I FORGOT To Blog About Pre-School-- Mommy Sin!/Clogging

I can't believe I didn't blog about pre-school! I thought I did but scrolling through my blog I sure didn't! So here we go! Catch up time! Hey, at least it's the second week of pre-school and I'm not too far behind... Right!? So pre-school....

Last week when Lily started it was bittersweet. I had moments I wanted to cry and thought I was crazy to be so emotional. But I got a grip on myself and realized I am a clingy mom, and I have to start loosening the apron strings sooner or later... So I let about a millimeter. Hahahaha!

Lil's had anxieties of her own as well. She was telling me she didn't want to go and that she would miss me and Kyle too much and it was better to stay home. This just made it that much harder for me. For some things I think parents shouldn't hide their feelings from their kids because I think kids need to know it's okay to feel things-- to feel sad, bad, angry even, it's all natural and is just as normal as feeling happy. However, I did hide my fears and sadness about pre-school. I knew it wouldn't help her at all if she knew my heart was aching. So with a plastered smile, I took her to her first day of pre-school. She didn't love it; she had fun, but it wasn't until this week that she actually is EXCITED now! Yippee! And guess what!? I'm okay too! And excited as well! :) Who knew I'd grow right a long side my daughter! I guess 28 year olds can learn from the first day of pre-school too!

She has loved it! And it's a great school and the teachers are awesome! I love that they have homework-- it's not required but encouraged and the kids get treats for doing their homework. So far, Lily is on board and is excited to get it done! I know as the year progresses, she'll learn in bounds and leaps and will make new friends. These are things I can't give her at home, and so it's time she branches out a little. And that is why Jason and I enrolled her this year. This what I hung on to every time I had an anxious moment.


Now, clogging... Clogging was much of the same experience as pre-school. She didn't want to go, in fact when she was there she didn't dance and sat on the floor pouting. The teacher asked me after if I thought Lily would want to stick with it. I told her I wanted Lily to give it a few more times. And this week it was awesome! Parents can watch the last ten minutes of class and today when I got there, Lily was dancing and participating, and she was very good!!! And so cute! It made me smile and I knew that she would only continue to love it from that point on. So it looks like we'll have a bright year ahead of us! Especially Lily with school and dance. It's all so very exciting! I love being a mom!

* Next week I'll try to remember to record Lily dancing. That should be fun!

Blogging About Everything

I'm in the mood to blog and I really don't have a topic, so I'll just go with the flow and write a little about this and that and see what we'll end up with.

Today Lily went to dance class for the first time and well, it didn't go so well. I think she had a hard time for a few reasons-

1) She's not 4 yet and the class is for 4 yrs and up. She'll be 4 next month but I think she was a little bit intimidated by the older kids.
2) I woke her up from a nap and she REALLY didn't want to wake up.
3)She got hungry. We'd eaten at 12:30 for lunch and it was 4:15 when the class started. I should of given her a snack but she'd been napping. Nest time I'll plan it a little better for her.
4) It was new to her. And most of the kids were returning so it was intimidating that she didn't catch on.

So those things in perspective, I think with time and better preparation she'll start to enjoy it better. At least I hope so. I don't want her to quit quite yet. Not after one lesson. I think we need to give it at least 3 tries before she decides it's not for her. And if it's not, well, that's okay. I just really want her involved in something... I loved singing growing up and I took classical lessons for 10 years, and I loved it! I owned it as my talent and that does a lot for a person and self esteem and I want my kids to own something for themselves as well.

I'm waiting for my book from my favorite Author Marcia Lynn McClure!!! Argh! The wait is killing me! Okay it's only been like 4 business days since I ordered it but please oh please be in my mailbox TOMORROW!

Marcia is a clean romance writer and her books are divine!!!!! I feel like breaking out in a high pitch trill just thinking about how much I love her books! Okay, so my non-themed blog suddenly has meaning between blogging about dance class for Lil's and my favorite all time author!!

Back to- in my opinion, modern day Jane Austin favorite author... Her books plaster a smile on my face, remind how lucky in love I am, and bring back memories of meeting and dating Jason and how crazy love is when you're young. Not to mention how complicated it is and how much you question yourself and who ever it is you've fallen for.

I've read nearly ALL her books except for one e-book and the book I'm waiting for right now, The Trove of the Passion Room. Again, please come tomorrow. Right now until Friday, two of her e-books are available on her website to download. The Rogue Knight and Desert Fire. They are great reads, not my very favorites but great all the same. If you really want to be hooked, here is a list of my favorite books:

1) Shackles of Honor
2) The Heavenly Surrender
3) Weathered Too Young
4) Dusty Britches
5) An Old Fashioned Romance
6) The Crimson Frost
7) Ransome Lake
8) Daydreams
9) Kissing Cousins (no, not really cousins falling in love)
10) Sudden Storms
11) Prarie Prince
12) Highwayman of Tanglewood
13) The Light of the Lovers Moon
14) The Pirate Ruse
15) The Touch of Sage
16) The Whispered Kiss

Yeah, you're probably thinking, 'Sounds like you love all her books!' I do!!!! But there is a total of 32 and these are my favorites! How much do I love these books? I read 30 of them in 3 months time. Yep! Some with around 375 pages and under. And some I've read 4 times over since that time.

What makes McClure so unique is she reinvents fairy tales. She's taken spins off of Beauty and The Beast, Snow White, Robin Hood, etc! And they are divine! she writes Historical Fiction, as well as Contemporary. Some of her books are set in western times with cowboys in the west, some in the times of Lords, Lady's and Knights, and some in todays world. She is amazing! Look her up!

I was fortunate enough to actually meet her in Logan last June! It was on June 18, 2011 and she came to The American West Heritage Center in Logan, UT er the outskirts of it anyways. I forgot my darn camera but she gave me the sweetest hug and wanted to give Jason one too! She lives in New Mexico so it was a treat that she came out. She signed two books for me, Weathered Too young, and The Heavenly Surrender. Her sons also signed pictures of themselves and the cowboy in the front of Wathered Too Young signed my book as well. It was AWESOME! I'm so grateful Jason took me and took care of the kids as we waited in line! I loved it!

Here is her website if you feel like you want to learn more or order some books:

www.marcialynnmcclure.com or http://distractionsink.com

She also has a blog and a lot of other fun tidbots on her website. Her books can be found on Amazon too but there's only a few of them available there. Check it out ladies! She's truly a great writer not to mention they are clean books. :)

Welcome September And All You Bring!

It's SEPTEMBER! I love Fall for many reasons: I like the weather, the leaves changing color, I love Halloween, Jason and Lily's birthdays are coming up and I love pumpkins and pumpkin pie! Mmmm, Mmmm! Yum

That said there are some things I don't like about Fall too including Winter's coming and Jason starting back at school.... Huh. But we move forward and enjoy what there is to enjoy. :) At least Jason's schedule has him home at 8:30 at night instead of 10 PM last year. For that I am grateful.

It's another semester for Jason and so he is once again a busy man! He works so hard and I appreciate him for all he does. I wish he didn't work as hard as he does and I do worry about him. But he is a good man and I have to trust that the Lord is watching out for him and our family. We've just got to get through this hurdle of hiim finishing up school! We can see the end! And it must come!!

This week Lily, Kyle and I went to Lily's preschool orientation! Wow! What an eye opener! My little girl is growing up! She's going to love it! It's a great school and the teachers are awesome! I just know that Lily will grow in bounds and leaps in ways that I can't aid her-- socially with friends, and being independent away from me and learning responsiility and applying what we've taught her at home. This is bitter sweet for me... I'm silently in turmoil about her being away from me but I tell myself that this will be a wonderful step for her to prepare for Kindergarten and feel good about herself. And it's a mini baby step for me. Heaven knows I'll be complete wreck X's 100 when she starts kindergarten. I already plan on driving behind the school bus and following them to school. YES, you better believe it! I don't mind being tagged the crazy/paranoid mom. I really don't so again YES I will do that! It's still two years away. So phew! And I get to wet my feet with preschool. She starts this coming Tuesday... So strange!

Another good aspect to it is that Kyle will now have me to himself for two hours a day, two days a week. He's never had one on one time with me before. Lily had 19 months of it being the oldest child, but Kyle has not had even an hour to himself. I think Kyle will grow in his own way by having me to himself. :) I look forward to spending time with him. I do woory whether or not he'll cry when Lily goes. He loves her so much and looks up to her and they've never really been separated before. So I suspect this first week will be hard for him.

This week Lily, Kyle and I have been shucking corn, blanching them (me only), cutting them off the cob (me only since it requires a knife), and bagging them. I've never done this before, so it was a learning experience, but you know me, anything to build my stock pile and this week that included freezing 9 bags of corn. A friend of Jason at work also lives here in Preston and her and her husband gave us corn they picked from a neighbors crop that they had too much of. And it was sweet corn at that! Jason's favorite! So, now we have 9 bags full. I estimate that I saved around $1.50 a bag, maybe $2 because there is quite a lot in each bag. And I won't have to buy corn for sometime. It tastes so much better than canned corn and is so much fresher. I'm so glad we were able to do this and we've decided we will grow our own little crop of corn next year! The kids have enjoyed helping me shuck and bag the corn. I think it's great they are learning hands on at an early age how to preserve food. And they are learning right along side with me.

With Jason back in school, I'm starting to get back into my routine. I got used to him being home early in the summer and that threw my day off (however, I'd gladly have my schedule out of whack if it meant he was home earlier). With longer days, that gives me longer days too and I keep a cleaner house and the house stays cleaner because I'm not as idle. When Jason's home I like to do nothing and just hang out with the family. During the school year I take breaks during the day to play and be with the kids, but even that I have oodles of time to keep house and cook and bake, etc. In fact this week, I made 3 dozen bananna muffins, a batch of fry bread along with preserving corn. That's more than I've done in baking all summer! I'm out of flour for now, but I'll restock soon and will be at it again. Jason and the kids have really enjoyed the muffins and we gave some to friends, and now we're down to the last dozen already. I sure like it when my family likes what I eat. In this case loves it! Makes me happy!

So, it's been a pretty domestic week here for us. I guess already I was sorn out because when I got up at 7:30 this morning I was ready to go back to bed. So I did at 10AM and didn't wake up0 until noon. I sure appreciate Jason for watching the kids. They went for a car wash, then icescream and fries at Artic Circle and when I got up I found them playing in the front yard. They had a productive 2 hours! And I bet the kids loved spending time with him. Kyle must have missed me because he ran right up to me and gave me the biggest hug and said, "I love you!" right when he saw me. That was so sweet! It just melted my heart! He is definetely the sweetest little boy I know! And I am biased with my kids, yes, but they are the best!

Oh, I almost forgot! This week I took the kids to the laundry mat here in town. I usually stuff my king size bedspreads in my washer and that's a joke so I decided to take them to the mat this week. So much easier and they get so much cleaner! It costs $6 each, but considering how much easier it was, I think it's worth it! The kids had fun too. It was a new environment for them and that's always exciting. We brought treats, coloring books and crayons and it was a nice outing. So, that wraps up our first week in September! Hope everyone has had a great week too!