Entreprenuer

Okay so after a week of simple, but tedious online classes I decided I needed something else to help keep me busy (you would be surprised how even with four classes and two kids I am still bored a little too much to keep me at that optimal sanity level).

So I'm now your friendly and not so local for most of you, Pampered Chef consultant. Basically, when someone wants to host a Pampered Chef party they call me and I show up, with all my handy dandy kitchen gadgets and show them how to prepare a simple, but delicious meal. It has been a fairly successful endeavor so far. I have three cooking shows booked before Christmas, which is more than I was expecting. Not something to get rich off of, but it's fun and everyone knows how much I love Pampered Chef products anyway. Which is a GOOD thing because I'm not a good salesman, or should I say I have NO sales experience. But my Dad, who has been in sales my entire life, always told me that he doesn't sell products he doesn't believe in. If the product is good enough it will sell itself.

Obviously I can't travel to Pennsylvania or NORWAY (Corinne) to do a cooking show for all of you, but if you would still like to place an order or take advantage of the 30% discount that hosts receive, you can do a catalog show. I send you catalogs and order forms and you can give them out to family, friends, co-workers. At a minimum, you get a 30% discount on all of the products you order, and after a certain point, you start earning free products and half price products. Enough of my sales pitch though... :)

I think the boys are enjoying this new project of mine more than anyone since they get to be my food testers. Ethan and Conor will both gladly eat whatever you put in front of them, but now their menu has been expanded and Conor enjoys getting to help in the kitchen. He's going to be the next Emeril. ;) And I'm sure Chris will fully enjoy the benefits as well once he gets home.

Speaking of Chris... First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! We love you and miss you!

Chris got Thanksgiving leave approved from his "deployment" so he will be coming home the evening of the 25th and gets to stay all weekend! He'll fly back out to Tampa on the 30th in the late afternoon, but not before I drag him to the doctor's office with me for a baby checkup appointment. Sorry my dear, you're not getting out of ALL the fun stuff. ;)

Halloween

The boys had a wonderful time Trick or Treating, and did VERY well in the candy department this year. My brother Aaron came up from Tucson for the weekend, and was nice enough to carry empty grocery bags for the boys to dump their candy in as their buckets got too heavy or full. The end result: about 10 lbs of candy. We also took my friend Gege's daughter, Anala, with us because poor Gege is 9 months pregnant with twins and on bedrest!

Happy homemaker and online student

As I'm sure everyone has heard by now (or at least I hope so), Chris and I are expecting a baby in May. This compounded with a few other reasons, I decided to change my major to Management (standby for reasoning and new game plan), and take a majority of my classes online through Wayland Baptist University.

Ok so for all of you with a puzzled "whaaa???" look on your face as to how an Aerospace Engineering major switches to Management...

No the work itself is not too difficult, however, finding the time to complete all of said work with two kids, OB appointments, and physical therapy was driving me bonkers and I was completely unhappy. By switching to Management I will be able to graduate after the Summer 2010 term with my bachelors, and will be doing my masters degree in Accounting immediately after. So management is not the end goal here, but rather a stepping stone. By taking this route, no I won't be an engineer, or have the prestigious title of rocket scientist, but I will be able to finish my bachelors as well as graduate school in the same amount of time that I would take me to finish said engineering degree. This means my GI Bill will go much further, and pay for both degrees. :)

Since all of my classes except for a once a month Saturday class are online now, I was able to take the boys out of daycare which is saving us a LOT of money every month. (For those of you without children, daycare costs for two kids is equivalent to a monthly mortgage payment.) So far it is working out wonderfully. I get to spend the day with Ethan, and really enjoy seeing all of the small changes in him everyday. I am here to pick up Conor from the bus stop everyday, and there is plenty of time to work on homework and reading with him, and even enough time for him to play with neighborhood friends for a little bit before dinner.

Slip N Slide Fun

Changes

It's been a while since I've updated my blog, and there's been a lot of things changing in our house.

I started school again so that has kept me pretty busy the past couple of weeks. I love my classes this semester, but my biggest problem is understanding my professors. My physics professor is Russian, and my Calc II professor is French. Oddly enough, it is easier to understand the Russian accent than the French accent.

As most of you know, Chris left today. He was originally supposed to be spending the next six months in Doha, Qatar, but at the last minute his orders were changed to none other than Tampa, FL. He will still be gone for six months, but at least now we can all visit him and talk to him every day. Of course he certainly isn't complaining about getting to take his golf clubs, and live in a luxury condo on his "deployment".

Ethan is talking more and more every week, and over the past week or so has even started putting small sentences together. He's absolutely positively obsessed with the Disney movie, Cars, and anything Cars related. We watch Cars almost every day, and he's even started saying "kachow" (for those of you uneducated in Cars, "kachow" is the main character's catch phrase).

Conor is doing great in school. Chris and I met with his teacher a couple of weeks ago, and she told us that he is very much ahead of many of his classmates in almost everything. His biggest problem has been outbursts of bad behavior, but his behavior has been improving over the past couple of weeks. This week his teacher introduced homework to the class so Conor now has a homework folder that comes home every week and has homework for that week in it. Tonight was Conor's first night doing homework, and he did a wonderful job. He had to write his name three times and practice counting to twenty. His handwriting has improved a tremendous amount since he started school, and he wrote his name VERY clearly three times. :) As for counting, he can count (and even write) all of his numbers up to thirty, with the exception of skipping the number sixteen sometimes for some reason. Apparently Conor is not a fan of the number sixteen.

Here are a couple of picture of Conor doing his first homework, and then one of Ethan just because he wanted his picture taken too.

Summer Fun

These are some pictures from this weekend. We got to go swimming two days in a row, and everyone had a blast! Conor is doing great in the water and isn't scared at all. He even jumped off the diving board a few times Saturday evening! I wish I would have had the camera for that one. Ethan loves being in the water, but is still a little hesitant about getting his head wet. By Sunday afternoon though Ethan was jumping from the ledge to me. He says "you ready?" and then "jump mama, jump!"

Whiplash and Germans

Today I had to go to ASU to drop off paperwork with the VA adviser and show a friend of ours around campus since he's starting classes there this semester also. As much as I would like to once again vent about the cost of school textbooks, I'll do you all a favor and NOT. ;)

It was about 2:30 when we left campus to head back to our side of town, so of course traffic going through Phoenix was starting to get a little heavy and slowing down. Once we got into the tunnel, traffic came to a complete stop. Unfortunately the woman traveling behind me didn't see traffic stop and slammed into the back of my car. Everyone is okay, and her poor truck took the brunt of the damage I think (apparently Honda doesn't make a very sturdy truck). The front end of her truck looked like an accordion. While the Acadia doesn't look too bad, I have a feeling it's going to be a lot more expensive than it looks at first glance because the impact crushed one of the rear parking sensors and I know any of the other gadgets that have had to be replaced on the Acadia have been pretty pricey.

There weren't any serious injuries, but my neck and back are pretty sore so I'm going to make an appointment tomorrow to get checked, and I've already scheduled one for Ethan first thing tomorrow morning. He seems fine and certainly acting like his normal self, but I figured if I'M a little sore then he may be too, and despite his exceptional communication skills, may not be telling me.

On a much happier note, we finally met some neighbors! Arizona is very different from the places that Chris and I grew up. Neighbors don't talk to eachother, and for the most part everyone just keeps to themselves. I had mentioned before that Conor had a friend in his class from preschool. Well that friend rides his bus, and even happens to live in our same neighborhood about 5 houses down. We had NO idea until Conor got off the bus one day and wanted to go to his friend's house so I started talking to the little boy's mom.

They really are the nicest family, and Conor loves playing with Yosh. So yesterday Yosh came to our house to play and today Conor got to go play at Yosh's house. It's a great motivator also for both boys to behave at school because they know that if they both don't get good reports from school then they aren't allowed to play together that day. Yosh's family is from Germany, but their English is excellent and they were even nice enough to bring over some German chocolate for us! YUM! :) It's so nice to finally know another family in the neighborhood and for Conor to have a playmate.

Potty Training

Every mom looks forward to the day that they won't have to change stinky diapers anymore, or spend a small fortune on them every month. What you don't think about when you're in this diaper-free dreamland is the task itself of potty training, and how difficult it can be.

I never imagined him being absolutely terrified of going to the bathroom without a diaper on. I figured if anything he would be scared of the toilet. He doesn't mind sitting on the potty, but you can always tell if he's actually about to go because he gets this scared look on his face like he's doing something wrong and starts crying. Once he actually goes in the potty and sees how excited everyone is, then he gets excited too and can't wait to flush the toilet, but no matter how many times we go through it, he still gets scared.

I was reading online and they said that the best thing that you can do if your child is struggling is to take a break for a few weeks or even a few months. So what I think I'm going to do is wait a couple of months until after school starts and we're both settled back in our routines and give it another shot. In the meantime, I'm going to try a few other things that I read about as well that will help your child become more comfortable around the potty. Also, I was talking to my aunt and grandmother the other day and they brought up a good point about using cotton training pants rather than Pull-Ups. I think I may try that as well.

Conor's First Week of School

School started on August 3rd (apparently AZ schools start very early in the year to keep the low-income kids out of the heat), but poor Conor got sick the Sunday before his first day of school with a stomach virus. He was well enough on Wednesday for HIS first official day of school.


Like any good 5 year old, Conor used Wednesday to discover what his limits were in his new school with his new teacher. Conor's teacher, Mrs. Davis (click on her name to see her class webpage), uses the "traffic light system" to communicate daily behavior with parents and it looks something like this:

"Brilliant Blue": Spectacular day (I've never seen a blue traffic light, but I guess she had to have something for those days that green just isn't good enough).
"Grand Green": Great day
"Yucky Yellow": 3 or more warnings
"Rowdy Red": Exceptionally rough day

Conor got "yucky yellow" on Wednesday, but was "grand green" for the rest of the week! :)

He has done awesome with adjusting to his new school and all of the other changes that come with it! Conor rides the bus to and from school every day (obviously we stay at the bus stop with him and are there when he gets home), and has not had a single problem with bus riding. Once my classes start back up at ASU, Conor will go to Sunrise (his preschool) for after school care, and they have their own bus that picks them up from the elementary school.

Conor has made a lot of new friends, and even has a friend from preschool in his class. So far he loves school and can't wait to go back this week!

Hello and Welcome!

Since I have a bit of free time on my hands right now I thought I would start up a blog to keep everyone up to date on what's going on with all of us and to post new pictures. As I'm sure many of you have already discovered, I'm no longer using the website I was using before to post pictures and videos. My subscription was up and I opted to try a free website instead. I hope you all enjoy this and feel free to leave comments!