Just Mom and Nate...

Nate and I had a wonderful day together today. We ate lunch at Subway (Nate's favorite restaurant), went shopping at the outlet mall for John's birthday presents, looked at amplifiers for Nate's bass guitar, found some books for Nate and the girls, bought scrapbooking supplies for Nate's weekend school project (an "All About Me" scrapbooking page), and went grocery shopping for our favorite dinner of salmon and rice.

The girls spent the day with Grandma and Geri decorating the house for birthdays and Halloween. We'll be going over for a birthday party for Nate and John tomorrow so they're getting everything ready.

I love it when I get to spend a day alone with just one of the kids. It really helps us talk and get to know each other better. It was a busy but very wonderful day!

Busy, busy, busy...

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Since my last post Amanda got her new glasses, we've had a Cub Scout campout (no pics because Daddy was on duty!), our first Brownie meeting, our first Brownie campout (a drive-in campout, more on that later) with two of the girls very best friends (AnnaMarie on the left, Paige next to Nicole) and 12 other Brownies, a field trip with Nate's class, shopping for accessories for Nate's bass guitar, attending a Cub Scout meeting with the Bubbleman, a playdate with a friend, and many more wild and crazy adventures!

Sophie continues to run fine, although I've been driving Goofy for the past few days because I've been doing dirty stuff -camping, field trips to the corn maze, and recycling cans for Cub Scouts.

This weekend we are having the famous family birthday party for Nate and John and going to a Cub Scout meeting. Next weekend John and I are going on a romantic getaway in Bellingham and Nate is having a friend birthday party at a car racing place in Mukilteo.

After that we might be able to rest easy for a few weekends. We can hope anyway:) I'll post pics later. I've got to go calm down three screaming children. The joys of motherhood continue to amaze me!

Sophie is fine...for now at least...

Well, Sophie's doctor said that she just needed a hit to the reset button. They rebooted her computer and she should be all fixed now. I guess only time will tell...

On a brighter note, Mom came home today. Geri and I were really excited to see her and so were the dogs! She's resting up and getting over a cold and jetlag now and glad to be in her own bed. She had an amazing time at her nephew's wedding in Ohio and told us all kinds of stories about her time there. The kids are really looking forward to seeing her!

A busy day...

Today I took Amanda and Nicole to the eye doctor. That doctor we saw is a specialist that checks every nook and cranny of the eye and makes the girls play lots of fun games to check out how their eyes work together and separate. They tested Amanda first, and found that her eyes don't work together very well at all. She has something called inefficient binocularity (eye teaming), inefficient tracking (the ability to follow a moving object smoothly and accurately with both eyes), and inefficient focusing range and flexibility (the ability to focus from near to far and to do it quickly and accurately). She will need special glasses for reading and desk work to get started on her therapy, and then continuing vision therapy for a few months at least. She's super excited about getting glasses! She's hounding me every day to go get it done but I'm waiting for the weekend.

Nicole on the other hand didn't really have much trouble at all. She got perfect scores on all but depth perception. That is pretty normal for kids her age though, according to the doctor. All in all, it was definitely worth the visit to the eye doctor.

On the way home, Sophie started lighting up indicators like it was Christmas. I panicked and stopped at a red light, turned off the ignition, and started it back up and everything appeared to be fine. Until the next hill, then all the indicators lit up and did not turn back off again this time. I scheduled a visit to her doctor (the dealership) for tomorrow. We'll see what they say I guess. She only has 400 miles on her. She can't get sick yet!

Ho Hum...

This week is just more of the same as last week. I've been doing lots of errands and helping John get ready for Cub Scout camp this weekend. I've got lots of meetings to go to at the school, and doctors appointments for the girls. Lots of stuff to do, but nothing to really show for it.

The one exciting thing I'm going to do this week is pick my MIL up from the airport with Geri. We're going out to lunch together and have some girl time together. John will pick the kids up from school and take care of them. It's wonderful to have such a great husband and father for my kids!

Sophie is still a wonderful addition to our family. While I'm doing my ho-hum errands I can marvel at how great it is to have a new car. Well, I'm off to the races now. I have to get kids ready for their day at school!

Open House Day at Daddy's Work

Today was the annual Safety Day at John's work. They bring in a rock wall, a bunch of bouncy houses, the Reptile Man, the Fire Department, the Police Department, Costco, and many other businesses in the area to throw a huge party for Kimberly-Clark employees and their families. They give away free product, conduct tours through the mill, and feed everyone a wonderful meal. They also had an antique car show and John got to bring Speedy (the Blazer) to show him off. The kids look forward to this day all year long and it was sunny and gorgeous outside!

I'll post pics later of our day. Right now I'm going to rest and catch up with my family. This is the first weekend we've had to relax since July:)

Back to school blues...

The kids started school yesterday. I put them on the bus, then raced them back to the school. I couldn't actually get into the parking lot though because of all those other crazy moms following their kids:) I parked two blocks away and sprinted over to the school just in time for the last bell to ring. I hugged and kissed both girls (Nicole was embarassed, but Amanda loved it!), then went over to see Nate and he wouldn't even look at me! He's growing up so fast!

They all LOVE their teachers and the school did a really good job of placing them in the best classes for them. Nate has a really nice 4th grade Summit teacher who really wants to help him be the best student he can possibly be. I had requested a different 4th grade teacher who now teaches a 4th/5th split. I'm glad he's not in that class. There are only 4 kids from the old class in that one and he would have felt very isolated.

Amanda has all of her old friends and even some of Nicole's in class with her. She has a really nice soft hearted teacher who will really give her the attention she craves. Nicole has the neighbor girl, her little bus friend, and several kids she's always wanted to get to know better. She has the two teacher team and they really push the kids hard. She's excited about her class and is open to the teachers' challenge.

You might ask what Mommy is doing? I'm enjoying driving Sophie all over town getting errands done that should have been done months ago! I even unpacked from the camping trip. I've worked my way down the piles in the house to the California mess and I'm working on that now. I went to breakfast with Geri yesterday, ate breakfast at the doughnut shop this morning (just this once I promise!), and I'm going to go to lunch with a friend next week. I'm really loving the complete and utter silence in the van. No kids, no radio, no TV, just me and Sophie. After months of constant mayhem, PEACE...