Walking down memory lane.. or at the very least Addie street

"Its not easy to find someone who cares, its not easy to find magic in pairs." Anybody guess what that song is from??

Pete's Dragon :)

Today while shopping at Costco I made the mistake of going down the movie isle, as I always do, I had planned to buy the Hannah Montana movie for the girls. They had this deal where if you bought that and Pete's Dragon you automatically got $6 off so ofcourse I bought them both- great deal! I remember liking the movie as a kid.

Oliver wanted to watch it this evening after dinner so I put it on, he fell asleep on the couch a good 15 minutes into it. Now normally when something like this happens I put the kid to bed and turn on "real TV"- not so much tonight. I sat there and watched all of the movie, and sang along. How had I compeletely forgotten how much I loved this movie? It might seem totally silly- it is. I wanted to BE IN this movie when I was little.

I remember now- it is so much fun for me when something comes back to me from my childhood that had previously been lost to the void of mommy brain. I don't know how old I was, I couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old. I know this because these particular memories are from a house that I spent those years living in, we called it the "house on Addie street". We moved from that house the year after Kindergarten, but I don't have very much stuff that I remember from then so when I see it I grasp it. Okay- so back to the point (is there one? maybe, maybe not) I shared a room with my older sister (who is my best friend and I miss terribly, but thats a whole other novel) and we had this little record player and only a few records to play on it. One of these were the songs from Pete's Dragon, see I don't have memories of actually watching the movie but I watched it tonight and I knew those songs in and out! I just have a synpet in my mind- me lying down beside our closet in our room singing as loud as I could. Thats it.

One other small thing I remember from that house, very insignificant but I wanted to write it down. Whistle lollipops- no clue what they were actually named, but it was a big deal. We would walk down the street to the store to get them- they were suckers that were also whistles- cool beans.

Me, my sis and my mom at the house on Addie street~

visitor pictures :)

I have a half an hour to kill before taking the other little to school so will just knock another blog post out :) hahaha- two hours later and I'm done!

This past year we had so many awesome visitors- there is just no possible way for me to share all of the pictures on here so I'll just give you guys a few pics of each visit for a little recap.

First to visit was the amazing Aunt Corrie- she is so much fun, come back to us Corrie!! She came to visit for the Winter Holidays- unfortunately I was sick when she got here, she was such a huge help. While she was here we went to Boyds Bear to have breakfast with Santa, went to see the Holiday lights at the zoo, went up to Baltimore for a day and loads of other fun stuff!



Our next Visitors came in the spring. We are very luck that the Houghton's are able to come out for their spring break and visit us!! The downfall to that is there break isn't usually the same week as our so the girls are still in school. During the visit we spent a day exploring Frederick, Port Discovery in Baltimore, and the Catoctin Zoo!




Two weeks later was the kids' spring break and we got Grandma Jackie and Grandpa Odie to come out and visit us for the first time ever! This trip was so special to me, I miss my grandma and grandpa so much and it was great to show them where we live and Washington DC and stuff like that, but the best was just hanging out with them.


Then came our last visitors, Kit and Jodi. They made it out here for some really fun stuff! The night that they arrived we went to Miranda's dance recital and then they got to attend Avery's 5th grade graduation. Ofcourse we did all the regular stuff, day downtown, Baltimore and ofcourse dinner at Sakura :)





Next visitor~ Aunt Jaime at the end of September!! Tomorrow the countdown officially begins :)

Another Manic Monday!!

I am not a morning person. I never have been and I'm afraid that I never will be, but since Avs has to be at school at 7:30 in the mornings I'm hoping to come to terms with it and make good friends with the dawn.....yawn...I guess the good thing about this getting up at 6:30 thing is that I've actually gotten quite a bit done allready.

Avery is off to school, she walked in with her best friend with a big old smile on her face. She finished all her summer work, picked out an adorable outfit and is set with her cell phone to call me when school gets out. Now we sit and wait as Miranda doesn't need to be to school for another hour or so, then the real stuff starts!!

Mondays are now going to be my goal days for the week, its a fresh start every Monday! I know not everyone will be all that interested in my chore list, but if it helps to keep me accountable for the things that I need to take the time to do thats perfectly fine.

This week~
* Meal plan for the week
* Grocery store and Costco
* Car cleaned
* Carpet cleaner in to get fixed (clean carpets if back in time!)
* Fridge cleaned
* Kitchen cabinets cleaned and sorted
* The girls closet cleaned and sorted out
* Get to the gym atleast 4x this week
* Get a new beta fish
* Balance checkbook (yuk!)

I think thats pretty good so far- the main thing this week will be getting everyone back into a good routine with school. My lil monster man is going to be a bit of a sad little guy with his sissies gone to school all day- will have to find loads of fun stuff to do!! Hope you've all enjoyed my boring Monday morning post ;)

Say WHAT?!?!?!?!

I'm currently trying to put some thoughts together on the fact that Avery will be starting middle school tomorrow. I'm very unsure of how I feel, on one hand she is such a bright, sweet, funny, loving girl that I figure she will have no problems- okay thats not realistic- how about minimal problems? Academically I'm not worried, she is in pretty much all the GT courses (Gifted/talented or accelerated) and is a smart little cookie. She makes friends fairly easy and most of the time just can't deal with drama so isn't drawn to the popular kids or kids that get in trouble a lot. I'm worried about little stuff more... like... forgetting her locker combo, not being able to find her class, not being able to keep herself organised, etc- okay so pretty much all of the things that I had issues with as a middle schooler.



Now that I'm actually taking some time to think on this I'm realising that maybe its more that it makes me feel old to have a kid old enough for middle school! I mean seriously? Didn't I just have her like a few weeks ago or something? Didn't I just get out of H.S??? I really, really am not feeling this. I'm wondering, do all parents feel a lot of the time like they are just kinda feeling there way through things- like this poor kid- I have no clue what I'm doing here so I hope she ends up okay! I ended up semi-normal so I think her chances are good :)



5th grade graduation :) Such a cool thing for her to have ALL of the parentals there!!

My Dancing Queen

I've just signed another year away to Friday nights of dance classes. I'm a home body and don't go out on Friday nights anyway, so no big deal really in my case. Here's to another year of classes, leotards, tights, and clickety clackety shoes, recital rehearsals, costumes, and finally the big show- hearing the same song over and over through many hours of practicing in the bedroom. "Aint no mountain high enough" was in my head for 6 months straight- all of this and more I don't mind in the slightest. Can you guess why? for one reason alone does all of this not only not make me cringe, but it makes me ecstatic- that reason is Miranda and the passion that she shows for dance. All things dance,every genre and show out there- she is a follower of So you think you can dance, and America's best dance crew. Her favorite movies are Hairspray, The Wiz, Grease, and all 3 High School Musicals. This post is in honor of Miranda and a big old check signed.

Olivers school

I am hoping to do things in order here, may not happen but its the thought that counts!

So shortly after Oliver turned 2 years old we had him evaluated for a speech delay, as we expected he had a slight speech delay and some sensory issues. Through infants and toddlers we had weekly in home therapy and some fun classes.

I have to say that I was very sad that he would no longer be in this program and recieve these services when he turned 3 - I was very anxious for my little man, tearful at times wondering what was going to happen. Had he come far enough that he wouldn't qualify for services anymore? Would he do well in a school environment?

Turns out that my worries were very quickly put to rest when he did qualify for services through MCPS and I did a tour of some of the classes that he might be put into. At that point I started to get excited!

This is gonna get a little long so hold on- just for those who are interested this is the official description of what PEP is~

"PEP is a special education program for children who have educational disabilities. All children in PEP have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) with learning goals and objectives based on needs identified through formal testing. The goals and objectives are guides to help the staff help the child acquire skills that other children of their age already have learned. PEP is a noncategorical program, which means that it serves children with a variety of disabilities. Most children who participate in PEP classes have moderate learning delays in more than one area of development, and many of the children receive related services such as speech/language, occupational, and/or physical therapy. Parent education is also a part of the program."

This is the description of the class that he is in~

"Inclusive setting taught by a special educator and paraeducator. PEP PILOT classes have up to 12-13 children; up to 6 students have IEPs and the remainder do not have IEPs and pay a small fee to attend the class. Students served in PEP PILOT have more mild disabilities and do not require a four or five day per week special education program in order to make progress on their IEP goals and objectives. PEP PILOT is 2 1/2 hours per day, two days per week."

Oliver started his class on his 3rd birthday :) Because he was going to ride the bus to school I was a little apprehensive, thankfully the coordinator and teachers were nice enough to let us go in for a day the week before so that he could see his school and meet his teachers and classmates. He did awesome and has loved every second of school and can't wait to go again in a few short weeks! Now onto the pictures.

On our visit Oli got to participate in the snacktime craft- he loved making and eating this spider


Oliver on visiting day after school


Me and the man waiting for the bus


Backpack Oli picked out- ofcourse Lightning!


Getting on the bus and ready for a great first day!


After posting this I went back and read some of my old blogs and lo and behold I did blog about Oliver's speech evals and intakes- I may have been more on top of this thing than I realised- yay me!! If your interested in reading them they are in my 2008 blogs.

the shortest yet funnest summer ever!!

I cannot believe how this summer has flown by, wasn't it just the beginning of June and my family was anticipating a very special visit? Now in 5 days I will officially have a Middle schooler, a first grader and a very sad little boy when his sister go off to school. I am not feeling as nervous about Avery starting middle school as I thought I would- she is a great kid. She is caring, funny, smart, genuine... all of the things that you hope your kid will be at this age. Don't get me wrong she's also stubborn and has a fierce attitude when trying to assert her independence but I think and hope that all of these things will work out well for her in her new little journey. She is very excited, so I will be excited for her- not nervous or anxious. Tomorrow we go to her open house, she will get her locker combo, class schedule and get to meet her teachers! Oliver will also be going to school again this fall, I cannot believe of all things that I never blogged about my whole experience with Oliver turning 3 years old and going from the infants and toddler program into the Montgomery county school system and all the wonderful fun things that it has entailed. I will have to do that another time- with pics :) Long story short and saved for later, he goes to a program called PEP PILOT twice a week. A bus comes to pick him up and drop him off and I was so nervous about that last year, but you've just never seen a happier little guy then Oli waiting for his bus to come with his backpack on.

Hmmmm.... somehow this blog that was supposed to be about our fun summer has turned into a back to school blog- funny how that happens with me!

I really do need to keep up with this better, because now that I am finally sitting down to write and update I feel like I have a million things to get out there! Oh my this is gonna be fun :) I need to get my thoughts together and in an organised manner so that these updates might actually make some sense and maybe be in order as well? wouldn't that be something huh?