picture day!

so...today is picture day at katelyns school. thinking back on it now, i should have realized that what that really means is that our morning routine is more likely to go awry today as opposed to any other safe, non school picture days=D
thankfully it wasnt too traumatic.
this was the first day that breakfast wasnt eaten....i think she has a fourth of one piece of toast in her stomach!
she managed to drip toothpaste all down the front of her.......apron. yeah i have her wear an apron that my grandma rhoda made for her while she eats breakfast AND brushes her teeth. to avoid precisely this type of disaster! thankfully she has no problem wearing it.
and yes, my kindergartener has the worlds tiniest whitehead....but it is there on her face. i have no idea how a five year old has a pimple, but this one showed up just at the most "opportune" time~ ha
so this has been our bizzare day so far. my guess is that since we thwarted all disaster attempts at home....she will either get splashed by a puddle....even though it isnt raining, get paint on herself, even though she doesnt have art, or fall on the playground, even though she doesnt have recess before pictures. but she's my child, so one of these things are likely to happen to my poor child. but even so, she'll still be pretty, and that one second smile is all that really counts for picture day.
At first i thought that picture day was such a big deal, i had to pick out her clothes, etc. but realistically, i have ten-ish scrapbooks behind me, filled with her pictures, i can take a picture of her in whatever outfit i want, at any time, for way cheaper. also that way, i may avoid that cheasy smile we are bound to get on the school pictures=D
i get to go help with picture day at the school today. i am glad to be going down there. i figured that i would basically be walking classes to and from, but apparently our job also includes censoring....like boys who desperatly try to create mohawks in the bathroom minutes before picture time....ha.
this should be fun............

our newest stage of life..kindergarten

So…kindergarten! Wow. It has been crazy, but probably in the way that it should be. We’ve been inducted into that new elite group of back to school shoppers. Which wasn’t really too exciting….kindergarteners don’t need that much! Just a lunch box and back pack. Thankfully Katelyn let me get her a cute pink star jansport bag (on sale!!!) as opposed to a plastic princess backpack that might not make it past this grade! I did give her free reign over lunch boxes though….thus Tinkerbelle.
We had kindergarten orientation for about 30 minutes the day before school started. Katelyn got to meet her teacher, color a picture and I got all the information that I could ever want. It was good.
The morning of kindergarten, we were prepared. We had our new routine practiced and in place. Thankfully everything went smoothly….first day of school pictures, no spilled milk to cry over. I drove Katelyn to school. I was under the impression that a lot of parent would be driving their kids. But I was one of few. When we got to the school zone…you know, where the yellow lights flash for you to go slow…I started to say something like “here we go” to Katelyn and that is when I started to get choked up. But I totally got control of myself. She got in line with the other kids and I started to tear up again when a parent asked how I was holding up…once Katelyn was in line, I was pretty much ok, in that I knew that crying in front of her was not a possibility.
……so I waited. I waited until after she got in her class line and DIDN’T look back at me.
…..and I waited until she was out of sight walking into the school.
….and I waited until…..just kidding, once she was out of sight I was sobbing like a baby. It was rather pathetic, but it really did feel better. I managed to sob the whole twenty minutes home, plus at least fifteen more inside the house and while hanging laundry. I was basically stopped crying while I was hanging laundry until I turned to look at the porch to make sure Katelyn was in sight while I was working outside….well DUH, she wasn’t……..because my baby grew up and went to school!
The good and the bad news is that I was crying for myself….i felt really alone now, I would be more lonely, more time on my hands, way less quality time with my little girl, etc…. the good part is that I wasn’t crying for her. Thankfully she didn’t cry, and I knew that she would be fine and that this is a normal part of life.
Since school has started, she’s done well. She rides the bus to school, and seems excited when I pick her up after wards. She has tons of little friends and seems to enjoy school. All the papers that come home seem to be right on track. Honestly she’s even done better than I expected.
So that is our kindergarten journey so far. And I will try to keep posting more regularly, a new computer might be in our future……..

i'm not ignoring you.....

...my computer has chosen to actively demonstrate its hatred towards me. it's decided that it no longer wants to charge itself. which is why you havent heard much from me recently.
our next huge step in life is kindergarten. katelyn starts in two weeks exactly. this is incredibly huge and i have so many thoughts to write about, but i am pretty sure that i have used up my time on my parents computer....so i will write more later...but i dont know when. in the meantime, feel free to pray for US during our upcoming transition.

july

Its been a long while since I’ve blogged. Life’s been busy, which can be good.
We’ve had bible school...which left me exhausted and napping most afternoons. Which is pretty ironic since my 86 year old gramma was all but running the show and she didnt seem as crazed as I felt!
we attended a wedding on my dads side of the family and this weekend we are attending one on moms side of the family.
I had a root canal that was interupted halfway..it’s a long and disgusting story...but hopefully it will be finished tomorrow morning.
We also enjoyed a vacation in maryland at my cousin’s home. While we were there we got to enjoy a private beach, an inflatable house playland, a small zoo and large playground. Katelyn and I got to go to a place where we could paint our own pottery. They will glaze it and we will pick it up when we go down to janell and jeff’s wedding. We got to spend some quality time and some relaxing time with my cousins who it seems like we never see. I officially got to meet meghan, which was very nice. I didnt realize how big of a difference in ages there would be between katelyn at 5 ½ and aliza at 2 ½, but wow there was. Thankfully there havent been any terrible repercussions from the age difference. Hopefully carla doesnt mind aliza saying AWESOME. If that is the worst that we left them with...thats not bad, right?=D
So, this is what we’ve been up to, nothing too crazy=D
I think that I am finally going to be able to upload a photo....we’ll see. It is of katelyn at the zoo in salisbury.

story time with miss bea

i have two very funny one liners from katelyn to relay to you. hopefully i can do them justice although...you kind of had to be there.......


the other day, i was reading a circus ad outloud. it read something like this..."Lewis and Clark circus, come early for elephant rides. kids are free"
later mom and i were talking about having more children or something like that. well my genius child piped up with something along the lines of "Go get one at the circus...they are free there"


saturday...amanda and i went to the parade in lewisburg...it had already started so we were rushing to get up to where her her grandma was. so i "bit the bullet" and put katelyn on my shoulders so that i could move through the masses quicker. usually i would just hold her hand and drag or i would put her in front of me and watch her every move. she must be used to both of my never-have-her-out-of-my-sight methosds, because half way down the street, from ON TOP OF MY SHOULDERS, katelyn says "dont worry mom, I am right behind you"
............really?!?!?!
haha. it was very funny. maybe you "had to be there" but luckily i was=D

my new cooking blog!

ok, ok.....you arent that guilible..right? my friend sarah has this awesome blog where she puts recipies, directions, and sometimes takes pictures. she has to be the cooking queen!
anyhow.....katelyn told me the other day...."dont worry, grammy will teach me how to cook"
so i realized that i officially had failed her!
so i decided to make some brownies...not the kind from the box-which is the only kind i've made since we came back from kenya-so the other night i got to work.
i started making these brownies based on a butter free recipe i found in the mennonite cookbook...since i had no butter. i decided to replace the sugar with splenda. i figured that as long as the recipe had no shortening of any kind, i may as well make it as healthy as possible!
about this time, katelyn came into the kitchen and said "oh, you are gonna help me learn to cook" ha...right after i teach myself babe!=D well, needless to say, these brownies were especially gross.
so...not to be frusterated to easily, i plowed on. i dumped that batch, and got out more ingredients. this time i used sugar. but by the time the brownies were done...i realized that i was using bread flour.....eew...so i dumped those too. sensing a pattern?
so i waited for a day to try over. i invested in some margerine when gramma and i went grocery shopping the next day. so that night, oh, yeah..i tried again. this time i used a new recipe from a cookie cookbook...with butter. and i used actual flour. so everything was perfect as far as ingredients. we made fudgey brownies, or something like that. we had plans on who we were gonna give brownies too....the neighbors and the maillady, etc...
well...you know the ending to the story...the brownies were gross. and i dumped them. they barely tasted like chocolate...maybe i need new cocoa powder or something. I dont know, but clearly i cant bake brownies to save my life!
i think the title of this post could have been...how not to make brownies.
next time i want brownies...they are coming out of a box!!

i am currently looking for my palm charger....

so, its kind of common knowledge around our house that if something breaks...it was probably bryans fault. and that if its possible to lose something...i will. Last week I lost my bible..that is extra bad, right?! Well, since Bryan is gone, apparently it is now my job to break stuff too! i have jumped into this role head first! i bought a weed wacker...i didnt even get around the corner before i broke that! Luckily my friend april who is only 17 was able to fix it. then i broke it again. then dad fixed it. Yeah I am a wreck. the point of this story...beats me. I am thankful for people who help me. My landlords, my neighbors who mouse hunt in the middle of the night, my parents, my friends, my 16year old friend who once lit my water heater for me=D, and my husband who loves me even though i am kind of hopeless.=D