Friday, October 30, 2020

Five on Friday - Gift tags, Sam, New Teacher for MA

ONE:
I've been trying to get my act together for Christmas so I ordered some gift tags and stickers in hopes of making things easier this year.  I messaged the seller to ask if she could make the gift tags into stickers too and she said yes so I grabbed some of each! Done and done!



TWO:
Waiting to get Grady's hair cut at Modern this week.  Sometimes I look over and I'm like are my kids really wearing masks in public?!  Is this our life?!  GAH!



THREE:
Now that Molly Anne is going to school four days a week in person, we haven't had Sam as much. I'm forever thankful for her taking charge of Molly Anne's online learning from August until now.  She's also saved me when Grady's school closed and I found out the night before a day full of meetings.  Among many other times.  It's comforting to have a babysitter that comes in and takes charge and does it the way you would.  They're hard to find and I'm glad we have her right around the corner! 










FOUR:
This week was treated like the start of a new year at the elementary school.  It was the first week of the new plan that you had to choose four days in person OR go fully virtual from now until the end of the school year.  There was some shifting around of teachers and of course Molly Anne's was the Kindergarten teacher that was chosen to teach the virtual students.  So this made her get moved to a new teacher.  Never a dull moment!  The year of - "It is what it is!"



FIVE:
Yesterday was dress up like a Book Character and of course Molly Anne was Pinkalicious! 



I was supposed to be in Maryland for the day yesterday but we canceled the trip due to Hurricane Zeta coming through.  Big winds and it was supposed to rain all day up there and it would have been awful driving around in that mess looking at real estate.  I gained an entire day and night at home - what a treat!  

We have a fun Halloween weekend coming up.  The weather is supposed to be beautiful and I'm just so excited for all of the children looking forward to this so much!  Happy Weekend!

Thursday, October 29, 2020

My Kid’s Schedules at 2 and 5

Every now and then I like to write down the kid's schedules so I can remember this phase of life.  Here it goes...this is a school day!





6:30am - I wake Molly Anne up for school and she gets ready while I get Mills fed and taken out.
6:45am - she comes down to eat breakfast, I put lunch in her backpack and the backpack in the car, do her hair, make her go to the bathroom one last time etc. 
7am - we leave for school.  Grady is still asleep and stays with Kevin
7:10am - back from school and I wrap up things in the kitchen and get myself dressed.
7:15am - get Grady up and dressed, breakfast then we are off to school and work.
12:00pm - Grady naps at home at 12pm and he naps at school at 12:30pm.  It used to be 12 at school hence why I do it at home at 12 but these days it's anywhere from 12-12:30pm when he takes a nap.  He will sleep until 2:30/3.
2pm - pick Molly Anne up from school (no after school program right now!)
We grab Grady at some point in the afternoon, varies by the day.
5:15pm - dinner time at our house except on a couple of days with afterschool activities.
6pm - bath
6:30pm - school night bedtime is 6:30pm, other nights it's 7pm.

Molly Anne has basically stopped taking a nap at this point, but sometimes on the weekends I'll have her go to her room for quiet time. If she is tired from the week, I make her lay down and she falls asleep most times.  I can always tell by her behavior what she needs to do that day! ;)  Before school was four days a week and I needed to work, she'd go have quiet time in her room too.  That provided a lot of sanity for me! 

Anyway, that's where we stand now at ages 2.5 and 5!  We used to be a 7pm to 7am house but now it's on the earlier side with Molly Anne having to leave for school at 7am! 

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

School Lunch Ideas

Long ago, I read on Mix and Match Mama’s blog about how she packs school lunches for the entire week on Sunday night. Genius! When Molly Anne started school she was only going one day a week so it was easy. Then it began two days a week and I made them both on Sunday night before I cleaned up from dinner...that way I only had to clean up once. I also didn’t have to pack a lunch on Monday night after the chaos of a Monday. It worked so well!  This week she goes four days so on Sunday I made lunches for every day. It was easy. Took me 20 minutes and done. I put them in the garage refrigerator and I can pull them out each night to put in her lunchbox for the next morning. These are the lunchboxes I use Yumbox - they do not leak!



Top left:
Turkey and American cheese roll ups 
Blueberries
Veggie straws
Chex mix
Two candy corn

Top right:
Ham and cheddar on longer toothpicks with multi grain crackers
Watermelon 
Craisins
A Reese’s cup - big treat (actually I need to take this out because it’s peanut butter duhhh!)

Bottom left:
String mozzarella cheese
Grapes
Baby carrots
Salt and vinegar chips
Salami
Three skittles

Bottom right:
Havarti slices
Pepperoni
Triscuits thin crisps
Honeydew, grapes and blueberries
Raisins
Marshmallow





Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Boden

Boden is having a sale through Thursday and everything is 25% off.  After that it's 15% off on Friday and Saturday and 10% off on Sunday.  I'll be honest, I'm not a HUGE Boden lover for girls because I don't like birds or hedgehogs on clothes (I know, I know..I'm crazy!) but they have some cute things and the quality is top notch.  Their clothes also fit Molly Anne well and she loves all of the rainbows!

We received a catalog a couple of weeks ago and Molly Anne circled a few things so I finally pulled the trigger and got them for her. This should pretty much round out her closet for this Fall and Winter.  I think!  I also found something for Grady!  Here's what I ordered:

1. Embroidered Rainbow Shirt - so cute with pink leggings


2. Rainbow pocket dress - twirly!






































3. Horse dress - of course!



4. Fun leggings to match










































5.  Pocket Dress - Molly Anne has one of these from last year and it was so cute on her!









































7.  Socks for Grady that have tractors, fire trucks and construction equipment on them.  So fun and a great stocking stuffer!




Monday, October 26, 2020

Club, Yard Sale, Chill

Friday night we headed over to our club for live music and good times on the back lawn. It’s so much fun and something we look forward to all week, every week ha. The kids LOVE it and so do the adults. ;)



These girls are dance, cheer and tumbling queens! 



Mr. Drew making Grady crack up!


Jen and Gray


Love bucket


The crew minus a few! 


Here’s my dress. It’s so comfortable and easy to wear! Comes in navy too. 



Saturday morning we set up for the neighborhood yard sale. I had gotten some things together on Friday and Kevin added a few things in. We made probably a little under $200. Not bad! 


Look how packed out it was by our house!  Wild!



Kevin and Molly Anne held down the fort while I took Grady to soccer. 



Saturday afternoon and night we played with neighbors in our driveway and they went and grabbed pizza for everyone. Put the kids to bed and had a fire and called it an early night! 

On Sunday Molly Anne got up and dressed immediately and said she and her daddy had another date morning like last weekend!  So Kevin took her out for breakfast then to Wal-Mart. It cracks me up because he lets her go down the toy aisle every time and expects that he isn’t going to walk out of there without a toy!!  This time, she convinced him to get her a big Spirit stuffed animal. And they picked out a remote control monster truck for Grady! He was so excited!



This is what we did the rest of the day. I did the Sundays with Love ride and loved it this week as usual. She announced at the end of the ride that they were adding Sundays with Love apparel to the website right after the ride. I was sooooo excited to grab some!  It’s been my favorite series of rides for over a year since she started so it was only right I got something!  Eeee!


I picked up groceries during Grady’s nap and snapped this on the way back. Love it!


I did a lot of meal prep on Sunday afternoon so I can survive this week.  Hope everyone has a great week!  I’ve got a few posts coming up this week - school lunches, kid’s schedule and a few other random things!

Friday, October 23, 2020

Six on Friday - Mills, Cardigan, Framed Art, Grass, Grady

ONE:
A little boy and his wheelbarrow.  Nannie and Poppa gave it to him for Christmas last year but now at 2.5 years old, he's really starting to use it a lot! 



TWO:
I grabbed this cardigan from Old Navy last week during a sale and received it this week.  It's so comfortable, not itchy, warm and good quality for the price.  I'm glad I got two colors because I'll be living in them this winter!  Make sure you get it on sale!







































THREE:
Episode 800 million how amazing Mills is!  He is just happy that someone is touching him!  Typical golden retriever.  


And she brushed him this week and whispered all of these cute things in his ear while she took care of him.  It was sweet.  Then the next day she colored his tail red with sidewalk chalk.  



FOUR:
A local artist in Charlotte did this watercolor of our house for me earlier this year and I hadn't gotten it framed yet.  Just wasn't high on my priority list.  I kept seeing ads for Framebridge and I had heard that they do a good job so I said what the heck and made it happen.  I must say, it was the easiest process.  First you take a picture of your art then you upload that and you can get an idea of how it'll look in the frame options.  You select your frame, pay for it then they ask how you want to get the art to them.  They sent me a prepaid flat box to send it to them in and it was so easy.  A week later, the art was framed and returned to me.  Magical.  The whole process was really well done and very reasonable too.  This was about $100 to have framed which is cheap in the grand scheme of custom framing!  And the best part was I didn't have to leave my house!  Now, where to hang this special piece of art?!



FIVE:
It has been almost three weeks since we aerated and seeded and this was after the first mow!  Look how pretty and velvety!  We stayed off of it completely....we walked Mills down the street every day a few times instead of letting out in the backyard!  The backyard looks good too.  We are about to do some drainage work back there (talk about not fun money to spend!) and that's going to improve it over time as well.  Whoop whoop, I love good looking grass!  Our new yard guys are killing it!  



SIX:
The child that is impossible to discipline because he's so cute.  I think Kevin's going to have to deal with this one!  It occurred to me that perhaps he has had some practice in timeout at school because he sat on the step for two minutes without getting up.  I was shocked!  Bless his little heart. 






Thursday, October 22, 2020

Croup and School Chaos

I am REALLY trying to roll with the punches these days but whew.  I am keeping it close to reality because I know it could truly be so much worse.  These are not big problems in the grand scheme of life.  They're temporary and I know that. But dang, one thing after another yall!

I learned a Mama lesson this week and that is to TRUST YOUR GUT.  If you think you should give your child a steriod medicine to prevent a big croup episode then do it.  Don't think, oh I'll give it to him if he wakes up with it.  Sunday morning at 2:30am I heard the croup cough.  He sounded raspy all day Sunday but wasn't terrible and acted totally fine, had a good appetite, normal!  I debated all day if I'd give him Decadron that night before bed.  Croup is always the worst at night!  I didn't do it because I never want to give them that type of drug (or any for that matter) if they don't REALLY need it.  Yall it was zero to 100 at 10:22pm.  After 20+ croup escapades with my children, you'd think I would have learned by now.  

This was by far the worst and it was so scary.  He had incredibly raspy breathing and he didn't sound good..at all.  I ran downstairs, crushed the pill in folded wax paper (something I learned from my 4am studying session the night before), suctioned it up with apple juice.  Then I had to get him to take it.  He isn't good in the middle of the night to give medicine to...he fights it.  I got him up out of bed, knowing he had to get this steriod in him and FAST.  I stayed calm because that was the last thing he needed - a crazy mother (even though I felt very crazy!). I said, "Grady, do you want a piece of chocolate?" And he nodded yes.  I said then take this apple juice medicine and you can have any chocolate you want.  So that's what we did.  And yes, I'm so thankful I can bribe him now....last year that wouldn't have flown.  

We watched tractors and monster trucks on my iPad wrapped up in a big blanket out on the porch to suck in that cool air and waited for the medicine to kick in.  Took awhile this time.  Couldn't go to the ER because the only other thing they would do was a special inhalation that he had to be monitored for.  I knew he wasn't to that point, or at least I didn't think he was.  Also, covid.  I wouldn't chance that.  I then determined in my head that worst case, I will literally put him in the car and we will drive around in the cool air all night long. I liked having that as my back up plan.  

He went back to bed about 12:30am and he slept pretty well.  Woke up raspy but okay.  He was fine on Monday during the day.  I was prepping for night 2/3 to be the worst but after consulting with the pediatrician, they said I could give him the decadron again that night if need be but he'd need to be seen in the office the next morning.  I liked having a second back up plan! ;)  Thankfully, the night went smoothly.  The elevated mattress, vicks, humidifier, all clean sheets/towels every night, zyrtec, flonase, a zillion liquids of any kind he would drink.  All of the things.  They worked and he slept soundly all night long and no episodes!  Some minor coughing but I can deal with that.  Hasn't had a fever the whole time.  All good news. So he's good to go now.  But trust your gut!!

----------

On Tuesday I was working at home and I got a call from Molly Anne's principal.  Her teacher is becoming the virtual teacher for Kindergarten, effective Monday 10/26.  This is the start of a new plan that our county is doing.  Children will go to school four days a week in person and the virtual students will be virtual through the end of the year.  But each grade level has a teacher that is becoming the sole virtual teacher.  So, basically, Molly Anne is getting a new teacher.  And she knows the new one because they've all taught Kindergarten together this year but it's still a bummer and more change.  We presented it to her in a very positive way and Molly Anne is pretty flexible about stuff like this.  She is thrilled and hasn't missed a beat!  I always think us parents care more about this stuff than the children.  She's happy as a lark and can't wait to be at school four days a week! 

Next week should be a good week - Grady's school reopens after two weeks of being closed due to covid.  Molly Anne's school will be in four days a week.  I'm going to travel for work one of the days.  I'm looking forward to having more of a set schedule.  I have SO much going on with work right now I'm really drowning in that.  But here we are.  Theme of 2020 - it is what it is!

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Pumpkin Patch Visit

We headed to Union Market to pick out some more pumpkins last week!  They have the prettiest set up and there weren’t a zillion people there, it was perfect! Molly Anne was posing for all of these because I think she knew I wanted some decent pictures. Grady was distracted by all of the traffic on Providence and the excitement, understandably so! I think they’re the cutest pumpkins! ;)


She climbed right up on that tractor like it was no big deal!






Pulling Grady around was a highlight for them both! They loved this!












550 pound pumpkin!


Cutie boy picked out this yellow pumpkin!  Molly Anne got a white one because she wants to paint it like a unicorn! 


That’s our 2020 pumpkin patch visit! Can’t win them all in this crazy Covid world!

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Earrings, Shampoo Conditioner and Shoes

Wanted to share a few finds!  

1. Love supporting Mama owned small businesses.  Aren't these camo earrings and gold flecked leather fan stud earrings so fun?  I am so tired of all of my "going out" earrings so these are exciting!



2.  My hair has been so dry and uck so my hairstylist told me to get Kevin Murphy shampoo and conditioner.  HUGE difference. and on Amazon!



3.  A huge splurge but I had a gift card and for two years I've wanted some slip on shoes for running around.  These really do feel like you're walking on air.  I also like that they don't make my foot look 18" long even though I wear a size 8.  The gray tongue is what makes that much better, I think.    


Look how cute the back is.  And I like that not everyone has them!