Blogger Police

The blogger police contacted me to inform me that I had not posted since July 17. I guess you could say Facebook has really taken over. Here is the latest in our lives:

Lauren started KG on her 5th birthday last Monday. She loves it just like I knew she would. She has a fabulous teacher and I do my best not to go by the Kindergarten "pod" just to see what Lauren is doing. I can't wait for her class to start their reading skills because Lauren is already reading basic 3 letter words as well as sounding them out to write them. Makes this Momma proud. Don't get me wrong, I do not want a genius! No, no, no. I just don't want her to struggle to understand when new concepts are being taught. My mom worked with me and I want to hand that down to my children. We do not sit and have lessons at home. We make it fun. We have tons of different alphabet letters such as the Word Whammers that go on the fridge. We have lots and lots of puzzles and we play a lot of educational games on the computer. Add to that all the educational TV shows and not only does Lauren know all her letters and their sounds, but Caleb does too and he is 3. Abby counts up to about 15. After that is hard to understand but it is just precious. She is 20 months old.

With the start of school came my return to work but only half days! What a difference it makes. I love my job and have always wondered what would happen if I did get to stay home full time. I would take a big risk in there not being an ESL position available when I'd return to work. Now I get to work in the mornings and be home in the afternoons. Don't be fooled though. Afternoons are short! I get home...feed Caleb and Abby lunch, get it cleaned up, and put them down for their naps so they have a decent nap before we have to leave to pick Lauren up. During the kids' naps, my goal is to get some serious housecleaning done but I have to admit that I've given into naps a few times. But I do get more housework done than before and so I think I'll get there eventually. Before my nap today, I forced myself to pick up 100 things that were out of place. Before you gasp at the thought of 100 things being out of place, keep in mind all the kids' toys, hair bows, a piece of trash on the floor, a washcloth that needs to go in the dirty clothes hamper, etc... If I can do that every day, I should have an immaculate house in..........say..........17 years when Abby is in college! Baby steps, right?

Stephen officially began his new full-time position at TAMU on Sept. 1. He loves his job, loves what he does, and he was lucky enough that they let him set his hours around our needs to be home with the kids. So he works 12-9 M-F and is still taking classes online plus his video business! One day our lives will slow down just a bit.

One day!

What else? We are building a patio cover...just in time for cooler weather. A friend of ours is building it on the weekends and he promises it will be done before our first cookout on Sept. 12.