Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Back with the pictures as promised


My handsome boys before their first day of school this year.


JoNo is going into first grade.


NattyNu will be in fourth grade.


Silly faces at the bus stop. Hoping to get some silliness going this morning to put them in a good mood for school. They were already pretty excited.


Here comes the bus, but the boys were looking the wrong way. Actually, they were telling some of the other boys waiting that the bus was coming.


NattyNu getting on the bus for the first trip to school.


JoNo getting on the school bus for the first trip to school.
Once again, it has been a large chunk of time since I last updated this blog, but without internet at home, it presents a challenge to post regularly.  We have had a good summer.  I have been working 55+ hours every week, which seems to be typical over the summer.  Families go on vacation a lot during the summer and therefore, need care for their loved ones in their absence.  I do love providing in-home health care.
We have attended a baseball game for our city’s team, the kids have gone camping a number of times, boating and just going out to the lake to go swimming.  They have gone on long bike rides with their grandpa.  My six and nine year old boys each rode 14 miles in one day, which is just astounding to me that they were able to do that.  They have more stamina than I give them credit for (and trust me, I give them lots of credit for stamina!)
Let’s see, we have also gone to the park and gone fishing, we have gone on a mini vacation to Worlds of Fun, where my nine year old, NattyNu, actually rode the Mamba.  He claims that he really did like it, but he didn’t want to go on it a second time.  I loved the picture that was taken but unfortunately, we did not buy a copy of it, although I would have loved to do so.  The ride that six year old, JoNo chose to go on the most was the Fury of the Nile.  That child definitely takes after me, as I am not a fan of roller coasters either.  Meanwhile, Punky and Boo were both at home with Grandma.  Punky split her eyebrow open while we were down there and had to be taken in and have dermabond applied to seal the wound.  According to her, “glue holds little girls together” which I thought was an adorable perspective.
We made two separate trips to Missouri (apart from the Worlds of Fun trip).  One trip was to get my mom and bring her up to spend a week with us, the next trip to take her back home.  She moved to Missouri in mid-April without telling us, then came back for a week and a half unannounced a week later.  Then, while she was up here visiting with our family for that one week, she apparently made plans to move back up here, because just last week, she called Hubby and told him that she was living here again and had been for about a week.  I don’t understand her need to sneak around and hide and lie but I do my best to deal with it.  I had a feeling when she was here visiting that she was making plans to move back, but she denied it and told me an elaborate story to cover her lie.  It’s just very disappointing.
The boys start school tomorrow morning (well, technically, since it is after midnight that I am writing this, I guess it’d be later this morning).  Their open house was on Monday evening and they met their teachers, saw their new temporary school building and I finally got to meet the Cub Scout leader for their school’s Pack.  The boys will be starting up with it this year.  NattyNu was in Scouts in first and second grade at his old school, but when we moved to their current school, he didn’t transfer Packs.  Now, he finally will.  And JoNo is finally old enough to be in Scouts this year.  They are both really excited about it, as am I.
Punky starts her school next Wednesday.  I am excited because she is going to be going three days a week and in the morning, which means that she will be able to have a nap in the afternoon.  Boo will be starting school five days a week, in the morning this year.  It seems odd that the youngest child will be spending more hours in school each week, compared to his next oldest sibling, but it’s because he will be in the early childhood special education class and needs the extra time offered.  He may also start an intensive speech language therapy program with at least two sessions per week in the afternoons.  His language development has really been improving.  He is putting together a lot of words and phrases and mostly social ones.  He is also starting to use words independently that he had previously only used as part of a phrase.  For instance, when he would call our dog, he would say, “Freddy, woo hoo.” Woo hoo was his substitute phrase for whistling.  But now, he is just calling the dog by his name, and is starting to give Freddy separate commands as well, such as “Freddy, up!” or “Freddy, down!”  It’s really cute and I am so proud of him!  I think he actually knows and uses more words than I realize.
I signed up to be a Tupperware consultant this past week and I have my first party scheduled for this coming weekend, so if you know of anyone interested in having a party (and is within an hour’s drive of me – aka Southwest Nebraska area) let me know and I will host their party – or if you or someone you know want to host an online party, I can do that too.  Just let me know if you are interested in it.  I am a little scared about doing it, but even if it doesn’t turn out well, I would have made a great investment of money for the amount of product I would end up being able to keep.  It’s also not a venture that I entered into lightly.  I have been considering doing this for at least four months.
I have also started knitting again.  One of my online friends, who has become a dear personal phone friend as well, has been trying to convince me to start knitting for profit again.  I haven’t done that seriously since the early part of 2008.  Last year, I think I made something like $1,500.00 for the year in profits off of knitting.  But as I am working nights and have a lot of time on my hands, I am considering it.  So while I was at my inlaws’ house today, I set up my business promotional supplies orders for both businesses, updated the blog that I have associated with my knitting and will be starting to update the blog some more before going live with the full scale sales and advertising.  I have been busy working on some armwarmers for my friend’s two daughters and have made a number of hats for my children, a friend’s new niece and have a couple of extras as well that I will most likely end up selling online.
So, that is where we stand now.  Hoping that with the kids back in school and my work schedule slightly more settled down, I will be able to post more frequently.  I am definitely going to attempt to do so.  I will also be posting a link on the sidebar to my Tupperware site and to my knitting blog.  But my knitting blog will not lead back to here.  Just so that you know ahead of time, so you can be prepared to use your back button to get back here, unless you want to bookmark this site or both of them.
But for now, I will end this and will hopefully be back later to post pictures of the kids before their first day of first and fourth grade.  And before their first (and likely only) year of riding the bus.