School is back in session

School is officially back in session and life seems to be getting back to "normal". Ian will be attending preschool in Orient this year, and is VERY excited about it. He has a calendar that has designated stickers for the days that he is at school, at Steph's and at home. . . Tomorrow night will be a meeting for preschool, where we can go in and meet his teacher and see where he will be attending class.
Last night we went to an I-Cubs game. . . the kids did pretty well considering th overall temp and humidity levels. . . Ian sweats a lot! The kids were tired this morning, not surprising though. We got home at 10. . .Maren is in bed by 7:30 on most nights. . . Lets just hope they got a decent nap at Steph's today. The Iowa weather is hot and muggy. . .it has been raining all day.

Last weekend was the Dexter Days Celebration. We were in charge of the movies in the park. it went a lot better than last year. We were more prepared for lights, and heat for that matter. It turned out to be an awesome weekend for outdoor activities. There was a parade on Saturday morning. The corner in front of our house is the best place to sit. The kids have enough candy to last them through the holiday season! We had visits from both sets of grandparents! Ian and Maren always get excited when they visit. On Sunday we went to the Firemens Parade in Walnut. The parade was short, but the kids made out like bandits, they got Lots of Candy! We made the trip short to Walnit, getting back around 5:30, just enough time to get the kids fed and Maren off to bed. The girl loves to sleep!

Sara visited

Today we had a visit from Sara, Nick, Barb, and Sara's friend Daniel. . .We went to Rock Bottom for dinner. .it was yummy! Here's our group picture.

Summer is winding down.

Summer is winding down. I am Looking forward to school, and am hoping to get some new ideas in the curriculum this year. Over the past couple of weeks I have started looking into new things to teach. During one of the classes I took last week, I learned ( or got reminded I guess) about Artist trading cards. These are fairly popular in the art world. All they are are Baseball card sized pieces of artwork that are traded for other peoples cards. I have made a few so far and am hoping to maybe get a few traded before school starts in 2 weeks. I will be posting some on my art blog here as soon as I figure out if my scanner is still working. . .

It has been a crazy couple of weeks. Last week I was taking classes on Monday, Tues, Thurs and Friday. So the kids didn't really see much of me last week. They are more than making up for it now. Ian has really taken to talking back and trying to get himself into trouble, just doing naughty things. I don't know why he is acting out and it is frustrating. I hope it is the age and he grows out of it. I would hate for him to go to school in a month and not be able to get along with other kids. I tried taking the kids into Des Moines today, to go swimming. In doing this I made several mistakes, resulting in our early return home. The plan for the day was to go to Des Moines, hit target, get supper and go to a pool out by Merle Hay. My first mistake was letting Maren take a nap at 11:30 instead of keeping her up till noon. . . by doing this, she was getting up as I was trying to get Ian to take a nap. . .with her up he didn't take one. . . BAD IDEA. He really needs a nap to keep him civilized! #2 I was trying to save a few bucks by hitting the pool after 5. Maren has a bedtime of 7, and Ian didn't get a nap, so his "civilized self" didn't make it to 5, or 3, or even 1 for that matter. . .Mistake #3: I took the kids shopping before hand. It wasn't a lot of shopping, just target to pick up some more hangers and a backpack for Ian. . .this was too long I guess. The kids fussed throughout the store and Ian turned into the shopping monster, refusing to stay in, or even near the cart. Why is it, every time I go out with the kids I say I will never do that again, yet I do?!?!?! Grrrrr. Things got worse when I found out that my keys were left hanging on the cart at the end of our shopping trip. By the time I figured it out, the shopping cart was on it's next round around Target! I did find them fairly fast, but not before being totally flustered and my patience running out with the kids not wanting to listen. Next Was the trip to Perkins. The kids were crabby and hauling them into a restaurant instead of picking something up through the drive-through was probably a bad idea. Ian did eat, which was a good thing, however I spent the whole dinner trying to get him to sit down and eat. After dinner was finally over we headed to the pool, only to find out that I was missing one of Ian's floaters for his arms, and had somehow lost the swim diaper for Maren. Target didn't have the floaty thing, but Big Lots Did ! Last one too!. . . Dahls had swim diapers. . . I got back in the car only to find out that Ian was horrible while I was in the store ( I can only threaten him so much. . . ) and the people we went into Des Moines with, no longer wanted to go swimming, because of his behavior. SO, after all that we ended up filling the car with Gas and Going home.

Ian had a good talking to and was send straight to bed. I really don't think that Not going swimming affected him. . . Luckily Maren was too young to realize what she was missing out on. . .

I guess the good end to the day was that both kids were in bed by 8 and I got to paint my bedroom. We are almost finished. . . Some trim and white paint will do the trick. . . Maybe tomorrow.