My Little Photographer

“Mommy, Mommy!  Play with me!”  This is the statement that I hear so often.  I’m not that great of a player with my kids.  I like playing games, I like cooking, I like working in the garden together…in a sense, I like doing stuff with my kids that I know they will take something from it and learn something.  Last week the boys and I made up a dice game.  I got the poker chips out and when we rolled the 5 dice, if there were no 6’s rolled, we added up all the dice and got that many chips.  If we rolled 1 6, we did nothing, and if we rolled more than one 6, we gave 5 chips back.  This entertained Nicholas and Christian.  When it was Nicholas’s turn, he practiced counting and when he rolled more than one 6, he practiced subtraction.  Christian rolled the dice too, but he practiced counting just the 5 dice.  He also sorted them and the chips to his liking each turn.  They were happy, I was not bored to death, and they learned a little.  To me, that is having fun with my kids.

Today, when I heard the statement (usually after naptime), I said:  “Do you two want to take a nature walk?”  This was the same walk that we had to skip out on last week because of the temper tantrum we threw.  Nicholas got all excited because I had told him last time that we would take pictures.  This time though, I surprised him even more when I asked him if he wanted to take the pictures.  He perked up!  So, we left the house, and I showed him how to hold the camera with the strap around his hand.  I taught him how to hold the button half-way down to focus, and then press it all the way to take the picture.  Then, when I saw him getting too close to things, I showed him the zoom buttons.  He was so excited!!

Christian and I got to enjoy our walk and hold hands a bit.   They both had lots of fun.

Here are the results from our walk (these are in no particular order.  Assume Nicholas took it unless I write otherwise:

This is one of the first ones when I was teaching him about the focus and the zoom.

This was one of the very first ones he took completely on his own.

Learning to focus

He was on his own at this point

He has quite an imagination; I actually think he found some great subjects.

Well, maybe not from this angle; I guess we need to work on tilting the camera up.

A yard in our neighborhood.

I thought the half-license plate effect was actually pretty creative!

The wheel has a modern-artsy feel to it as well!

This one was funny because the people who own the yard were outside picking weeds (I think they are having a hard time keeping up with them).  Anyway, I had told Nicholas that he needed to ask before taking pictures in people’s yards if they were available.  I don’t want them wondering why he’s taking pictures of their stuff.  I was embarrassed when he starts shooting right in front of them.  I quickly explained the excitement of the new camera and they happily obliged.

This is kind of a neat picture…we are not centered, but that’s why I like it.

He was really fascinated with the construction vehicles in our neighborhood.  Building has started up again.  If only they would sell those lots right across from our house!

Another mommy shot.

This one would be great as a picture if it were in focus more.  I’d hang this one up!

My mailbox.

The before mentioned lots across the street.

I love these flowers in my front flower bed.  They are beautiful and have spread out so nicely.

The statue in my flowerbed.

My herb garden: rosemary

 

Guess who?

My basil!  It’s huge!  I have 2 plants.  Mom and Mason, remember my kalanchoe?  These basil plants have grown to Kalanchoe proportions! Oregano

Some type of purple sage plant that I bought this year.  It’s doing well now, but I thought I was going to lose it at first.

This is my lone rose bush.  I love my roses.

The outlet cover on our porch

  Hah!  Excellent view son!

I’m weeding my garden.

Smile for the camera!! 

And, that folks…is the world through the camera as manhandled by a 4 year old!

He had a blast!!

Freaking Out

I’m starting to freak out a little. 

My husband is interviewing at a lot of places in the next few weeks for a possible fellowship next year.

I was doing good with the idea of moving for one year—even if it was cross country—even if it cost 1/3 of our income to do it—even if it means I’ll be even farther from family—and further from friends—and I’ll have one less job to bring in income—and I’ll have to move our boys for only one year—and what if our house doesn’t sell…

I was okay with all these things—and now I am freaking out at the reality of it all.

I cannot plan.

I was made to plan.

This sucks.

 

Mom, this is all your fault!  You just HAD to make me be a planner!!??  :0)  Now I’m a freak of nature who must plan and I cannot do it!!  Argh!!!!  Joking---kind of ….well, maybe not entirely.  I love you anyway. :)

Fellowship, Tutoring, Daily Activities and Birthday Parties

Hello friends (and family)!  It is the beginning of a new week.  I’m sitting here on my 3rd cup of coffee and the boys are watching Dora and Diego on the TV.  I’m due at the gym in about 45 minutes. 

Apparently, Nicholas “wants to do something fun, but nothing is right now.”  He’s been put on the couch because he won’t quick aggravating his brother.  He has definitely learned the art of pushing Christian’s buttons. 

This week is an exciting one.  It marks the beginning of Ed’s big wave of interviews.  He has one on Friday (Texas Tech) and then one on Monday (Cleveland Clinic).  These are both Top 5 schools and he is really excited for getting interviews to both and even more excited that they are so close to each other.  I am not sure if I explained this, but the way this works is that he interviews and they either invite him to a position or not.  Once they invite him, he has about 2 weeks to decide if he accepts or not.  The catch is that he may have other interviews he has yet to go on.  We’ll have to see how all of this turns out.  It’s quite dramatic around our house when it comes to applying for fellowships.  Everything is up in the air for a while.

I get my interview portion on Thursday night (they are not really interviewing me, but they get to know me better) at dinner for Tech.  It’s kind of nerve-racking even for me because I have to be careful not to say the wrong thing while still being pleasant.  I always have a hard time speaking to new people (I get a little quiet).  I never know what exactly to say.

This past weekend was awesome!  The boys and I almost got Daddy for the whole weekend!!  He was scheduled for Trauma backup on Saturday, but got home at 9:00am!  This let us have lots of fun with him this weekend.  The boys went to the park with him, we all went on a walk, we went and played golf and went out to eat twice!!!  Lots of fun!!!  This is the first time in several weeks where we have had almost an entire weekend with Daddy without work.  VERY NICE!!!

Other things we plan to do this week?  Library, Playgroup, Playing everyday at the Falls while Mommy works out (they love this). 

On the tutoring front, I have had a couple successes—but still no clients.  Summer is hard for new tutoring clients.  My next door neighbor has a friend who is supposed to call me for this fall to tutor college math.  Also, I went to Nicholas’s school this weekend to help paint and mentioned to her that I was the one who had emailed her earlier in the summer about donating one hour a week to tutor at their school.  She was really nice and excited that I wanted to give my time.  She also mentioned that if I am certified that she hires teachers to tutor in the spring for money.  That would be paying work during daytime hours!  Also it would be really flexible work hours.  I told her I would seriously consider it in the spring. 

I have also started using Twitter (notice the updates in the right hand corner of my blog?)  I’m liking it, but not many of my friends are on it.  Anyway, if you are, let me know!  I’d love to “follow” you! 

Also, we are working on planning Nicholas’s birthday.  Right now it looks like it might be on August 22nd.  He has opted to forgo Safety City in favor for Legacy Play Village (that big park out west of town—he’s had his party there before).  We are looking at morning around 10am since it is so hot.  I need to check on reserving a table, so I will get you more info soon!

Well, I’ve gotten in an ear-full this morning!  Have a great day!!!

What’s the Word?

I’m sitting here on my third cup of coffee, and still feeling tired.  It’s 8 am right now.  I’ve been up since 7:00am when the boys came in chanting “Mommy! There’s a 7 on the clock!  What can we have for breakfast today?”  Gotta love’em! 

This week has been pretty busy for us.  We found out Ed got an interview at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio!  This is great!  That means he has interviews at 2 “Top 5” schools!  (the other one is Texas Tech).  He will have that interview on July 27th, I believe.  This means he is gone for 4 interviews in Late July and All of August. 

He also mentioned that he will possibly be going to El Paso for a one month rotation sometime after October.  We don’t know if he is going yet, and we don’t know exactly when it will be…so here’s to hoping it is in October or after the New Year.  He will also be gone for the whole month of April this year (he’s going to Dallas Children’s again like he did last November).  Unfortunately Christian’s birthday will be during that time, so we are going to plan a late March birthday party for him.

Ed’s 32nd birthday was Tuesday.  We went to breakfast (he was on call that night) to celebrate, and we have been getting the house ready for today’s party.  He  wanted to have coworkers over to celebrate.  I have been cleaning all week in preparation.  We are going to have horseshoes, video games, possibly a poker game, and hamburgers/hotdogs.  We are excited!  The boys will have some kids to play with, and we can all have some conversation.  Since they work together, I am sure a lot of the conversation will be work-driven, but that is okay since it does consume our lives and that is what we are.  Last we checked there would be over 23 adults and about 7-8 kids (not including ours, I think).  I hope we will all fit in our house!!!

I am still working on leads and getting  clients for Infinity Online Math Tutoring.  This week I added some content to my website, called some school districts (I have to call next week when they all get back to school-I was unable to talk with anyone this week), made brochures to have put in cubbies at Nicholas’s old daycare, and struck up a deal with the owner of Jump and Jungle to display my business cards.  I have a huge stack of Jump and Jungle business cards to hand out too. 

Since this Math Tutoring business, plus tutoring on Tutor.com, plus doing admin stuff for Avon is taking up so much time, I have decided to stop selling Avon.  Truthfully, I know I can make more per hour doing these other things rather than selling.  Luckily, since I am in admin, I still have an account and can still order things, so if you need something that you have been ordering, let me know and I can get it for you.  I am not seeking new customers or ordering books anymore, though.  This means I can get my discount still, and order for myself (primarily Christmas and birthday gifts). 

Nicholas and Christian are doing really good!  Christian is very accident-prone.  We are having to be really careful with him when he is sitting at the table to eat.  We are putting 2 chairs beside him on either side to “break” any potential falls.  Unfortunately he fell from his chair head first the other day (we have tile under the table).  Luckily Ed was sitting next to him and was able to grab a foot in the air and “break” his fall so that he did not seriously injure himself.  He ended up with a red mark on his head, but it disappeared a moment later.  I was so thankful that Ed was there, because I would have been rushing my son to the ER and praying he didn’t have a brain injury or split open head injury.  It would have been bad. 

Nicholas spent some time this week learning about consequences.  We have started “grounding” him to his room for periods of time as a punishment when nothing else is working.  I can say that this is seeming to work.  Like most things, I am sure there is an expiration on this tactic, but I guess it will work for a little while.  Hopefully he will start thinking about what he is doing before he does it.  I know, he’s only 4 (5 NEXT MONTH), but he is doing things he knows he shouldn’t.  Hitting mommy because your mad is unacceptable, as is hitting your brother.  He’s testing his limits.  It’s okay…he’s gonna figure it out soon (i hope). :)

I Think I Need a New Schedule + Other Things

I apologize for being somewhat absent for the past 2 weeks.  Everything in my house has gotten dirty during this time too.  I have been working online on my new tutoring business like crazy.  I am getting to the point where I should be able to section off my days again and work a little everyday as opposed to hours everyday.  I am definitely in need of a new schedule.  Those of you who have been reading for a while know that I like my schedules.  I may not follow them everyday, but if I have a working schedule, my house gets cleaned, dinner gets cooked, blogs get written, etc…  You get the idea.

Today, I will be getting my schedule in order. 

 

Other things that have been going on?  Yesterday I played Tennis (my first game ever) with a neighbor friend of mine.  She and I have kids that are around the same age.  Our husbands graciously watched our children while we went for about an hour or so to play.  I had SO much fun!!!  I haven’t ever really played.  Mason taught me some things about how to hold the racket and swing and such when I was around 11 or so?  I took a lot from that.  Also, I discovered that tracking the ball and swinging in Tennis is much like tracking and hitting the ball in Softball.  I played softball from the time I finished T-Ball as a small kid until I was 14.  That part comes naturally to me.  The part that is hard for me is not blowing the ball out of the tennis court.  This takes major concentration on my part.  I’ll continue working on it.  Ed and I think we may have found that “thing” we can do together as we get older.  We both agree that we will get some lessons as soon as we can afford it.  I cannot wait!!!

 

Christian got a hand Xray this week!  Yep, his hand got shut into the hinged side of our screen door for the entire time I was taking out the garbage.  Apparently Nicholas decided to help me by shutting the door…unfortunately he didn’t make sure little brother was out of the way.  Poor guy!  His hand had no broken bones…but he is still bruised up.  The swelling is down now.  I am noticing that when I take out the trash now, there is a 5 foot minimum distance between Ernie and the back door.  I guess he learned a valuable lesson. 

 

I discovered Bert Nicholas still needs naps!  He was enrolled in a camp this week at a Jumpy-Bouncy Place (you know those establishments, right?).  He went everyday from 1pm-4pm (well, except for Friday—he got grounded Friday and couldn’t go).  Needless to say, Bert loved camp---I liked it (nice quiet afternoon), but hated the fact that he was on his worst behavior EVERY DAY this week.  Friday afternoon was so much better. 

Ed had yesterday off (the 3rd of July).  I went and played Tennis in the morning and Ed took the boys to play golf.  After naps, we went to the Falls to enjoy the 3rd of July celebrations.  Nicholas and Ed swam.  Christian and I played ball and looked around.  The boys ate too.  I then went and did an Avon Appointment and picked up Uncle Chien’s Chinese food (YUMMO!!).  Ed and I ate when I got home.  The boys went to Angela’s to play with Nora. (Will, her son, was visiting his grandma).  The boys came home and went to bed while I cleaned house (or got a great start on it). 

Today, Ed works till 7:00pm.  Same schedule tomorrow too.  The boys and I have to get a birthday present for a party we will go to tomorrow.  I need to make that schedule I mentioned earlier, and I am going to work on the house some more.  I decided to not sell Avon anymore, so I need to clean that stuff out from my cabinets.

Have a wonderful 4th of July!!!!

 

Oh! One more thing!  Ed has a fellowship interview in Philly now.  So our fellowship interviews are: (in order of dates so far)

-Pittsburgh (he did that one in June)

-Texas Tech (July 24)

-Philadelphia (Aug 4)

-U of Maryland and John Hopkins in MD (week of Aug 11)

 

Wish him luck!!!