October 29, 2008 at 7:12 pm (Tyler)
Yesterday was Tyler’s 6th birthday!! I can’t believe it has been 6 years since Mark and I became parents. It seems like just yesterday we were new parents trying to figure out how to take care of this little life and here he is now, 6 years later just as amazing as ever. He is no longer my little baby, or even a toddler, he is my little man. He is doing a great job in kindergarten and is one of the role model students. We are SO proud of him!!!
I wanted to post yesterday, but it was way to crazy and I never had time. We left the house at 8:00am and I didn’t get home until 4:00pm!! I took both kids to school, dropped off the mini cupcakes, that were decorated to look like pumpkins, off in Ty’s classroom, then I headed off to a P.A.C. meeting about school budget cuts. This meeting ended up lasting 3 hours! The sucky part is that our district needs to cut $3.5 million for the next school year. I have no idea how we are going to do this and still be able to give the kids a good education!!! Anyway, I am not going to get into this because I could go on and on. Anyway, after that I met Mark for a quick lunch and then it was off to look at granite for the kitchen counter tops. We picked up some samples and then I was off to more errands. I had to stop by the bank, get one last gift for Ty and then off to pick up Chayse from school. Then, we headed down to pick up Ty from school and Mark showed up as well. Nice birthday surprise! 
Once home, Ty had to first do his homework like always, but then he was able to open his gifts. Two of his favorites were the Hulk Hands and his razor scooter. We let him play for a little bit, then it was off to dinner at Chili’s were at the end of the meal they brought over a chocolate float and sang happy bithday to him. He had a great day!! Now I am off to make chocolate lollipops for Ty’s classroom Halloween party tomorrow.
Again, happy birthday to my amazing little man and I thank God every single day that I was blessed with him!!!!
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August 25, 2008 at 6:11 pm (Tyler)
Today was Tyler’s first day of kindergarten. I can’t believe this day has finally come. I know I really should have been going through this last year, but with Tyler’s birthday being after the cut off date, I got one more year of him being at home with me (at least when he wasn’t in preschool). But, now it is official!!!
He had a GREAT day!! He seems to really like his teacher, Mrs. Kalnicki, and Mark and I like her as well. We have been told that she is one of the best teachers Ty could have gotten and that is from people who work at the school!! This first week won’t be anything to taxing on the kids. Mrs. Kalnicki will spend this week just getting them adjust to their new environment and then starting next week she will start sending home homework and reading assignments. So, I am going to have to start structuring our routines to make sure we have time for everything that needs to get done every night. I feel like I am going back to school myself! Plus, tomorrow will probably be the strangest day for me in the past 5 years….I will be home for 6 hours without either of my children!! Ty will be in school and Chayse will be at preschool. Starting tomorrow I will have 3 days a week were both the kids will be in school…..and then next year they BOTH will be in school fulltime!!! I know, I am getting a head of myself, but it will be here before I know it. Well, one day at a time right!?! Anyway, I am SO proud of my little man and I can’t wait to see what amazing things he has to show us!!!
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August 7, 2008 at 10:23 am (Chayse, House, Tyler)
That is how I have been feeling for the past week for two reasons. The first and most importantly Chayse started preschool on Tuesday! She will be going 3 days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays. Tuesday went GREAT!! She walked right in, sat down for circle time and was ready to go. Yesterday and today, not so great. She cried both times when I dropped her off….clinging to my leg and NOT wanting me to leave. Needless to say my heart was breaking!!! I know Tuesday was easy because the idea of school was new and exciting, but after the first day she understood the process….ie. mom not being there for the WHOLE day. So, now we enter the seperation anxiety stage (for both mom and daughter) and begin the journey of letting go. I remember this process with Ty and it took at least a month before he started to become comfortable. AND, I know Chayse needs to go through the same thing, but it is really bothering me more this time. WHY? I really think it has to do with Chayse being my baby. This is the last time I will go through this process. Both of my kids are growing up and becoming indepentent from mom. Chayse starting preschool just drives that home AND it doesn’t help that Ty will be starting kindergarten on the 25th. So, in a few more weeks it will just be me, home alone, 3 days a week!!! I am excited for this and dreading it at the same time. What am I going to do? My whole life for the past 5 years has been the kids and now I will have all this time on my hands. THEN, come next year (I know it’s a whole year away, but it will be here sooner than later) both kids will be in school full time; Ty in 1st grade and Chayse in kindergarten. Then what? Get a job? Try and continue working from home? Plus, I don’t want to miss out on helping out at the school, PTA, extra. Can you tell my brain has been racing???
Anyway, the second thing that has me stressing is the cabinets. As I mentioned before, we are having the kitchen and all the bathroom cabinets stained. The stain is up and now we are trying to figure out the top coat. The problem? The top coats are SO shiny!!! I don’t remember the cabinets being that shiny. I do have to say that Frank, the guy doing the work, has been really patient and is trying all different products to find the best one to use. BUT, the process is still stressful….especially since I have my entire kichen in my livingroom!! I just want my house back to normal so I can actually prepare a meal or should I say a HEALTHY meal for my family. I am the type of person who cooks dinner almost every night, we rarely go out, and not being able to for almost the past month has been KILLING me!!! I know the end is in sight, but it can’t get her soon enough for me!!!
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August 5, 2008 at 5:02 pm (Chayse, Tyler, holiday)
Okay, so it looks like I will be posting only once a month at the rate I have been going!! I really do have an excuse….and that would be it is summer time in Vegas and the only thing I want to do is NOTHING!! It’s even to hot to think! July and August are the months that are worst for me. I hate this time of year. As most of you know I do not get alone with the sun and have been avoiding it as much as possible. But, the down side to that is cooped up kids!! Not fun either. So, needless to say it has been an interesting summer so far.
Well lets see, Tyler was done with preschool on June 30th so I had both kids home all of July. We of course had the 4th of July right off the bat, which was quite fun. We hung out with our neighbors and had a mini block party. All the kids played, swam, ate, and later shot off fireworks. It was a really nice time. We also had our other neighbor, Jorie, give the kids swimming lessons. They both did an amazing job! Chayse has no problem putting her face in the water anymore and does a great job of climbing out the side of the pool. She still doesn’t try that hard to actually swim, but is doing much better. Tyler on the other hand is all out swimming!!! I can’t believe how much he has improved in such a short amount of time. The only other thing that has gotten us out of the house was free movies at the Rave Movie Theatre. Every Tuesday and Wednesday they offered a free movie at 10:00am. We went to all of the ones I thougt the kids would sit throught. It was definitely a nice break from our extremely busy schedule of hanging out at home!!
So, now we enter August….another month of way to hot temperatures well over 100!! Every day I think, “Is it October yet?????”
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June 26, 2008 at 6:07 pm (Tyler, family, holiday)
Has it REALLY been over a month since I have been on here? Man, time is going by so fast these days. This past month I have felt like every time I get one thing done three more pop up screaming to be done next! We have had a ton going on. The community we live in is called Southern Highlands and every year they have a big Memorial Day Celebration. This year instead of having just a carnival type area for the kids they had a “water play” area. It was great!! They had at least three different types of water slides, squirt gun mazes, dunk tank, and many other things for the kids to do. Chayse went on one slide, with a little help from her dad, and that is all she wanted! Tyler on the other hand had a blast!! He played with his friend TD as long as he could, then it was time for a Subway dinner. Once it started getting dark they had a huge fireworks show.
Next up was Tyler’s Spring Program at his preschool, Springstone. Each classroom had two songs that they performed. Ty’s class sang “Tootie Tot” and “Little help from my friends”. He did a great job! We also have said good-bye to soccer for now. The season ended May 31st with the Tigers winning 4-3! It is just way to HOT in Vegas for him to play during the summer session. We will be back in the fall though!
We were also able to have a great visit with most of my family. My brother, sister-in-law, and mom all came out the beginning of this month. Plus, Katie came home with her boyfriend Pete from New York, so I was finally able to meet him. He is an amazing person and all I’m going to say right now is I wish both of you all the love in the world!!! We all were able to spend some much needed and over do time together as well as celebrate Sheila’s 40th birthday!!! You look good old women!! Thank you to all of you for braving the Vegas heat to see little old us. I can’t wait to be able to do it again soon!!!
Coming up we have Tyler’s last day at Springstone, private swim lessons for the kids, and bridal show again……I will try to be more on top of things and post about these as they happen, not months after!!
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May 6, 2008 at 12:28 pm (Mark, Tyler, holiday)
Tyler is now enrolled in the Clark County School District full day kindergarten at Ries Elementary!! My little man is growing up and we are beginning the new journey of public school. We still do not know what teacher or track he will have yet, but he is at least enrolled. He got into the full day program, which here in Vegas cost $300 a month. Mark and I are not too happy about paying for “public” school, but we both feel it will be the best for Ty. He already goes to preschool 3 times a week from 9:00am to 3:30pm. We feel it would be a step backwards to have him go 5 days a week, but only half day, which is only 2 1/2 hours! I have heard good things about both teachers teaching full day, so I am not to worried. We will find out more information as the summer goes on, but we are ready!!!
I also have to gush about my husband today….after 8 years of marriage he is still so good to me….probably even better. Today is our 8 year wedding anniversary and he surprised me with breakfast in bed!!! Then for my gift (which is for both anniversary and mother’s day) he gave me an at&t Pantech Duo cell phone. I don’t have the actual phone yet, it’s on order, but in the picture it looks so cool! It has a full keyboard for easy texting. His main reason for getting it…..it will easier for me to text my sister and if she is moving away he knew I would want it even more! Gush, gush!! I love you Mark!!
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April 27, 2008 at 6:15 pm (Chayse, House, Tyler)
Man, this week has gone by so fast!! Before I knew it it was time for soccer games again and weekend projects. Tyler’s soccer game on Saturday was great!! Ty finally got his first goal this season!! YEAH! I have to say it was an amazing shot. The kids were about 25 ft from the other teams goal and Ty was able to steal the ball away from the other team, turn it around, and start towards the goal. No one really even noticed that he had done it. He dribbled just for a very short distance then haled off and kicked as hard as he could. The ball went screaming past the goalie slamming into the net. The goalie didn’t even have time to react. It was brilliant! Ty started jumping up and down and ran over to the sidelines and high-fived his dad. I have to say all the kids on our team were on their game. We ended up winning 7-1! Chayse’s game was not as exciting. Again, all she did was cry. I know this is probably not the best thing to do, but Mark finally had enough. Chayse has had at least 7 practises and 4 games now and she still HATES to play. We were hoping she would start to warm up to it, but I actually think she dislikes it more now then when the season started. So, Mark has pulled her. No more playing! We even gave away her shin guards and cleats to another little girl on the team who did not have any. Mark is done with her crying and distracting the team. We gave it a try and she just does not like it. So, needless to say we don’t have to worry about two kids playing soccer anymore and can now concentrate on Tyler. Chayse is still in her dance class and loves it, so we will stick with that for now.
Today I made some cupcakes for Jorie next door. Her son Tyler Allen is turing 6 and she asked me to make some soccer themed cupcakes for her to take to TA’s class tomorrow. Then, my next project sheduled was to start painting Chayse’s room. I am using the same pink paint color that her friend Perri has in her room; Be Mine from Home Depot. I was only able to get on coat done today since I was not able to even start until very late in the afternoon. Mark was playing golf this morning and it’s just to difficult to try and paint and watch the kids. No biggy; I have one coat done and will hopefully get the second one done tomorrow. Chayse is SO excited to finally be getting her pink room!!! Take a look:
She wanted to help so badly…she came running up with her little paint brush from their arts and crafts drawer; how could I say no. Here she is “painting her room”.
I hope everyone had a great weekend!
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April 22, 2008 at 9:02 pm (Chayse, Friends, Tyler)
Happy Tuesday everyone….or should I say happy Wednesday since it is so late in the day already. We had a few things going on this past weekend. As always, we had soccer practise for the kids on Friday night, which really works out well since their games are on Saturdays. This way the kids don’t have time to forget what they just went over in practise and the games usually go better. This week was no exception. Tyler played great!! He almost scored a goal, but the other teams goalie was on his game!! Ugh. But, the cool thing about the shot was that Ty kicked the ball from center field and it made it all the way to the goal were the goalie stopped it. But I have to say it was a way cool kick!!! Go Ty!!!! This was a really really good game. We unfortunately ended up loosing 4-3, but his games are finally getting to be very exciting and fast passed. All the kids are getting better, trying harder, and are pushing themselves more which makes for a great game. Chayse’s game on the other hand was quite different. Now, you have to remember (and I tell myself this all the time) that the kids are only 3. There are a few kids on her team that really try hard and have fun playing. Chayse on the other hand does NOT like playing. Before the season started we asked both kids if they wanted to play, they both said yes. Well, Tyler meant it and we thought Chayse did too, but we are finding out she does not like playing soccer. She does love her dance class, but not soccer. All she does every game is stand on the field and cry. Mark and I don’t want her to think it is okay to quit, so we make her stay out there. But, she has no intention of playing, helping out her team, or anything of the sort. She simply stands there and cries. So how many more games do we have to put up with????? I don’t know, but it cannot end soon enough….for us and her.
Okay, I totally got off track. All the soccer stuff was from Saturday. Now, going back to Friday. After soccer practise we loaded up the kids and went to the UNLV Spring football game. Our friend is the strengthening coordinator for the football team. He and his wife invited us to the game. We unfortunately missed most of the game since we arrived so late because of practise. However, we did get to see a little bit. I guess what they did is have the 1st string play against the 2nd string and they were not taking to many chances since they don’t want anyone getting hurt before the season begins. After the game we went down to the field to see John and let the kids run around. Nicholas took Tyler around to introduce him to some of the players that he knows and then the boys were throwing the football around and trying to get it through the goal posts. The girls were also having a great time running around the field and chasing each other. After that we headed up to the club level were they had Memphis BBQ catering the event. Great food!! We hung out, had some dinner, and were introduced to a lot of the UNLV football staff. We had a great time and want to say thank you to John and Jamie for inviting us and the kids!
The rest of the weekend was pretty basic. Mark worked in the garage and is getting ready to redo the sandbox and make it bigger…since the kids are out growing it already. I also had him buy some pink paint for Chayse’s room. I am planning on painting that next weekend. I will take pictures once her room is done and post them. That is pretty much it for now. Oh, I am going to leave you with a picture of a guest we found in our backyard on Sunday. Goodnight!
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April 10, 2008 at 10:54 am (Mark, Tyler, family)
Right after Easter Mark’s half sister Kayla and nephew Ryan came out to visit us during their Spring Break. Kayla is a freshman in collage and Ryan is a junior in high school. Both live in St. Louis and wanted to get away to Vegas Baby! We actually were not sure if they were even going to make it out. There was so much mix up in their flight schedules that they spent literally one entire day just trying to get out here! I personally would have given up, but they put up with flight after flight and 4 airports to get here. Man, to be young again!!
The first day they were here I stayed home for some much needed “alone” time, but Mark had taken the day off so he took Kayla, Ryan, Ty, and Chayse to the strip so Kayla and Ryan could ride some of the roller coasters. They were not able to go on Speed-the ride at the Sahara since it was closed, but they were able to go on The Roller Coaster at New York New York. Then, they went to ride the Big Shot at the Strastosphere. If you don’t live here that is the one on the very very top of the Stratosphere that shoots you straight up into the air. Here is the descriptions it gives…”Shoots you 160 ft. in the air at 45 miles per hour. It goes from a height of 921 ft. high platform up the tower’s mast to a height of 1,081 ft. and down again. You experience four ‘G’s of force on the way up and feel negative ‘G’s on the way down.” Okay, with that being explained not only did Kayla and Ryan ride this BUT TYLER DID TOO!!!!! What the *#&% was Mark thinking???? Tyler is 5! I still can’t believe he was actually tall enough to pass getting on this thing. All I can say is thank goodness I was not there because I would have literallypassed out. What is my baby thinking wanting to even ride a ride like that!? I mean, we went on the roller coasters at Disneyland, I’m okay with that. Nothing to over the top, at least the ones he was tall enough to ride at the time. But the Big Shot?? I think this is my first indication of what kind of kid he is really going to be. Now that he has been riding his bike for months without his training wheels, he no longer wants to simply ride up and down the street. He would rather ride up into the yards, on the rocks, and over the curbs. He is even “trick” riding by putting his feet on the middle bar of the bike or holding on with one hand. If he keeps this up we are going to have a ramp in the middle of the street and he will be trying to do flips!! AAHH!!!
Unfortunately, because the kids had to end up going home earlier then expected the only other thing we were really able to do was take them to the Fremont Street Experience. We had dinner and were able to see two of the light shows, which Ty and Chayse loved!
Thanks for coming out Kayla and Ryan. We loved seeing you and the kids really enjoyed the time they had with you!
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April 1, 2008 at 4:55 pm (Chayse, Friends, Tyler, holiday)
Okay, so I have been kind of missing in action lately. Sorry!! We have had a lot going on and I just have not had the time to sit down and write. Or, whenever I do try and sit down to write someone needs something and blogging just gets put aside. Well, I have the chance now since Mark and the kids are off on an adventure right now. So, to back track Happy Easter!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. We started off the holiday weekend with coloring Easter eggs on Saturday with our good friends Lee, Amanda, and Tyler David (oh, and we can’t forget about baby Noah!!) This was the first time EVER that the kids colored eggs! They has so much fun!!! But, I do have to say that understanding the concept of trying not to drop them took some time to sink in. Now worries though, they had a blast!
Easter day was a full one for us. First off, baskets from the Easter Bunny! Yeah!! Not over filled like most years since I was tring to keep down the candy content. Then came the egg hunt in the back yard. BUT, before we can get started the kids needed shoes and I went out to make sure everything was set to go. HOLD UP….one thing we completely forgot about was the dog. She had been outside while the kids were going through their baskets. She was having a field day “hunting eggs” herself….AND, tyring to bury them in the sand box!!! GROSS! So, I had to “find” all the eggs the dog had gotten to before the kids could start. Okay, that done the egg hunt begins. Now, remember this was the first time the kids had colored eggs so it was the first time they were hunting “real” eggs. We had half and half real eggs and plastic filled eggs. Well, every egg that they picked up they just tossed into their basket…..real ones…CRACK. Oh, and then here are the filled eggs….these are the ones we like! So, the separation began. If it didn’t shake it went back on the ground!!! Through this whole ordeal Mark and I were cracking up!! It was probably one of the funniest egg hunts I have seen.
Next up for the day: Easter Service in the park, egg hunt after, and then we had our friends coming over for a BBQ. I will got into those on the next post.
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