Is it Friday yet?

No, it is actually just Monday, but it feels much later in the week for some reason. Today was the start of Catholic Schools Week in Dallas, so there will be lots of extra activities this week at Madeleine's school. The Kindergarteners and 1st Graders had their Parent Lunch today, so all of the K-1st parents brought their child lunch at school and sat down to eat with them. Madeleine requested Chick-fil-a (no surprise there), so Charlotte and I brought her some chicken nuggets, waffle fries, fruit and lemondaide for lunch. Brannon had a break in his schedule, so he surprised Madeleine by showing up for lunch as well.

I did get to workout today and run by the grocery store - we did Costco yesterday so I could make lunch at CKS. Charlotte took a short 30 minute nap and then we had tennis and swim lessons, as usual. Brannon helped me put the kids to bed and by 8pm we both agreed that we felt tired enough to turn in ourselves for the night. But of course there are dishes to wash, lunches to be made, and Brannon is on a work call. It is the start of another busy week!

Going to Kindergarten

James had his kindergarten assessment today for Christ the King School. He acted a little shy at first, but then warned up to the kindergarten teachers right away. Afterwards, we went for ice cream to celebrate. I can't believe he will be starting kindergarten next year!

Cookie Update

So we had our first Girl Scout meeting today since the troop started selling cookies...  The girls were all very excited to report how many boxes of cookies they had sold so far.  At our cookie kick-off meeting, we set a troop goal of 480 boxes - that comes out to 24 boxes a girl.  I'm happy to report that we blew that goal out of the water!  Our rough count on Wednesday has us at 1,375 boxes for the troop - since the troop makes about $0.50 per box sold, we will have at least $687.50 for our troop.  There is a Daisy Day Camp at Camp Whispering Pines this spring that the girls are interested in attending and that is more than enough money to send all the girls to the camp.  Yay!  The girls are also going to take a portion of their profits and give back to the community in some way.  We have not decided what we are doing yet, but will once we have a better idea of how much we are going to give.  There is still time to buy cookies if you would like - just let me know if you are interested and I will have Madeleine contact you.  :-)

Lego Master

Busy Week!

Where did the week go? Well, let's see:

Monday: James stayed home from school due to a skin infection on his face and extremities. We were treating it with oral and topical antibiotics, but weren't seeing much improvement by the start of the week. He eneded up staying home all week, so I was unable to workout all week (boo!). We still did tennis and swim lessons after school.

Tuesday: St. Anne's meeting in the morning followed by a playdate at a friend's house until carpool at 3pm. Brannon flew to San Francisco for a speaking engagement.

Wednesday: Kindermusik in the morning and laundry in the afternoon. That evening two friends on the Faculty Lunch Committee came over to help prepare 30 lbs of pot roast for the lunch the following day. We chopped carrots and onions, seared meat, deglazed pans, and set it all up in four different pots and two crockpots for me to start cooking in the morning. Brannon flew back late that evening from his trip.

Thursday: I woke up at 4:30am to put the pots in the oven and start the crockpots. Did a little work for the auction at James' school, dropped Madeleine and Charlotte off at school. My friends came back over to help shred all the meat and get all the food loaded into chaffing dishes to take to school. I was supposed to join them for the lunch, but I had to make an urgent dermatologist's appointment for James this week and Thursay at 11:45 was the only time they had for a couple of weeks. We went to the doctor's appointment and received prescriptions for more antibiotics and steroid creams. Thursday afternoon Madeleine had her piano lesson.

Friday: Madeleine had just a half day at school - we dropped her off at 7:40am and joined a group of friends for breakfast before going to Little Gym at 9:15. James went with for a playdate with Jake for the rest of the day while I picked Madeleine up from school. Brannon got home a little early for work so he took Madeleine with him to look for a tuxedo for her school's auction. Charlotte took a nap and then we were off to a friend's birthday party at Little Gym at 5:30. Then we all met back up for dinner with friends at Bread Winners at North Park Mall.

I am now cleaning the kitchen and downstairs in preparation for Brannon's company party being held at our house tonight at 6:30pm. Luckily I don't have to cook anything for the party, but I'm still spending a few hours getting the house ready - moving furniture, setting up the high-boy tables, etc.

I'm thinking that we are not doing ANYTHING tomorrow after church. :-)

Texas Weather

Seriously? We were in the 70's just a few days ago and now we wake up to snow this morning! Crazy!

First Official Pedicure

Madeleine had her first real pedicure this weekend at a birthday party for a classmate. There were about six girls there and for most, it was their first time as well. You could tell that some of them were a little nervous (including Madeleine) but they all loved the end result - painted nails!

All You Need Are Rocks

The backyard remodel has begun! The crew has removed several trees and started construction on the new pergola. Brannon borrowed JM's truck and drove up to Corinth to bring back a bunch of pavers that our friends the Brady's had leftover from their backyard remodel. They were not using them and graciously donated them to our yard. One look at the pavers lying on the ground and the kids declared that hot lava surrounded the rocks and you had to jump from one to the other as fast as you could. Gotta love their imaginations!

It's Cookie Time!

Today was our cookie kickoff meeting for Madeleine's Girl Scout troop. Sales start Friday, so get ready! This is our first time to sell cookies with our troop, so I imagine there will be a huge learning curve and boost in confidence when the girls get used to approaching strangers, looking them in the eye, and giving a sales pitch. The cookies are yummy, but what the girls get out of the whole experience is even better! They learn about running a business, setting goals, marketing a product and how to present themselves. The girls get to choose how to spend the money they earn as a troop and what portion of the profits they would like to use to give back to the community in some way. I think it is going to be a great experience for Madeleine AND I'll get some cookies out of it. ☺

New Activities

With the return to school after the holiday break, we have changed up and and started a few new activities. The kids seem genuinely interested in their extra-curricular activities and we are always looking for ways to keep them active and exercising.

James has been loving his swim lessons at Dolfin Swim School and with the approach of swimming season this summer, I decided to re-enrolled Madeleine and Charlotte in swim classes as well. James and Madeleine are in the same class now and I found a time slot on Mondays that all three kids can take a lesson at the same time. So Charlotte and I do a Baby Dolfin class together while James and Madeleine take their Dolfin 2 class. Today was Charlotte's first lesson and she did great! She has some fear of putting her face in the water, but I think that can be overcome with practice. More importantly, she had a lot of fun and was laughing and smiling through most of the class.

Madeleine has been taking a 30 minute tennis lesson with friends right after school on Monday afternoons since about September of last year. James took a few group lessons last spring and has been dying to play tennis again. Then, just before the Christmas break he had a chance to do a quick 10 minute lesson with Madeleine's coach and he was hooked. So I talked to Madeleine's coach today and now James will have a 15 minute private lesson before Madeleine's group lesson on Monday afternoons. He seems really excited about it!

And Madeleine has decided that she would like to try playing soccer again. She, James and Brannon have been playing lots of soccer in the front yard and having a blast. So I will be re-enrolling Madeleine in soccer this spring as well.

Wondering where a lot of my time goes? Here's a glimpse:

Madeleine's activities: tennis, swim lessons, choir, Girl Scouts, piano, soccer
James' activities: tennis, swim lessons, soccer
Charlotte's activities: Little Gym, Kindermusik, swim lessons

Yes, my days are full and it takes quite a lot of work to make sure all the schedules mesh and still have down time for the kids to just play, but so far it is working and everyone seems happy. And I am always open to revising the schedule if that ever changes...

Camping

It's been a good day so far at Lake Murray State Park. We spent the morning hiking around, exploring and playing on the various playgrounds we came upon. After a lunch of grilled hot dogs, we got in the car and drove around the 12,500 acre park. The kids promptly fell asleep (as we planned they would) and we checked out the various other campsites, marina, cabins and lodge within the park.

This place is huge! The trees and terrain really remind us of central Texas around Glen Rose and Cleburne, our other favorite places to camp.

We spent the afternoon around the campsite playing board games and getting firewood ready for tonight's marshmallow roast. Brannon taught James how to saw a log and Madeleine was put in charge of sorting the wood into various sizes. Now we are off to the store to pick up some marshmallows.

If you are in Dallas and look north tonight and see a huge plume of smoke, it's probably just the fire Brannon built to roast a few marshmallows. I've been told the fire has to be really big to get the right roasting temperature.

First Weekend of 2013

Well, here it is the first weekend of the new year and we've already headed out of town. I picked up the travel trailer after school let out, packed it all up and once Brannon got home we headed north towards Oklahoma. We are trying out Lake Murray State Park (near Ardmore, OK) for the first time. And I finally cleared off enough stuff from my iPhone that I can take pictures and post them immediately. It's going to be cold (lows in the high 20s, highs in the low 50s), but it should be dry. If it does start raining, I'm headed home... I can do cold, but not cold and wet!

Just 27 more miles to go...

Happy New Year!

Well, it looks like once again it has been quite a few days since my last post. But is it a new year, so it is time to make some new resolutions, right? So I hereby make it a goal of mine this year to post something here at least five days a week. I hope to make it everyday, but I'm kind of hedging my bets here given my past performance. And I won't even mention my picture website - I'm pretty sure the last time I posted something there was a year ago. I haven't even organized all my 2012 photos in iPhoto yet. So consider yourself lucky that I've actually kept up as well as I have with the blog. :-)

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday working on my calendar for the coming semester - figuring out when I will work out, go to all my meetings, get the kids to school and all their activities and still have time to do work at home. I actually put appointments on the calendar for "work time" just to make it more official and let Brannon know to not schedule anything during those times so I don't feel torn between what I need to be doing CPA-wise and what he would like for me to be doing (like running by the bank, meeting a contractor at the house, etc). Not that he has a lot for me to do for him, but I have found that my time will get encroached upon if I do not guard against it. This past year I found that my tax work got pushed until the evening and I was up late many nights in a row to get it all done. And as you know, if momma is tired and cranky, everyone feels it. So another resolution of mine is to figure out how to get it all done without sacrificing too much sleep. If anyone out there has a time machine that can add extra hours into the day, please let me know - I'll gladly pay to borrow it.

So here is to a new year, full of promise and possibilities!