Monday, August 26, 2013

Perfect Moments Coupled Together...

Making everyday Moments happy Memories is what life is about.


Or at least it is what I want for Monkey.

This weekend, that is EXACTLY what we did. From kicking off the weekend grocery shopping while he inhaled McDonald's. Poor kiddo was starving! To soccer followed by fun kick off the season activities. To working on the pool (it’s still cloudy, but thankfully no longer green). To bike riding around the lake in our neighborhood. To laundry being juggled between all this fun.

Ending the day with a 2.5 hour drive into the City for dinner with friends. The plan was for a play date followed by dinner, but after the crazy drive all this Mommy wanted to do was eat. While the elongated dinner was perfect for the kiddos and parents to catch up, it was also very tiring after such a long drive. By the time we left for home, it was way later than I had planned, and I was pretty crabby. J thankfully was happy for the more often than not these days, rare opportunity to watch a movie while I drove. Within minutes of our arriving at home, he was in bed asleep.
Sunday we started off early, heading to the beach in New Buffalo, Michigan. All I can say is WOW! What a great day! Our neighbor invited several of the families in the neighborhood to spend the day on the beach with *the more, the merrier* belief. J, who has always idolized her oldest son, was over the moon spending the day with him. Since he has the capacity to see J as a kid brother (he actually likes), he was pretty awesome about letting J pal around with him.

It was also great for J & I, as we could go off & explore things, without having to be worried about our stuff coming up missing, since someone in our party was always around our groups’ stuff. We walked the rocks, until even Mr. Brave decided maybe that wasn’t such a great idea. Since Mommy had already gotten there, she was more than excited to turn back.

However, I am looking forward to maybe going back, if not this fall – next spring to do it with sneakers. I think I would have had more confidence about the rocks had I had on better shoes. As it was, I started carrying my flip flops, in fear of them falling off my feet, or causing me to slip on the rocks.

Mother Nature deciding to wait until school started to FINALLY give us some warm weather, is a pretty rotten joke, but at least we’ve been able to make the most of it.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Jacob's Mistake

It's the second day of school & this was the title of an email I received from J's teacher.

His brand new teacher.

2nd day of school.

And of course, it takes the typical 2 centuries for Yahoo! to load an email here, as our reception is just so overwhelmingly not awesome.

In that time I may have questioned, Show & Tell mishap, making girls cry on the playground declaring future marriage plans (yes, this happened last year) to another little girl, a (gasp) potty accident/incident.

Oh man...It's only the 2nd day... This is not a good sign for the year.

FINALLY!  Message loaded.

"I'm sorry, I failed to order Jacob his Subway sandwich for today's lunch.  Instead of Subway, he enjoyed cereal and goldfish crackers.  I apologize for my mistake, and will be sure to place his order next time."

Oh... That's it.  My child, who would live on junk food - if permitted, got a junkier lunch than planned.  Awesome.  Relief.  Joy even.

It's the 2nd day, and we are not on the bad list for anything yet.

Even might have bought some leeway of sorts.

Life is good.

And J will be getting treated tonight for being a trooper at lunch!

We can just ignore the fact he was going to get treated anyway, as I planned to grocery shop tonight and still be home before 7, so yeah - he can think we have to go shopping to get his treat.

Sometimes *mistakes* are just hidden blessings.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

1st day of school - Big K

It's back to school time... My how he has grown. 

1st day Young Scholar
1st day Junior Kindergarten
1st day Kindergarten

Current dream when he grows up:  Be a Karate Guy

aka - a karate instructor from his Mixed Martial Arts

2nd choice:  Your job Mommy. 

I do a lot with math, do you know what math is?

Of course... It is numbers and all that adding and subtracting.

(Okay... I'm impressed...)  Why?

You have Angry Birds to play with in your office.

Love it!!!

My wish for this year is for J to continue to dream big, grow leaps and bounds, and continue to amaze and dazzle me. 

His???  Be in class with Ella.

Sigh... I'd hoped the summer would quell this "I'm going to marry Ella" theme J seems to have started at the end of last year, but no.such.luck.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

1833 School

In the spirit of back to school this week, I found it pretty neat we stumbled into an impromptu visit inside a school from 1833.

During it's prime, it educated children age 4 through 13, having desks of varying sizes to fit the student mix taught inside the one room classroom.

Pot belly stove, with my former junior high science teacher and Lifeguard instructor.  Between her sister, brother-in-law, husband and herself, the school is maintained. 

at the desks

Cam's didn't want to sit with Mallz and J, so she took her picture outside. 
On the walk from grandma & grandpa's, J and Cam's traded toys... J ended up being pictured with Gizmo and Cam had Bumblebee.

J is so excited to have me upload these and get printed copies, so he can take them into his school and share with his class.

Monday, August 19, 2013

...It's the moments...

This summer has been just spectacular.  As a family we have focused on us, nurturing bonds with laughter and love.

This weekend, we spent at my parents - seeing my nieces & brother.  It was 3 days, the last just spent with Grandma & Grandpa.  J dazzled us again with his lack of fear while tubing.  Wants faster, bumpier, read - scarier.  He's looking forward to next summer already, as we told him - we'd have grandpa intentionally dump him off the tube, so he can learn what it feels like, safety of being in the water after being dumped, and how to get back on the tube in deep water.  He is over the moon.

Mommy's arms still hurt from hanging on for dear life yesterday.  :-)

Another big accomplishment was to fully become independent on two wheels.  He's over the moon that he can take off and go with our 13 year old neighbor, who looks after J as a little brother.  We are so blessed to have such awesome neighbors. 

But the best moments of this weekend happened so naturally and innocently...

Jacob, knowing nothing but love - giving it freely...  He spontaneously walked up to both of my parents over the weekend and just planted kisses and hugs.  It was so out of the blue, it caught both my parents by surprise and the delight it gave them was evident on their faces.

Those were the moments I'm holding closest to my heart from the weekend. 

And so thankful Matt & I have shown J how to show love so naturally and spontaneously.