Road block of life

I pride myself on being able to juggle family, house, work, and all of my other outside activities pretty well. Unfortunately, sometimes life puts a road block to slow me down and make me detour down a slightly more bumpy road. Last week Tuesday, I had way over scheduled my life with the school open house, gymnastics, and my bible study. I had everything arranged so that I could get everyone where they needed to be on time, until at about 3 PM, I developed a fever complete with chills, body aches, and an overwhelming need to just go to bed. The only thing that actually occurred that night was that my wonderful neighbor took my kids to the open house where my husband met them and brought everyone home. I stayed in bed. This 3 PM fever along with an annoying cough continued for 4 days until I finally decided that I should get checked out. Turns out my job has an occupational hazard, pneumonia. I am finally feeling much better on antibiotics, but this kind of infection knocked me out of commission for a week. I guess this is mother natures only way of making me take it easy for a few days. I promised myself not to get quite so over scheduled anymore.

Planning ahead

Yes, I know that Halloween is 2 months away, but every year it sneaks up on me and I am not ready. Since my children have already told me what they want to be for Halloween and are pretty convinced that this will not change, I have started planning costumes. Mackenna did not hesitate to tell me that she wanted to be Gabriella from High School Musical and was sure that she wanted to wear the dress that she wore at the end of the High School Musical 2 movie. (The white one with the blue ribbon in the picture) She also was insistent that she needed the wig. Haylee has decided that she wants to be an Olympic gymnast complete with a gold medal. Claire is going to be Tigger because I still get to pick her costumes and I can get a hand-me-down from a friend. It would be wrong of me to say "What happened to plain old ghosts and vampires" because when I was growing up, my mom spent hours designing, sewing, painting, and constructing elaborate costumes for David and I. (a baseball card, robot, 50's girl, ladybug, and a box of french fries, to name only a few) I see why I feel a need to do the same for my kids. Anyway, I am proud to say that I am creating this years costumes frugally. I found a women's white shirt that I am converting into a dress for Kenna and I found a $9 red/white/blue warm up jacket for Haylee and I will construct a gold medal from cardboard. The only splurge will be the wig for Kenna, cuz I can't bring myself to buy a used wig. Wish me luck. I will certainly have pictures at Halloween time so you can see how it goes.

The first day

OK, it went well. I only shed a few tears and it was as the bus was pulling away so only the 6 other moms were there to witness. Kenna was sooo excited and seemed only a little nervous as she boarded the bus. She sat next to her best friend and that seemed to help. She, however had no tears. It felt a little strange to only have Claire today, but it will be nice to spend some time with just her. I am going to sign her up for a mommy and me tumbling class on Thursday mornings and if there ever is a swimming class at Borgess during the morning, we will likely do that as well. Anyway, here are the great shots of Haylee (my big second grader), and Kenna (my big kindergartner).