Happy Groundhog's Day (a week's worth of blogging)

Happy Groundhog's Day! I am dying for warmer weather! I hope that the groundhog predicts that spring is right around the corner. LOL. I don't really believe all that stuff, but it's cute none the less.
We've been having lazy days here. Basically life has consisted of maintanence and nothing else. The laundry is done, but not folded and put away. The floors are picked up and swept, but not washed. I told my friend Steph the other day, that she's a bad influence on me. She lives by the theory that, "it's all good", "no worries", "just chill". What's wrong with that? I don't think anything is wrong with it. It's just that life for me, for so long, has been chaos and go go go that it feels weird right now. I don't feel the need to go somewhere everyday. We stay home for days on end, and it's NICE!!!! Part of it is the winter blahs too. I HATE WINTER!!!!! I want to move to Arizona with my friend Jennifer, or I'd love to move to California, but David hates California and wouldn't let me, so I'll dream of Arizona instead. LOL.
This past week:
Saturday, January 26th was Give Parents a Break. David and I went to IHOP and ate lunch, alone! Wow, it was quiet, we sat on the same side of the table. We ate with the original utensils, there was nothing to clean up off the floor or seats! LOL. Then we went to Michaels, and Walmart. Then we picked up the kids and went to the commissary and went to our friend Jennie's for dinner. The kids had not had a nap and were "pills", so we only stayed 7-9pm.
Sunday, January 27th we just went to church and came home.
Monday, January 28th our Parents as Teachers educator (Michelle) came over. She made a bean bag sock with Christianna (the dog got a hold of that and by the end of the day beans were scattered thoughout the house and I threw it away!) With Shanndon she hid things in a box and he was to "feel" for them and pull out the matches to the cards in front of him. He really liked that game and did very well. We'll have to do that more often here. We didn't do anything the rest the day. David is back at work, on day shift.
We've been swing shifters (3p-11p) for most of the last 14 years, so we're getting used to waking up early and going to bed early (unfortunately my children are very good on that type of schedule and have always been day shifters! LOL).
Tuesday January 29th was our first day back to YEA (our home school co-op). Only 7 families showed up, but it was nice! Well, I thought so anyway. There wasn't any chaos. Everyone was calm, no running, screaming, etc. Come to find out some of the other families thought it was boring and too restrictive. Oh well. If just me and one other family likes it, I guess it'll just be us! LOL There is a lot up in the air as far as the co-op goes. So we'll see what happens over the next few weeks.
Wednesday, January 30th-I got Shanndon's school letter in the mail!!! I called the school and went up there. Filled out a ton of paperwork, then filled out even more for the teacher. He'll be starting Feb 19th. His class will be from 1:20pm-4pm and he'll be riding the bus (I'll take him the first day.) They celebrate birthdays once a month and the day that they are celebrating February birthdays is Feb 19th! So the day he starts will be a party! :) He cried when we were in the classroom. I'm so scared!!!!! He'll be the youngest in the class and the only one not potty trained. There are 2 teachers and two paras (helpers) in the class. Shanndon will make the 26th kid, the 5th special needs kid! The bathrooms are not in the room! They are in the hallway. :( My baby will be attending public school! On the other hand, he'll still get YEA and playdates, private speech on Thursday mornings, daddy home in the evenings. We'll see how this goes. I'm not giving it very long!!!! Ben was in preschool for 7 months and that was too long. If ANYTHING goes wrong, I'm pulling him out!
On Wednesday's we go to church for Royal Rangers and Missionettes (children's church programs). Today, Ben got 3 memory verses said for badges in Royal Rangers and Commander Dan marked off a bunch of mental, physical and social merits too. I think he got 2 badges this week. Hopefully he'll learn 2-3 more this week and finish up more. He's on his last year in Ranger Kids(K-2nd grade) and so he has to get all this finished up by July. Then he'll start Discovery Rangers (3rd-5th grades). Now that David is on dayshift, David will be helping in Royal Rangers (Commander David! hehehe, weird!). I have a class in Missionettes. They are "Stars" (3rd-5th grade). This week I had 3 new girls, which puts my class at 11! I like them, altho they are pretty rowdy. They are pretty tameable! Rachel had a hard time dealing with them, but we're doing well right now (probably cause I'm new). Rachel took the K-2nd graders.
We get home from church and Maialen proceeds to tell me about this field trip that is the next day and she doesn't want to go and about this club she doesn't want to be part of, but she feels like she has to, cause this teacher is making her do this stuff, and she doesn't understand any of this project she's suppose to do, yada yada. So, 930pm I call up this teacher to find out about the field trip and clarify the details of the project. She proceeds to tell me that "the girls" are too social, irresponsible, and unfocused. Um, I think she's smoking crack! Maialen and Carolina have excellent grades and work very hard! They are in National Honor Society and several clubs and sports! I spoke with her for about an hour about the girls. This woman is passive aggresive. The type that gives "slams" with a smile on her face. She's crazy. So, I told the girls to go in and see if they can't change classes. It's 4 weeks into the new semester, but maybe they could get into a gym class or something!
Thursday January 31st we had a snow day. We got about 5 inches of snow and school was closed. Maialen and Carolina took the kids outside and played in the snow and even shoveled!!! NICE!!!! I called in to speech and said we wouldn't be coming. I just didn't want to drive in the conditions and risk other drivers either for a one hour speech session. It was the only thing we had to do for the day. Ben's friends Mitch and Mikey were suppose to sleep over, but we postponed it for the next night instead.
Friday, February 1st, I took the kids to Stephanie's so I could go to a Dr. appt. On the way, Carolina called upset, said she got permission to change classes, and that there was a gym class with the soccer coash and she was really happy...but the crazy teacher (Mrs. Cartledge) wouldn't give permission to drop her class, saying that she didn't do the work and she wasn't allowing it. I was ticked! This woman told me that Carolina should try to drop it and that she was as far behind in this class as kids who didn't show up the first semester! Carolina took her first "F" in her life in this woman's class!!!! So after my DR. appt. I called Steph and Marc to ask if it would be alright if I stopped by the school to pitch a fit. Marc said it was fine. Things are good now. The vice principle over rode the class and changed her. Now we just have to keep an eye out for Maialen. If she is mean to Maialen or treats her badly, we'll get her switched too. (Different class than Carolina was in, but same crazy teacher).
I get to Marc and Steph's about 1pm and hung out til 2pm. Loaded the kids up and went to West High School to see Maialen cheer for a pep assembly. Shanndon sat there the whole time covering his ears. It was very loud. Ben and Christianna liked it tho. Then we came home and put kids down for nap, ate dinner and went back to Marc and Steph's to hang out. We took Butterscotch (our puppy) to socialize with thier puppies. It was so cute. He slept well that night! We get to bring our puppy home next Friday. He'll be 6 weeks old. His name is Sky. I think Butterscotch will have a good time having a buddy. We ended up bring Mitch home to sleep over and Mikey went with Jennie's son Jonathan to sleep over.
Saturday February 2nd, that's today. Another do nothing day. It's been so nice. We've all just been hanging out, playing computers and stuff. David went and got a better wireless router for the house, so our connection was faster and better. Wow, it's fast now! The router was in the basement and not doing well for living room and bedroom connectivity. Mitch was bored and wanted to go home, so when David got home from the store, he took Mitch home. The girls went out with friends to eat. Tonight, Maialen is going to the homecoming dance. She has been so happy all week. Its been homecoming week, and they've had different themes each day. Shes so peppy and spirited! It's cute how excited she is.
It'll be so boring around this house when the girls leave! :( The kids will be devastated! I don't know if I'll do this again. It's hard. I didn't expect to be so affected! I thought it'd almost be like having a border or something. Instead, I find myself caring deeply. I care that they like what I make for dinner and they have lots of variety. I care what they think of the family and the lifestyle. I care what's going on at school. I care about thier grades. I worry about thier well being and who they are hanging out with. UGH! Maialen wanted a family with a dog, it makes me want a dog! My family wanted a dog too, don't get me wrong, but I'm not much of a dog person. I'm a cat person. Just fill up thier food and water, scoop thier litter box and it's all good. They'll come to you when they want attention and they just lay around. Luckily there is enough people in this house to play with the dogs that it doesn't have to be me all the time! LOL.
Well, that was our week! We actually have a little busier week coming up. So I'll probably blog more. LOL. Welcome to February!