Preschool brag

I have loved both preschools C has attended this year.  I can't say enough good things about the sweetness/fun factor of his teachers in Normal.  They were so sweet.  C knew he was loved there.  I loved the drop-off/pick up procedure as well.  I loved how I knew exactly what they'd done at school that day. 

I have to say though I'm in love with C's new preschool, too.  They don't do the exact drop-off like they did at Normal, but it's okay b/c the walk is miniscule.  I can choose to drop him off, but then he has to walk himself to class (under mild supervision), but again it's a super short walk, and someone supervises him from car to the gated playground, and then he's on his own to the room (which is maybe 25 feet inside).  I don't mind to just walk him in myself--which is what most parents do.  They don't tell you what happened each day, but there's a good reason...they offer lunch bunch each day, so kids are picked up at all different times.  Some kids leave at the end of "school," but others stay up until 3:30.  C has stayed til 2pm (an additional 2 hours) once a week since he started.  It's awesome.  I can get so much done.  It's only $4.50 an hour, so it's really cheap.  He loves it. 

Another reason I'm loving the school is they have so many activities.  Just this month C has had a pizza day  (school was extended an hour for free), a field trip to the firestation, a western day where they got to ride a horse and had western stuff in the classroom, show and tell related to the week's theme twice, and a school-wide picnic.  I also love how much more involved his craft projects are.  It seemed like before his projects mostly involved stamping, coloring, or painting.  Now he's practicing with a lot of gluing and cutting and shaping also.

Idon't know if you can see it, but the 2 pics on the right are from school.  The furthest is a sea horse--it really looks like one and the middle pic is a boat.  These were from ocean day and transportation week, respectively

this week is beach week.  this was his beach scene.  i can tell he did the cutting and gluing (maybe with a little assistance, but it's impressive!).

  he made a rocket last week, too that was 3 dimensional.

pic of him on the horse at Western day...that's me helping. he made the cutest horse magnet this day--it actually looked a lot like Skip the horse.

We miss our great friends terribly, but there are some really great things about the move, too.

House tour: Upstairs part 1

I'm posting the 2 rooms that are completely finished so far.  C's room and the guest room won't really have much more done to them.  We might paint C's room, but have no immediate plans/ideas.  The guest room will also function as my craft room, so I have to work on getting stuff from my basement up there and organized in drawers and the closet.  I'm so unmotivated to do this right now. 

As you can see, it looks pretty similar to the way it's always looked.  I got new curtains b/c I didn't have any to fit the big window that matched as we've never had a double window in the guest room before.  Even though we've had the black and white going in the guest room for 5 years, I still like it.  I would love to paint the walls a bright color (once upon a time we paired it with blue) to offset all the black.

I don't like having the head of the bed at the doorway, but there's not really another option b/c of the narrowness of the room combined with the window/closet placement.

This will be my sewing area

This house has crazy closets.  This is in the spare room.  It's a bit of a catchall.  My dresses are in there, Scott's biking stuff/hiking stuff, sewing machine, our ironing/steamer stuff, our table linens, and some upstairs cleaning stuff. My craft stuff will join the hodge podge eventually b/c it's no where near full.

Here's C's closet--huge again.

C's room is way too big for a second bedroom.

these 3 canvases are a new addition

the trash can, too

once again, it's pretty much a slight variation of what it's always been

i think we need blinds for his room.  it's hard to get it dark enough, and I don't really want blackout curtains.

 

His favorite part of his new room is the red rug. He picked it out.  It's a super soft, shag style rug.  He calls it red snow. He loves to read down there. We pull out his baby quilts I have displayed in the corner and a fuzzy pillow he picked out when he wants a pallet there.  He has two smaller kids-style rugs on the other side of his bed.  This is more so he can get in and out of bed w/o falling.  His stool slipped continuously on the hard floor.  I'm not crazy about all the hard floors upstairs b/c it's really loud w/the dogs' nails and the doors were hung when there was originally carpet, so there are large gaps between the doors and floors.

I will take pics of the office once Scott gets it picked up.  I swear that man could live in a pig stye.  I can't stand stuff sitting all over the floor, but not him.  It's all stuff that I think relates to work, so I don't know where to put it away.  Honestly he needs a bigger desk, but we're making do with what we had already.

House sneak peak 1

Here is a little sneak peak of the first-floor of our house.  We are having it all painted this week, so it will look a bit different soon.  I will take pictures of the upstairs, basement, and outside later.

Here's where we put up all our paint options.  It is unbelievable how many shades of brownish-gray there are.  It was mind-numbing.  I hate choosing paint colors. 

Here's a pan out of the room.

This is our eat-in kitchen.  It has the entrance to our deck, our laundry closet area, and a tiny "hallway" to the garage.

This is one side of the kitchen.

The other side

Our family room

The mantle/fireplace.  The fp is being whitewashed...I'm really excited.

More paint choice fun

Sort of a flow shot from our family room.  This is the entry way into the L.R. you can see here.

This is our living room/foyer. This dresser (Scott's mom's teenage bedroom furniture) is getting a paint makeover soon. Trying to decide if I'm going to play it safe or go bold.  I need to make a cushion for my bench, but not sure what fabric to choose until I paint the dresser. 

Mother's Day Bridal Luncheon

I had the pleasure of attending a tea/bridal show at my mother-in-law's church with my MIL and SIL, Sarah.  We had a great time.  It was fun to see all the old dresses modeled and old photos.  They had dresses from the 20s through 2011.  It was fun to see the progression. 

They had a really cute display of photos/albums and a few dresses that were in too delicate of shape to be modeled.

They had baskets for silent auctions.  All the proceeds of the ticket sales and baskets went to a local Women's shelter.

They even had a wedding cake that one of the women had made.  It was delish.



It was so special.  They had nice table settings, name cards, table numbers, and menus out.  The men of the church helped prepare and serve the food.  It was a great Mother's Day outing

Sarah, Brenda, and me. 

This is a 9 year old they found to model Brenda's dress.  She was a tiny bride. 

May dump

 The weekend right after we moved in, we went to a walk for Cystic Fibrosis with some people from Scott's work.  We had a pretty large team--around 25 of us.  We had a mix up about the start time, so we got there 90 minutes early.  It was super hot that morning.  Luckily it was at a nice park, so we played on the playground, watched fish and geese, listened to the band, and walked around.  Home Depot was there too with projects kids could build.  C and Scott made a birdhouse.

Here he is in all his Barefoot gear.  I loved to watch him run around to make his cape flutter.  At t his point he was so hot he was done running.  The walk hadn't even started yet, but we were already hot, sweaty, and tired. 

On Mother's Day we had the Schaffers over to our new house for dinner.  The kids seem to get along/play together really well, so it was a lot of fun.  They also have a one-year-old boy, but he's not usually quick enough to keep up with the big kids.  We have a big backyard, so the kids enjoyed running and playing.  We need a playset in a bad way.

I swear Mia could pull Colin and Livia better than I could--she's 5 almost 6.  It was sad.

Here they are enjoying some cupcakes--especially C.  C and Liv are 2 peas in a pod. 

April dump: miscellaneous

Things have been a bit chaotic this year--really for the last 7 months.  There hasn't seemed to be any sense of normalcy in our lives.  We went from me being sick, then on extended "rest", a miscarriage, searching for a house long-distance (for 4 months), living apart for 2.5 months, living with family for nearly a month, and finally into a new house.  Now Scott is traveling A LOT for work (as in gone 1-4 nights every week).  I'm still waiting for normal.  I'm starting to think there isn't one. 

Here are some photos from various activities from April--our month of limbo.

Discovery room at the Science center

This is the first time C has been brave enough to go down to the dinosaurs.  He's always been terrified of them for the last 2 years.  This time he had a new friend to help him.

Do you seen "spider bear" a.k.a. Artie Snow Paws?

Here's A.S.P being "born" at Build-a-Bear Science center (C has never done this before--he was amazed). I'm a cynic and think it's such a racket.

A special surprise over Easter weekend was that my cousin and  her family along with her mom and dad (my aunt and uncle) were headed to the St. Louis zoo.  We happened to be free after the Easter egg hunt, so we were thrilled to be able to join them.  C got along with his "cousins" very well.  They were so sweet.

Silly boys

This is C holding hands with Livia Schaffer.  He usually won't play with girls, but he loves the Schaffer girls.  As soon as we got there, Liv came to show him around, and he actually took her hand. This is at Suson Park in St. Louis at the end of the month.  We met our friends the Schaffers for playtime.  It started to rain, so we had to head to CEC for an hour of indoor fun.

Here they are at CEC on a ride

April picture dump: Easter

It's been so long since I've posted photos it's crazy.  Here we go though.

This face is hilarious.  Doesn't everyone show a little chest w/their apron?

on the quest for an "ugly" egg.  it was the coolest-looking one, of course!

Ready for the Easter egg hunt

Alas, C is to the age where he has definite opinions on what he wants to wear--as evidenced by this outfit.  No blog world I do not like to dress my child for special outings in faded, hand-me-down super hero shirts and rain boots.  Oh well.

The Dankels went to a lot of trouble to coordinate our outfits for Easter church.  We all wore Navy, white, and khaki of some combo.  We looked good, but alas forgot to get someone to photograph it. Epic Fail.