Makin' it Pretty

I have always wanted to add to my landscaping, but never had the time or money to do it.  I finally bit the bullet this year and just started ripping out grass once school got out.  Once I started I knew that there was not turning back and I had to finish.  Well, after three LONG days of working (over the course of a week) I accomplished what I set out to do.  I don't want to look at a pick axe or a shovel for a while!

It wasn't easy having the kids around, so I had to work on the first day while Andrew was sleeping.  On the second day I took them to daycare and spend eight long hours tearing out grass.  The third day was spend with the boys playing and Matthew being a HUGE help.  Turns out he likes digging, planting, gardening, watering and playing in the dirt.  Andrew on the other hand was a bit to control, so he spend a lot of time playing in his wagon with toys on the last day.  Matthew and I finally finished after Andrew went to bed.  Here is the before and after shots of the yard.  Now we just have to wait for them to grow and fill in.  Thanks to my water boy, Matthew, a lot of the plants are already growing and it's only been three weeks!  To see more progress pictures click here.

Before

My wonderful helper!

After

Matthew's race

My school puts on a 5K and a one-mile fun run for the community.  This was the second race they have put on and it was much bigger than last year.  The weather was beautiful and the kids and families had a great time.  I had planned on running the 5K, but with Ryan being gone it has been nearly impossible to find the time to run on my own.  Instead I decided to run the one-mile run with Matthew.  He did excellent.  He ran the entire time, even after tripping over the curb and skinning his knee.  Of course we stopped at every drain to see if there was water, but luckily the neighborhood behind school doesn't have many drains.  Matthew got a ribbon when he crossed the finish line and he was SO proud!  We stayed for the metals ceremony and Matthew had a great time cheering for all the 5K winners.  Hopefully I will get some more pictures of the race and the photographers throughout the course start submitting their pictures. 

Ryan will be home in 5 days for a weekend visit and we all can't wait!  Matthew has been tearing off his countdown every morning.  He never lets me forget either.  School is out in two weeks (on Matthew's birthday) and I have to admit that I have some reservations about it.  School and daycare are my routine and they both really help make the days go faster.  Weekends have been super busy and that helped too.  As much as I hate to make my days go by faster, because that means the boys are growing up way too fast, I also need that to help this time in our lives to be over.  My fear is that once I am out for the summer I will get a little stir crazy being home with the kids 24/7.  I have set up for them to go to daycare every Thursday so I can get things done, like mowing the lawn, appointments, grocery shopping, etc.  We do have a few trips planned, too, but I hope we can keep the rest of the days busy and fun-filled too.  

I can do it...

All of the sudden, Andrew decided he wanted to be the one to feed himself and wouldn't let anyone else do it.  So, I gave him his fork and let him dig in.  He gets such a thrill and enjoyment of doing this; I just love it!  He's doing okay with the messy things, such as applesauce and yogurt, and usually requires a bath after dinner.  Mainly due to the food in his hair.  He loves to pick up the plate or bowl and put them on his head.  

As the weather gets nicer and work winds down our lives are getting busier and busier!  I am looking forward to next month when school is out and we are free to go as we please, play as long as we want outside, and really not give a care to the world.  Matthew LOVES doing yard work and will try at every opportunity possible to get outside and mow the lawn.  Just the other morning he let Norm out and I caught him in the backyard, in his jammies with bare feet, removing our downspouts so I could mow the lawn.  Explaining to him that I had to go to work didn't go over too well with him.  Luckily for him, his good behavior at Deah's earned him a tractor ride with Donny.  That made his day!  

In work news, our area millage renewal passed (by over 70%).  The day I voted I had told Matthew that I would be voting and then we could go home.  He thought I said boating and was pretty persistent that we get the boat in the water.  Poor guy was pretty disappointed when he finally realized that voting and boating are two different things.  The millage renewal was wonderful news to our district because now we are only about 4 million in the hole instead of the 8 million we would have been if it hadn't passed.  There are a lot of changes going on for next year.  Luckily I was "safe" from getting one of the courtesy letters, but 265 other employees of the district weren't so lucky.  They are looking to outsource all custodians, secretaries, bus drivers, cut music, some art, Reading Recovery, Gifted and Talented programs, reading paprapros and other support staff, librarians, food service, and the list goes on.  We will know the finals in June as to who and what will be cut to help balance the budget thanks to our crappy Governor Snyder. 

Three more weeks and Ryan will be home for a visit.  He was going to make his annual trip up north with his friends, but chose to stay at home for the entire weekend with us.  We look forward to spending lots of time with him doing many family things, including celebrating Matthew's 4th birthday!  Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can get the boat out for a day or so.  Crazy to think he'll be heading to kindergarten/Young-Fives screening next March.  Where did the time go?

9 weeks at last!

The first stretch was finally over and after 9 long weeks, Ryan was able to come home for three days!  He surprised us all by coming home early Thursday morning instead of really late Thursday night.  When Matthew first saw him, he just said "Hi Daddy" like it was any other day.  Then it sunk in and about 5 seconds later he turned around and yelled "DADDY!!".  The hugs and kisses didn't stop all weekend!  Drew was in amazement and had the best look on his face.  He was a bit shy at first with Ryan and wouldn't Ryan hold him.  It only took him about 10 minutes to warm up to him and then Drew was handing our hugs and kisses all weekend long too.  It was so nice for Ryan to actually see Drew's walking and running skills in person and listen to him say "Mama", "Dada", and "Ball".   

It was nice for Ryan to have a break in the nasty weather they have been having down there.  On Wednesday night his work was evacuated because of tornadoes.  When he and Gary left work they actually drove through part of one.  The wind was so powerful that it pushed Gary's truck (a 7,200 pound Dodge beast) horizontally across the street.  Ryan said there was wind and debris flying all over the place.  On the way home they had to move 2 trees that had fallen in the road.  Overall, they have gotten over 6 inches last week alone.  On Friday, St. Louis got hit pretty hard with 12 tornadoes!  We were very happy that Ryan drove this trip and didn't fly, because it would have been uncertain if he would have been able to fly in to St. Louis today.  So all in all coming home to 50 degree weather was a nice, chilly break from his 85 degree severe thunderstorms.

I took a half day on Friday so Ryan and I could get some errands and odds and ends done.  We bought Matthew's birthday present, because Ryan wanted to be a part of it and his next trip home will be for Matthew's birthday.  We spent most of the weekend as a family, just the way we needed it to be.  We did have some time that Ryan and I went out just the two of us and we also celebrated our birthdays with Ryan's family.  The four of us started a movie night on Saturday, but Drew fell asleep during his breathing treatment and Matthew passed out about 30 minutes into Toy Story.  We had a very casual and spur of the moment Easter with my parents.  The boys got to have an egg hunt in their yard and after our lunch we came home to get Ryan ready for his trek home.

Before leaving, Ryan took Matthew and Drew on their first JD tractor rides of the year.  A perfect way to end the weekend in those boys' eyes!  Of course once Ryan drove away, Matthew started asking for Daddy.  The next five weeks will hopefully fly by and Ryan will be home again with us for the weekend. 

Check out some more photos at our picture site.  We can't wait for Memorial Day Weekend.  Love you Daddy!

Ryan's New Job

Ryan finally got put onto Gary's work site and will start on Monday!!  What does this mean for him???  Well, the site he has been at for the past five weeks was 90 minutes away and the new site is only about 20 minutes away.  The old site he was working alone with nobody he knew and doing all the driving by himself.  The new site is with a few friends and he can carpool with Gary on a daily basis.  The old site was five days a week for 10 hours and the new site is six days a week for 10-12 hours, with many more opportunities for overtime.  The old site was outside, so if it rained they were sent home.  He has not worked a full 50 hour week since arriving there five weeks ago.  The new site is inside so weather is not a factor. 

An added bonus...the new site has "family weekends" since they have so many travelers.  On a Family Weekend, they shut the plant down for the entire weekend so guys don't miss out on more work to be with their families.  They don't have them every month, I think it is around every two months.  The next Family weekend is Easter(only four weeks away!), which is when Ryan was going to come home anyway.  The only downfall of the new site is that Ryan will be working nights now and not days.  We will have to figure out a schedule to Skype (most likely on the weekends until I am out of work).  He might have to call during the day and leave a "goodnight" message to the boys to hear before going to bed.  That is one minor thing we can work out.

My Spring Break starts on Friday.  I don't have many plans except spending a lot of time with the boys, a few doctor's appointments and a trip to the outlet mall with my mom to get the boy's their new spring and summer clothes.  My students really need the break from school and illness.  I luckily have managed to dodge all the germs and illness that has hit our school.  Not sure how seeing as my whole class has had it...maybe I'm immune?!  

There is a lot of other things going on at work now that have been stressful.  Our Superintendent and our Board of Education had a horrible relationship and they forced her out with a hefty buyout one year before her contract was up.  Now they want to spend even more money with an interim Superintendent and then hire a new one.  They want us to become a "Super tier" district, yet none of the board members can even define what that is.  What Superintendent in their right mind would want to come work for this board?  The two most controversial board members are up for re-election (the president and vice-president) and hopefully the community will not re-elect them!  I wish I could vote for this, but I can't.  With all the cuts our crappy, new governor is making to public education, the choice of spending more money (which they don't have) was an outrage to the community.  It has created an uproar in Portage and many unhappy staff members.  On top of that, with all the new cuts, we somehow have to cut another $3-8 million from out budget (the number varies depending on an upcoming county mileage renewal).  We (the teachers) helped to cut millions last year by choosing to pay more for insurance (20%), take a pay cut to prevent the layoff of 45 teachers midyear, add minutes to the school day so the district could dismiss one-two weeks before the rest of the area to save even more money on the part time workers.  Now the district is proposing cutting all the early intervention reading specialists (Reading Recovery and reading parapros), outsource our Secretaries and the rest of custodial, and the big whopper...class sizes of 30 in elementary and last I heard over 35 for middle and high school!  I think we all need a break from that. 

In happier news, Matthew's speech teacher has started his one year evaluation.  They only got through one area and Matthew is now slightly above his age level for comprehension!  Hopefully next week Ken will be able to get to Matthew's expressive language screen.  He has grown so much this past year and we couldn't be happier.  Matthew goes back to the ENT on April 18th for an exam and new hearing test to make sure everything is alright.  Drew is practically running now and is into EVERYTHING!  He loves to follow Matthew around and they just laugh all the time now!  Matthew loves being able to play with him and teach him new things. 

Matthew has done a lot of growing up these past five weeks.  He has been such a great help.  He continues to help empty the dishwasher and knows where everything goes.  He loves, loves, loves to do the laundry and will gather it all for me and help switch it all over.  He also loves going to the grocery store (odd, I know).  As long as he can see the fish and the lobsters he will help in any way I need.  His favorite, by far though, is running the vacuum so we do that often too.  He loves to talk and see Ryan on Skype and once he gets his bedtime chat with Ryan he will go to bed on his own.  He gets his jammieswatch a movie.  This is by far his favorite activity and mine too!  Showing tonight at the Chenery cinema is A Bug's Life, can't wait :)

Two weeks down

It has been two weeks since Ryan moved away and things here are finally settling into a routine.  The first week that Ryan was gone we had a major winter ice storm.  Luckily we only lost power at our house for about 5 hours, but other parts of Portage were out for 4 days, including our daycare!  School was canceled for the first two days and then when the power was finally restored a power surge fried the motherboard and almost all the individual heating units for each classroom (about 30 of them).  So, my school was canceled for another day.  The district was planning on opening for Thursday, but without all the parts needed we still didn't have heat.  It was a good thing, because Thursday morning there was a bad car accident outside of school and the two cars involved split the power pole in half, again knocking power out to school and this time frying the remaining heating units that didn't go in the first surge!  They are still trying to fix all the problems a week later from this mess.  So, our school had the entire week off.  It was a very long week for us, but Matthew and I were able to go to Jungle Joes on Saturday with some friends to blow off some stream.

Due to the week off of school we had to reschedule conferences for this past week.  Monday and Wednesday were conferences and I was booked both nights until 9:00.  On top of conferences and getting Matthew to speech in the middle of it, Drew got sick again.  His last ear infection never went away with the first round of antibiotics and now turned into a double ear infection.  On top of that his wheezing flared up and he was officially diagnosed with asthma (something we have suspected since October).  Drew is taking after his mommy!  He now gets nebulizer treatments four times a day until this flair up subsides, then it is twice a day until spring for preventative measures.  He is handling the face mask okay, some days and treatments are better than others.  It works really good when he is asleep and doesn't fight me :)

We were able to purchase a new laptop and get it down there to Ryan so he can now Skype with us!  Matthew is so excited to see daddy on the computer and talk to him on the phone.  Drew is mesmerized by the fact that Daddy is on the computer too.  Ryan got to see Drew walking all over the house in person too and not just on a video.  Walking is his main mode of transportation now and he is a pretty confident walker!  Drew is now climbing onto everything, including the couch...super!  He talks and babbles a lot and imitates sounds all the time.  He calls me 'mom' and Ryan 'dada'. 

Matthew has his good days and his not so good days when it comes to missing Ryan, but every night when the phone rings, Matthew is the first to answer it.  Once he talks to Ryan he gets in his bed on his own and goes to sleep.  It is now part of his nightly routine.  He loves his friends at daycare and loves having school time there too.  Now that Drew is more mobile, Matthew has really turned around with him.  He loves playing with him and his jealousy issues have subsided.  He will hold Drew's hand and walk him to other toys or books.  They wrestle together and play on the bed laughing all the time.  Peek-a-boo is still a favorite and Matthew loves playing it with Drew under the covers.  The joy of hearing those laughs is amazing.   

We have had enormous support and help from family in town and many, many friends.  I couldn't have gotten through the last two weeks without all the support.  Thank you for the emails, phone calls, texts, watching my boys and the hugs.  I can't wait for the next 6 weeks to fly by so we all can see Ryan in person.  We have already started planning a few trips this summer, including a weekend in Chicago (about 4 hours away for Ryan).  Ryan will come home in the fall for a few football games, but not the whole season.  We are also looking forward to a family weekend at Great Wolf Lodge (also in the fall) with both boys this year.  I plan on flying down there this summer too for a weekend visit.  I'm not sure if I will take the kids for the 8 hour car trip, but who knows, knowing me I probably will (I don't have much else to do this summer).  From what I have heard, St. Louis is an amazing city with lots to do.  I would like to explore it with just Ryan and again with the kids, visiting museums, zoos and the arch!  One museum I would like to see is called City Museum (Matthew's speech teacher told me all about it).  It is amazing with all levels of exploration, caves, tunnels, etc.
Plus, Ryan is living with Gary, Blair and their son Henry (who is three months younger than Matthew), so a trip down there would be fun for all the kids involved!

Not a morning person

I finally found the software to upload our videos to my computer and forgot about all the videos I had taken over the past few years.  We have film on Matthew crawling for the first time, his first steps as well as Drew crawling and the boys goofing off together.  I'm so happy that we took it when we did, because half of the footage I completely forgot about.  I came across this one and wanted to share how our mornings are at home sometimes.  I know I have felt like this before and Matthew is like this all the time.  He is definitely not a morning person.  Anyway, this is from Christmas 2009 (about 3 weeks before Drew was born) and Matthew was just waking up for Christmas morning.  Enjoy :)