Settling Into Routine

It seems like we are settling back into routine.  Today was a good drop-off at daycare.  Cassia has actually been having a lot of trouble when I drop her off.  I think it is mainly because she wants to line up outside with her teacher for school rather than be walked over by daycare staff.  But today she saw her friends and went right in to do a craft.  Didn't even look back.  Easton usually cries, but today he just had a pouty lip.  There were only about 3 birds that could fit on it today.  He whimpered for 1/2 second when I left, but then was okay.  I'm glad they are both feeling more comfortable there. 

Cassia loves everything about Kindergarten.  She has gym every other day and loves it, which probably makes her Daddy proud.  She also loves going to the library and music class.  She often recites the rules of Kindergarten and likes to sing the songs they learn to remember things like days of the week, etc.  Yesterday she exclaimed, "Mrs. Whitely is the best teacher in the world!!!"  So I think things are going well on that end!

Easton is doing so well with potty training.  He goes on his own and doesn't have #1 accidents anymore, although he's having more trouble with the other!  He is not trained at night, but he will sometimes get up in the middle of the night to go, so I think that is pretty good!  He is still excited about it and thankfully Cassia likes to look and see what he has done so I don't have to all the time!!!

Ryan is settling into his new job as well.  It is quite a different atmosphere from his last school, so that will continue to take some adjustment.  But so far, he has a much more predictable schedule, which is nice for all of us.  I'm just trying to keep up with everything and so far, it's going better than I thought it would! 

(I wrote this a few weeks ago and forgot to post it!  So I guess I'll post it now...)

The end of an Era

Tomorrow will be the end of an era. Tomorrow I will have a child in school for the first time. And tomorrow I believe I will also have one very proud daughter. Cassia is so excited. And at her "Meet the Teacher" time yesterday, she saw that her good friend from her previous daycare is in her class. The girls were thrilled!

So tonight will be some excitement deciding what to wear, preparing the backpack and packing a snack. Cassia is excited to show off her "indoor shoes" that are bright colors and sparkly.

I'll update and, of course, I'll have to post a first day of school picture!

Potty Training

Well, we choose the perfect time to potty train.  I mean both kids were starting a new daycare, Cassia starts Kindergarten in a week and Ryan is starting a new position at a new school.  Add onto that the knowledge that I received on Sunday (the 2nd day of potty training) that I was supposed to have been filing U.S. tax returns every year for the last 11 years.  And that even though I don't owe any taxes, I could be penalized and fined crazy amounts because I didn't file.  Oh, and the deadline for filing with reduced penalties was three days away.

Yes, the perfect time to potty train.  Not stressful at all.  No big transitions. 

Well, the boy is really catching on, so I just couldn't put a damper on his progress and start again another time.  He is so proud of himself and is very excited when he has any successes.  He even got up yesterday morning while I was in the shower and Ryan was still sleeping and went by himself!  It was in the little potty that happened to be in the living room at the time and he tried to carry the contents to dump it himself, but I guess it was a little hard to balance and the floor got the raw end of that deal.  I guess I did too for having to clean it up.  But oh well, that was a big step! 

So hopefully he keeps this up and he'll be rid of diapers soon!

New Daycare

Well, today was the first day for both kids at the daycare at Cassia's school.  Cassia had to be at this one because she will be starting Kindergarten in September and we aren't able to pick her up and take her to daycare half way through the day.  And since I could get Easton in as well, we switched both of them to the same one for just ONE drop off.  I am so thankful for that!  And the school is closer to home than our previous daycare, so that is great. 

We went to visit a couple days ago with the kids and Cassia cried.  Not at the prospect that she was going to stay there.  She cried because she couldn't stay all day and also that the kids her age were at an outing so she couldn't meet them.  Easton was thrilled with all the new toys, but he wanted to make sure we weren't staying. 

Unfortunately they will be in different rooms. Easton is the oldest one in the toddler room, but he is in there since he isn't potty trained yet. He is a stubborn one too! So we are going to work with the daycare to get him trained ASAP so that he can move over to be with the older kids. Although I am NOT convinced the time to try (again) to train him is when he is just starting at a new daycare, when Cassia is just starting Kindergarten and when Ryan is starting a new position at a new school. Well, I guess we'll see...

I was very nervous for today, expecting a clinging/crying show with Easton.  I figured Cassia would march right in and ask someone to be her friend.  So I said goodbye to Cassia and Ryan took her to her room.  He said she was sad and said she missed her friends at her other daycare, but she went in and started to play.  By the time I got back over to her room, she was playing in the play house with the girls and they were already long-time friends.

I stayed with Easton for a little bit, but he was very enthralled with the toys.  He wanted to keep his Snoedley, but he put it in a safe spot.  I figured I wouldn't make a big deal of anything, so after a bit I went over and told him that I had to go to work and he was going to stay here. 
Easton:  Is Cassia going to stay here?
Me:  Yes.
Easton:  Is Daddy going to stay here?
Me:  No, Daddy has to go to work, but he will come and pick you up in the afternoon.
Easton:  Are you coming back?
Me:  Yes, we are always coming back.  Dad will pick you up later, okay?
Easton:  Okay.

A kiss and a hug and that was it.  He didn't even watch me leave - he just went back to his toys.  First day of daycare and no tears.  Okay, so I cried when I left, but someone had to cry on the first day!

I assume next week will be a bit harder since, now that I think about it, the first day usually isn't as bad - it's the 2nd and 3rd days.  But they are only there 3 days a week now since they are at Grandma and Grandpa's one day and home with me another day.  So maybe that will be a good mix. 

Editted to add:  It is now one week later and I forgot to post this, so I'll add an update.  Easton did, in fact, have a hard time after he realized that I really left.  This made Monday's drop off really really hard and I had to just leave before I started crying really hard.  I hate leaving him at a new place.  He has a really good time when he is there, but when I pick him up the first thing he says is, "Mommy, I cried when you left because I didn't want you to go."  I think he knows already how to get me.

Ballet in the Park

My annual mother-daughter outing with Cassia is to Ballet in the Park.  Andrea also usually comes with us and this year her sister and kids came as well.  The Royal Winnipeg Ballet puts this event on every summer for three days.  It is free and you trek out to Assiniboine Park where you sit on a blanket or lawn chairs in front of the outdoor theater and watch the program.  There are a lot of people, some younger, some older and everywhere in between; especially little girls in tutus, spinning and leaping.  We had a great time and then played in the Children’s Garden for a bit afterwards.  Some classic pics…

This last one is en pointe. :)

Trip to Indiana: Homeward Bound

We got a late start Friday morning as we left Goshen and got to Minneapolis later than we had hoped that night.  But we met up with friends, Andrea and Deb and Sean and their boys.  They had an extra ticket to the U2 concert on Saturday, so “since we were in the area” I went!  And Ryan watched all the kids (5) in the hotel.  It went really well for him because Deb’s boys are older than ours and are really good kids.  And the U2 concert was awesome!  I’ll try to post the link to the Fan Cam and you can see me in the stands!  It rained for about 2/3 of the concert and poured for about half of that.  So, we were soaked by the end.  There was a tornado evacuation plan which was somewhat pointless considering how long it took us to get out of the stadium at the end!  But everyone stayed through the concert and the fans were great.  The band did an awesome job and we were so glad they took everything in stride and continued on as if it wasn’t raining/pouring.  Although Bono did sing “Singin’ in the Rain” a few times!

It seems like the end of our trip, from Minneapolis to Winnipeg, would be quite mundane.  Nope.  Well, most of the way it was and we were making pretty good time.  We let the kids play in the pool in the morning, so we got off to a late start again.  But when we got started, we were moving along fairly well.  Until Thief River Falls.  We decided to take a bit of a different route this time, as it gets boring always going through Fargo and Grand Forks.  So, we stopped in Thief River Falls to pick up some “picnic-like” foods for supper.  We were in Wal-mart, taking our time when there was an announcement over the speakers that a Tornado Warning had been issued.  I didn’t really hear all of it, so we weren’t sure what we were supposed to do.  I thought they were saying we couldn’t stay in the store.  So we went outside and the sirens were going.  I was pretty sure it wasn’t a good idea to be in the van, so we went back inside to a “safe zone” where people could wait it out.  We ended up being there for another 30 – 40 minutes until we got the all clear.  Then we headed out again and realized we would be following the storm.  So we detoured a little, costing some time, but just caught the end of the storm which just turned into a little rain.  Finally, we are on our way – just 2 ½ more hours.  Except that when we got to the border crossing, it was closed.  Yep, all closed.  So it took us about 1.5 hours to get to the border crossing at Emerson that we usually go through.  Hmmm, maybe this time we should have gone the boring way.  Our friends went that way and had no problems, except a wait at the border.  Luckily no other issues came up for us, but we didn’t make it home until a little after 1 a.m.  So tired.

Ironically, these were the strange clouds we saw the day before the tornado warning.  I just had to take a picture of them.

So, in summary, it was a great trip.  A few more warning sirens than I would have liked, but at least we were warned and not hurt!

Trip to Indiana: Destination

We had a great time with family and Cassia and Easton were so excited to see Mimi and Pawpaw and their cousins.  Cassia said she wanted to live in Indiana so that it wouldn’t take so long to get to a sleepover. J  Kent, Kathy, Anna and Isaac weren’t back from their vacation when we got there, but Greg, Laura, Luke and Aaron arrived the day after we got there.  It was the first time we met little Aaron so we were thankful that Greg and Laura were able to make it to Goshen at the same time we did!  Aaron is such a sweet little boy and since we all stayed at Mom and Dad’s we got to see both him and Luke a lot.  Here's Ryan and Aaron, and then me and Aaron.

Cassia attached to Anna as soon as they were back in town.  She said, “I do everything Anna says, and not what anyone else says.”  I’m sure this is Anna’s dream come true. J  At least until the novelty wears off!  We had a fun time getting together for suppers, going to the park and playing dress-up – well, the last was the kids.  It’s almost guaranteed that within 15 minutes of entering Mimi and Pawpaw’s house, the two girls and sometimes the boys will be in full dress-up gear.  Got a pic of Luke in a dress and a wig and Isaac in a dress!  Plus some of the kids with painted faces.

We also had a Myers get together and there were three baby 2^nd cousins, so of course we had to get pictures.  So cute!  And Clara’s hair takes the cake!

I think we have this same picture of Kent and me in the wheelbarrow, circa 1977. 

And some stinkers jumping on the couch!

The girls.

I also had a chance to get together with Lori, Dena and Kim.  We took the kids to the Wakarusa splash pad, at my suggestion I might add.  I say that because my kids DID NOT LIKE IT.  At one point Cassia was sobbing, saying, “I never want to come back to this place!”  Okay, I can see if I took them to a thorn patch to play in, that would be an appropriate response.  How insensitive of me to take my kids to a splash pad on a nice summer morning.  So I didn’t really get a chance to catch up with my friends. L  But it was still nice to see them and chat a bit.  Lori invited us over for lunch and I really thought it was a bad idea considering all the “fun” my kids were already having.  But I’m glad she convinced me because they were different beings as soon as they got there.  And we had a lovely lunch and chat/play time after. 

When it was time for Greg, Laura, Luke and Aaron to go back home, Mom and I drove them to Chicago to get the train.  Ryan came along because he was going to spend a day/night in Chicago with his brother, Brent, so the timing worked out well!  We took them as far as we could, but I felt bad they had to lug all their luggage with them since they couldn’t check it.  I’m sure it was an adventure though!  Meanwhile Kathy had all the kids to look after on a very hot and humid day.  The kids had fun and Kathy survived, so that’s a success.

I also got to see my friends, Anna and Sarah, who I haven't seen in a long time.  It was awesome to catch up with them!  The rest of the week included some shopping time for me and more time hanging out with my family.