The last week in Michigan before Mr. Matthews returns!

First off, here are some pictures of Makenna from school last Thursday (I stole them off the Preschool blog):

All of the kiddos in their Indian headdress (one of the friends, Holly, was not there that day):

Makenna with her turkey pattern:

A turkey snack:

Ha ha, do you like how she puts on her Indian headdress, and then puts her hairbow on over it? That’s my girlie Makenna! : )

Just another brief aside for journaling purposes—on Sunday I got released from my calling as a Primary teacher of the CTR 7 class (I had only had the calling for around 4 months!), and got called instead to be the new Relief Society secretary.  I will miss my primary class, but I am excited to be back in Relief Society (our ward has the BEST teachers and I LOVED their lessons!) and to try my hand at this new calling!

Monday: This morning we went to our Play and Learn.  It was the first class of the new Autumn session and we learned about Autumn leaves today (we no longer are having “color” days, but somehow both of my kids still ended up wearing red today!):

After a story time, they started by painting with watercolors on paper towels.  When the paint dries, it leaves a fun look on the paper towel!

    

Oh man, if this kid was cute before, he is ridiculously cute now that he wears his glasses! : )

 

Next we made “clean mud.” To make, you tear up toilet paper, then add some shaved ivory soap, and then pour water over it all.  It makes some fun mud-like mush!

Makenna did a great job tearing the toilet paper:

  

But Max just wanted to unroll it all from the roll!

 

And then look at the next picture--

He was trying to eat it, I guess! That’s my Max, ha ha.

Next, we sorted and matched leaves by size—large, medium, and small.  The kids enjoyed this most of all and stayed at this station the majority of the time.

 

I know I’m her mom (so totally biased), but I just think my Miss Makenna is such a cute little girl! : )

Then it was snack time:

  

And story time:

 

And once again Max was trouble (notice the hands in his water cup):

And then we finished off with some movement activities and our goodbye song.

After Play and Learn, we ran a few errands and then headed home for lunch and naps.  After naptime, our friends the Hornungs came over for dinner (their Daddy is out of town this week).  It actually turned out to be even more awesome, because Kim was the former Relief Society secretary and she was able to explain my calling to me a little more! Thanks Kim! And thanks, family, for coming over for dinner and FHE! It was a super fun night! : )

Tuesday: Today is my birthday! I was awakened bright and early by a message from my family back home, wishing me a happy birthday. This left me enough time to actually read my scriptures and do my devotional, plus get completely ready for the day before the kids got up! I was really impressed that some of Makenna’s first words were, “Mom! Today is the 15th! It’s your birthday!” I was afraid no one in my house would remember, so I thought that was pretty awesome! : )

Today was my turn to teach Preschool. Here are some pictures of my kiddos from the morning:

 

Makenna’s cute sweater and Max’s shirt are both presents from Grandma Becky! Thanks for the package yesterday Grandma, and thanks so much for the birthday gift for me as well as the things for the kids! : )

I don’t have a husband home to celebrate with, so I decided to celebrate my birthday with the Preschool kids.  So for our snack time today, we ate some birthday cupcakes. : )

We still had a few minutes left at the end of school, so I brought out some blocks for the kids to play with.  Makenna found a round block and placed it on top of a rectangle block to make a “microphone.” Then the kids took turns singing to their audience. So cute!

I’m glad I got to spend my birthday with the Preschool friends!

This afternoon, Peanut the cat left us to go back to her real family.  Thank you so much, Twitchells, for letting us cat-sit for you! We have loved having Peanut in our house!

This afternoon we also worked on getting the house clean for our trip to Alabama.  My parents sent us some money to go out for dinner for my birthday, so tonight we went to Quizno’s (seriously, one of my favorites!) for dinner.  Then it was home for scriptures, a little Disney Channel with my best girl Makenna, and bed time.

Thanks to everyone who called, texted, Facebook messaged, etc. me and wished me a Happy Birthday.  Thanks also to my parents/family and to Becky for the birthday gifts. It was sad to be without Austin on my birthday, and it was a bit of a normal day, but it was a GOOD normal day! : )

On Wednesday I attended a class at the Early Learning Community (“Math Learning in the Home”) while the kids played in the childcare room.  Afterwards, we ran to Target for some last minute errands, and then went home for naps.  After nap time, we finished cleaning the house, had dinner, ran to the library to turn in books (and get books on tape for the trip), and then I had a Relief Society Presidency meeting at 7 pm.  I have to admit, that was pretty stressful. The kids were tired and cranky and rotated between being off-the-wall hyper or bawling their eyes out.  Another reason to be super excited for Austin to get home—to watch the kids during my meetings! : D

Thursday: Whew, am I tired! Let’s see, I got up super early this morning to do some packing.  Then before school at 9:30, I had already completed my morning scripture study and devotional, got myself and the kids fed and ready for the day, packed up the kids and the bathroom stuff, done two more loads of laundry, took out all the trash, and cleaned out the fridge.  Then it was time for Preschool (once again, it was our turn and at our house). 

Here are a few pictures of my kids during school:

Working on projects:

Snack time:

Using her waffle cone (We used that to make a cornucopia) to be a “pirate princess”:

After school we hurried and had lunch and then I cleaned out the car, finished last minute chores, and finished packing.

Should it really take this much stuff to go away for two weeks?!?

That’s not even counting the toy bag, the food bag, the movie bag, the water bag, etc. that were already in the car! Crazy!!!

Now we are about to pack the car and then rush off to dance class (during which I have to get Max’s glasses adjusted again and then be visit taught) and then immediately afterwards we begin our journey to Alabama! And as my parents don’t have the internet, we will see you in December! : )

Another Week Closer to Austin’s return!

Monday: This week we have school on Monday and Thursday instead of Tuesday and Thursday because of an Election Day Holiday (for some reason Michigan kids got out of school for that). This week the kids are learning about Thanksgiving at school.  Makenna was SO cute in her pilgrim hat when we picked her up:

Then I took these pictures of Makenna at school from our Preschool blog:

 

I love this picture:

Monday was a very hard and emotional day for me.  So the only other thing I’m going to say is that we had the Jensen’s over that night for dinner and FHE, and I owe Jen Jensen SO SO SO much!

The kids during FHE.  Ha ha, can’t you just imagine the craziness these kids do when they are all together? : )

Tuesday: Today we went over to a friend from the ward’s house in the morning, then headed to Sam’s Club and Costco to finish up some errands, and then finished the morning off with naps and lunch time.  In the afternoon and evening, we played in the basement and watched some Disney Channel and had dinner and basically just hung out at home.

Wednesday: This morning was a pretty chill day of playing and doing chores.  Then we had an early naptime to accommodate for Max’s eye doctor’s appointment in the afternoon. Thanks to our friends the Jensen’s for watching Makenna for FOUR HOURS while Max had his appointment!

I was really excited about Max’s doctor.  The waiting room was filled with kids’ toys—even a playhouse! Unfortunately, Max would only sit in my lap while we were out there. : ( However, once we got called back to see the technician and later the doctor, he did great and actually even had fun. However, he did NOT like getting his eyes dilated! And MOM didn’t like waiting in the waiting room for 45 more minutes while the eyes dilated.  Oh well, what do you do?

The doctor said that for children as young as Max, it’s best to work on one issue at a time. So Max needs glasses to handle the vision problems now, and then we will work on the muscle control problems in a couple of months. We will go back in January to see what we need to do about that then.

Our insurance wouldn’t pay for glasses there, so we had to then go to another place to order Max’s glasses.  He chose a pair of thick, blue frames : ) and then he cried because he didn’t get to wear them home!

By the time we went back to get Makenna, it was already after 5 and we were all tired and hungry.  So we went home, ate dinner, and went to bed exhausted!

Thursday: What a BUSY day!  We took Makenna to school (our last LONG drive for a while!).  While she was at school, Max and I went and hung out with our friends Karalee and AJ. We had such a fun morning (although Max was pretty whiney—sorry about that!). First we made a pit stop at the post office, and then we went to play at the library (a new one that we haven’t been to before). Max had so much fun playing games on the computer, playing with the train table, and pushing the button to make the big train go!

 

Next we headed to the park, but it was still too wet to play, so we went and fed the ducks.  I didn’t get pictures of that, but Max really enjoyed it! Thanks for letting us hang out with you, friends!

After we picked up Makenna, we went home for lunch.  No naps today, because friends from our ward brought over their cat for us to cat-sit! The cat’s name is Peanut and we have had so much fun watching her run around and play! The kids won’t really go up to her or touch her (and freak out if she tries to come up to them!), but oh do they love to look at her!

Right after Peanut came, it was time for us to leave to take Makenna to dance class.  While she was in class, Max and I went to pick up his glasses.

How cute is this guy?!?

When they first put his glasses on him, Max looked around everywhere with a big smile on his face! It was awesome! And afterwards, he and I went to the park for a few minutes.  This guy was running and playing like he has never done before! Usually, he sits by me whining to be held, but today he just went away and started playing! I’m loving these glasses!

After we picked Makenna up from class, we headed to McDonald's for a quick dinner.  For some reason, my goofy debit card didn’t work. I didn’t have anything else, so I told them to just cancel our order.  However, as we started to leave, a man called us back. He paid for our food for us! How awesomely nice is that?!? It honestly made me cry! After the kids ate, they played in the playplace for a while.

Max, once again, played like he has never played before.  He was fearless! We are also going to have to go and get his glasses adjusted already because of going down the slide face first! : )

    

While we were having dinner, it started to SNOW! It didn’t stick, but it was still falling! No! I know it’s November already, but I was sure hoping the snow would stay away!

Next we went to see Puss in Boots at the theater.  They were having a special that if you brought in 5 cans of food, you got a free movie ticket to the movie of your choice! So we picked up a case of corn at Costco, and all three of us were able to see the movie for free! Awesome! Thanks for telling us about it, Kristen! Oh and by the way, that is a really CUTE movie! 

At this point, it was already late so it was time to head home for scriptures and bed time!

Friday: Last night we couldn’t help laughing at the cat and his night time antics! Austin said, “Haven’t you ever had a pet before?” Well, no, I haven’t! And it is so funny to me to see all crazy cats do! Honestly, I think she thinks she is a real tiger, ha ha! Anyway, but we all had to sleep with our doors shut to keep the cat out, and that makes Makenna scared and freak out, so she slept with me again last night.  So this morning we all had fun playing on my bed.  I snapped some pictures of the kids.

Makenna said it would be funny to only take pictures with her eyes closed:

But finally I caught her with her eyes open!

Max was SO funny! He makes the funniest expressions that are made even funnier with his glasses on! Oh man, they crack me up!

If my camera wasn’t so blurry, these would be the BEST pictures ever!

We spent our morning this morning playing, following the cat around, doing some chores, etc.

Some how the morning slipped away from us, and it wasn’t until after nap time that we managed to go and get Max’s glasses adjusted.  Afterwards, we went and got ice cream at Coldstone.  As always, thanks Grandma Becky! While we were at Coldstone, we also met up with a photographer who will be taking our family pictures in December! I’m excited—I LOVE family picture time!

Afterwards, we hurried back home because our friends were coming over to play while their parents went to the temple.  I will just say it was an adventurous night and leave it like that. : )

On Saturday I had two classes—”Planning with Children” and “Recall Time”—at the Early Learning Community.  While I was in class, the kids had fun playing in the childcare.  They always have fun playing with the cool toys, doing art projects, reading stories, and singing songs! We also got to have an inside-picnic lunch in between my classes.

During naptime, I attempted to read a book, but I had a little problem:

Ha ha, every time I sit down or try to take a nap or sleep, I have a little friend that tries to distract me! : )

Later, we skyped with Austin and Grandma  Becky, had dinner, and watched a movie.

I’ll go ahead and post now, because tomorrow should be a regular church day with a double baptism afterwards.  A fun time, but not really a picture-filled day! : )