I actually took some pictures!!!

Yesterday we went to the library for the preschool program “Shake, Rattle, and Roll.” I ACTUALLY TOOK PICTURES WHILE WE WERE THERE!!! Can you believe it? Ha ha. They are just with my phone, so they aren’t the best pictures. But I can now actually prove my kids get to do fun things every once in a while, despite me being sick! : D

(I didn’t get too many good pictures of Max because he was too busy jumping around and shaking his booty!)

Too bad this picture is blurry; it would have been really cute!

Towards the end of the program, Max stole my phone and decided to take goofy pictures of himself:

We have arranged our school schedule so we can go to the library on Tuesdays for the preschool programs or storytimes, so maybe I will start taking more pictures again. : D

Here are a few other, random pictures.

I just loved this snapshot of this handsome man. It wasn’t for any particular occasion, but it sure was cute:

The girls in our family have been trying to get in better shape. Makenna and I have been doing pregnancy Pilates (ha ha, they may be pregnancy but Makenna LOVES them!) a few times a week. (By the way, Max could exercise with us too, and he sometimes starts with us, but he doesn’t stay with it for more than a couple of minutes.) Makenna has also been practicing her stretching for dance class. She is not very limber yet, but I am so impressed that she—on her own—practices and works at it every single day.

Max broke his glasses for the millionth time recently. Unfortunately this time the glasses couldn’t be fixed. He had to go without glasses for about a week until we were finally able to get him into the eye doctor. It was his first visit with this new eye doctor (remember the insurance change? We had to change all our doctors—including his eye doctor). The visit went pretty good. Max’s vision is actually a little bit worse, so he had to get a higher prescription in his glasses. We also have to continue patching until his vision is perfected while wearing his glasses. After he reaches perfect vision with glasses, we will see if his eye still crosses. If it does, then he will have to have the surgery to correct. So I guess we will see—I just hate he has to continue to patch. We have patched for over a year now and he HATES it and still throws a fit about it every morning. : ( After his appointment, Max picked out new glasses. The lady who was helping him put a pair of thick sports glasses on him and told him they were Super Hero glasses—well that was that! He refused to try on anything else—he wanted Super Hero glasses! I definitely don’t love this style and I think it takes up his whole face, but he loves them so I guess that is all that matters! (By the way, Austin thinks these glasses are hilarious and he really likes them as well. It must be a boy thing!)

Things are improving with my pregnancy I think. I am still on my medication and I still throw up at least once a day, but at least it is not ALL day throwing up. I still feel pretty queasy and sick most of the time, but I am functioning pretty well I think. Austin is still in charge of cooking meals when he is home and cleaning the kitchen and dining room because I still get sick from kitchen smells and food. But I have taken back over most of my chores (I just don’t do them as much and as well as I used to!). We are also getting out of the house more. I have been taking the kids to the library, Play and Learns, and to Makenna’s dance class on Tuesdays. I also decided to fit our four day school week into three days so we can go to playgroup on Thursdays. I can’t handle grocery shopping on my own still, but I can walk into the grocery store and go with Austin and the kids on the weekends. I can go to church on Sunday but I still don’t attend all of Sunday School because of all the different odors from people in a tighter space. Anyway, so things are still not great yet, but I am definitely better than what I was.

The baby is also definitely growing because I am definitely looking super pregnant already! I am only 19 weeks but good grief do I have a big tummy!

(Another picture I took for my sister)

My tummy is already so big Makenna said to me, “Hey, Mom—the baby must be going to be born tomorrow because your tummy is already REALLY big!” I can always count on Makenna to tell me how it is! Most people are also shocked that I am only 19 weeks—I definitely look farther along!

Austin’s doing well I think. I have to brag on the man—he is dropping weight like a crazy person! Pretty soon he is honestly going to be smaller than I am! His clothes are just hanging off of him and mine are getting tighter--I think we need to switch clothes, ha ha. He is back on a podiatry rotation this month, which he enjoys. I have to admit I don’t like it quite as well because he gets home later in the evenings, but I guess I should just get used to!

And that is that!

More Random Updates

Makenna said the other day, “Mom, why don’t you take pictures of us anymore?!?”  Well, it’s cause Mom, quite frankly, doesn’t feel like it! : ) I barely feel well enough to do things with them, so pictures aren’t necessarily first on my to do list! But here are the few we’ve taken since last update:

One day we met some friends from the ward at a local farm (the same farm we went to last year for Makenna’s Preschool field trip). We quickly saw the animals and then the kids spent the majority of their time playing on some old tractors.

Makenna cracks herself up. She pulled some leaves and put it on her chin and said she had a beard. She and Max thought this was HILARIOUS! I think they are pretty goofy! ; )

With the school year starting back up, Makenna is thrilled to also be starting back to dance class. This girl LOVES her dance and was literally counting down the days until she could start back!

I am now an aunt again! My sister just had her second baby last week. He is a cutie pie little boy and they named him Kayson Joel. We can’t wait until we can go visit Alabama and see this little guy!

The weather is quickly turning chilly here in Michigan! Unfortunately our kids outgrew ALL their cold weather clothes from last year (okay, to be honest Makenna still had a pair of pants that fit and Max had two pairs of pants and a sweatshirt… but doesn’t that just prove they don’t have any clothes?!?). We went to the outlets to try to find some clothes for the kids. Things were crazy expensive so we only picked up a few things and are making do with them. Makenna tried on a pair of PJ pants we bought her. They are HUGE on her and she made us laugh when she tried them on.

Oh funny, funny girl!

School is going well I think. Max is starting to do a little better. He really likes counting. : ) Makenna is a little sponge and quickly picks up everything I attempt to teach her. Last week we tried reading simple sentences for the first time. She did so great I had to video tape her!

Reading

My mom says I do not post enough videos of Max. So when I saw him practicing t-ball the other day I took a couple of videos of him. He LOVES playing t-ball. He spends hours putting the ball on the tee, hitting it, running to get it, and then starting all over again. The video is pretty short so I will post two of them. I think it shows how hard he can hit!

T-ball

Tball 2

And that’s that!

Random

I have a few, random pictures that I wanted to blog but they didn’t really have a “theme” to qualify them for their own blog post. So here comes another “random” post (and if you follow me on Facebook, you have probably seen many of these)!

My sister is having her baby next week. A week or so ago Makenna asked me to ask my sister for a picture of her tummy—Makenna wanted  to see what a tummy looks like when it is almost time for a baby to be born. She sent me a picture and was complaining that she looked big. I told her she hasn’t seen BIG because she hasn’t seen ME pregnant! I get absolutely enormous! In fact, I am ALREADY very large for my due date! So I sent her a picture of myself. Well, in taking this picture I realized how RIDICULOUS my tan lines are! I have to post this picture on the blog as just a permanent laugh at myself. NO one gets raccoon eyes like I do! : )

In fact, looking at this picture reminds me of my pictures when Max was born:

Yup, I am definitely the raccoon eyes queen! But seriously, you have to wear sunglasses in the sun! So how do people avoid raccoon eyes?!?

My next photo is of Maxie. One night I told the kids to go and put on pjs. There was a lot of giggling going on back in the bedrooms and soon I could see why!

Umm, Max, that would be Makenna’s nightgown… NOT your pjs! We definitely need Daddy home more to toughen this boy up! : D

A few weeks ago our ward had its annual ward picnic. Austin was working a 24 hour shift so he was unable to come, but the kids and I went and had a good time. There wasn’t much I could eat (I still can’t handle meat so picnic food is not my best), but the kids ate until they were stuffed. Then the kids went to play while I sat in the shade and enjoyed the beautiful day (I’ve said it before and I will say it again—being outside helps me with my sickness more than anything else!).

Makenna, as always, had a lot of fun playing with her friends. She also spent quite a bit of time swinging. I am the mean mom who refuses to push my kids on the swing, so both kids have learned how to “pump” their legs and swing themselves. They are GREAT swingers now! : )

Max makes me a little sad at things like this. He doesn’t play with anyone—he just roams around on his own. Max plays GREAT with Makenna, but not so great with other children. I’m not sure why that it is and it bums me out a little to see him always by himself. However, I think he still had a fun time! He collected and played with acorns a lot. Towards the end he played in the sand with a little spoon he found. At least he is pretty good at finding things to amuse himself!

They also had face painting at the picnic. Max got a caterpillar painted on his arm:

And Makenna got a butterfly:

Last week the weather was cooler so I took the kiddos to the zoo (once again, send me outside!). We stayed about two hours until the kids got tired. It was actually a bit much for sick mom—I felt pretty light headed and dizzy and all around horrible by the end—but we had a pretty good day.

We watched a polar bear swim for a little while and then he climbed out of the water and walked away. It’s always awesome to watch the polar bear when he is that close to you!

Because our insurance changed, we had to change the kids’ pediatrician. We FINALLY took Max for his 3 year check up yesterday (you know, because he turned three in JUNE!). This new pediatrician wanted Max to put on a hospital gown before the check up. They found a green one for him and I put it on him. I thought he looked ADORABLE!

A few seconds later Makenna says, “Mom, Max looks sad.” I look over and as soon as I do, he bursts into tears! This sweet boy was MORTIFIED to have to remove his clothes and wear a hospital gown! Poor baby just cried and cried. He said he just wanted his clothes back! The visit went fairly well and we really liked our new pediatrician. Max is a perfectly healthy little boy and is in the 50 percentile for both height and weight. However, he was so upset about the gown he refused to speak to the doctor the whole entire time we were there! : ) Our trip to the pediatrician was also successful because we got a referral for Max to start seeing a new eye doctor (once again the change in insurance is causing us to change doctors), and we also set up an appointment to reevaluate his speech now that he is three (he has a HUGE vocabulary but still mispronounces his words. At his last evaluation they said he is perfectly on track for pronunciation, but now that he is three we want to reevaluate and make sure he is still on track).

And that’s it! I think I am now all caught up with the random pictures I had left!

Everything is still going okay for all of us. School is going pretty well. Makenna is upset because she doesn’t get to have school with her friends, and Max still doesn’t really like working, but what do you do? Austin is still working ALL THE TIME! This month he is on internal medicine and he works 6am-7pm (ish) for two days, then on the third day he goes in at noon and gets off at noon on the fourth day. Then the next day (the fifth day basically) he starts the rotation all over again. So he doesn’t get weekends or days off or anything so that is tough for him and I know he is tired. I may be getting better. I still have sick moments most days but it’s not all day sick any more. I am also having quite a bit of other symptoms now—back pain, headaches, etc. but I will talk to the doctor about those next appointment.

The End.

Back to School

Last year Makenna did a joy school preschool with four other kids, while Max just did some crafty projects at home with me. This year Makenna’s school friends all started kindergarten or “real” preschool, so I decided to do my own homeschool preschool with my kids. I used to do it with Makenna when she was younger (and, hello!, I used to teach elementary AND I worked at a preschool), so I thought it would work out well for us.

Makenna and Max are on TOTALLY different levels when it comes to school, so we are doing two different programs with them. Both programs come from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Max is doing the Letter of the Week curriculum, while Makenna is doing the K4 curriculum (which is basically kindergarten for 4 year olds). I originally thought I would take turns with their school—Max on Monday, Makenna on Wednesday, etc.—but that didn’t work well, so now I am doing both of them at the same time.

We started back to school last Tuesday. The kids were so excited to start school that they didn’t sleep well on Monday and were up at 6am on Tuesday! I have to admit I was pretty excited too, but it made it hard to teach school when I was tired and feeling sick from all this morning sickness business. But school we did!

Like I said, I originally started out just doing school with one kid at a time. That lasted all of one day… but on Tuesday Max had school by himself. What did Makenna do?

She spent her time playing educational games on my iPad. However, she ended up getting pretty bored after a few minutes so that’s why I decided that would just not work! But that’s what we did the first day.

Max did pretty okay the first day. I tried to make his activities more active and fun and like playtime. However, he complained quite a bit about everything and rushed through it all. This boy is just not a fan of school work! Here are some pictures of him “hard” at “work.”

This was his favorite activity. I put numbers out on the floor and would yell a number and he had to find the number (he counted apples on the trees to find the correct number) and run it back to me as fast as he could. He hated the counting, but loved the running.

We finished the day by doing a group project—decorating binder covers for their ABC books.

The first day ended and I was pretty disappointed with it all. Makenna was bored. Max didn’t want to do school and rushed through everything. Even after repeatedly discussing the letter A, he was still calling it other letters and couldn’t tell me its sound. I felt sick and pretty miserable and was getting a migraine. I wasn’t sure if I could do it anymore!

However, day 2 went much better and set up a precedent for our school schedule. We now start each school day with our group time. We go over the calendar, seasons, weather, and a few songs. Then the kids each go to their individual tables and start their school work. Makenna’s school work is harder and more time intensive, but Max’s ends up taking just as long because he complains so much about doing it. Whoever finishes their work first (which has been Makenna so far because Max is so upset about having to do anything) gets to play games on the ipad until both are finished. We finish our day with books and then another group activity (play dough, craft, wii game, etc.). School has been lasting from a hour and a half to two hours, depending on how long they want to continue doing their group activity.

After a full week of school, I think we have things mostly figured out. The schedule seems to be working out well. I have decided to do school on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Tuesday we will do story time at the library and start going back to our Play and Learns in the afternoon. So I am all set with our scheduling. Makenna is doing great with school. She loves the activities and is so smart and really is a “joy to teach” (as comments from teachers on report cards always say!). Max, well, he is a struggle. We will keep working with him, and hopefully he will start learning something soon, ha ha. : )