Yesterday was Meet the Teacher day at Cat Boy's new school. He is going to Kindergarten this year and  is going to a new school. He was excited to go, but as soon as we get ready to go into the car he started to have an anxiety attack. He was scared and did not want to go. I literally had to make him go into the room and he cried for about 30 minutes. It was way to much "new" for him. New school, new teachers, new kids, just to much unknown. It took a while but I got him through it and then he was just fine! There were 2 great little girls who tried to make him feel better and that just made my heart swell! His teacher seems GREAT and I think he will have a great year! As soon as I said "This is Cat Boy" while he was screaming she went to grab his picture chart from his last school. She was nice and prepared for him and his challenges and that made me feel  so lucky that we have her. She told me her dad passed last year and his name was Cat Boy Smith....she knows he was meant to be in her class and I think she is right!

Today was the first day. He was super excited to go and yelled at me for taking to long taking my 3 minute shower! LOL He helped me pack his lunch in his new Hello Kitty lunch bag. He had to have a heart shaped PB&J sandwich, little carrots to show Mrs. Hirtz (he told her yesterday how much he likes carrots), and little chickadees (like goldfish). I was worried he would still be hungry but they have breakfast at school too so he said he was fine after having 2 breakfasts!

 He was excited to see the bus coming! We had talked about how he was riding a big bus this year and it would no longer have car seats built into the seats like his buses did for that last 2 years. He said he would be fine and would just hold onto something. He ended up being assigned to the first seat on the passenger side and sure enough was holding onto the wall in front of him as they drove away! I love that he is on that side of the bus so I can see him in the window! He waved bye to me for the first time in the 2 years he has rode a bus! I was SOOOOOO happy!

 Since I knew I would need something to keep me busy today we met some friends up at Anne Marie Gardens to have some fun! Here Monkey is making a wish flag as part of an art exhibit they have going on. He is drawing ghost friends in the picture but said he did not have a wish. The Boy did not want to make a wish flag so he just ran around.

Right now Anne Marie Gardens has a Fairy House exhibit going on. You want around and find the 45 hidden Fairy Houses. They give you a map and on some houses (like the one in the picture) there are little clues with letters on them and when you put all the letters together you can spell out the secret words. Oh and they have a dress up area so the kids can dress up while they run around the gardens. The Boy is wearing a dragon hat!

Off the path a bit was the Fairy Obstacle Course. There were a bunch of fun activities there. Stump Jump, Fairy Cafe, wooden board where you put your head on characters, some other stuff, and the Fairy Stage. Lydia (the one in the yellow) insisted that all the adults sit and watch a show put on by all the kids. The Boy was the dragon, Lydia was a warrior princess, and Thane was a knight! They of course killed the dragon! We had a blast and found all the Fairy houses! The Boy is already talking about going back before the Fairy Houses are gone and bringing Cat Boy. We will be back!

Finally it was time for Cat Boy to get home! I was bursting with excitement to see how his day went! When I asked him how school was he simply said "HAPPY!" He had a great day and after bribing him with Burger King he told me all about it! He played blocks, on the bouncy things at recess (whatever that is), read books, made a project (which he brought home and it was super sweet about how he will be just fine in school ect), had lunch, and generally had a fun day! I know there will be rough days ahead but for now I am just glad today was okay!

Trying again

So my attempt to keep up with this blog has not gone well. LOL I am going t try yet again. We have been super busy around here. Cat Boy starts Kindergarten in 2 days, The Boy has already been starting his 2nd year of homeschooling and Monkey has just being seeing what he can get away with.

Like I mentioned The Boy has started school already. We got new curriculum this year and so far I am loving it. Science in particular has a ton of really cool labs which he is loving. He just loves science, especially when labs/experiments are involved.

The other day we made animal and plant cells out of jello and fruit! Of course all the boys got involved in this one and loved that they got to "eat science". Now I know animal cells are not orange but I have had that jello for EVER and wanted to use it up. LOL They green square is our plant cell with cut of grapes as chloroplasts and an orange slice for the nucleus. The orange circle is our animal cell with an orange slice for our nucleus as well. The kids thought cells were very yummy! When they were done Monkey mixed the two and told me he made a plant animal. LOL

The Boy also played kickball this summer. He loved every minute of it and can not wait till next summer. I of course wished it was not as hot but I was glad to see him happy again after the disaster of spring flag football. He was coached by our dear friends Erin and Russ who sadly are not going to coach next year. I only hope he gets a coach that cares as much about the kids as Erin and Russ do!

Hello again!

So it has been almost 2 years since I last posted on here. I am REALLY going to try this time to keep this thing updated.

This past weekend we took an impromptu trip to Norfolk Va. The kids had no idea where we were going and early Saturday morning we loading them up in the van for the 4 hr drive. When we started getting close they got all excited about the big cargo ships and other ships we could see. The first stop was to the Nauticus museum. www.nauticus.org. If you live in, or ever visit the Norfolk area I HIGHLY suggest you go. We had a BLAST! It is great for kids. Unlike most museums it was almost all hands on and they could touch so much. The main attraction is the USS Wisconsin which you can go on and either just walk around the top deck and a little bit of the inside or you can pay a bit more and get the guided tour which we will do next time.

Here are the boys looking through a para-scope. They thought this was really cool. We could see all around the museum including the ship. After the para-scope we went into a room with all sorts of items from the USS Wisconsin including an old computer that could of fit us all in it! They had items from the kitchen, bunks hanging from the ceiling, and the bridge you could go in and play around in.







One of the activites for the kids was this long pool of water. Inside where all these white blocks (you can see Cat Boy has one) and these holders for the blocks and some toy boats. What you would do is make different channels to guide your boat and see how guiding the water would make it go faster or slower, be full or empty, ect. The kids played here for over 30 mins!





We caught a demonstration to teach us about the guns on the USS Wisconsin. She tolds us how the guns worked, popped a balloon full of Hydrogen to simulate what it felt like when the guns went off (The was REALLY REALLY cool!) and then as you can see here The Boy got to help with a demo about shooting close range vs. long range. Then she tought us about the armor piercing guns which was the coolest part. She shot a pencil through a block of wood and BROKE the wood in half but not the pencil!



There were also some computers set up with simulators. Here Cat Boy is fling an airplane. There was also a sonar one where you would fire missiles, one where you were on a NOAA plane monitoring the weather, and some one with classified documents from WWII. They could of played here all day.

After the museum we went to dinner at an all you can eat seafood buffet for Monkey's early birthday dinner. We all enjoyed it and ate way to much. LOL We went back to the hotel and all crashed in bed and watched Despicable Me. It was really cute.

Then Sunday was Monkey's birthday. We had brought his presents with us so of course as soon as we woke up he wanted to open them. He got this lego truck, a Toy Story shirt and Handy Manny shirt from us, a Toy Story Lego set from Grandma Shields, a Toy Story toy camera from Cat Boy, and Rex and Buzz on a skateboard from The Boy. He was very excited with all the presents.





We got home in time for the big football game. GO BEARS! Since I was not sure when we would get home I had not gotten stuff for a cake so I had to run out and get stuff during the game. I decided we would do Dirt Cake and Monkey just though it was so funny that it was called Dirt Cake and kept laughing saying "I eat my DIRT!"