Am I There, Yet?

I can hardly believe it’s the middle of November.  Can you believe that Josh started his job here in NJ exactly two years ago?  It’s crazy how fast time flies.

We’re doing well and settling into our new home.  It’s a lot slower this time since we have a six-month-old demanding most of our attention.  But, I’ve gotta admit…she’s such a cute diversion. 

I’m still thrilled with the kids’ new school.  The only difficult thing to adjust to is the bus schedule.  The bus picks them up between 7:15 and 7:30.  That’s an hour earlier than their previous bus schedule.  So…all of my friends out there one the west coast…if you’re ever up at 4:15 AM…just think of my poor kiddos standing out in the cold waiting for their bus.  J

Titus now has full day kindergarten and we’re thrilled.  He loves it.  He now has Art, Music, Spanish, Gym and Library.  He didn’t get to do those things during ½ day kindergarten.

Lilly also has less homework.  She can now get her homework done in about 10 or 15 minutes.  At her last school she would work on homework for an hour or more each night.  I always thought that was ridiculous for a 2^nd grader.

Lydia is doing great.  I took her to her six-month appointment last Monday.  She weighs 18 lbs. 4 oz.  She’s off the percentile charts and is average size for a 9 month old.  She’s a big girl.  That’s strange for us because Lilly was always in the 15 – 20% range and Titus was always average…right along the 50^th percentile mark.  But, Lydia is healthy.  Her Strawberry Hemangioma isn’t growing.  We’re happy about that.

Last weekend we took the kids to NYC to see Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall.  This was a birthday gift for Lilly.  We all had so much fun.  I saw Christmas Spectacular last year, but this year was so much different seeing it with the kids.  It seemed more magical watching it through their eyes.  Afterwards we walked over to American Girl Place but changed our minds once we got there.  The store was so crowded and there was a line out the door.  So, we walked over to Build-A-Bear instead. 

Now it’s back to real life.  I need to continue to unpack my house.  My goal is to have this place be a home by the time Thanksgiving gets here.

All is going well in our household…

The past few weeks have been a little crazy for us…birthdays, moving, Halloween and everything that comes with all of that…cable guys, change of address, mail forwarding, changing schools, cleaning the old place, phone calls, paper work, unpacking in the new place, taking care of an almost six-month-old…I want my mommy!!!

Things are really going well, though.  We are pleased with our new place and we LOVE our new school.  The kids have really great teachers and they even knew a few kids in the school from karate and church.  I couldn’t ask for a better transition.

Speaking of transition, Lilly had a really great transition out of her old school.  She came home with some cards created by her classmates.  They were so adorable…I just had to share some of my favorites:

Lilly also came home with a notice from her school that she was chosen as Student of the Month.  This is what her teacher said about her:

Mrs. ________ is pleased to choose
Lilly Conn as the honored student for today.  Lilly is new this year to the ____________ School, and is a welcome addition to our second grade class.  Lilly is a quiet, pleasant, polite, responsible child who comes to school everyday to do her very best.  Lilly has been a pleasure to teach from the moment she stepped through our classroom door.  She is an attentive listener, and she takes great pride in doing her schoolwork.  She is an extremely motivated worker and tries her best in all learning situations.

Lilly is friendly and well liked by her classmates.  She has made many friends in the short time she has been here.  She is giving of herself, as she is always willing to assist and work with other students.  When Lilly is not in school she enjoys Karate class and spending time with her family.

It is wonderful to have Lilly in our class.  Her role model qualities are quite admirable and help make our class a happy place to be.  Lilly certainly lives up to our class motto, “Don’t do enough to get by, do enough to get ahead.”

I am pleased and honored that I am able to spend each school day working with Lilly.

Congratulations Lilly!!!!

Lilly’s birthday was Monday.  The kids had the day off of school that day because the paperwork wasn’t fully in at the new school.  We had a fun day.  Josh took her to breakfast before work.  The kids and I went shopping for some new fish for their new aquarium and had lunch at a 50’s diner.  Then for dinner we went to Joe’s Crab Shack.  That’s not her full birthday celebration.  For her birthday she wanted to go to Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall…so we’re going to NYC next weekend and watching an early show and then going to American Girl Place in the afternoon. 

Since this blog entry is turning into an “all about Lilly” segment…I’ll just continue on.  Lilly enjoys writing in her journal and does it every day.  The other day she showed me a story she wrote.  I thought I’d share that, too:

My day at the farm

One day I went to the farm.  First I got a carmel apple with mnm’s on it it was yummy.  Then I went to a corn maze you were sposet to find 5 woden apples.  The five woden apples let you to the exet.  Then we went to a Jonny apple seyd adventur farm.  It was like you were in the real book!  Then we went to see a horse me and my brother got to pet the horse.  He was borown.  Then we got to milk a fake cow that water squrted out of it into a buket then we went teraktor riding.  The tractor had pettles but they did’it work so one of our frieds had to push us.  After that I went pupkin piking.  I got a brite orage medium sized pupkin.  My brother had the same pupkin as me.  After that it was time to leve so I went home.  The end.