Kenzie is 6 Months Old Today!

Audrey's Meet the Teacher Day

Audrey is officially starting her new school, Heartwood Montessori! She had a few weeks of summer camp there which was great because she is used to the school building and one of her camp teachers is one of her classroom teachers for pre-k! She loved exploring all the classroom activities and learning about the classroom. I think she is going to have a great year and will learn a lot! 

A Day at the Park

Today the weather was great! It was about 10 degrees cooler and 15% less humidity than it has been lately. We decided to hit up the park while Ryan was at school. We even got to meet up with Amy- which is generally a challenge to coordinate with 6 children between us, two of whom are under a year old.  It was a great way to spend our last day before phase in starts at Audrey's Pre-K! 

Concert in the Park

I got out of the house for a few hours last night (the first time without at least one child in a few weeks). I met up with my parents, brother and sister in law for dinner and Josh Groban concert. The weather was great and apart from being an hour late thanks to Kenzie not falling asleep when I had to leave it was a relaxing evening. Unfortunately she decided she was done sleeping at 4:15am this morning so tonight the plan for me is SLEEP.

Ryan's First Day of First Grade

Monster of a Week

This week has been a monster.... It has probably been the hardest week of parenthood that didn't involve a life or death situation (which unfortunately I have had a few of). Let's see, where to begin...
On Friday afternoon I got an email that Ryan had been accepted to Sterling Montessori. It is a charter school that we have been on the waiting list for since February (after not getting in last year). The catch was that school started on Monday. Ryan doesn't do well with change so this was a big decision. He was enrolled for Cardinal Charter which was slated to start a week and a half later and he has friends who would be going (not in the same grade though). The Montessori has a more hands on approach, it's a smaller community and I have always liked the Montessori method. We decided to at least try the Montessori. Don ran out on Sunday to get the school supplies.
Before deciding on the school Audrey got a UTI on Saturday, she started having symptoms about 5 minutes into a conference call, so I hung up and ran to the doctor before they closed at 12:00pm. She was diagnosed and given a week of antibiotics.

So all this went on before the week officially started. On Monday at 5:00am Don went over of town to Montana. A few hours later I took Ryan to school, he had a really hard time, he clung to me, he didn't want me to leave. It was painful but he eventually let me go. This whole week has been more of the same, but he is getting better. He is happy when I pick him up and sad when I drop him off. He doesn't understand why there is so much work, why the day is so long and why he can't go back to him kindergarten class. His teachers are very nice, they have been teaching together for a long time, the class is well organized and they have so many fun classroom materials. This in the long term is what is best for him but this transition has been hard- and the fact that I am doing it with Don out of town has made it worse. I'm sure I will have lots more to say about the school as time goes on. I finally decided to officially pull him off the Cardinal roster on Thursday so at least the stress of that decision has been made. It was a lot of stress- made worse by so many unknown variables (teachers, classmates etc).

Audrey has been at Frozen dance camp all week. She loves it, especially because their dance performance at the end of the week is to all Frozen music. It has made for a lot of driving for me (her camp goes from 9:30-12:30) but it keeps her occupied and happy.
Kenzie had a few nights of very little sleep but we now have an understanding that I won't feed her in the middle of the night so she has been getting up only once. She still gets up for the day between 5 and 6 am, but as long as I get a good chunk of sleep somewhere in there I can manage. She did decide to cut her first tooth this week which made her a drooly mess.

This is probably incoherent. But I'm tired... hopefully next time I write I will be going on more sleep and less stress!

Summer Soccer

This summer has been full of new and exciting things for the kids. One thing that has stayed consistant week to week has been soccer. This is Audrey's first session, Ryan has done it a few times before. It is an indoor soccer league which is great for the North Carolina summers.

First Tooth/ First Word

Kenzie cut her first tooth yesterday. She seems perfectly happy, let's hope all of teething goes this well! Ryan and Audrey were not as calm about it- they got super snotty with ear infections etc.

Kenzie also said her first word "Dada"... she is super proud of herself and when she first said it she was looking at Don with a big smile on her face. No she repeats it over nad over again.

Surgery/ Projects/ Matching PJs

On Thursday Don had surgery to fix his herniated scar from the surgery he had a few years ago to fix his perforated bowel. It is a painful recovery and the kids and I have tried to find things to keep us busy so that we aren't bothering him while he rests ( At least we can leave the house now- for the first 24 hours he couldn't be left alone). One of my projects has been to move all of Audrey's 3T clothes into storage and pull out the 4Ts and Move Kenzie up to 6M clothes. There is a lot of laundry and sorting to this project. One bonus is that I found a set of matching PJ's! This is probably the only sibling matching outfit I have (since it was harder to buy matching for boy/ girl). The kids like it so much I am going to have to find a cute pair that all three kids can have- maybe for Christmas! 

5 Months Old

Weekend in Chicago

I had a weekend in Chicago to celebrate at my friend Rachel's Bachelorette party. I'm sad I won't be able to attend the wedding but I am excited for her and happy that I did get a chance to celebrate with her. We had brunch at Bistro Margot and then went Bar hopping. It was a lot of fun and then I stayed an extra night to meet her fiance and have a night to myself!  I even had time to walk around the city- it made me both miss it and appreciate home. 

Audrey 4 Year Stats

Audrey had her 4 Year old appointment today. She is healthy and has recently had a growth spurt. She is 32.8 Pounds (25%) and 40.5" (75%). She gained more inches (3.5") than pounds (3) in the last year! She did not do well on her hearing test, they said it could be that she didn't understand the test or an actual hearing issue- she will go back for another test when Ryan goes back to do his re-test (one of his ears failed). She passed everything else with flying colors during the assessment.

End of School Pictures

Camp Blazing Trails

Ryan had his first week at summer camp last week. He used to be so freaked out to do anything for the first time that I was really nervous about sending him. He loved it! He jumped right out of the car into a group of kids and was off! They did kayaking, archery, hiking, games, fishing etc. I can't believe how much he has grown up!