Monday field trips

I'm starting to figure this new part-time preschool/part-time work/full-time stay-at-home mom thing out.  It's busy, but being home with 2 kids is WAY easier than being home with 3 all summer.  Especially since one of those 2 kids still naps every day.  The only down side is, she naps every day.  Which means Ethan and I are here.  At home.  Every.single.afternoon.  I think he's already starting to get bored.  I need to come up with more things for him to do.  Problem is that with 3 kids at home all summer, I got NOTHING done around the house, so now I have a list forever long, and I'm trying to tackle a lot of it each afternoon.  He gets bored  after a while.

But Ethan only goes to school 4 mornings a week.  So that leaves us with 1 day a week we can actually go somewhere.  So Mondays are our field trips days.  Note that Brynn goes to school Tuesday and Thursday mornings, so she's also with us for our Monday excursions.

For whatever reason though, lots of places are closed on Mondays.  Marbles, Museum of Life and Science, etc.  But I want to take advantage of the nice weather while we have it so we can save those indoor excursions for later.

So last Monday we went to the Black Creek Greenway here in Cary.  I rode my bike with Brynn in the bike seat and Ethan rode his bike.  Fortunately the trail is pretty flat, though not quite flat enough in some parts for his little bike with training wheels.  We still had a good time and then hit up the park across from where we parked (Godbold Park).

Yesterday we decided to try new things and new places.  First up - Waffle House.  None of my kids have ever been to Waffle House.  Although I'm a fan, Braden isn't, so we don't ever go.  Ethan wolfed down his waffle, so I'd say he liked it.  Since it wasn't raining and the kids had energy to burn, we tried out a new park.  Method Road Park.  It's a little bit in the ghetto, but the playground is nice and new so it was pretty fun.  Not enough to keep their attention for all that long though.

So next was Walnut Street Park.  Another park less than 10 minutes from our house that we hadn't tried.  This one was way cool.  All kinds of neat climbing structures and spinning things that they loved.  And we went on a short nature hike to look for bugs.

A quick stop to Target for 2 needed things and that concluded our Monday field trip for yesterday.

Week in Phone Photos

Woo hoo!  I took enough pictures in a week for a post! Barely.  Maybe I'll figure out how to get back into blogging.  At least I finally got a haircut/color yesterday for the first time since May 1 (i.e. pre-stay at home mom era).  Goodbye grays!

1. Ethan before his first day of pre-school.  Which, by the way, he LOVES (thanks to the fact that his class is 65% boys so they can do lots of fun boy stuff)
2. Ethan before his t-ball practice (after he got his new t-ball team hat).  They are the "Mudhens" and he is #3.  Go Mudhens!
3. These sunglasses aren't too big, are they?
4. Blythe attended her friend Macey's gymnastics birthday party.  Ta Da!

First day of school

Backdating this baby since I'm so terrible at keeping up with anything these days (yet somehow I find time to aimlessly surf the web looking for awesome things to do while wasting precious moments of time that we could be doing said awesome things....it's a vicious cycle).

Anyhoo, Blythe is now in FIRST GRADE!  That's like, so old.  She has Ms. Rose who is new to the school and literally moved here from Florida the week before school started.  In the picture above is Blythe's neighborhood friend Chambers who started kindergarten this year.  Unfortunately none of Blythe's close friends from last year are in her class, but she makes friends fairly easily.  Still, she doesn't rant and rave about anyone in her class nor does she ask to do anything with any of them after school.  So this might be an "off year" for her.  First grade homework blows.  She has 6 math worksheets per week to get done.  Fortunately, she has no problems with math, so I make her do all six in one sitting so we get that out of the way.  Then she has a minimum of 20 minutes of reading per day and then an assignment about what she just read (so no waiting until bedtime to do the reading).  Nope - supposed to have a "nice, quiet place away from distractions".  Uh...that such place does not exist in my house.  Trust me, I would have found it myself by now if it did.  So we do the best we can. Miraculously Blythe IS learning how to read.  Learning very quickly actually.  Probably has more to do with the 2 hours per day at school she spends on reading than on the 20 minutes per day at home.  But I think we're helping her.  Maybe.  But it's not like I can tell her, "okay, go read for 20 minutes".  No - either Braden or I have to be right next to her helping her through it. But it will pay off (right?) because someday soon she'll be able to read her own homework assignments and work through them with just a little help.

Ethan LOVES school.  His class is made up of 6 girls and 10 boys.  Finally he can play cars and ride bikes and scooters, etc with other boys!  He's in heaven!  And he quickly made a best friend who has been to our house after school and Ethan has been to his house.  His mom has helped me a lot actually which I am very grateful for.  Unfortunately they just moved here over the summer and they don't know yet if this is a temporary move or a permanent one.  I'm hoping permanent, but we shall see.  Ethan goes to school Tuesday through Friday from 9:30-12:30.  When they get out of school, they run around on the grass outside of school for 30-45 minutes while the moms get a bit of social time.  On the 3 days each week that Ethan doesn't have school, he asks me if he can go to school.  I'm so happy he loves school.

Brynn is indifferent about school.  She goes only Tuesday and Thursday from 9:30-12:30.  She doesn't complain about school, but doesn't talk much about it either.  She never talks about any of the kids in her class, but she does sing the songs she is learning.  She talks A LOT about Benny (Ethan's new best friend).  She is in love with Benny.  "Benny hold my hand today" she'll say.  "I go to Benny house" "I ride in Benny car". Etc etc.  It's very cute actually.

Aren't my kids beautiful?

Fun with photo booth!