pre-school update

Ann and I took Sarabeth to visit her new pre-school "peeschool" (as she says it) this morning and guess what...SHE LOVED IT!  She was SO excited when she woke up this morning and before we were even finished eating our breakfast she told me "we have to get dressed for peeschool"!!  So, I obliged her and we put on a super cute outfit for her day to visit the school.  She even wore her special Ariel purple necklace to match her outfit.  When we got there she ran ahead the whole time and could not wait to see what was around each corner.  Her class "the butterfly class" was on the playground when we arrived so the Director showed us her classroom and let her explore the area on her own without the other kids for a bit.  Then we took her out to the playground and met her teacher and let her play until the class was ready to come inside. When they were coming inside, the teacher called the "Butterflies" to come and line up and sit on the bench and she fell in with the other kids as if she had been doing it the whole time and with only one look back at Ann and I, seriously lined up and went inside!!  She only cried when it was TIME TO GO and said she "wanted to stay" and NOT go home.  Seeing her at the school so content and obviously excited to explore and learn and meet the other kids and interact showed me immediately that we have made the right decision for her.  She is more than ready and will really enjoy the start of pre-school!   Even if it is 6 months sooner than I had intended for her to start!  This is going to be really great for her!!  She has a butterfly pink and green backpack and a Dora backpack and she is already talking about which one she will take the first day, and asking me if she can switch back and forth from day to day...she is DEFINITELY my child with her accessories and love of them, lol!!! I promised her we would go this weekend and pick out a special first day of pre-school outfit, shoes and bag...oh my!  I think we had better go to Target for this excursion and not some crazy beach shop with the accessories this child is going to want on top of the clothing:)  Thank goodness I only have one sweet girl to spoil!!! This could get expensive otherwise!!!

Where did the month of January go??!!

It has been a busy few weeks at our house.  This is a VERY busy time of year for both Jon and I at our jobs and we have still been battling sickness on and off.  I had a stomach bug, luckily no one else got that a week ago, Sarabeth has yet another cold...and it goes on and on.  I really DO NOT like this time of year as far as the germs go.  It has also been really cold here now for several weeks which is not normal.  This time of year we get cold fronts here and there that normally bring a few cold nights for the entire year...I think we have had more in the past month this year than we have had in the entire two years prior!!

We have had some milestones in our household these past few weeks...Jon finished his outdoor kitchen project just ahead of the New Year and it came out amazing.  Sarabeth also mastered potty training in about 5 days, both #1 and #2 which was NOT the case that we had with Jackson so this was a refreshing surprise!  She still wears a pull up for naps and bedtime but a lot of the time she is waking up dry and she remembers to tell us she has to go about 95% of the time which is great!!! Way to go Sarabeth, potty trained at 2 and a half just about exactly!!!

We also went and looked at a local church run pre-school this past week for her.  She is really ready, talking non stop, reads books (pretends to read) to herself that she has memorized, and asks every single day to go somewhere.  We looked at the school and had planned to start the pre-school in the fall when she was 3 but it is REALLY hard to get in and there is already a waiting list longer than the spaces, plus the kids in the class below automatically get to move up.  They have the option to go two, three or five mornings a week.  Because we have Ann, we are only looking for the two day a week at least for the 3 year old year.  As it turns out, because they have a two day a week spot open now in the 2 and 1/2 year old room called "the butterfuly room" we are going to start in a few weeks until May when pre-school is out to secure the spot for next year!  I had not intended to start this spring but I know she will enjoy it once she gets through the transition of it all and the logic to get the spot made the most sense.  A lot of families from Jackson's school go here for pre-school so it should be a natural transition when the time comes for Kindergarten.  Next week Tuesday morning I am taking her to meet the teachers,and acclimate to the class and then the following week the first Tuesday of February she will start, eek!!  She will go from 9-12 on Tues and Thurs which should be just enough for socialization and a bit of pre-school education.  She is excited about her "backpack" and "snack bag" (lunch bag) she gets to take with her.

In other news, Jon turned 34 this past week!  He was NOT thrilled about turning 34 but I told him we are right on the cusp of greatness at this phase of our life...starting to pay debts off including my student loans, we have built a great business to support our family that we now need to dial in this third year WITHOUT having huge business expenses like moving and setting up an office, and plan for the future.  We are VERY near to closing and being rid of the burden of our Sebastian house as well.  We have paid for and maintained and made repairs on a second home now for nearly 4 years...all at a loss but it got us to this point and my plan enabled us to buy in the area we wanted to be in before the market jumped back up which it is doing right now rapidly here.  Not rapidly enough for us to make any money on our Sebastian home but at least it will be gone and behind us soon and we have a decent amount of equity in our home that we plan to stay in for a long time.  My plan of 4 years ago is nearly complete without a missed beat!!  Lots of risk and financial burden but otherwise we would have been stuck and I could not let that happen!!  Without risk there is no reward.  People ask us all the time how we started my business and had the guts to do it...that is always my answer and it is the truth.  Hard work does pay off as does digging in your heels and rolling up your sleeves.  If nothing else I hope that our kids will look back someday and see the sacrifices we made to get to this point and the calculated risks we took for them.  Happy Sunday all!!!  It's not warm per se here, but the sun is shining and I am headed outside!!

new year started out with...SICKNESS

While everyone up north was freezing their arse's off (almost literally) we have been trying to recover from one thing after the next down here!!!  Just ahead of Christmas both kids came down with a bad cold and were coughing, sneezing, had fevers...the whole nine yards.  I managed to dodge that bullet (women and mothers have immunity of steel because we just cannot get sick)...of course my third child, Jon, got the cold and seemed to be sicker than the kids over new years.  Just when I thought everyone was getting all the way better, Sarabeth seemed to get the cold all over again that she never fully got over and spiked a bad fever this past weekend for two days.  Monday she went to the doctor and sure enough she had an ear infection.  Anyone that does not believe in antibiotics should have seen this:  two doses and not 24 hours after getting the meds she was like a new woman!!  She was sick with this darn cold off and and on again for so many days, I almost forgot how she acts when she is not sick.  She was up this morning like a spring chicken before 6:30 (this is the downside to the big girl bed she can get out and come to my room) and she was literally having an entire conversation with me and chatting my ear off like it was noon!! I did not mind though because she is back to her normal happy go lucky little self.  Just as SB was on the mend No Joke, Jackson went to school Tuesday, his first day back after an over two and a half week Christmas break and that night, he was up like 3 times (never happens) and complaining of stomach pains, was hot, and spiked a fever.  I immediately nearly panicked thinking we were all now going to get the stomach flu as THAT swept our house last year about this time and took us all out one by one (including our poor nanny Ann and my paralegal Laura and then her entire family) over the course of 5 days...I could not deal with that after two screwy weeks of holidays...thank goodness no vomiting ensued.

Jon was going to make Jack go to school Wednesday morning but I had mother's intuition and kept him home just to be sure as he had not slept well the night before and I knew he still was not feeling great and sure enough it was the right decision.  He was clammy and feverish all day and very achy and still complaining of a terrible stomach ache when I got home from work.  Ann said he barely moved all day so she knew he was really not well....yes...barely moving all day for Jackson is DEFINITLEY not his normal mode!!!   I started to worry it was his appendix or something with the odd stomach ache but no vomitting or anything but he said it was NOT the left side and more the middle.  All of the sudden later that evening it was like a switch had flipped, I could tell his fever had broken, and even though his color was still off and he was quite pale, he was asking to eat and starting to play again.  I decided to play it by ear for school today but when he got up this morning, he was back to his normal self and begged to go to school. He told me he felt SO much better and had a "good sleep mom" so I said ok and he went on back to school today and was fine...so strange...SO FAR no one else has gotten the mysterious 24 hour bug that he had.

Lets hope that the rest of the week and this coming weekend we all stay healthy!!  Not a very healthy start to 2014!!