i hate the bus....

We had no problems last year when Charlie rode the bus to preschool. I suppose that is because they picked him up and dropped him off right in front of our building. And they actually arrived when they said they would. So, I didn't even think twice about Charlie riding it again this year. I would rather not deal with all the chaos at the school doing the drop off and pick up.

Yesterday was the first day to ride it. The bus was supposed to come at 7:50 so we got there about 10 minutes early just to be safe. The stop is at the entrance of our community and is definitely too far for Charlie to walk to alone. We waited over 20 minutes and never saw the bus. So I loaded up the kids and drove him to school. I called later that afternoon to find out what happened and was told they changed the pick-up time to 7:36. Thanks for telling us!

Then I go to pick him up yesterday afternoon at 3:15. It was 3:25 and still no bus. I get a call from the school letting me know that Charlie is on the bus, but he freaked out after school and was afraid to get on the bus. She said he was very upset and practically hyperventilating. Poor guy. I was so surprised because he LOVED the bus last year. The bus finally pulls up about 3:40. It was 25 minutes late because of Charlie's little freak out. He is calmed down and looks at me like nothing ever happened.

This morning I make sure to get to the stop by 7:30. I wanted to talk to the driver to be sure there is someone to help the kids when they get off since he probably didn't know where he was going. It is a substitute driver and he doesn't seem to care what I am saying. I load him up on the bus and pray for the best.

This is where I lose it. The bus pulls up this afternoon at 3:20 and I am waiting to see Charlie's spikey-haired little head come down the steps and I don't see him. I walk up and ask the driver where he is. She says "Oh he got off at the last stop, sorry." Um. Are you KIDDING me? I explain that he is only five and he has no idea where to go. She just looks at me and says "Are you going to be okay?". I ran to my car to drive to the previous stop. I am looking around everywhere and I don't see him. I asked the mail carrier if she had seen him and she said a bunch of kids had just gotten off but she didn't know where they went. I continued to drive around another 5 minutes and I am beginning to freak out. Where in the world could he have gone? I call Eric and just as he picks up I see Charlie out of the corner of my eye walking around with another little boy. He is just fine and he calmly says "Hey mom. I couldn't find you." I was so glad that he was not upset. I was worried he was going to be freaking out (like I was!)

I am just so upset and frustrated right now and don't know what to do. I am sure that this will eventually get worked out and it won't continue to be total drama everyday. The regular driver should be back soon and we would get into a routine. But I am not feeling comfortable with this bus system right now and wonder if I should go with my instinct and drive him to school for a while. I don't know. What would you do?

we have a kindergartener in the house...

Well, the day is finally here. Charlie started kindergarten today. He was so ready for this and he woke up very excited this morning. When I went in to wake him up, I told him it was time to get ready for school and he quickly started to shed his pajamas saying "I cannot be late for my very first day of school!" I had originally laid out shorts for him to wear, but it was a chilly morning and we decided to switch to pants.

Cannon is thinking about how he feels about all this school stuff going on....
Nope, he doesn't like it one bit!
Right after taking these photos it began to pour so we ran inside, grabbed some jackets and then headed out to school. He is going to ride the bus normally, but of course I wanted to bring him on his first day.

He quickly found his seat and gave me the thumbs up letting me know that everything was going to be okay. I had expected to be a little more emotional today, but I think I know deep down that he is more than ready for this and he is going to do so great. Makes my mama heart happy.

We were all up and ready, dropped Charlie off, got some groceries and were home by 9am. I am so not used to these early mornings. I am also pretty sure we were the only ones at Walmart under the age of 65. I was thinking I should make it a habit to go so early because the store was so empty (well, besides all the senior citizens of course). That is until we got to the checkout and they only had ONE lane open. And I don't think the clerk was very happy to be there.

I had been wondering what Cannon was going to do without Charlie around. He pretty much stuck by me all day. Occasionally, he would wander into Charlie's room looking for him. When he couldn't find him he would come find me again. Don't get me wrong. These two don't really play together (unless you count yelling and screaming at each other as playing). They still really don't even seem to like each other all that much. I am sure Cannon just noticed that he was missing, and probably wondering why he was stuck home with boring ol' mom.

We played, ate lunch, cleaned up a little bit and then got a special present ready for Charlie for when he got home. He has been saving for the lego beach house for a while and had about half saved, so I kicked in the other half to surprise him with it. Just a little gift to let him know how proud of him we are and reinforce what a special day it was.

Charlie was pretty quiet when we first picked him up. I expected that. He is usually an observer at first when he is put in a new situation. He told me he had a great time. They learned about math, had goldfish crackers for snack, he loved the spongebob stickers I put on his sandwich bag and it rained at recess. Those were the highlights. I asked him if he was excited to go back tomorrow and he said "What?? I get to go back tomorrow? Awesome!" Sigh. I am so glad to hear that.
And of course the lego surprise was a big hit. Now it is time to hit the sack so we can do it all over again tomorrow.

cannon at 21 months....

(Okay, so I know he is 22 1/2 months now, but I did write these down when he was 21 months. Just wanted to get this posted on the blog so I have record of it here.)

Cannon has turned into quite the big boy these last few months. He is crazy, adventurous, curious and most definitely a handful!

A few things about you at 21 months:

- You have 16 teeth - all 4 of your incisors have finally broken through. 2 of them are still hard to see, but they are definitely there. I am so glad we are almost done with this teething business.

- You have become a little chatterbox. You are talking and repeating a lot more these past few weeks. You probably have around 25-30 words in your vocabulary now including mama, dada, cha-wee, doggie, apple, drink, cup, milk, more, ball, book, elmo, spongebob, up, car, lego (wego), cereal (cer-e-o), gigi, gpa, chair, light, blankie, block, shoes, nose, feet, toes and night-night.

- You have been sleeping much better lately. You go to bed between 7:30-8:00pm and wake up between 6:30-7:00am. You usally take a 1.5-2 hour nap at 1:00. You are much happier when you stay on schedule (and so am I!) You love your blanket and cannot sleep without it.

- You are wearing 18-24 month clothing and size 4 diapers.

- You are still a pretty picky eater and will hate something one day and then love it the next. You love milk, cereal and bananas. Everything else is pretty much day-by-day.

- You are finally showing an interest in books. You love to rip them all off the bookshelf and then bring them to me one by one so we can look through the pictures. You think every animal is a "doggie" and every little blonde boy is "Chawee".

- You call McDonald's "da-ways" and everytime we drive by one you scream excitedly from the backseat "da-ways! da-ways!"

- You love the Lagoon commercial. Everytime it comes on you stop what you are doing and dance around the living room. You also still love the Lion King CD and sing at the top of your lungs to all the songs.

You are so much fun and you make me laugh everyday. I am so glad I get to spend my days with you and your brother.

summer days....

Hmmmm...well, I wasn't planning on taking a break from the blog, but I guess I needed it! :)

We have been enjoying the summer and getting excited for Charlie to start kindergarten next week.

Our summer days have been filled with...

- Lots and lots of swimming at the pool. Both boys started out pretty cautious, but are now crazy about being in the water. Cannon gets cold pretty quickly but still tries to homestead the pool even with his blue lips and shivering body.

- Charlie has been going to tae kwon do on Wednesdays and Fridays.

- Cannon turned 21 months and Charlie turned 5 1/2.

- Eric and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary.

- We played with shaving cream.

- My mom and dad came to visit.

- Charlie has been playing with legos every single day and has gotten lots of great new sets to keep him busy.

- I started to redecorate the kids/guest bathroom. I could not find a shower curtain that I liked that wasn't at least $80, so I decided to decorate my own. I found some fabric that I liked from the Nicey Jane line from Heather Bailey and I just sewed it on. I also sewed the fabric on a few plain white hand towels. I love how they turned out! Now I am trying to find some decorations for the walls and countertops.

- I went back to school. I am doing an online program in Paralegal Studies. It sure is hard getting back into the swing of things after being out of school for 7 years!

- We went to Idaho for a week so Charlie could attend a lego camp. He learned all about motors, gears and motion sensors. He was absolutely crazy about this class and could not wait to go to it every afternoon.

- Eric dug out all his fishing gear and went fly fishing for the first time in over a year. He didn't catch anything but had a good time anyway. I don't think he will let the summer end without at least catching one though, so I think he has another little trip to the Provo River planned.

- We went on the paddle boats with Grandma P.

- We played at the splash park. This was pretty much the first time Charlie would ever go to one of these. He used to just hate the water splashing up in his face, but not this time. He ran around and laughed and just loved every minute of it. Cannon took a while to warm up to it, but he liked it and he made a little buddy while we were there.




- And of course we enjoyed a few summer treats including some chocolate chip cookies. Can anyone tell me how it is possible to get so much on your face when you only had less than a half cookie to begin with? He's thinking "put down the camera and give me another cookie lady."

doing a happy dance....

I went to Archiver's last weekend to scrapbook. Unfortunately, I did not get much done (only 2 pages!) but I did complete the final page for Cannon's first year album! That's right, it is done!!!

I have the hardest time scrapbooking professional photos. I am not sure if it is because usually they are so large or if I just overthink them because the pictures are "special" somehow. I just tried to keep this one simple with the focus on the photo. Eric calls this Cannon's George Costanza photo. You will probably only get that one if you saw that Seinfeld episode. It just makes me laugh when I look at it.

Here are the ultrasound pages with all the journaling from my MANY doctor's appointments.

I was dreading working on these pages because of all the text, but I really wanted to include all of the journaling. I am so glad that I have it all written down and I know I will love to read through it all later. When I was going back through my blog to get the journaling I was surprised how much I had already forgotten!

And here is the completed album. I just love the WRMK albums, especially this red one.

Just for fun, here are a few stats on this album:

Number of pages: 54
Number of photos: 126
Number of 2-page layouts: 2
Number of months to complete: 21
Having this album finally finished: priceless

one of those days....

This is Cannon's teething face. His cheeks get all red and he gets little eczema patches on his chin. Poor little dude.

I spent all morning on the phone fighting with the people at Social Security and still got nowhere. Cannon spilled his milk all over the couch. Charlie cried for 15 minutes because he couldn't get his button fastened. Cannon is STILL teething. I didn't get very much sleep last night and had a headache. Charlie was ticked because I had the nerve to make pasta for dinner (which he hates). A man almost wrecked into my car and then cussed me out like it was my fault.

To top it all off I had to go grocery shopping. I normally don't mind grocery shopping, but it is almost unbearable with Cannon right now. He would rather be pulling all the food off the shelves than be strapped into that cart. I know, it is so unfair. I ran through the aisles and tried to get everything as fast as I could, knowing I was probably going to forget something since I forgot my list. There were a few meltdowns when I wouldn't let Cannon take a bite out of the cheese or throw the olives on the ground. The lady in front of me at the checkout argued for 5 minutes that the grapes should only be 80 cents per pound, not 82 cents. I had finally paid and double checked that I didn't leave any bags like last time and we were on our way out the door. The greeter had gotten Cannon's attention and was trying to make him smile so I slowed down a bit. Cannon finally flashed a grin and then the man said "Your job is only half way done. Now you have to go home and put all this stuff away. You moms really have your work cut out for you, but by the looks of things I can see you are doing a great job."

And just like that I let go of all that had gone wrong today. Is it weird that a complete stranger was able to make such an impact on my day? He obviously knew just what I needed to hear and I am grateful that he was nice enough to say it. So, thank-you to Mike at Walmart. I may not be the world's greatest mom, but I try to do my best and I hope Charlie and Cannon will agree with you in 18 years.

july freehand scraps reveal...

The July Freehand Scraps kit is now available! I really liked that I was able to do a variety of different subjects and didn't feel like this kit was too "themed".

I had this picture printed at Costco in 8x12 (only $1.49!). I loved all the white space on the right that was just begging for a big, bold title. For the bottom, I just punched out some circles, crinkled them up and then stitched them on. The glitter buttons were the perfect finishing touch!

On this page, I cut out some of the circles from the Girls Paperie paper on the bottom and then added them on top of the yellow October Afternoon. Then I stitched some messy circles around them to help them stand out a little more. I also added the Maya Road envelope and a few October Afternoon stickers to finish it off.

And this last one is a page I made with one of my favorite pictures of the boys. I could not believe I had never scrapped this one yet! It was taken the day after Cannon came home from the hospital. I didn't know what title I was going to use, but I got the word "be" in the vintage scrabble letters in my kit (everyone gets a different word), and this title seemed perfect. It is definitely something I have to remind them of everyday now that Cannon is older and can fight back! :)

Be sure to check out the rest of the gallery. The other girls did such a great job with this kit.

Hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend! Happy 4th everybody!