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Ah, such a peaceful morning today. Avery woke up happy and cheerful which meant Wes was happy which in turn meant I was happy. Order has been restored in our little universe. Well, for the time being...until something else comes along.
I pulled up at school to pick Avery up this afternoon and saw a familiar sight.
This is where I find Avery most days when I pick her up - perched up on the "blue and gold" chatting away with her friends.
Today was the first of a last for me. I filled out my last lunch order form for Avery at Saint James.
To be honest, I'm really not going to miss those $3.75 lunches - they get REALLY expensive! We finally had to limit Avery to 8 days of "buying" lunches/month so that we could keep it to a budget of $30. Gotta love Dave Ramsey!!!
It's really starting to hit home that she will be changing schools next year. While I'm excited, truthfully I'm also nervous, anxious, scared, and worried about how Avery will adapt. Change isn't always easy though, right?
I got Avery to bed at a decent hour tonight. Let's see if tomorrow morning continues our good trend!
As predicted, the morning did NOT start off bright and cheerful. I knew things had ended badly when Wes told me that he finally turned the light on and pulled the covers off Avery in her bed. Uh oh, trouble's a brewing...and I'm glad to not be in the middle of it!
It was nice to have a night at home. Avery and I worked on the poster for her book report that's due this week. I was quite proud of myself (and actually her too) because I let her tell me what SHE wanted to do. Many times with projects I catch myself making suggestions telling Avery what to do, but I decided a while back that I was really going to make an effort to let her do the work herself. Heck, she's in 3rd grade and needs to know how to do these things. Let me tell ya - that first book report (back in the fall) was not fun, but she did it on her own and was proud of herself (as she should be).
I pulled out all of the supplies I purchased on Sunday and Avery's face just lit up - that girl loves some glitter!! She cut out the photos I printed, decided on an arrangement (we worked together on that part a little), figured out her title, and decided on some extra decorations. I was especially proud of her idea to use the number stickers for her steps. It sounds silly as I'm saying it now, but I figured she would just write the steps below each photo. When she saw those numbers she quickly informed me that she planned to use those to number her steps. See? Stepping back and letting her "do it herself" is a good thing!
She got everything finished and once again it was almost 9:00 - ack! Avery did promise to try and do better in the morning thought. I told her that when she woke up in a bad mood, it put her Dad in a bad mood which put me in a bad mood and it only went downhill from there. I think it finally sunk in - we'll see :)
It was like pulling teeth to get Avery out of bed this morning. Good thing I let Wes handle it!
Avery tried out a small taste of her candy snack mix that hardened overnight and quickly decided it was delish! Really, what's better than candy in the morning to get ya going?
When I picked Avery up from school this afternoon, she quickly pulled out this origami hat they made in library today.
The school is currently undergoing their SAIS/SACS accreditation that takes place once every five years. Due to this, Avery's class wasn't able to have full library time today so the librarian read them a section on these origami hats and helped each of them make one.
The BIG event of the day was the surprise box I found on the front porch this afternoon!!
My camera was damaged back during our February snow storm. Wes (who is never again allowed to touch or even speak about my baby) didn't like my idea of pulling the garbage can under the carport for a timed picture because the privacy fence would be behind us. He thought it would look better to have the backyard as the background. So he came up with the idea place the camera inside a styrofoam cooler on top of the trash can (to protect it from the snow). Sounds like a great idea, right? Well, it would have been if there hadn't been a strong wind that caught the lightweight cooler and knocked it to the ground. Of course, my camera went crashing down along with it.
Deep down, I knew my baby was broken. However, it still worked so so. I was in denial :( I really wanted to make it through softball, vacation, etc with my fabulous camera! However, during our trip to Savannah, it finally went kaput. As soon as we got back from Savannah, I headed to Best Buy to send it in for repairs.
Can you tell that I {heart} my camera? Seriously, I found a way to scrimp and save grocery money each month just to buy it! To this day, it is a purchase that I have not regretted one single time!OK, back to our regularly scheduled program (not my obsession with my camera).
Avery had a softball game tonight. They are currently down to only 10 players due to one girl who broke her foot (luckily it wasn't ball related). Unfortunately, the injured girl is the alternate catcher. This means that Avery had to play catcher all night long - she usually gets to play an inning or two at 2nd base as well. To top things off, she took a hard pitch directly to her upper arm/shoulder while playing catcher. Good thing they pulled out at 14-2 win!! I'm so proud of our team and the amazing job Wes has done coaching them!
Yet another late night. Can you guess how tomorrow's post is gonna start??
I didn't even bother asking what time the girls woke up this morning. I was just grateful that I was able to sleep until 7:30! Our SS class was canceled and so we ended up staying home and just letting the girls spend the morning together playing. They rode bikes and scooters, played outside, played inside, and just had fun together.
I took Paige and Caitlin back to my Mom's house around noon so that I could drop Avery off at Kathleen's house for her birthday party. It was a painting party in Millbrook and her parents were kind enough to take several of the kids including Avery. I used my "free afternoon" to pick up the items needed for Avery's book report/project due at school this week. Nothing like waiting 'til the last minute! The remainder of my free time was spent cleaning the house. However, after several unsuccessful weeks, I can finally say that I got the entire house cleaned - AT ONE TIME!!! Is it sad that this made me extremely happy?
What was Wes doing during this time? He continued work on "the swingset." Here are the parts that he completed between yesterday and today.
The smaller, front roof
The lookout with the "telescope" that's really just a piece of plastic and doesn't magnify anything!
And with that (and a full YEAR later) the swingset is pretty much complete.
There is a large window that still needs to be put in on the left hand side. Wes thought he would get out of putting it in. However, once Avery saw there was extra wood, that hope was shot down! Lesson learned - dispose of any remnants before child sees them! Avery has also decided she would like a door somewhere on that monstrosity too. If you recall, her Dad can do anything so that will come in handy :)
Avery made it home around 6:00 with the most adorable piece of artwork from Kathleen's party.
She said they were given the canvas with the beige background already painted and the dogs already traced in pencil. Each girl was then able to paint their picture and add the paw prints. The instructors came back and added the wording, whiskers, and some painted outlines. I think it looks great and she had such a wonderful time! I actually suggested this (at Corks & Canvas) for her 9th birthday, but she decided to do a swimming party instead. Now she has informed me that she'll probably do a painting party next year :)
We had to quickly jump in and get started on her school project. How does a book report turn into a cooking project? Seriously. She had to read a "how to" book and then implement what she learned. Then she had to put together a poster of the process completed with photos and/or drawings. Does this sound like a book report?
Avery decided on cooking, so I picked up a Betty Crocker Junior Cookbook for her with several cute quick recipes for her to pick from. Once she settled on a recipe, we headed to Winn Dixie to pick up the ingredients and get started.
She really enjoyed using her new cookbook and following the recipe, measuring everything out, and preparing it all.
Wow, another late night - 9:00 before she was in bed after working on that project. We had to get the cooking portion finished up tonight though. She has a softball game tomorrow night and can work on the poster Tuesday night. Whew, I'm ready for bed too!
After a late night at the ball field, we had team pictures this morning at 8:50. Of course, that meant we had to be there (according to Wes) no later than 8:30. Thankfully Wes took the time to iron up both of their uniforms Friday evening - he's pretty sweet like that.
The photographer started off with individual photos of anyone that wanted to order.
They finished up with our team picture. I'm hoping the actual photo they took turns out a little better. I was using my point and shoot (since my baby is still being repaired) and the sun was directly behind them glaring into the camera.
After pictures, Wes took the team down to the batting cages to warm up before our 10:30 game. We played an AUM team, the Cobras, and it was a really good game although the final score didn't reflect how tough they played us. We won 14-0! They should have easily had 3 runs in the first inning, but a girl slung her bat. She was called out and the two girls on base that she batted in - their runs didn't count. They seemed to just fall apart after that. Like I said, they still played us really strong and our girls did a great job holding them off!
Once we got home, I took Avery swimming at the indoor pool at the Y and Wes got to work on Avery's swingset. Nope, this isn't a new swingset. This would be the swingset she got for her 8th birthday LAST year that hadn't been finished yet. There wasn't alot left to do, but Wes got started on it today. His goal is to have it completed before her 9th birthday!!
As soon as we got home from the Y, my mom brought Paige and Caitlin (Avery's cousins) over to play and spend the night. They live an hour and a half south of us and don't get to see each other that often, so they had a great time together.
For as long as the girls have been staying with us, they always want to all sleep together on the futon in the orange room. We pull it out into a bed and they sleep sideways on it. As they've gotten older, it's obvious that Paige and Caitlin (who are pretty tall) are much too long and hang off, but they won't even consider sleeping anywhere else.
Don't they look like little angels asleep there?
Wishful thinking on the pollen front...even after all the rain yesterday, it's already starting to fall and accumulate again today. {sigh}
Today was Field Day for the Lower Elementary kids at school which meant that Avery got to wear her t-shirt and shorts. I guess since we didn't do uniforms growing up, I don't fully understand. However, non-uniform days are a HUGE deal to Avery and I think it's pretty cute. Of course, Wes calling me at 9:00 to ask if I put sunscreen on Avery is not so cute. I politely reminded him that mornings are "his responsibility" and any help from me is just extra :) Yep, you guessed it - no sunscreen. That poor baby is just getting over the rash that I finally determined was sun poisoning from two weeks ago - ack!! I'm VERY happy to report that didn't get too much sun today though!
I had to help at the ball field tonight and Avery wanted to come along too. The kicker is that she wanted to ride her bike up there. Considering she has just learned how to ride said bike, there was no way that was happening. So, Wes decided he would follow along behind her in the truck to make sure everything went smoothly. She made the one mile ride without any problems - other than getting confused about which way to go at one point.
Avery decided she would help me out in the concession stand for a bit tonight. Her idea of helping was constantly asking me for stuff - hot dog, fries, popcorn, candy bar, slushie, drink, and any other piece of crap food she set her sights on. Needless to say, she was kicked out MANY times!
After I finished up in the concession stand, Avery decided she wanted to stay and watch the last inning of a game that several of her friends from STJ were playing in - they stayed back in the Darlings league. By the time they finshed up and we got home, it was 9:00.
Good thing we don't have to be back until 8:50 in the morning for team pictures ;)
Woo hoo, we got rain, rain, and more rain today!! Did I mention that it rained all day long today? Well, until mid afternoon at least. It washed away all of that icky old pollen too! Maybe that will be it for our spring. Hey, a girl can dream...
OK, you can go ahead and laugh at me. Bret Michaels was in concert in town tonight at a local bar. I did NOT go, but I did have to take a quick detour through the parking lot (actually, around the back of the parking lot) this afternoon. In all fairness, it WAS on the way to pick up Avery :) Alrighty, enough defending myself...here's what I went for.
Would it have hurt anything if I had seen him just walking around out there? Nah. Yep, I LOVED Poison when I was growing up (and still have some of their songs on my iPod). All those big hair bands were right during my teen years - many good memories!!
Today is Thursday which means play practice for Avery. She didn't have any homework tonight since tomorrow is Field Day, so she decided to head outside and read when we got home.
I thought she looked so grown up just reading her book. She would spend all day, every single day outside if I would let her - riding her bike, swinging, just playing - she loves it all!
We had the late softball practice tonight - 7:15 which means we didn't get home until about 8:45. However, I didn't make Avery wash her hair with all of the activities at school tomorrow. Guess what? She was in bed at 9:15!!! That HAS to be a record for a practice night - woo hoo!!!
