What.A.Week

It has been pretty crazy around here this past week. I swear we were really busy each and every day, next week we will try and not let it get so hectic. Well, after taking Piper to preschool again on Tuesday I decided to pull her out. There is a good little story time at the library on Thursdays and I will find something else for her to do, I just couldn't deal with her crying whenever we mentioned that she had to go to school. Finally got the laundry done from the vacation *blush*, I have gotten so bad at laundry - my poor family. Today Megan and I went to an Etsy craft show at Independence Park in Charlotte. It was pretty cool, I met Amy the Crankymama IRL and bought Piper one of her monster bags. After getting it home I think we will hold off on giving it to her until her birthday and then maybe we will fill it with fun little girlie gifts and maybe a new book or 2. I also found a really cool mama Lori of LORiOLA that made glass necklaces - did I get one for a certain mama expecting...hmm will have to wait and see. Afterwards we headed to the Charlotte Farmer's Market and I got a great deal on 2 HUGE mums for my front pots. While Violet slept this afternoon Piper and I planted them and then also got out some of the Halloween decorations. She saw so many pumpkins today that I will have to put that on our list of places to go next week that will be fun for her. Life around here is pretty boring so I am going to end this post with a montage of our beach trip since I just got to downloading the pictures tonight. Am I the only mama that loves that her daughter digs Dan Zanes, Piper loves him! Here are the beach photos (make sure to turn up your volume), this got a little long but painless I think...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Read more...

Vacation

It is all I can think about today - and I guess stress over. The Zoo is going to the beach for a glorious week away from normal life. Actually it is a great time to go to the beach because there isn't really anyone else there besides the locals. The weather here has been so hot and dry it will be so nice to have the wonderful ocean breeze. We stayed at a little house right on the ocean last year and decided we liked it so much that we are going back. Last week and then this week again I have been scouring Target's clearance racks for deals on sand toys for the girls to play with. I even got us a tent to set up so that we will have some shade to escape too when the sun gets too much to handle. While coming up with the list of things to get before we head out I came across a question - what am I going to use for diapering? I wasn't sure if we should bring our dipes with us or get disposibles but ended up talking to a friend of mine and she was thinking about giving g Diapers a chance - she is a disposible user too! Could I have changed someones mind? Hmmm, verdict is still out but anyway I decided to head to our local health food store and grab a starter pack. Put the girls in them overnight as a test and they work awesome! Hubby was in Asheville today so I had him stop at Earth Fare and pick us up another starter pack and some inserts that we will need for the week - I will definately give a review when I come back!

Seriously thinking about pulling my daughter out of her preschool. She has been having complete meltdowns at the mention of school. Initially I just wanted her to play with other kiddos and do messy projects but I never wanted or expected her to react to school this way. We will be gone next week so I think that I am going to give her 2 more weeks and if I don't see any improvement we will be done with it for this year.

Went to the Lazy 5 AGAIN this week with the mommie group that I belong to, I don't ever get sick of that place. It was nice to meet some mamas that I normally wouldn't in real life and not on the board. I should do more with them but mostly I am a loner so I don't. That is all for now, thanks for letting me ramble if you read this.

I also saw a fun thing for my family to do while on vacation when I was reading Crunchy Domestic Goddess's blog. She is celebrating World Vegetarian Day and asking us to join her! I am a meat and potatoes girl myself but in an effort to try and be more healthy have started eating more poultry and fish rather than red meat, it's a start right? Anyway - wanna do it too? My fav isn't really a recipe as it is a sandwich but I will take a pita, spread hummus, slice onion, chopped green or red pepper, and sprouts - YUM! Now, what's yours - post away!

Read more...

First day at preschool

We decided to enroll our oldest in preschool for the 2007 school year. I get her to playgroups and she enjoys other kiddies so much that we thought she would really only benefit from being with 6 other children her age a few times a week. There is actually 7 other kids besides her but one is her friend Bryce. This past week we have been talking about school but since she has never been before she really had no clue besides us saying "You're going to be going to school with Bryce", so this morning when I told her we were going she said "School with Bryce?" and I said "Yes baby, you are going to school with Bryce". So we were off and picked up Daddy b/c I wasn't 100% sure that I wouldn't completely fall apart at the thought of leaving my baby girl, he laughed at me as tears ran down my face but once we got there I had it together. We brought her into the class and she immediately went for the water table that they had filled with different types of beans, it looked like she was having a blast already and was oblivious that we were even still there. Michele, Bryce's mama, decided to make a break for it and after a minute Bryce started looking for her and got sad and cried which made me teary eyed. It was time for me to leave or else I wouldn't be able to leave her, sad huh, so I took off with Matt right behind me. Michele and I met at Panera for coffee both of us half expecting a call saying "Come get your kid" but that call never came. We both needed a few things from the store and then went back to pick up the kids because their big day was almost done. Now for the best part of this story, while picking up the kiddos the teachers said that Piper hadn't cried AT ALL - yeah Piper! Bryce cried for about 10 minutes and then he was fine - yeah Bryce! Piper's other good friend Elizabeth who is not going to the same school as her had a fabulous time at preschool today too - yeah Elizabeth! I guess we will see how glad they are to go back on Thursday but I feel so good about today, my baby is growing up! Here she is the morning of her first big day...

Read more...

Labor Day Weekend

While most everyone I know is cooking out and relaxing on their Labor Day Weekend the Zoo is busy working. We have so much stuff we need to do and this extra Monday is a perfect time to do some of it! I have been going through a purging project with the girl's clothes and mine which I am bringing to a women's shelter here in town. Matt's stuff is a whole different ballgame though. He has clothes still from high school - yep serious pack rat! Today he will finish up a project he started in the girl's playroom making them a magnetic chalkboard on one of the walls and hopefully will take some time to go through some of his belongings so I can get them to the AmVets coming tomorrow. Our house is by no means large and by giving the girls a playroom we actually took away their "bedroom" which neither have spent a day in. It was also a storage room for their clothes though and now all of that is going into our closet so our bedroom is very crowded, but if I organize I think it will work and if it does I am going to post a picture b/c it will be something that I am very proud of.

Our town is going on mandatory water restriction tomorrow b/c of the drought that we are experiencing. It is so dry here and the one time that we did get rain last week was only for 10 minutes and came down in buckets so it didn't help us at all. The Zoo's dock is falling apart but aside from that we are getting our own private beach, I should go out there and pick up all the rocks then let the girl's play huh? Anyway, we take water from the lake not the town but in doing our part for the enviroment are only watering our grass 1 time a week and it is holding up so far. Let's all do a rain dance in the Southeast!

Update on my dear little girl Violet - thank goodness that tooth finally came in and the other front is on it's way and should be through any day now. She still wakes at the crack of dawn but is sleeping much better at night and I am getting a 4-5 hour stretch normally - whew mama was getting tired! You should see this little one getting around and pulling herself up on everything, kids this age are so fun to watch aren't they?

Tomorrow will be a rough day for me, I am sending my oldest to preschool a couple of days each week. Matt and I talked about it and decided to get her interacting with some other kiddos without me being there and we landed at a YMCA preschool over at a church near our home. She will go on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 3 hours each day - I think she will do fine but the kid hasn't really ever been away from me like that so who knows. I am going into this with no real expectations but I do hope she will like it but if not we can try again next year and as for this year I will try and find her a tumbling class or something that I can join in on. I am sure that is what I will post about tomorrow so if interested tune in for the continuing saga...

My sweet baby girl

Read more...