No Excuses

Well, I guess I DO have a list of excuses for not updating this thing. It was a long, lazy summer for us. Then school started and we had to hit the ground running. It's been crazy, crazy, crazy since school started at the beginning of September.

Aftan is in the first grade now. She absolutely is totally thriving and she loves her classmates and her teacher. In previous years, she would not tell me much about her day. Now, she tells me all about it in great detail. She knows how many lessons she worked on. She knows exactly which ones they were. She relays to me what they sang in music class and what they learned in Spanish class. She started out the year kind of rough. She was not used to being the "low man on the totem pole" so to speak. She was never the youngest in her class. But, this year she is in the 1st grade in a mixed 1st-3rd grade classroom. At first, she found it hard making friends b/c some of the kids in that class are in 2nd and 3rd grade and have been together since they were toddlers in preschool. But, it only took a week or two for her to start making friends and gaining some confidence. She has made a friend out of one of the 3rd grade girls. Aftan brings a little notebook to school every day and her and her friend take turns writing out a little story. Which brings me to another thing. At the beginning of the year, Aftan had no interest in reading on her own. She "could", but she wouldn't. She was having a confidence issue b/c the older kids could obviously read better than she could and she doesn't like to do things if they are not "perfect." I don't know what happened, though. She has taken off. She loves to read now. In fact, she volunteered to read a book to her classmates at the end of the day one day. She is doing great in school!

She has also started swim team at our local Y. This is the child that was doggy paddling at the beginning of the year when she started in swim lessons. She just swam in her first meet yesterday. She swam 5 events which included freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and two relays. It was a really long day for her as she swam in the very first event and then one of the very last events. She was there from 12:30pm - 6:00pm and then stayed at the Y after that until 9:30pm for Parent's Night Out. But, she asked me to sign her up for the next swim meet next month.

Here she is at swim team. The first pic is of her at practice and the others are at the meet yesterday:

 Waiting in the ready room

 Breaststroke

 After the meet

Reagan is almost 4 now. Can you believe it? I sure can't. She also is loving school and is doing great at it. She is working very hard on her handwriting and it is getting really good! She can write her name and Aftan's and also "Mom" and "Dad". She can copy any word. She is also starting to read! It's crazy. She is definitely at the point where she can tell beginning letters, but she is also starting to be able to read short words like "cat", "dog", "in", "stop" or any word that is easy to read out phonetically. She is a smart little cookie. She is also in swim lessons. She moved up to the third level of ten, which is great for her age! She is able to do back float for a few seconds and can tread water. She is still working on getting her arms out of the water for freestyle, but she will get there. 

Here are a couple recent pics of Reagan :)

 At swim lessons

 Playing outside

Summer Days.....

Man, I just have been gone for a long time because blogger has changed. Something else to get used to, I guess.

I suck at updating this thing. It's been six months since I last updated. I apparently only updated twice the whole last school year. Well, maybe I will have more time to update since I am UNEMPLOYED. Yup. I quit my job. I am officially a stay-at-home mom for the first time in my life. I was previously a work-at-home mom, but I've never been an actual stay-at-home mom. It all started out as wanting/needing to take the summer off because it made more financial sense to stay home with the girls and save the summer camp money, but it ended up being a permanent thing since my work got their proverbial panties in a twist over it and went over the deep end. So...I am unemployed.

I have created a bucket list for the girls and I to do together this summer. Things like ride the ferry and play in the sprinkler and have picnics and play with sidewalk chalk and chase fireflies. You know...typical summer things.

One of the things on this list is "Turn 6." We are just a few days away from this milestone for Aftan. She had her birthday party today. It was her first real birthday party with friends and cake and decorations and the whole nine yards. We had it at the YMCA pool, and she had an absolute blast. We went swimming and had cake and pizza and the kids decorated bucket hats and necklaces to take home. I think they all had fun. I hope it tired them all out.

Aftan goes into the 1st grade next year. She is excited, and we are excited for her. She is turning into such a big girl. She's so smart, creative and witty.

Reagan is 3 1/2 years old now. She is so smart and goes into her second year of preschool next year. She can write her name with impeccable penmanship (for a 3-year-old...or even some 6-year-olds). She takes after her sister in this regard.

Let's see if I can rustle pics of the kids up. These are from Aftan's pool party today and the last one is from the other day. I just love the pic of them together:

It's Me Again, Margaret!

So much for updating this thing. I read so many blogs, you'd think I could remember to update my own.

Anyway, it is now 2012. I would say the obligatory "Good riddance to 2011. Worst year yet!," but I have to say that 2011 was much better to us than 2010 was. Here's to hoping 2012 will be a great year!

Hmmmm...what has been going on with us? Let's see....

1. Reagan has adjusted well to school. She loves to go and see her friends and misses it when they have days off. She is so ready to go back from the holidays.

2. Aftan is doing good. Getting taller, as usual. I think someone forgot to tell her that you are supposed to not grow so fast after the age of 2 or 3. :)

3. Reagan just turned 3, and we just barely met our goal of being potty trained by 3. She has been accident-free for a week now and has been going out of the house in undies.

4. Aftan has her first loose tooth. It is really loose and I thought it would have fallen out by now, but nope. Just hanging in there. I can see her adult tooth behind it, so I am hoping it falls out soon.

5. I got semi-furloughed at my job. That's been fun times, but we are managing.

6. The in-laws so graciously provided us w/ two months worth of membership dues at the Y, so we are going to start exercising and eating healthier. That is my New Year's resolution....just be more healthy in general and lose about 40 pounds. (Not saying it wouldn't hurt to get into some skinny jeans. #just saying)

That's it really. We are boring people. No wonder I don't update this thing more often.

Let's see if I can muster up a recent photo of the kids.