Happy Thanksgiving!

The turkey is in the oven, rolls are on the counter rising, stuffing is made, and the table is set. At 3:00, I will begin the mad rush to get the mashed potatoes done, glazed carrots sauteed, corn pudding in the oven, rolls baked, and turkey finished. The cranberry sauce will be put out, along with the desserts on their own table.

Until then, Todd is over at the shop cleaning. Austin has said, "Shop?" approximately 3,489 times this morning. He's over there lifting and closing the garage doors, looking for the stray bunny, and helping to sweep the floors.

Kalie and Jeremy are watching "Without a Paddle", laughing and chatting to friends on their phones. Ashley is now on her way home. She just applied to be a dog groomer at Petsmart. She's an art major in school, but I think she would be a great vet! She loves animals:)

I will go read a little: The Friday Night Knitting Club. Easy reading for a relaxing day. So much to be thankful for!

Trains and Trash Trucks

Two of Austin's greatest life's pleasures are trains and trash trucks. He has a Thomas the Train set out in the garage; providing hours of fun for him and his friends. He has a Thomas the Train set downstairs in our family room; providing hours of fun for him and his dad. He also absolutely loves, above all else, trash trucks. Every Tuesday morning, he is up and dressed, ready to jump on his bike and follow the trash truck around our neighborhood! Everywhere we go, he is on the look out for trash trucks, and when one is spotted, he promptly and excitedly yells, "Twash twuck, Mommy, turn, turn!":) Sometimes I do, Sometimes I don't. I have been known to follow a trash truck through an unknown neighborhood just to delight him.

This past weekend we went to Goat Hill in Fairview Park. It is a place where young and old labor with love over trains and tracks. Every 3rd weekend are free train rides. I'm on my daughter's computer, so I have no way of downloading the pictures of this adorable site. But, we sat for two rounds of train rides (each about 20 minutes) while my son watched so intently the tracks and wheels moving the on the train. If every weekend was riding trains and following trash trucks, life would be grand!

I am just now finishing my coffee, ready to get dressed and out the door to take Austin to preschool. Today is our Thanksgiving Feast. Hopefully all will go well, and I will be thankful!

So much to write about......

I will do brief summaries of our life for the past month in hopes of permanently marking in history this time in our lives. Someday, I hope to cut and paste these into Austin's album..... yeah, right.

Halloween
Halloween was a blast. We had an easy Saturday, brought home a pizza for dinner then dressed for the evening. I was a little behind as neighbors started coming over before Austin was transformed into Bob the Builder. A few treats from our doorway later, and we were off. We left about 6:30 and visited our immediate neighbors. Austin was very apprehensive at first, slowly following me up to the door where I coached him into saying, "Trick or Treat". He would get the Treat out and stand there waiting for something.... what? he wasn't sure. But the first drop of candy into his basket and he was sold. No problem. He was anxious to get to the next house, and the next, and the next. Finally, I told Todd, "Go back home and get the car, he'll never be able to walk back!" So with our faithful driver, we meandered through our streets and stopped at our favorite friends' houses. We picked up Grammie along the way and visited her friends as well. We got home at 8:00 (1.5 hours of "Treats") and Austin fell happily into bed clutching his basket full of goodies.

Church
I went to an awesome conference a few weekends back at our church, Cottonwood. Some may know my pastor, Bayless Connelly, from his TV broadcasts. He's amazing. Such a great man of God. Well, the conference was exceptional. The theme was "Connect" and the speakers all talked about building relationships with each other. One challenged everyone to give 15 minutes a day to someone that needed help, to be noticed, complimented, encouraged, etc.... He said 5 minutes is easy, but 15 minutes goes into the uncomfortable realm of, "What did I get myself into? Do I really have time for this???" Try it...
The good news was that Austin stayed in the Preschool room the whole time Sunday morning of the conference. I've been wanting him to attend, but the minute worship was over, my buzzer would be going off and he'd be hysterically crying. He did cry a little, but not for me. He wanted to play outside with the balls longer. He's still getting down transition times! So, breakthrough! Austin is going to church with me now!!

Today
We are going on a field trip to the Santa Ana zoo. A sweet, little zoo in a neighboring city. His preschool does a field trip each month. I took the day off work in order to go with him. We went to Knott's Berry Farm last Saturday and it wasn't totally successful. Austin is still learning how to WAIT in line, and how to exit a right gracefully. He tends to say, "MORE, MORE" and not get off. I drag him kicking and screaming while smiling and waving at all the onlookers pitying me. It's ok - I've been here and done this before. It doesn't really bother me. Now that I have adult daughters, I know what to pull my hair out over - not getting off a ride is not one of them!
So, today, I will bring a stroller, lots of dollars for the train ride, sandwiches and fruit and hope for the best!

What's New on the Homefront...

Dear Journal,
I'm sitting in my classroom, and all the children have left for the day. We just started our Cell to Organisms diagram, and I think/hope they will all learn the five steps: Cells become tissues which become organs which become organ systems which become organisms. How simple is that?? Are we really all that complex? JK

Kalie got her job at the hair salon. She came home with a new color and style: Black and sassy. Looks cute! Ashley ran over and got herself a new look: strawberry blond and Victoria Secret curls. Oh my.

Today was preschool. Only 10 minutes on the yard before we came inside. We painted pumpkins, glued faces on pumpkins, and made a book sequencing how a pumpkin is grown. Very fun! Austin did about 3/4 of it. Or maybe 1/2. Really he just liked the painting part. I've decided to hang his artwork from preschool on the wall in the kitchen for the week that he does it, take a picture of him in front of it, then we can toss the artwork. That might sound callous, however, having raised girls already and knowing how much they can accumulate, besides hating clutter, I think this works best. If he creates a masterpiece, we'll definitely save it!

Dinner tonight will be a favorite pasta dish with fresh tuna that Todd makes. Yum. Somehow it tastes even better when I don't cook it. I think the weekly planner will become a daily look in the freezer for what to make.

Everything else seems to be moving along just fine. We are planning a trip to the Pumpkin patch this weekend. We'll end the day with a Oktoberfest evening. They have a great festival not to far from our house. Hopefully I'll show pictures, Todd somehow lost our Kodak Easyshare program, so I'm a bit at a loss.

Oh well,
Until next time.....

What

Preschool Update...

I guess I'll base how good our preschool day is on how many tissues I need to wipe the sweat from my brow. Perhaps the room is just hot.
Today we got to school, and you walked so nicely to your classroom. You always say, "back pack" as we pass by the 1st and 2nd grade classrooms with their belongings hanging on the hooks outside. You then usually say, "Park!" when you see their playground!
We have been at preschool a total of 4 times! You now come into the room, play a little on the floor before venturing outside. I remind you that it is Circle Time, and you really could care less. Then I remind you that we are suppose to be inside, and I wait. The wait is getting shorter. Today, it only took about 4 minutes for you to come back inside! You play "near" the circle, but haven't yet sat down in the circle!
After Circle Time is our crafts. Today is Autumn theme. YOU LOVE TO PAINT. Today when I showed you what Mrs. Nakayama was holding up to paint, you screamed with delight! You then ran over the the squirrel table to start your craft. We glued brown yarn on the squirrel for his tail, glued an acorn on his paw, and you were basically fascinated with the hole puncher the most.
We then went to the wreath table to glue on autumn items: leaves, turkeys, squirrels, acorns, on to our paper plate wreath. You could care less about this craft.
Then let the painting begin. You sat so nicely to use all the colors for your leaf!
We used a sponge that was cut up to dab on your leaf; browns, oranges, yellow & red filled the leaf to capacity!
It only gets better, because after crafts is OUTSIDE PLAY! Your very favorite thing to do!! You now like for me to hold you while you hang on the bars! You also like to ride the tricycle and swing!
When the bell rings, you are usually the last one in the room for snack time. Today you ate your pound cake first, then grapes and a few goldfish!
Everyone cleans up and returns to Circle Time. Not us. That is when you point to the door and tell me "all done". So, we usually leave 15 minutes early.
Today, though, I only wiped the sweat off my brow with 4 tissues! A GREAT IMPROVEMENT!

First Day of Preschool

My darling Austin,
Today was your first day of school. You woke up at 4:45 AM to start the day, and no amount of coaxing could get you back to sleep. So, we met Grammie and her friends at It's a Grind for coffee at 6:00 AM. We came home and had eggs and cream cheese on toast for breakfast, and you did a great job eating your eggs. Soon it was time to stand in the infamous spot in front of our house for the "first day of school" picture. My brothers, myself, Kalie and Ashley have all had our pictures taken in the same spot since I was in Kindergarten! (Unfortunately, I am unable to download my pics, so that will have to wait until later)
We got to preschool and you loved it. You played on the floor with toys and others for 30 minutes. One little girl was crying almost the whole time. This was registration day, fill out all the cards day, sign up for snack day, etc... so I'm sure she was just trying to adjust to all the noise and people.
You, however, did great! Soon we were able to go outside and you played like crazy. Toward the end of outside play, you noticed the swings. Lately, you want me to push you for at least 40 minutes on the swing. Well, after about 5 minutes, the bell rang to call us all in for snack time. You did not want to go. I talked with you, but you still wanted to spend more time outside on the swings. Finally, I pried your fingers from the chains and got you off the swing. It was all downhill from there. Once we got in to snack time, you washed your hands and sat down to your goldfish and string cheese. You were finished long before the other 25 children had time to wash their hands. You wanted to go back outside. Out of 27 children in the class, you were the only one crying and pitching a fit. I held you in the back of the room, wiping the sweat from my brow, as I bounced you, spoke to you, and walked you from door to door. You continued crying for at least 20 minutes. During this time, children ate their snack quietly while Mrs. Nakayama spoke to the parents about our roles and responsibilities. I heard about 30% of the speech.
Next was Circle Time. Once again you started to make a big fuss, and this is when I said, "Why am I still here?" I said good-bye to the teacher 30 minutes before class was over and took you to the car. We talked about what fun we had at preschool and how excited we were to go back on Wednesday. I put you in your car seat, turned on the engine, turned around to tell you that I loved you, but you were sound asleep.
Poor baby. Quite a first day at preschool!