Leaving the Nest......well, sort of.

Yesterday my 2 babies started preschool. Now mind you, these are the same 2 babies that have NEVER been left with a babysitter that wasn't a close family member. I think that I was more nervous than they were. One reason is that Jack just got a series of shots the day before.

We had been talking up "school" for a while. We had new backpacks and lunch boxes. Very exciting for a 2 1/2 year old little girl. Not so exciting for a 1 1/2 year old boy.

Of course on this particular morning they decided to sleep in. Okay, every other day they are up about 7:30. It never fails, if something is planned for the morning they decide to hybernate. We needed to be at school by 9. They wake up at 8:15.
When we got there we had to go into the office to find out where the classes were. Not good, there were phones in the office. Jack is OBSESSED with phones. Especially office phones with lots of buttons. He wanted them, couldn't get them, started screaming. Wow, this is a great start!

I dropped Jack off first. He wasn't quite sure about what was going on. Thank goodness he knew 2 kids in his class.

Hannah was a trooper. All she said was food and pointed to her backpack. We got her juice out and she was fine.
Boy was this house empty when I got home. Not that I didn't take full advantage of time to myself.

When I picked them up Hannah was still asleep so I went to Jack's class. I was a little nervous to find out how he did.

Me: So, how did Jack do?
Teacher: He did pretty good considering it was his first day.
Me: So it wasn't that hard on you guys?
Teacher: Well, he does get into a lot of things like the garbage can, the wipees and he likes to climb.
Me: (thinking of saying Gee, he doesn't do that at home, but knowing that we ARE in a church) Yeah, that can get kind of hard.
Teacher: Don't worry, he'll get better.

Hannah was still asleep. Instead of sleeping on her mat, only her head was on it. Kinda like a giant pillow. Apparently she did amazingly well. She played with other kids and ate a great lunch. Oh yeah, Jack didn't eat his lunch. The only thing he like were some dehydrated peas that none of the other kids liked. Go figure.

Now, I'd like to think that I am this awesome organized mom who always takes the perfect pictures but let's be realistic. I didn't take any pictures when I dropped them off because we were ALL frazzled. I did, however, manage a couple as we were leaving. Hence Hannah's 'I just woke up look'.

I guess she liked it because this morning she brought me her ack-ack (backpack) and I asked her if she wanted to go to school and she said Uh-HUH. Now I've got to figure out how to tell her it's only Tuesday and Thursday. Jack, well, he's not so excited. When asked if he wanted to go back to school he said Uh-uh.

Random Things

I was looking through the pictures on my camera today and decided to post some of the kiddos. Some of my favorite ones are the ones of Jack getting caught where he is not suppose to be. Guess you can figure out which one those are.
Hannah in her version of dress up are cute too. The ones with the sunglasses are what happens when I tell her to get her things together so we can go bye-bye. There are also some cute ones of the girls. Somehow pictues of them just seem to materialize on my camera when I'm away.
Hannah loves Murphy. Or is it loves to torment Murphy? I wish I could have gotten one today of Hannah trying to give Murphy some reindeer antlers. She found a stick that resembled horns and was trying to impale them into Murphy's head. Guess we've seen the Grinch one too many times. Murphy is a trooper though. He never snaps at them.
For some reason the kitchen is a kiddo magnant. They LOVE to play in the kitchen. Especially while I am cooking or cleaning up. I just had to take a picture of Hannah's block tower that she made. Again, it's in the kitchen. I am amazed that I have not tripped over some toy and broken my neck.
It's all fun though!

Just A Normal Day

Did I every mention just how much my babies love dum-dums? Well, they LOVE them. For Halloween I bought a 5 pound bag of them. The other day I walked into the room and Hannah had opened at least 20 of them until she found the flavor that she wanted. Well, today they each had a sucker and we went outside to play. Do I even have to tell you what a kid and a sucker look like after playing in the sand box???

That just started the day. I got them in, cleaned them up and went into the kitchen to make lunch. Jack was with me and I THOUGHT Hannah was just playing in the playroom. Well.....this is what I walked in to. Hannah had a dark brown marker and had covered her arms and some of her face. I will give her credit, she didn't get any on her clothes!

She amazes me everyday. Monday we were grocery shopping. Before we left she had picked a piece of candy out of her pumpkin to take with us. It was gum! I told her that it was gum and she couldn't have it because she couldn't swallow gum and she just wasn't old enough. Well, we get into the store and start shopping. I look at her and she is chewing on something. I ask her what is in her mouth and she opens it and there is that darn gum! Now, mind you, it has been about a hour since she had it. I told her that when she was finished to tell Mommy so I could throw it away. About 5 minutes later she opened her mouth and pointed to the gum. She was done! What a big girl!!!

Jack is my little "helper". He will stand on the dishwasher door and help me unload the dishwasher. Yep, he doesn't care if they are clean, dirty, breakable or whatever he just throws them either in the sink, on the counter or on the floor. He also helps me dust the hanging light above the breakfast table. Yep, he climbs onto the table and will just spin that light fixture so that all the dust just flies off. Today, he wanted to surprise me by cleaning my toilet. He wanted to get it extra clean, so he used MY TOOTHBRUSH!!!! What a little helper!

On the bright side, he is funny and loveable. He and Hannah are actually starting to play together. She didn't even get mad when he wanted to wear part of her Halloween costume.

Pumpkin Time

Okay, this really should have been the first post, but with all the craziness in our home sometimes things don't always work out like they should. My mom's group had a playdate at the pumpkin patch. Our pumpkin patch is actually at our farmer's market. It was HOT on this particular day. I dressed the kids in their halloween shirts and off we went. Thanks goodness Bethany went with us or I don't know what I would have done. There was a hay maze that was soooo narrow, no stroller could go through it. Hannah was freaked out by the scarecrows, but did like the chickens in the pen. Jack just liked it all. Did I mention it was HOT!!!! We had kids running everywhere. I do think that the kids had fun and that's all that counts!

Donny and I carved the pumpkins, way too early, I might add. Jack and Hannah thought that the insides were "Yuck". (Hannah's words) They did like them after they were carved and lit. Poor pumpkins. We put them on our porch and because the weather has been so warm, they dissolved. Now that was "yuck".

Halloween

I have always loved Halloween. This year the kids and I went to Sorority Row to start our early trick or treating. All week long, we have been practicing with Hannah on what to. She was so excited about going house to house, being able to knock on the door and actually get candy. She would walk around saying "Knock, knock. Trick or treat."

Well, of course the day started off a little rocky. Hannah had speech. She loves to go see Miss Shannon. She will hop out of the stroller, take her hand and just wave bye over her shoulder. Jack is now starting to feel slighted. HE wants to go in the room and play with all the great toys and now, because he can't, he has started to throw major fits. Let's see, we had several at speech. One great big one when we went to pick Bee up from school so she could fly to Dallas for the weekend, and one at home.

For being so tired he only took an hour nap. Uh-oh!

Finally the time came to wake up get dressed and start the fun. We met some friends at SR. Donny was still at work, so it was just me handling the kids. Hannah LOVED it. She thought it was so cool to go up to the houses with all the girls outside dressed up, making a fuss over her, and get candy. Jack thought it was fun too, but he liked walking into the houses. That seemed to set the theme for the whole night. We went to about 6 of the houses and then I decided that was enough for me. Although I would like to say a HUGE thanks to Ashley and her husband for helping me corral the kids.

So home we went. Donny was getting off work early. We were going to head to Brothers Blvd. in College Station. That is a very fun street. All of the homes go all out on decorating. It's very busy, however, and sometimes hard to get to the actual house.

Drving home I went down our street. There were kids out and it looked like an old fashioned Halloween. We decided to just do our neighborhood.

We live in the oldest neighborhood in Bryan. Some of the houses date back to the very early 1900's. I told Donny, as we were walking with the kids in the wagon, that this is what Halloween should be. People were out on their porches with their Jackolanters lit. It was so, for lack of a better work, quaint. It reminded me of what trick or treating in the 50's would have been like. Neighbors were friendly and we stopped and talked at every house. Hannah and Jack would run to the front door and Jack would try to get into the house once the door opened. Yes, in some he actually made it in. Hannah didn't want to stop. She was a beautiful Butterfly Princess. Did I mention she was just a butterfly for the Allen Festival and Sleeping Beauty for speech. Jack was a handsome Superman. He was "Jungle Jack" for speech.

Halloween was a HUGE success! We met more neighbors, the kids had so much fun, and above all, we got to spend quality family time together. We took baths w/suckers in our mouths and pulled out ALL the candy to see our loot. I don't think the kids have ever seen so much candy in one place before. I tried to get some good pictures of them but the candy ruled out. I hope everyone had a great Halloween!