My Cute Little Monkeys: We started school!

Been a crazy couple of weeks here!

Matthew took the last week off to do some yard projects. I mentioned that I wasn't that big of a fan of the backyard and, well, Matthew decided to take it into his own hands and make it be something we will like. It started with burying the trampoline. It's quite the project in an of itself but then it got bigger...

It turned in to pulling out the pavers, pulling out the stamped concrete walkway to the RV parking (It had settled...), adding flower beds all over the place, adding more grass than cement and then... the biggie, leveling the yard. So basically, as you can imagine, the back yard is a major construction zone right now. Coupled with all the rain that we got last week it was a complete mud bog!

I don't have any idea how someone can go through a kitchen remodel because just having this in the backyard makes me slightly stabby. On most of the days Matthew was great at having the boys come out with him to work but this means they are dirty about ten minutes in, so they get lunch outside and baths are a must (sometimes more than one in a day!). Or I would keep the kids in half the day and let them go out in the afternoon or whatever. But it certainly means I can't just shoo them outside when they get cabin fever. I think the new sod comes at the end of this week. This is good.

And it's a good thing the D's had school. Yep! First week of school in the books! Was super glad to have Matthew home all week because of all the running around and back to school nights and stuff. Him being here allowed to be to be as involved as I needed to be, especially with Dylan.

On the first day of school Duncan saw his friend and shot out of the car. I was standing with Tammy, Dyl's aide from last year (who we won't have much this year... sadz...) and I asked her if I should go find him or what I should do. We both assumed that he knew the drill from last year and that he would be fine. So she took Dylan in.

Come to find out, when she took Dylan to Ms. E's class Duncan was no where to be found. What? Yea, that kid followed who knows who in and sat down in the wrong classroom as happy as can be. Thankfully Tammy happened to see him in there and got him ushered to the right place. Silly kid, he was so excited.

All of last week I went in to Dylan's class at her food time to help teach he new teacher how to get her food going and how to change her. The new teacher is pretty much the opposite of last year in that she is very quiet and not very assertive. So teaching her something that can be a little intimidating was interesting but I think she has it. I hope Dylan behaves herself.

From Dylan being the only severe last year to there being 11 this year is quite the change! They are in this tiny little room, 11 of them! Two aides and the teacher. It's crazy, loud and unorganized! But it was the first day of school and Dylan kind of digs things crazy and loud so we will see what happens from here. With only two aide and some very demanding kids I am not sure how much of Dylan's day will be spent in her classroom... any? I don't know... we shall see. The kids in there are for sure cute but wow, what a job!

It really seems like one of the aides has made a good connection with Dylan and she went and bought some balls for her to have since I mentioned she liked balls. I also got a lot of toys that are just Dylan's, she will have them available during the time when she is by herself eating. (A lot of the other special needs kids pull on the tubing! I am not sure how to handle this...) The aide noticed Dylan doesn't really like container play so she started to work with her on colors and... well... the first trial of colors was quite promising but I haven't decided if it was a fluke or not so no horn tooting from me just yet. Suffice it to say, that girl might be learning her colors this year. Prompting us to wonder what ELSE she knows right?

The little boys start school this week. Ian is M-Thurs and Asher is M-W-F which should be interesting to keep track of don't you think? Monday and Wednesdays will have to be my get things done day because I will have two hours with just Greyson. The other mornings should be fairly easy too with just two kids.

We got Dylan's new AFO's last week and she hates them, she freaks out! She cried the whole time she had them that night, all through school on Friday and as a test I put them on her after I knew she was happy on Saturday and she flipped out. So off they come. It doesn't make sense for her to have tolerated braces for five years and all of a sudden not so I will be calling them tomorrow. Just another thing to do for us. Boo.

Oh, also... Dylan has had this loose tooth that looked all snaggely and I told Matthew he had a father's duty to pull at because she might choke on it. But really, we all know she won't choke on it because she would spit it out but it just looked so bad I wanted it gone. He and Tracy have been wiggling it for a week and last night Matthew went for it. He got it! (And had the bite marks on his finger to prove it!) Making it the first tooth of four that we can account for. Gross. Teeth are gross.

We did get our little dog Fitz and we have had him now for a week. He is adorable and super fun. When I picked him up she said that he was the most playful one of the three (yay?) and that the other one I was looking at ended up being quite a snuggler so it was good that he went to an older couple. I guess... Ha! Really though, he will be so great for the boys to play with. So far so good. We kennel him in our room and slowly but surely we are potty training (miserable!).

We saw my little (big) niece Eden off to serve a mission in Ecuador. We will miss her so much, she spent a lot of time with my kiddos when she was in high school. She was so happy and will be such a great missionary. Love that girl.

I finally hit my downhill goal time of a sub two hour half at a race the weekend before last. It was snowing at the start! Snowing!! I was not ready for snow at all and I had pretty much written off trying for my goal when we started but the clouds parted at about 2-3 miles in and we went for it. Sara is training for the full marathon in two weeks so she had to run these 13 and continue running for another 7 so she used this as a training run and helped pace me in. (I forgot my watch, she was using her phone.) At about the 12th mile she told me I was going to make it but it was going to be close so if I had any juice left I needed to use it, so I did. I would have liked to see my mile splits for this reason! I actually came in at 1:58:30. Woohoo! Now I can quit running! Just kidding. Kinda.