St Albans 2013

There aren't many things about my childhood house that I miss.  I hate to actually admit that but the place doesn't look the way that it did when I was little.  

I had to go to mom's today after work to pick up a chain that Brian needed for this weekend.

One thing that hasn't changed much is this view coming down the street.

The trees are much larger than they used to be but they still drop their leaves in the street.  

The street is so narrow that you almost feel like you are getting a hug as you drive down it.  

I never realized just how narrow the street is until I moved out into the suburbs where things are a little more spaced out.  Another thing that seems weird to me is just how many cars are parked on the street.  Out in the burbs we have driveways and in many of the cities you can't even park on the street or at least have to have the cars off the street at night.  Growing up on this road you don't know any different.  

I have such fond memories of playing on this street.  Riding our bikes, playing football (or really, watching the boys play), kickball and baseball.  Drawing the field-of-the-day with chalk and using sweatshirts and any other thing we could find as the bases.  We would play outside all day.

I am anxious to see what kind of kids will live by us in our new house and neighborhood.  Where we are now there are not many other kids.  Or at least kids that we see.  I want my kids to grow up with the types of neighborhood friends that I had.   I hope we have that at our new house.  So far we have seen signs of kids by our new house so it looks promising but only time will tell.

B-I-N-G-O

"There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name, oh.  

B-I-N-G-O,  B-I-N-G-O,  B-I-N-G-O and the farmer's name was that."

Times are a changin'

Not only are the leaves starting to change and fall to the ground but I can also start to see a difference and change in the kids.  They are getting older.  I could tell this today when I got home from work and saw Hannah sitting in the yard all alone, talking to herself.  Apparently she was playing A+ and was organizing the group of kids to gather around and make their next choice.

We raked up a pile of leaves and the girls had a few jumps.

Although they have their moments....the girls love playing together. Their favorite things to play at the moment are school and dance class. 

1 down 800 to go

I think we made a decision!

The exterior colors of the house, stone, trim, and garage door have been determined.

Here is our color scheme- you will have to use your imagination for now.

Main house color will be the darker brown on the right.

Trim color will be the light color on the top.

Garage door will be the circle color- left.

Stone will be around the garage and pillars.

Black will be for the roof and shutters we added.

Hannah Banana and Amelia Bedelia

We had our first ever conferences last week for Hannah.

I knew it would happen and it did.  I cried.

As soon as we sat down and Ms Stauffenecker started telling us about Hannah, it started.

I actually held it back pretty good but I had to work at it.

She started the conversation saying "I can't say enough good things about Hannah."  She told us about how Hannah is doing really great in school.  She is well behaved and gets along well with others.  She is a leader among her peers and plays with everyone, even the kids that nobody else wants to play with.  She is helpful and follows directions. 

Her teacher was very impressed with her drawing skills and showed us her journal where she has been drawing pictures to express herself.   The first picture in the journal was a family picture.  We turned the pages and looked at picture after picture.  It was so fun to see her drawings and the types of things that she thinks about while she is at school.  It was so nice to see that in all of the pictures all of the people were smiling and happy.  All of her drawings were happy and colorful- not that I expected anything else.

Finally we went over her progress as they compare to her Kindergarten Goals.

At the time of the reports she was struggling with telling the difference between the lowercase b and d and had trouble identifying l and q (thinking i and g).  But doing very well with learning her site words, the letter chart and handwriting.

Her math concepts were pretty much in line to where they should be for this time of year.  At the time of the report eval she was a little behind in the concepts of less and more (what's one less (or one more) than ____) and excelled in more than one area.  She is performing above her grade level in her ability to solve math problems with sums of 10 or less and with the Cardinal Principle (counting collections).

The whole time we were with her teacher, she walked Hailey around her classroom and showed her all of the things that they do during the day.

When her conferences were over we headed over to the Book Fair and got the girls a few books.

Everyone knows I have never been much of a reader.  I have read many books that I have really enjoyed and when I get into a book I do enjoy taking the time to read but since we have had kids it has been hard to get into it again.  

Hannah is learning to read in Kindergarten this year and she is very excited about it!

They have a goal to learn a certain number of 'site words' during this school year and she has been loving it!

Our goal is to read for 10-15 minutes at least 5 days per week.   

At the Book Fair, Hannah was really struggling on which book to buy.  She walked around and around the room looking for the perfect choice.  I spotted an Amelia Bedelia book and was able to talk her into buying it.  That night we read the book and she LOVED it!

We actually laughed out loud at some parts and Hannah surprisingly understood why the book was funny.

Amelia Bedelia was given a list of tasks to complete. One of the items on the list was to change the towels in the bathroom so she got a pair of scissors and changed the towels.  Hannah cracked up.

At one point I would read the item on the list Amelia Bedelia was to do and Hannah would start giggling while she told me what she thought Amelia Bedelia would do.  "Mom, I bet you she's going to put clothes on the chicken!"

One thing I loved about reading this book with her is that I remember sitting with my mom and reading this book when I was little.  I remember loving these Amelia Bedelia books and thinking that she was so funny.  Thinking back, I am not sure if I was old enough to really understand why her actions were so funny or if it was the way my mom read the story to me that gave away the way I should react.  Whatever it was, it left wonderful memories that I now get to share with my own daughter.

What are you lookin' at?

I was sitting on the couch today enjoying some screen time.  Hannah was on the floor in front of me and I caught her staring at me, so naturally I stared back.

Me:  "What are you lookin' at?"

Hannah:  "Hmph- I haven't figured it out yet!" 

Ohhhh- you lil' stinker- got me!

Who Tarted?

Last night the girls went to Jennie and Tom's so that Brian and I could go out for our Anniversary.

On our way there we were talking to them about how fun it is that Tom is now officially their uncle.  We explained that this is super cool because now we know that Tom will be in their lives forever.

"Forever mommy?"  "WOO HOO!  That is amazing!"

While we were out we saw a video posted on Facebook of the girls playing with a Whoopie Cushion.  They were laughing like crazy!  It was so adorable!

I love that they have so much fun with their aunts and uncles.  It warms my heart that I can share these two with my family and that they have so many people around them that truly love them.

When we asked Hailey what she was doing in that video she started giggling again- "I was tarting!"

I Choose You

I Choose You lyrics

by Andy Grammer

 When we're born into this world

We don't really get a say
Little boys and little girls handed to brand new families
There comes a time in life
When we finally get to choose
And I choose you, I choose you

We can't give our two cents
Of how tall we want to be
We don't get an opinion
On our ethnicity
But the one we spend our life with
That we get to choose
And I choose, I choose you

I choose you, to be by my side
I choose you, to hold me at night
It's the biggest decision I'm about to get right
I choose you, I choose you
 

Everybody has one,
A choice they get to make
Half human half heaven
That decides the family tree
Now we all pick the branches
That then becomes the roots
I choose you, I choose you

I choose you, to be by my side
I choose you, to hold me at night
It's the biggest decision I'm about to get right
I choose you, I choose you

I was worried I would not know what to do
If I was in these shoes
Standing here it's clearer than the sky is blue
That I choose you, I choose you
With so little we control, thank God it's in the rules
We get to choose, and I choose you

I choose you, to be by my side
I choose you, to hold me at night
It's the biggest decision I'm about to get right
I choose you, I choose you

Happy Anniversary Honey! 

"What if we change up our minds?"

Everyone's been really curious about how the girls feel about moving.

I hate to admit it but I am really not sure.

We try not to talk about it too much with them directly just because it's going to be a long time before our house is ready.  We have a lot of decisions to make and up until recently we could have changed our minds.  We paid our down payment last Friday so now the conversation is more direct and matter of fact.  We are moving.  Here is our new yard, etc.

They seem to be ok with it but I am not sure they really get what's happening.  After all, our new house is just a pile of dirt right now.

Tonight we had a few errands to run and it was just the girls and me in the car.

We started talking about the new house and the questions started flowing in.

"What if we change up our minds and don't wanna live there anymore?"

"Won't we miss Brody?!"

"How does someone else live in our house?"

"How does our new house get built?"

"Is Mike going to live there with us?"

"Will I have my own bathroom?"

"Is my room bigger than my room now or smaller?"

"Will we have a bottom floor, a middle floor and a upstairs floor?"

"Will we have a fridge with water on the door?"

Tonight while putting Hailey to bed she started to cry.

"What's wrong honey?!  Why are you crying?!"

She replied "I like my curtains, I not want to leave them here."

"Oh honey!  Don't worry, we get to bring all of our stuff with us."

"Even my undies?!" she asked.

"Yes honey, even your undies."

"And my babies?  And clothes? And bed daddy made me?"

It was such a sweet conversation and when I think about it, these girls have been coming to a furnished model home with us- no wonder the poor little thing thought she'd have to leave all of our stuff here.  I was able to calm her nerves letting her know that all of our stuff will be coming to our new house and she was much better. 

Hannah and I also had a conversation tonight but her concerns were much different. 

"I am really worried mom.  How are you and dad going to get all of our stuff to the new house?"

"Oh don't worry about that- we will lift it, put it in a truck and drive it there."

"What?!  You guys can't lift this stuff!  That is not safe.  You will get hurt!"

"Nah, don't worry buddy.  Maybe we can even get people to help us.  It will be ok."

"But then how will we have room in daddy's truck for all of that?  I think about those things and I worry about you."

Two little sweeties!  I can't wait until we are in our new house and settled.

Good Morning!

One thing I love about fall are the sunrises and sunsets.  They are so bright and bold.

Draw Something

There is a Draw Something app on my iPad that Hannah loves to play.  It's basically like Pictionary between just two people.  You are given choices of things to draw and if the other person can guess what it is you both get points.  This one cracked me up!

Let the choices begin!

Last week we had our pre-construction meeting with Dale and Mike.

At that meeting we reviewed our plans and validated that there were no more major changes that we wanted to make.  We have a few cosmetic things that we are going back and forth about but since that won't affect the structure of the house, we are done with this step and can submit the plans for permits/approvals!  YAY!

At that meeting Dale gave us our list of homework.  Over the next month we need to make decisions about carpet, paint, cabinets, stone, exterior colors, garage doors, doorknobs, electrical, trim, sinks, countertops, plumbing, light fixtures, faucets, lightswitches, tile, vinyl flooring, etc.

At the moment it sounds a little overwhelming but super exciting and fun!

I am a little nervous though, I am not much of a home decorator and I am not real sure how I am going to make all these decisions.  Sure, none of them are so permanent that we won't be able to change them if we don't like them but who wants to spend the time or money to do that after you've spent the time and money to have someone else do it.  I want it to be perfect.

Dale sent us with samples for siding, shakes, garage doors, doorknobs, and trim.  We already had a pretty good idea of what we wanted the outside color scheme to be so this should be pretty easy, right?

 Ummm, no.  Not when you black roof can be either Black Walnut or Rustic Black.  Not when you light/off whiteish trim can be either Almond, Pearl, Cream, or Mist.  And NOT so easy when you garage door colors come in only a few colors and on paper, none of them look right.  Looks like we have more homework to do on what we thought would be the easiest decision to make. Stay tuned!

 

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.  The girls were watching TV this morning and Angel was real excited to join them!  Hope she doesn't try this trick at home.....oops!

Always the Miller's

   Maybe it's because we have the most trees.  Maybe it's because we don't pay attention and these trees should have been cut down already because they were dying or for some other reason.  Maybe it's because we are only there on the weekends and we don't get to see the carnage after the storms.

 Not sure what it is but it is strange that it's always us. There is a storm in Pine City and the Miller's will find a tree (or two) down at the cabin.  Always.

We came to the cabin today- grandma Chris, Kristin, Bobby, Kim and Joe joined us.  Our plan was to sleep over but today was freezing and since it rained the whole day we decided to just head home after finishing up the few things we set out to do.  Brian, Joe, and Bobby got the boat and lift out of the water.  (THANKS for your help guys!)  The girls helped grandma pick up sticks in the rain.    This won't be the last trip to the lake for the year but it's getting close. It's always a little sad to close things up.  This year is especially tough- our family has been growing and it's been more and more of a treat to have everyone up there and getting the chance to spend time together.  And look at what has happened this year!  Hailey has decided once and for all she is a fan!  Thank goodness she is over her whatever-it-was with Joe!

Adventures in Dog Sitting

Denny and Judy are heading to Iowa and needed someone to watch Angel this weekend.

The girls were SUPER excited when she showed up!

We went out to eat and when we had gotten back home we let Angel out of her kennel.  She explored the house and the girls accompanied her on this journey.  

Once the rest of the family made their way downstairs, we all settled in on the couch and Angel jumped right up on Brian. It was just like she has done this before.... Hmmmm-we thought this little one wasn't allowed on furniture.  Well- maybe not at her house but she is a guest here- we gotta make her feel comfortable, right?!

You like this?

Tonight Hailey and I were snuggling on the couch.  Brian was sitting on the other end and we were all watching TV.  Hailey had gone up to grab a snack and came down with some fruit snacks.  

A pack for her and a pack for me- she offered a pack to Brian and he responded with

 "No.  I don't eat that crap."

Hailey climbed back up on my lap and within a few seconds she pulled a fruit snack from it's bag and reached her arm across me asking "Hey dad- do you like this crap?"  Once again he said 'No."

She popped that one in her mouth and reached in again.  "How about this one daddy?  You like this crap?"  After we all stopped giggling we talked about how it probably isn't the best idea for her to use language like that and told her about how that word isn't a nice one.  "Oh sorry mommy."

Crying Momma- party of 1!

ALL BY HERSELF!

All that hardwork and practice has payed off!  I love, love, LOVE the way she writes her name :-)

She is doing so good with those e's.  Hailey has always done the lower case letters for her name even though the upper case E would be much easier for her to write, I would think.

I love watching her write her name.  She holds pens and pencils perfectly and starts with the H, a and i.   Then she'll sometimes pause and ask what comes next.  Before you can get out the rest of the letters she is hard at work finishing them up.  The l and e come super easy and she takes a little more time with the y.  

She has been coming home from Jackie's with papers that she has written her name on but Jackie usually helps remind her which letter comes next.  Tonight she didn't ask or need any help!

She grabbed a pen and some paper and a few minutes later brought this to show me.  

I am so proud of her but at the same time secretly wish that she would stay a little baby forever!

I'm not ready!

The Danger Zone

Today while walking Hannah to her coat hook area we were holding hands and as we approached this orange square on the ground she yanked my arm to pull me out of the way.

"Mom- be careful, you shouldn't walk in that square.  It's the danger zone!"

Picture Perfect

Mike, our realtor, informed us that they are getting ready to come over and take pictures of the house.  We were told we should think about putting it on the market soon so we need to get everything ready.  We spent the weekend picking up and decluttering a little.  We started packing up boxes and carrying things out to the garage.  (to be fair, Brian did most of the lifting and moving)

House is officially picture ready!

Earrings Round 2

This morning the girls woke up and saw that the sun was shining.  That was all they needed to start begging to go outside to play.  They grabbed a few rakes and made a small pile of leaves to jump in.

After they had their fun (and the football game was over) it was time to run some errands.  While we were out I mentioned to Hailey that if she wanted we could go back and try the earrings again.

She was still on board so here goes nothin'!

Like a champ she walked in and took her seat.  The lady came over, we explained what happened and she had a talk with Hailey to confirm that this is what she wanted to do.  Hailey had NO second thoughts about it.   She sat still as could be and within a few minutes her ears were pierced for the second time this weekend!  So proud of you little monster!