Getting Close

Shane wore undies all day today. We even did errands with undies on and NO ACCIDENTS! I am really excited.. my baby boy is growing up!

His biggest challenge is watching himself pee with that big belly in the way!

School Milestones

This week we have had some major developments on the school front for Jonah and Sam. I was initially pleased with my choice for Jonah and Sam's preschool. The teacher was warm and fuzzy, it was close, the class size was small, and the boys seemed to like it. But after a few weeks I realized that they were the only kids in their class that had already completed one year of preschool. They were in class with a bunch of first-time preschoolers so the expectations were lower than I was comfortable with. They spent time learning to share, follow directions, and cooperate...great lessons! But, we covered that last year! The boys left their last year of preschool knowing their letters, numbers, colors, how to write their names, and were starting letter sounds and writing small words phonetically. I decided to start shopping around for preschools again. Uggggghhhh!

Fortunately, I found a school that seemed like a perfect fit for the boys. It is a pre-K program not a 4-year old program. That makes a big difference in the expectations let me tell you! The best thing is that the new school has 2 different pre-K classes that are right across the hall from each other. So, we decided to split up the boys for preschool. It was a difficult decision and I actually lost sleep over it, but I am convinced that it is the best move for the boys! They both have speech articulation issues and I am hoping that separating them will force them out of their comfort zones and encourage them to step it up in terms of speaking since they don't have a built-in interpreter in the classroom!


They have been enjoying the new school so far and have not made a big deal AT ALL about having separate classrooms, so we are thrilled! Both of their teachers reported that when they saw each other on the playground they embraced and hugged each other like they hadn't seen each other for years!

Jonah and Sam have to arrive at school between 7:30 - 7:45 am so we have to leave the house at about 7:15 am! Wyatt gets dropped off at 7:45 am and then Shane and I have a few hours together to chill (yeah right!)! The mornings are bustling with activity around here now!

So far I drop off Jonah and Sam at 7:30 am on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and then drop Wyatt off at 7:45 every day. Then I pick up Jonah and Sam at 11am and then pick Wyatt up at 3pm.

And on Tuesday Jonah and Sam go to speech for 1 hour at Wyatt's school.

That's a lot of driving!

So, imagine my surprise when I had an IEP yesterday and the boy's speech therapist recommended additional therapy. More intensive speech therapy more often! Uggggh! Now Jonah is supposed to attend a class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for 2 1/2 hours that is a very intensive speech class run by two speech pathologists. This class is at Wyatt's school, but starts 45 minutes after Wyatt's class starts UGGGGHHH! Plus the therapist wants to meet with Sam 2 times per week instead of one time. Not to mention Shane is starting speech therapy too, but his speech therapy will take place at our house since he is younger than three years old. Yet I am finding it hard to find a time for the therapist to come when we will be home and not be driving up to pick somebody up from somewhere!

Additionally, since Jonah will be in class (preschool + speech) every morning of the week now I am thinking about having Sam go to his preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays too so that Jonah isn't upset that he has to go to school and Sam doesn't...to even things out! Fortunately the boys new preschool offers a five day per week option!

Every week Wyatt brings home papers and forms for different programs and activities that are open to kindergarteners. Can you imagine? Even if I had time to drive Wyatt to an activity we are so exhausted from all of the driving around and schedules that when we are done with school we need serious down time! I can't imagine that we will be ready for any after school activities for a few years either because next year Jonah and Sam will be in Kindergarten and come home exhausted and crabby too! Then a few years later we will go through the same thing with Shane!

This weekend I am going to sit down with a huge poster board and try and figure out the logistics of our schedule for the next two weeks! I can't believe that we are this booked up and the boys are not even in any extracurricular activities! It is amazing how fast it happens... one minute I am figuring out how to fill up all of our free time and the next I am trying to squeeze in 30 minutes of play time before bed! The thought of homework makes me shiver! I can't even imagine what I am going to do when the boys start to bring home homework! I thought that this parenting gig was supposed to be getting easier as they got older?!?!?

Kids Quarry

Yesterday we took the boys to a kids day at the local quarry. It is a yearly event where the quarry brings in dozers, cranes, dump trucks, and all kinds of construction equipment and lets kids ride it with the operators. There are all kinds of things to do! They shuttle bused everyone in on school buses since the event is so large! There was one station where kids could take shovels and dig for gemstones. At another station they could use mortar and bricks to create their own wall. Another station simulated a quarry blast. There were 40 or so stations in all! It was absolutely amazing! They expected to make 800 thousand dollars at the event and they donate it all to a childrens cancer charity! My favorite part was when John said "Do you think that Shane will want to ride the bulldozer?". Then Shane took running toward the bulldozer without every looking back until the assistant lifted him into the bulldozer to drive! Uh Yeah he will! Our kids had a great time! After lunch John took Jonah to the bathroom and when he was finished Jonah came running out of the porta potty and tripped and fell on his FACE. He got a puncture cut next to his eyebrow that was bleeding pretty good (as well as some serious road rash on the rest of his face). We had an EMT and a doctor look at it and decided that he probably needed stitches so we had to leave. We took the other kids home and I took Jonah to the local ER where they decided to use surgical glue on his face instead of stitches. So he is all fixed up now. I am hoping that he will not have much of a scar, but we will not know for a while! Who would think that a porta potty could be so dangerous?!?!?

The Stars

I cant believe how quickly the week has flown by! I have been up to my eyeballs in appointments this week...tile cleaner, carpet cleaner, twins speech therapist, Shane's speech therapist, visiting new preschools.... and Shane has been a little under the weather to boot! It has been a tiring week and John was out of town, so I was on my own. But John is home now and things are starting to look up!


Before I forget it is amazing how MANY stars that we can see at night here! I don't know if it is the lack of city lights or being so far up north, but it is beautiful. Last night Shane had a fever and I stepped out onto the deck with him to help him cool off and we were both mesmerized by the stars. It was so sweet staring up at the stars with my little sweaty baby listening to him chatter on and on and I couldn't help but think that we are so lucky.

A Button Lovers Dream

One of our new neighbors is a pilot and he invited Wyatt to come and check out some little airplanes that he was flying for the day. He volunteers to take kids up on FREE airplane flights to get them excited about flying. Kids need to be at least 8 years old to fly, so Wyatt and Elizabeth (our neighbor's 4 year old daughter) checked out the cockpit instead and did some "pretend" flights. They had a blast! A career as a pilot might be just the thing that Wyatt needs to put his button fetish to good use!

Saving Money

There is a light at the end of the tunnel finally! After 5 1/2 years of kids in diapers there may be an end in sight soon!

WI- Week 1

It is hard to believe that we have already been in Wisconsin for a whole week! I still wake up in bed and have ABSOLUTELY no idea where I am! Our room is really dark and there are no street lights here so I have been leaving a bathroom light on lately. Maybe I need a night light too just like the kids!

The kids seem to be adjusting fine. They get up before us every day and get Shane out of bed and then they all go and play in the upstairs playroom every morning. It is a nice new morning routine that gives John and I a few extra minutes of sleep! Thanks boys!


So far I have been pleased with the school situation for everyone. I think that we got lucky with the teachers and the location of the schools and it is working out well. I am not so happy with the bus situation, but that is a whole other issue that I have not had time to tackle yet. Wyatt's bus was scheduled to pick him up a 7am for a school start time of 8:05! Yeah right?!?!? So, I have been driving him and picking him up every day.... but I might have time to give the bus company an ear full sometime later this week!

We have about 5 boxes left to unpack. They are mostly full of pictures and stuff to hang on the walls. I have not figured out where I want everything on the walls yet, so I may leave them boxed up for the time being. I am still struggling to get organized, but things are improving. Once we get into a solid morning routine my days will flow better.

The list of house projects keeps growing. As soon as we finish one project we have to add two more to the list! It is fun though getting everything just the way that you want it and I enjoy it. We keep talking about making a Master project list, but so far I think that we are both nervous about how long it might possibly be!

This weekend we un-boxed the basement, vacuumed it out (walls and corners too), organized the pantry, organized the garage (50% of the way) so that we could park all three vehicles inside, fertilized the yard, joined Sam's Club, hung some magnetic boards, ran a gas line to the grill, and about 20 more things that I can't think of right now. No wonder my back is sore?!?!?

This week I promised to take the boys apple picking. I would like to take them swimming somewhere this week too, but I haven't worked out the details yet.


I will try and take some house pictures this week so that I can document how far we have come. It is always a slow process personalizing a house, but exciting too! This house still feels like it belongs to someone else, but we are hoping that we can change that shortly!

The kids have been busy meeting the neighbor kids and we are thrilled with the amount of kids nearby, but we are all still missing Pittsburgh! It will take a while to find good friends like we had in our last house. But we have always been blessed with great neighbors and friends everywhere that we have lived so far and I am sure that Appleton will not be any different!

So we got through week 1 and are excited to see what new and exciting adventures week 2 will bring!

1st Day of Kindergarten

It started out a little rocky. Wyatt cried when we dropped him off at school today... "don't LEAVE me here!" "I want to go with you!" "waaaa"!!!

It made it tough for me to have that "first day of kindergarten" mom moment. So, I didn't cry because I was in comfort mode. Then we waved and said goodbye.

Pick up time was totally different. Wyatt had tons of stories about his teacher and his "classfriends". He wants to bring something to school tomorrow to show his teacher. He had a great time! Yipee!