbrella stroller.  She's a little white and it was hot and all I could think of was a red, angry, sweaty baby by the time I got there.  I asked a few people in the parking lot if they had a phone charger, one man who was very kind told me he did but it was an iPhone charger which was not the kind I use (because iPhones are ridiculous).  Then I realized I just needed a cigarette lighter because I already had a charger-duh. So after awkwardly asking a woman if I could use her car and then backtracking and explaining my situation she was happy to help.  However after about 15 minutes the phone wasn't charged enough to make a call (turns out you need to start the engine to get the phone charging, not just turn it on...maybe? I dunno) so I grabbed Kate and headed over to the 7/11 across the street where I bought an expensive USB wall adapter, plugged in my phone and texted Jill.  She was back at my car by the time I walked back to the parking lot.  I think keys and locks might have it out for me.

Taking Grandpa to Sunbeams

We had our Fisher family reunion.  It was pretty fun and pretty exhausting.  I also did not take many pictures during that.  I really need to get my act together.  My parents stayed at my house and the kids were so excited to see their grandma Fisher and grandpa Fisher.  These kids love their grandparents.  I think my favorite part was watching Claire take her grandpa to her sunbeams class.  Some other great memories were just watching the kids play together.  We set up the kiddie pool in our backyard and they had a blast in it.  The kids had fun going down the slide with the sprinkler on it.  We got family pictures taken and I think there will be a few gems in there.  Taking pictures with kids is always risky but I was impressed with how long Kate held out. 

Just sleeping in the hallway

Lately Jack has been referring to relationships differently and it's hilarious.  For example, when Grandma Brown came to visit Jack answered the door and instead of saying:

     Dad, Grandma's here!

He said:

     Dad, your mom's here!

It's correct but it's not the normal thing to say.  So at the reunion he did stuff like that.  The one I remember the best though is when he told Kyle:

     Your wife's dad is putting on his shoes.

Instead of:

     Grandpa is putting on his shoes.

Or even:

     Mom's dad is putting on his shoes.

Seriously kid, seriously.

Watching an orange Oscar the Grouch from Season 1

Too tired to care

Piggies!

Watching a Star Wars Special...Start 'em young right?

This last week was a little difficult.  Well I guess Friday was.  I'm a stay at home mom.  That's my job-I stay at home and feed my kids, make sure they are safe loved and happy (the last one is kind of optional cuz it really depends more on them).  You get the jist though.  We go to parks or clean the house, I wanna say I teach them-and I know I do-but it's more through example than through the sit down learning method.  Kyle once asked Claire what she wanted to be when she grew up and she said a mom (YESSS!!!).  Claire's response to the follow up question, "What do mom's do?" was
        "They make bread and pizza and make cookies..."
I'm glad she has picked up on that.  We also wipe bums and noses, clean rooms and some of us even grow human beings inside our tummies!  But I digress.

She thought she was in trouble...

Friday was a pretty normal day.  I wanted to go do something outside because it was pretty nice.  It was warm but cloudy so the sun wasn't deathly. We have one of those sticky fly papers hanging in our garage and there was a bee stuck to it.  I was so sad for it.  For some reason bees have been coming into our garage.  Not wasps, not hornets but honey bees.  It was still alive, the butt and legs were stuck so I put on my gardening gloves, stood on a chair and helped it off the sticky paper.  Poor thing.  I stuck in some shade so it could clean itself off and not get toasted.

but I just laughed

Then I had an idea!  A while back, Claire had decided to climb on the counter just below some of this fly paper and got her hair caught all in it.  The packaging says to use vegetable oil to remove the sticky stuff so I coated her head with our cooking oil and it came out like a charm. So. I ran inside and grabbed our spray bottle of canola oil and lightly sprayed the bee-to help it out a little.  The bee squirmed and wiggled a bit but I knew the oil would probably come off a lot easier than the glue.  I returned the oil back to the house and when I came back the bee had curled up and died.

'member I said we had a fly situation?

I was pretty sad.  I mean it didn't have much of a chance being covered in glue, but I was worried I might have done something.  I tried to look up information about bees and oil on my phone but the internet had gone down. (Upon further research later that night, I found that diluted canola oil is used in some natural pesticides for the garden.  Woops.)  Jack was pretty upset because it was FREE DAY FRIDAY where he doesn't have to do anything to earn TV time but Netflix was not working.  I unplugged the router a few times and it still wasn't working so I told Jack shucks and that he should ride his scooter outside.  Needless to say-he was ticked.  I told him there was nothing I could do, but I'm pretty sure he did not understand that because....

He came outside to play with me and Claire and Kate, only after locking all the doors to the house so we could not get back in.  So here we are, it's one in the afternoon.  No water, no diapers, no internet and I can't get into the house.  I.Was.Mad.  This wasn't the first time I've been locked out of the house by Jack but it was the first time it was done on purpose.  I tried calling Kyle a few times to no avail, I tried texting.  I didn't have my wallet so I couldn't just go to a gas station or kill time at Walmart.  I was wearing a shorter skirt so we couldn't go on a bike ride.  Kate was starting to get fussy and tired.  I made the executive decision as head of house to drill through the doorknob.  So after shards of metal and a lot of scolding, we got back into the our house and measure have been taken so that does not happen again.  Jack also has lost some priviledges (don't worry-he can still wear comfy pants but he cannot watch shows) until he has "paid" for a new door knob with pom poms (the kids earn pom poms to pay for rewards and prizes like tv, etc.).

Glad to have found my baby

What a day RIGHT? But it wasn't over.  After we got inside I asked Claire to bring in some of the toys that were in the front yard.  She happily obliged and went out to do it.  However, she did not come back in.  After I was done talking with Jack I went out to find Claire and all the toys were still in the yard.  Naturally I thought she must have gone to a friends house so I checked the first house.  Nope, not there.  Second house. Nope, haven't seen her.  Third house, I knocked on one of her little friend's doors but no one answered so I continued around the neighborhood.  After about, I dunno fifteen minutes I was starting to panic.  It was one of those moments where I started talking to myself to keep it together but I was really freaking out inside.  I could not find Claire.  These situations make me wish I never watched Dateline or 20/20.  I asked one of my neighbors if she'd seen Claire and she hadn't. She got her kids to run over to a park nearby to check if Claire had gone there, then my neighbor friend started knocking on doors.  I checked back at my house just in case I had missed her coming home or she was in the bathroom and I hadn't realized it but Claire was not there.  When I came out my neighbor friend had found Claire.  I was so relieved and cried pretty hard as I hugged Claire and lectured her on how she had to always tell me where she was going.  Turns out Claire was at her friends house. the third house I checked where no one answered. I am so grateful for friends who drop everything to help a panicking mom.

The rest of the weekend was pretty lame.  The usual.  But I'm excited for the upcoming week because my whole family is gonna be in town and we're gonna get pictures taken and have our Fisher Family Reunion 2015 (I imagined an announcer saying that all cool like).  It'll be pretty sweet, I know the kids will be excited to play with their cousins.

Kate being...Kate.