Mother of the Year Award!

I bet you thought by my charming title I had won this award.  I assure you I did no such thing.  Today was just "one of those days..."  It started out when I realized that I had forgotten to send my five month old to the babysitter with a bottle.  She had milk for him, but no bottle.  I felt so terrible.  Luckily my wonderful sister, Angela, was able to pack up her to precious babies and save the day.  She brought a bottle so Xander didn't have to spend the day without food :)  When I went to pick up the kiddos Xander was bouncing away in the jumparoo with a t-shirt on twice the size of his body.  I thought I had forgotten a change of clothes, but no, he peed through outfit #1 and pooped through outfit #2.  Amirah had an accident today and I had forgotten to pack her a change of panies, so she was wearing pants with nothing on underneath.  The worst part of it all?  We had to run errands, so I brought my children with me despite the fact they looked like vagabonds and hoped no one judged me.  So, no, no Mother of the Year award here. 

Fall List

I have to admit this is my favorite fall ever.  Is it me or are the trees just extra beautiful?  I think Pennsyvlania is just a great place to live!  My fall list is off to a great start.  Here are a few of the highlights...

-- I had a great salted caramel mocha at Starbucks last Friday when my beautiful friend Jamie came to town.

-- Last weekend the Eliacins went to Reynold's Pumpkin Farm and I was able to cross a few things off my list-- a hay ride and a corn maze.

-- Last night I took the babies outside and we did a mini photo shoot.  I love the contrast between the green grass and the red and orange trees.  Beautiful!

 

My Classroom, a Happiness Project Update, and my Sexy Husband

I absolutely love my job.  Yes, there are some days that are better than others, but at least once a week I think to myself, "This is fun.  How lucky that I get paid to do this."  I'm not kidding.  Anyway, I thought I should take a few pictures to show where the magic happens.  This is my room.  Uncensored.  I took these pictures while the kiddos were at recess, so it may not be spotless, but this is the real deal.

 I teach math for the majority of the day.  The bins on the desk hold math supplies- whiteboards, markers, manipulatives, etc.  The yellow cards above the bins are point cards.  We do lots of group work and students earn points for being a cooperative team.

 We created a pledge on the first day of school, and everyone created their picture to add to the border.  Isn't it cute?

 I love this rug.  Our superintendent bought them for all K-3 teachers.  At first when I heard I thought, "Seriously?  I already have a rug."  But then I saw this beauty.  Each child has their own square.  It's ingeneous and I love it.

 I'm really proud of this.  Last year before I went on maternity leave I spent hours organizing all the math games and putting them in bins with labels that state what should be in there.  It has seriously changed my life!

 A different view of the room.  This is my vantage point from the front of the room.  Sorry for the messy round table up front, but I told you it was uncensored.

These are decorated pringle cans to the untrained eye, but to us they are time capsules.  Students answered a series of questions at the beginning of this year and put the answers inside.  They'll answer the same questions at the end of the year and see how they've changed.

That's the tour.  Hope you like it.

That leads me to my Happiness Project update.  First of all, where did September go?  My goal was to do five new things.  I managed two.  Sorry folks.  When school starts it gets crazy in my world.  Here's what I did:

• I used bok choy for the first time.  I made a bok choy salad with sesame honey dressing.  It was okay, but not note worthy.
• The other thing I did was went "star gazing" with Ysmaille.  We laid a blanket on the deck and just looked at the stars for a few moments.  Then we got cold and went back in. 

That brings me to the story of my sexy husband.  So, on Sunday I was totally convicted of treating my husband like my third child.  I've decided that October will be "Respect Your Husband month."  I will let him make decisions without second guessing him.  Here's the deal.  I'm bossy by nature.  I'm the oldest child.  I boss children around all day and sometimes I boss my husband too.  I'm not proud of it, but it's true.  A few weeks ago on the way to church I was harping on him about something in our finances and he finally told me, "Melanie, you take over.  You are obviously better than me."  In my head I smugly agreed with him and we went on our merry way.  Last night when it was time to balance the check book and pay the bills I realized we were in the negative.  I panicked.  I demanded he help me.  I threw a fit.  I cried.  He watched it all from the couch.  Then he calmly said, "Melanie, you want control over everything.  If you don't have control then you work away at it until you do.  You asked for this, now do it."  Ouch!  I was so ticked off.  It took me close to 45 minutes to create my game plan and get all the bills sorted out.  After I calmed down my heart melted. Is he not the sexiest thing?  He totally put me in my place.  He taught me a valuable lesson that I wouldn't have learned if he had bailed me out.  I politely requested he take back being in charge of our finances as I ate my slice of humble pie.

The Happiness Project- August

August's "project" was to be more aware of my surrounding and to treasure the little moments.  I had intended to do this with Amirah, but each time I asked her what made her happy that day she said things like, "I painted" or "I drew a picture."  Sounds good, right?  The thing is she was just making things up.  I think she might be a little young to get the point, but the girl knows what she likes and she loves arts and crafts.

One of the biggest blessings for us was finding an awesome babysitter who also loves arts and crafts. Amirah has made some really neat paper crafts and she is always talking about "Miss Melissa".  Once again God literally just dropped someone in our lap to take care of our children.  He is so faithful.

Each night I wrote down a few words of what I was grateful for that day or what made me happy.  Here's what I wrote.

1- Bunco!
2- an evening outside with my family
3- time with April and Erin at Starbucks
4- a chance to relax tonight
5- A.C!
6-
7- an evening chat on the back porch with Alli
8- seeing Amirah's cousins together
9- apples from Josh and Sherah's tree
10-
11- monarch caterpillars and a visit from Crissy K.
12- hamburgers on the grill
13- new neighbors
14- a partner in parenting
15- mulch I didn't pay for or spread
16- babysitter who loves my children
17- a goodnight kiss and a compliment
18- an evening with my sister
19- tea party with friends
20- successful day at school
21- playdate at the park
22- free lunch
23- lunch with Nikki
24- fun day with the kids
25- couples massage!
26- Brielle's birthday party
27- a great group of kids
28- the transformation of a butterfuly
29-
30-
31- foot massage

When I look over the things that made me happy I realized that more than half of them were the relationships in my life.  I am so grateful for the friends and family God has given me.  I am truly blessed.

I want to keep this attitude of gratefulness as I begin a new school year.  I am also looking forward to September's goal-- trying new things.  My goal is to try five new things in the month of September.  Here are some ideas I had, but I would love to hear from you.

- cooking with bok choy
- karaoke
- going to Wal-Mart in my p.j.s (I want to see what all the fuss is about...)
- learning to embroider
- lay in the yard and watch the stars with Ysmaille

Summer List Wrap-up

School starts next week for me.  I am really starting to get excited.  I've had such a great summer.  Xander has added a joy to our family, Amirah is learning what it means to be a big sister, and Ysmaille and I are along for the ride!  Here's what we accomplished:

• visit Lake Tobias
• have a picnic and swimming at Fuller Lake
• make bubble art
• make frozen bananas
• paint my nails sea foam green
• paint with ice cubes
• go to Britton Park
• feed the ducks and fish at City Park
• watch fireworks

Here's what I still have to do...

• spend an evening at the Municipal Pool
• finish shutters (for some reason I am not motivated to finish this project.  Maybe if I knew what I was going to do with the shutters...)
• make a water pinata
• make homemade ice cream
• get a couples massage at Warm Springs (Ysmaille and I are doing this next weekend.  So excited!)
• go to the pet store
• catch lightning bugs
• make donuts around the campfire
• take Amirah to Voila
• sleep all night long (Oh, God, please let this happen soon!)

Below are some pictures of our visit to Fuller Lake and making our bubble art for the bathroom.

 Xander just couldn't take the fun we were having at Fuller Lake. 

 Fuller Lake is our best find of the summer.  Amirah just loves playing in the sand!  Isn't her suit just adorable?

 I had to take a family picture after I realized we were all wearing some shade of torquoise. 

 This is Amirah making bubble art.

The finished product.  Now these light blue walls are a wild shade of orange.  The jury is still out on how we feel about that...



Afternoon Tea

Ysmaille's working overtime this afternoon, which means I have an extra hour on my hands.  I needed an activity to keep the kiddos busy, so I thought why not have a tea party?  

 The guests arrived all decked out with hats and necklaces.  It was a beautiful sight to behold.  (If you look closely at the picture on the right you can see a milk mustache.)  The guest dressed in green was quite a diva and requested MILK of all things at a tea party.  Being the polite hostess that I am I didn't deny her.

This particular guest was a dud.  I hated to be rude, but he just fussed and complained the whole time, until I finally told him to take a nap.  Don't tell his pediatrician, but I put him on his belly because he sleeps better that way.

 We even had a special seat for the little "dud", but I guess you just can't please everyone.

Did I mention we had pancakes instead of crumpets?  Like I said my guests were very particular. 

The Summer List Saunters On

I'm not 100% confident that our Summer List will be completed.  At this point I'm not even 50% confident it will be completed.  But the thing is, we are having fun.  We've done some fun projects that weren't even on our list and compared to how I felt at the beginning of the summer (sad, tired, frazzled, etc.) I am so happy!  Don't get me wrong, somedays are crazier than others, but overall we are having such a fun time.  This is such a conflicted time of year for me.  I totally love being at home with my kids, and yet I start to look forward to going back to work.  Dropping Xander off at the babysitter is going to rip a hole in my heart, but then I think of all the mothers who trust their "babies" into my care and I know that my job is such a vital and important one.  I digress... Back to our summer list...

 Feeding the ducks and fish at City Park (in Hagerstown) is something I've wanted to do with Amirah for awhile, and two weeks ago we got the chance to do it.  Please disregard her "just woke up from a nap" hair.

 Daddy and Amirah on a little adventure.  I just love the relationship these two have.  It makes my heart happy.

Amirah and I made frozen bananas (with chocolate and peanut butter) last week.  Oh man.  They were delicious.  As you can tell by Amirah's face she was pretty excited, too.

 Painting with ice cubes was really fun.  I just froze water with food coloring and then let Amirah move them around on a canvas.  As they melted they left water marks. 

Here's how it ended up.