DAK update

Now that Dylan has started kindergarten and we decided not to send Aidan to preschool this year I have decided to work with Aidan at home. So far we are off to a good start with him doing a couple of worksheets a week. Once I am no longer stressed or preoccupied with the whole house situation I will work more with him.
I felt so bad for him when we dropped Dylan off that first day and he asked me when he was going to go to school. It didn't help when Dylan reminded me that he went when he was 3. We chose not to send Aidan because we didn't think it was worth the money. He will definitely be going next year. And he seems to enjoy doing stuff at home with me so we save money and he is happy.

Dylan is loving school, of course it is only the first week but am glad to see him so excited about it. As for me it is taking getting used to getting them out and driving to the school 5 days a week. I think I may need to move my afternoon coffee to the mornings :)

Keira is now 10 1/2 months old and I really need to start planning for her first birthday. It is just so hard with so much other stuff going on. I really don't know how working moms do it all. I think we are going to go with a pumpkin theme since she was born close to Halloween and we nicknamed her "Pumpkin" before she was born.
I have been trying to work with her to get her to stand or walk but she just refuses to lock those knees and stand. She goes rubbery in the legs whenever I try. No big deal really as the boys didn't walk until they were a little over a year old.

Kindergarten

Holy cow, Dylan starts kindergarten tomorrow. Now I would have thought that maybe I would be a bit emotional but don't think I will be. He has gone to preschool now for the past two years so this is pretty much the same thing except that he will be going 5 days a week. But who knows tomorrow after I drive away from the school I may get a little emotional; it would probably be worse if I was putting him on a bus as that would make him seem so much older. But we are within the limit for walkers/drop-offs so I will be the bus driver for quite some years.
Now that he is going 5 days a week I am unsure of how/when I will be able to get out and get minor errands done as Keira still is taking her 9:00 nap and I would never get out of the house until 10:15 or so and then I need to pick Dylan up by 11:24 (I know, such an odd time). And then we have to be home for lunch at 12:00 and then naps until 3:00ish and then dinner needs to be started by 4:15 the latest. So I may be running a lot of errands on my own at night until Keira no longer takes that morning nap.

More on moving back in

I forgot to mention in my previous post another issue I encountered upon moving back in. I noticed the day we moved in that I was missing an entire set of drinking and juice glasses, two good pots, crock pot and a couple pieces of silverware. After a few days I began to realize other stuff had gone missing such as my wok and dutch oven. Now I would think that maybe someone wandered in to the house (since it was kept unlocked all the time) and took the stuff but why would they leave behind my food processor, bread maker and ice cream maker? No, I do believe that the workers took them to either cook in on the job or take home to use. I will be letting the contractor know as soon as we are completely moved in; I would hate to say something now and then discover them in the pack rat.
It just really makes me mad that we were told it was okay to leave all of our kitchen stuff in the house. If things are not found I plan on taking a few hundred dollars out of the final payment to cover the cost of the missing items. Plus some of those things were gifts and could have had sentimental value (they didn't though).

Finally home

But to me it won't be "home" until we are completely unpacked, the house is done being painted, shutters and mantles are on the windows, the hideous overflowing dumpster in the driveway is gone, all the garbage from the construction is picked up from around the yard and there is no need for the contractor and sub-contractors to come here anymore. Wonder what that date will be. I am hoping it is a "home" by the end of September.

Other than that I am glad to be back in my house. I am truly grateful to my parents for allowing us to stay there for a week and store all of our stuff (that wasn't furniture) on their patio. And my dad is being a tremendous help with getting painting done. All the kids' rooms are painted except for trim and doors; Dylan's was done this morning.

The hardest thing for me is having to look at the raw sheet rock. Here are a couple of pics to show you what we look at for now:








Oh and one minor issue we encountered when we got back in was that the main bathroom downstairs, that was only touched to get to pipes, had mold growing in the vanity and all along the bottom half of the sheet rock. So we had to pull all that out and are now waiting on that to be fixed and replaced. I just want it to be all over.

Does anyone read this?

If I only knew how to add a counter to my blog I would know the answer.

Potty Training

Well it's been about a week and a half now since Aidan was potty trained. The first few days were quite hard and I was sooo grateful that Dave was home to help with the process. The first two days were really rough because Aidan would scream and fight us whenever we tried to get him to sit on the potty. Eventually he got the idea and we learned that we couldn't force him we would have to wait until he had to go.
He had only one accident one day at the park but luckily he was in his bathing suit so it wasn't too bad. And he has been really great with not peeing when sleeping. Two nights ago we stopped putting diapers on him at night and he has been really good.
For a process that started off really rough it ended quicker than I thought and with less struggles than initially thought.
This past Friday I took him to Toys R Us for a special gift for the great work he did.
We are so proud of him at how well he has done.

Wow, It's July already

I cannot believe that it is already July and this weekend is 4th of July weekend. Time is going by way too fast. But I guess that is also a good thing because that means it will soon be time to move back into our home. We have been told that the contractor's time line is to be done by the end of July. I don't see how that is going to happen and will keep mid-August as the completion deadline in my mind. We now have to go and look for bathroom fixtures to be installed. Not looking forward to that. And next week the siding should be going up. It was supposed to get started this weekend but of course something failed inspection.
In 5 days Aidan is going to be 3. That is hard for me to believe because sometimes I think he is either going to be 2 or 5 because of the way he acts, lol. And boy does he need to be potty trained; I am so tired of changing his diaper. He keeps telling us that when he is 3 he will go on the potty. So, in 5 days we will see what happens. I am going to refuse to put a diaper on him and let him either wear underwear or go naked.
Well I am off to the party store to find some things for Aidan's party. He wanted a Tropical Rainforest theme so we will go and see what they have.