It’s the little things in life…

  One morning last week, after making one of my tri-weekly trips to Wal-Mart, I heard Grady just chortling away in his car seat.  I hadn’t backed out of my parking space yet, so I turned around to look and this is what I saw:

He would laugh and then get really quiet and just stare.  I couldn’t imagine what would be so intriguing in the Wal-mart parking lot, even to a baby. So I looked around and had to laugh myself…

It was straight out of a Hitchcock movie…they just kept coming and coming.  If you look closely you can see the popcorn someone had left in the upper basket. 

  We watched those birds and laughed together for a good five minutes.  It was a bright spot on what had started off a crummy morning.  I just hope I didn’t upset whoever was waiting on my parking space!

Thank Heaven for Libraries!

 

   As much as I miss Moonshine, it hasn’t been grief that has kept me away from my blog – its been volunteer work!  I would like to report that I am one of those sainted women that go to hospitals and sit with patients, or write letters for veterans in the VA hospital, or sit on some committee that makes far-reaching decisions for our environment, but I just do Mom stuff.  This week it has been the Bookfair and Girl Scouts.

  Every year, Coppergate has three bookfairs, and I love to volunteer at them.  I love to see the little faces carefully choose this book or that one, and try to figure out if they can afford just one more easer or bookmark.  My favorite is watching kids literally empty their piggy banks to buy a stack of BOOKS.   (Not computer games, CDs, DVDs, or other things kids love so much, but books.)

  I also get a chance to browse through all the offerings.  I tell myself each time that I will only buy a couple of books, but it never works.  The fair ends next Wednesday, and I am already up to six.  But even better than finding great books for the kids, I get to spend some extra time with Emma.  We usually get to the library a little after 8, and she leaves to go to class around 8:20.   Then in the afternoon I get there around 2, chat with the librarians and other parent volunteers, and then work until 3:45 or so.  Emma shows up around 2:50 to tell me about her day and then scampers off to use one of the computers.

  Last Monday, Emma was browsing the books and she came across the Magic Tree House series.  She begged me to buy one for her, but  Mrs. Crosby told her that the library had all the MTH books and she could check them out. Yeah for libraries!  Since Monday, Emma has gone through 4 of those books, and I think she was about to finish the one she was working on this morning.  I am so glad that she has developed a love of reading and books.  

  We discovered she could read about the 4th week of Kindergarten.  I had bought her a small pack of beginning readers (at the bookfair, of course) and showed them to her.  I sat down to start teaching her the basics when she read the books to me – all 12 of them.  She has been a power reader ever since.  I am so thankful to the two wonderful women that run the library at Coppergate – Mrs. Miskowski and Mrs. Crosby.  They work so hard to teach kids about the library and try to give each one of them a love of reading.

Oh, and if you are wondering – Grady enjoyed the bookfair, too. He even became a “kleptoGradyac” (Jason, of course) one morning when he stole an eraser and chewed it before anyone noticed.

A sad week in the Howle house

  WARNING: This is not going to be a happy post.  There are some humorous tidbits, but on the whole, not happy. Just something that I feel might help purge some of my sadness.

  This has been a sad week for animals in our home.  I should start out by saying we used to have a menagerie.  1 dog, 2 cats, and 2 fish.  As of this morning, we are now down to a sometimes dog and a fish.

    Stardust and Moonshine came to us a few weeks after we got married.  I told Jason I needed  a baby to nurture. Not wanting a real baby at that point in our marriage, we adopted two precious kittens.  Of course, with the usual Howle timing, we found out we were expecting Emma about 2 months later. 

  A couple of months ago we made the rough decision  that it was time to find a new home for the cats.  Stardust had developed a bladder problem that led to puddles all over our house, and we didn’t really want to split the two apart, so we started looking.  We found a nice lady who could take one of them, so Stardust went and Moonshine stayed with us.

  Around the same time Sadie, our mutt, and Grady began to have a difference of opinion.  Grady thought she was a pull-up toy, and Sadie didn’t.  To avoid bad feelings on either side, Sadie lives with my parents for now and comes to visit occasionally.

  And for the fish…Emma won two Betas a few months ago, which she named Angelina and Taylor.  They did well for a couple of months, and then a few weeks ago, Taylor umm,  leapt out of the tank and swam down the drain to find her family.  Have you ever had a fish run away? 

Taylor 1

  She adopted a new fish – a female beta this time, and the new Taylor and Angelina lived happily on either side of glass for roughly 2 weeks.  Then Tuesday night,  Angelina suddenly um, miraculously, changed her color and looked totally different from the fish he used to look like (thanks to late night trip to Wal-Mart).   The next day the new Taylor died.  The newly light blue Angelina now  happily swims in the whole tank without the divider all by himself.

   This morning was the worst of it.  Emma wanted to go outside to “check on something” She wouldn’t tell Jason what it was, but he discovered it when he looked out her window.  Moonshine was laying very still in the grass.  Jason went to check and reported that forensic evidence suggests the Moonshine was bitten by a snake. I won’t go into other details.  I don’t know if he was lying to save my heart, but I chose to trust him on this one.

  As tough as this is on Emma, I am taking it a bit harder.  Moonshine was my buddy. Every night when I crawled in bed he hopped up next to me and laid against my tummy and purred while I pet and scratched him. He wouldn’t stay long – just long enough to let me know he loved me and then he curled up at my feet to sleep.

  So to all of our departed friends – Taylor 1&2, Angelina 1, and Moonshine  - we will miss you very much, but we will see you again on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.  I know there are plenty of our other pets there to welcome you home.

Moonshine

All it takes is faith and trust…and a little bit of Pixie dust.

   After school on Monday, we went over to my mom’s house for some swimmin’ time.  The kids love it when Daddy gets in the pool. He plays the best games with them, like Otter Rides, Kids Stack, and Big Sea Monster.  But Jake’s favorite is the Jaker Flips. 

  It starts by Jason asking if he wants to do a Jaker Flip. Jake pretends to be scared and fake yells “No!” all while swimming towards Daddy.

Then Jason launches him into the air.

And he flies…

…then lands with a splash.

  And then he does is all over again.

  Emma is not too much into getting air.  She has just recently begun to put her face in the water, so she has her own way of using her Daddy as a launch pad.

 

  She also enjoys the Super Jump, which involves starting at the back corner of the yard to get a running start and then leaping off the deck  into the water.

   Grady isn’t too into the flying action yet, but enjoys the water and the games as much as my other fish.

    I am looking forward to the day when he can participate in Emma’s other favorite Daddy game:

 

   I think those four would live in the water if they could, and as much as a I hate the heat I hope it stays swimming weather for a good while yet. 

These are a few of my Favorite Things….

   Tonight Emma did her first homework assignment as a “grader”.  Ms. Taylor sent home a brown bag and attached to it was a list that Emma had to find objects for.  The key was that the objects were to be 3-dimensional (no pictures), they had to fit in the bag, and they had to be unique.  This was Emma’s collection:

 A  hobby or a free time activity that you enjoy

Painting & Drawing

A favorite thing (such as a color, book, food, etc)

  Chinese Food!

Something special about your family

  I’m going to have a baby sister!

Somewhere you would like to visit

Sea World and Disney

Something that reminds you of a special time in your life or event

  Dozing with Dinos

Something that you don’t like

Being in the dark

 

  (Notice that my little granola girl even has a “green” night light.)

  I really enjoyed spending the time with Emma as she decided what to include in her bag.  It was especially challenging for her to find something that would fit in the bag.  My favorite dilemma?

“Well, I really don’t like it when my little brothers mess with me when I’m trying to do something, but I don’t think we can stuff one of them in that bag.”

We Won! We’re Really Gonna be Famous!

  No, you’re not having déjà vu, we won again! I always knew my kids were cuties, but it seems like the folks at Conner’s Amazing Acres agree with me.  For the second time, we won the weekly photo contest.  I won’t make you play guessing games again, this is the picture that won:

Still not one of my favorites, but I do love the look of Pure Joy on Jake’s little face.  I am glad that Emma is face front in this one, and maybe if we win again it will be the great one of her smile:

  Either way, I am looking forward to seeing my kids on the Conner’s website soon, and visiting the farm in the fall….so who wants to go with us?!

Back to School!

  Yesterday was Emma and Jake’s first day back to school.  At this point, I’m not sure who was more excited at the prospect, me or the kids.

  Jake should have been in VPK this year, but trying to find a special needs VPK that isn’t a daycare is pretty tough going.  He has been going to Lighthouse Learning Center since he was 17 months old, and I have been happy with it, but last year things changed.  He was in a classroom with only developmentally disabled kids, and he did really well at first, but then he hit a plateau and they wouldn’t move him to a different room.  I guess I raised enough cane and this year he is back in an inclusion class. His teacher, Miss Diane,  has been at LLC since Jake started and has always loved him. She is so excited to have him in her class and I think he is going to do great.  He was really excited to start back – so excited that he actually ran out to the bus when he heard it pull up.

                      

He was quite proud of himself.  I hope that his new teacher keeps him so happy about school, and looking forward to going every morning.

  Emma was so excited that she is going to be a”grader” this year.  (she says that once you’re out of kindergarten you’re a grader – 1st grader, 2nd grader, etc.  I swear she made this up on her own.)  She had had her clothes laid out for days, and her backpack filled with her new supplies.  She ended up with the teacher she wanted and loved the classroom when we visited during orientation.  She was not however, excited about mom and the camera.

This picture is one just like my mom took of me and my sister every first day. She is holding up a one for 1st grade.

   She looks so little headed up to that big school!

  As you can see, she was done with the camera. 

  After we dropped her off, Jason (who is such a great daddy that he takes the first day of school off every year to share it with the kiddos) and I headed to our annual back to school breakfast,hung out awhile, and then picked up Jakers from his school.  We had to drag him kicking and screaming from his classroom. He wasn’t ready to go home yet.

    We picked Emma after school and then went swimming at Nina’s and had dinner there. Emma reported that school was awesome, and even though she only had one friend from Ms. Fox’s class, she had a bunch of her playground friends in her class.  Her biggest excitement about the day? The new playground equipment.