Back To School {3 hours of Quiet!}

As of today, the girls have been back to school for a full week. Thankfully we have all slipped back into the familiar routines fairly quickly and painlessly. 

Bailey is now in 1st grade. She was the most excited and ready for school. And if her pose doesn't already spell it out, she had zero hesitation about jumping into a new school year.

Avery was okay with the idea, but not overly excited about it. 

{Hence that over-done forced smile.}

Avery has the same teacher that Bailey had last year, so Bailey had been giving her all kinds of "tips" about what to expect in kindergarten. 

Sometimes it really pays to have a big sister.

I tried to get Avery to contain her enthusiasm, but she just couldn't manage it...

*insert laughing with tears emoji here*

And man, I just can't believe it, but our BABY(!) started school this year too.

Graham already loves school, and proudly shows off his Paw Patrol bookbag to everyone he sees while walking through the halls.

Wasn't it just yesterday that we were taking this exact same photos on Bailey's first day of preschool?

That first morning, after preschool was over, I stood waiting for him in the school entryway at pick-up time, and he ran up to me for a big hug, telling me immediately, "I had the BEST day!"
Music to every parent's ears.

So with Graham off to school four mornings a week, I'm left with almost three hours of silence. And while I've actually only really had one morning so far, it was amazing. Just amazing.

My goal with my newly found "free time" is to accomplish things and get them out of the way so that I don't need to worry about doing them when I can be spending time with the kids or Jared. So like doing laundry without a kid helping me put in each and every single piece of clothing in separately (and slowly). Or scrubbing the floor and enjoying the two hours it stays clean. Ya know, truly exciting mom things like that. 

the Solkos in September

Ya know, I thought that once school started, I was going to feel like I had a tiny bit more free time, especially on days with both girls in class.

I thought I might be able to get some exercising in with Graham on those two days a week when both girls are in school.

I pictured myself accomplishing all kinds of tasks. 

I imagined I might even have time to blog or do something I enjoy while Graham played quietly.

The reality?

Nope, not so much.

For one, on the days when both girls are in school, it has rained every single day - with the exception of one. Pretty hard to go on a bike ride or long stroller trek in a constant downpour. 

And two, this school drop-off stuff is basically a pain in my ass. 

Like today: I get all three kids ready, loaded in the car just to get to the school and unload all three just for one child to actually go to school. Then I shepherd the other two back outside (after Graham and/or Avery has thrown a fit because they want to stay and play), load them in the car just to drive back home and unload them again. Then I do it all again 2.5 hours later. 

And while this might not sound like much, if you have ever tried to get my wiggly terror of a 22 month-old into his car seat, you know what I am talking about. 

Completely trying to your patience.

And I get to do it 4 times in one morning. 

Both girls love school though. Their clothes are always picked out the night before and given a lot of thought. Lately Bailey has quite the obsession with headbands, scarves, and her black maxi skirt. 

Meanwhile Avery has been a tad bit addicted to her cowboy boots. In her world they work with every outfit.

Jeans? Naturally.

Gym shorts? Of course.

Easter dress? Why not?

And then there is the G Man.

I want to go on record at this point and state just how much more cooperative my girls were at this age. There weren't temper tantrums or the word "NO!" on constant repeat throughout the day. He is less verbal than his sisters were at this age, so maybe that is his issue. Whatever the reason, he is an absolute terror some days. 

A cute terror.

But still a terror.

And believe me, he has the sucking up, give-Mom-an-I'm-sorry-kiss part down pat.

Other stuff in our world...

Redecorating.

We have been checking out garage sales and household auctions for a couple years on the lookout for a buffet/sideboard for our dining room. We wanted one that needed some TLC (ie: minimal cost) that we could re-do on the cheap. It took a while but Jared finally scored one. 

The "before" shot

The price was very, very right due to it being cold and rainy at an outdoor auction on a random Friday night. Since then Jared has refinished/painted it, and I have been picky about exactly what I want on it. It needs one more final touch and I will be ready to show off our upcycled find. 

Also at that same auction, Jared scored another cheap find - a dresser for the girls' room. We installed new carpet in their room along with assembling new bunk beds. The room looks totally different now and much more grown-up with room to play. I will be taking some pictures soon to share.

Also on my to-do list: switching up Graham's room. 

He is still in a crib at the moment but has made it clear he wants his own bed. (He has done this by trying to nap in Avery's bed every day.) While I am not exactly looking forward to giving up the comfort of knowing he is safely imprisoned in his crib, it is probably time. I want to repaint the room (yep, officially tired of nursery-room-neutral green) and he still needs a duvet/comforter. And since we already have Avery's old bed to use, once the bedding is obtained, we are in business. Right now his room is a total mishmosh of random stuff that I don't particularly love, so I am excited to give it some purpose and make it a fun room for a little boy.

Trying to keep my shit together.

Today I took 30 minutes to put months and months worth of photos in the kids' albums - a job I have put off for at least 2 weeks. I could see Graham and Avery in the next room; they were playing decently with a huge mountain of toys. I finish what I am doing and walk in the room. A box of 8 crayons is laying on the floor completely empty. Tucker had chewed all of them and currently we now have large spots of red and black (it couldn't have been yellow?!) crayon melted and ground into the light beige carpet. 

Where is the rumchata when my coffee needs it?

Other randoms lately.

A weekend trip to Omaha.

A new roof for our house very soon.

Looking for a new church.

Etsy orders.

Trying to squeeze in a workout every day.

Planning a week-long vacation to Colorado in about 2 weeks.

That last little item is what is motivating both Jared and me lately. A switch from our normal routine is going to be an extremely welcome change! As will a house in the mountains with an included hot tub. Oh hot tub, how I am looking forward to you... Come on, October!

First day of preschool x 2

Today marked the first day of the school year - well, for preschoolers at least.

Which means it was Avery's first day of school ever. 

We bought school supplies a couple of weeks back and visited the girls' classrooms last week, but it was all very real this morning as Avery slid her Hello Kitty backpack over her shoulders and sashayed around with the importance of a 3 year-old about to do really impressive things. {Like painting with actual paint and sitting properly on alphabet-themed carpet.}

It was raining pretty heavily out all morning, so we didn't get the traditional on-the-stoop and in-front-of-the-school photos. We did a pretty rushed and overly unamazing in-front-of-the-lockers photo though.

Along with these other gems.

 And one of Avery giving the steal sign for the Yankees...?

Bailey was excited for school. She has been counting down the days all week. She bounced into her classroom and got into the swing of things in no time.
Doesn't she look so grown up standing there?!
(Please allow me this one where did my baby go?! moment.)

Avery is usually our slow-to-warm-up child. {She didn't let her own grandfather hold her without screaming until she was 11 months old.} We weren't entirely sure how it was all going to go down. Thankfully for all of us she took a seat next to my friend Holly's daughter and just started coloring. 
That easy.

She wasn't timid at all and seemed already at ease in the classroom. 
We said our goodbyes and drug her brother out of the room. He had already taken a seat at the table and helped himself to some markers and a picture of a school bus.

Speaking of Graham, he didn't mind his sisters' absence one bit. 
It's amazing how much quieter it is with only one child - especially one child that doesn't say more than one or two words at a time. 
Not surprisingly he put one of his favorite words to use: cookie.
And since it was just Mama and Graham, I obliged.

We spent almost 3 exciting hours by ourselves, playing cars, doing dishes, running errands. Okay, so I lied - not exciting in the least, but there was no yelling or pinching or fighting over a jump rope, so it was a morning of luxury. 

Graham and I went to pick up the girls when school was over, and while he didn't miss them at home, he ran to greet them down the hallway like an airport scene straight out of a cheesy romantic comedy. Both Bailey and Avery ran to greet us and were excitedly telling us all sorts of preschool-ish details.
Avery's teacher even approached me to say, "I just LOVE her. She was singing and dancing and entertaining everyone." 

Which is great, because Avery is not Bailey's twin when it comes to rule-following and showing self-restraint. To put it mildly, Avery is our spitfire. Apparently Avery's teacher wanted to reassure me that our sometimes little hellion was in fact a sweet, entertaining little girl today. **Fingers crossed that it wasn't a one-time fluke**

And after an early start to a morning full of exciting new things, everyone was in bed (and actually asleep) early tonight. 
Hooray for peace and quiet!

1st Day of Preschool

Our little 3 year-old is off to school!

And from this picture you might assume that she was super excited to pose for the mandatory first day of school photo.
You would be dead wrong.
There were tears and pouting, and I basically had to threaten her to even get her to look at the camera. Thankfully she shaped up and showed her true enthusiasm at being able to escape the house (and me) and go play with her friends at school.

Photobombed!

this seriously cracked me up.

 

We headed to school and Avery was more than willing to help Bailey pose for pictures.

 

 

We walked into the building, and Bailey rushed toward her classroom. She threw off her backpack, sat down at the table, picked out a puzzle, and she was set. She gave me a kiss goodbye and didn't even so much as glance in my direction as I left.

No hesitation to get involved.

No anxiety over me leaving.

No worry at all.

 

Avery was another story.

She smiled, sat down at the table beside Bailey, and told me, "I play school, Mom."

No, sorry Avery.

Crying ensued and shoes went flying when I picked her up to go.

"I need my sister!" she screamed pitifully as I forced her to leave.

She cried and cried all the way to the car.

 

Geez, a whole three hours apart. How will they ever survive?!

 

Pinned it, Did it

For a little while now I have been telling myself I need to get motivated and start making little preschooler activities for my kids. True, Bailey will be going to preschool in about a month, but both girls could benefit from some learning activities - and all the better if they feel like a fun game.

Honestly I hadn't even started collecting ideas, let alone made anything. Yesterday I happened to see a friend's Pinterest pin to her preschool board and earlier I had read a friend's blog post about all the things she is doing to start homeschooling her preschool age daughter. Both these things combined were enough to finally motivate me.

I hardly ever use Pinterest. To me it seems like almost all the people just pin a bunch of crap that looks awesome but they will never follow through on. So my thought is Why waste all the time pinning it then?
But it turns out I have a ton of friends that are either teachers or have kids my age, and all these people are pinning sweet project ideas. So basically everybody already did the hard work for me. I am not going for labor intense stuff. I just want a few things that are cheap to make but effective in helping my kids learn.

So here is my first attempt.

Alphabet Car Game

It was pretty freakin' simple.
I am not crafty, and it didn't even take me 45 minutes to complete this from start to finish.

The main thing is to use a circle cutter. You can get one for under 10 bucks.

{Martha Stewart circle cutter}

Life Saver.
I would still be sitting at my table cutting out circles if I had traced them out and used a pair of scissors.
I used the 2 inch setting and it worked like a charm.
On the circles you write each letter of the alphabet, in both capital and lowercase - 52 in all.
(Seriously, who in their right mind would trace and cut out all those things?!)
I used card stock for everything because I wanted it to be stronger than regular construction paper.

You can decorate the car however you wish. Mine doesn't look all that car-like, but it works for 2 and 3 year-olds! Trace around where the tires go so that the kids know where to place the circles. And while you're at it, you can also throw in a sun and a sweet cloud like mine.

Here is my end result:

 

Original Pinterest product:

original source

 

It turned out pretty close. And since I essentially copied this person because I don't have a creative bone in my body, that makes sense.

From the above website, there are also other games that can be made using the same alphabet circles, many of which are good for older kids to practice building 3 and 4-letter words.


Today was the big test: 

would the girls like it

OR

did I waste a perfectly good 45 minutes of sleep making this crap?

 

Well, turns out they LOVED it.

Both girls (ages 2 and 3) played with it for over 30 minutes.

I set out 5 letter sets (lowercase and capital) at once on the table. I asked Bailey to find a letter, and she would pick out both the capital and lowercase. It was helpful for me to see which letters she still has trouble recognizing. She got all the capital letters, but was off on about 1/3 of the lowercase. After both letters were on the car, we talked about the sound that letter made and what words started with that letter.

Then I repeated the process with Avery. I used the same letters that I used with Bailey. Since she is younger, it was helpful for her to watch Bailey first. She did really well and surprised me with how many of the lowercase letters she knew. She seems to be close to Bailey's level actually. I got through the entire alphabet with Bailey, and then Avery quit with 2 letters left.
Overall I was extremely pleased with their attention span.
I am pretty sure it was a record.
Both girls thanked me for "playing a game" with them and asked if we could play the game tomorrow too. I call that a success.

I think if this activity were going to be used a lot, it might be a good idea to laminate the pieces. My little thumb sucker kept trying to grab the circles, so it was basically a game of keep away and don't-suck-your-thumb lecturing. (And we learned the alphabet, too!)