My children’s lit class is probably the most unexpectedly fun class I’ve had. When I first got the syllabus I thought for sure I’d drown in all the readings, even if they weren’t specifically hard (and they aren’t hard books).

My final project is a diversity project, where we are to chose children’s books to read that have something to do with diversity. This can be race, gender, disability, identity, family, culture, etc. Originally I had thought of doing something with ASD (Asperger’s Syndrome…a high functioning form of Autism that one of the twins has). But something struck me as I was going through book lists…perhaps I should simply do something on twins themselves. They often struggle with identity…at least it’s something I see in mine, being identical twins. I was very surprised by how many children’s books I found on the subject. I am looking very forward to seeing how this comes together.

The final for this class requires a creaticve project for this diversity project. Something like a story, or lesson plan or quilt. My first thought was to do a scrapbook. But I’d LOVE to do a “Day in the life” movie. I don’t know if that’s even possible, but I’m exploring the possibilities of that. I just think it would be a neat idea to follow the twins around for a day and then have them narrate the movie. Has anyone ever done something like this before? Any pointers?

We took the boys to the circus on Saturday. I remember going a couple of times as a kid and I loved it. It was the first time the boys had ever been and they didn’t really know what to expect. While on our way out, we asked the boys what they thought. The first words out of Zach’s mouth were “It was sweet! It was excellent!” I guess that qualifies as a rave review! His brothers had similar views about their first circus. All-in-all it was a great family outing. Below are some of the pics. I won’t post them all, as that would be too daunting. But I’ll post some of my favorites.

Keep in mind that the whole show was basically about the head clown taking the ring master’s hat, which made the ring master not do his thing real well and made the clown sort of take over the circus. It was cute banter back and forth b/w what kind of acts the ring master had and what kind of acts the clown had.

I’ll warn you: some of these are blurry. I had to sacrifice taking “action” shots for taking pics in night mode. I couldn’t do both. Either I could take action and they would all be dark, or I could take them in night mode, get some good shots but have some of them blurry. I opted for the latter, obviously.

DH tells me he’s really playing. Brian would know…he’s a trumpet player. Anyway, I thought that was pretty awesome. No way could I play like that! I give him mad props.

It’s a porcupine! He’s cute, isn’t he?

This was the view from our seats. Pretty good seats

Halloween marks the start of our busy season around here. After Halloween, we prepare for Thanksgiving and Brian’s birthday. Fortunately, this year they aren’t the same day! 15 days later is Alex’s birthday. His Godfather will be in town that weekend to celebrate his birthday and Christmas with the boys, which means that sometime before then we need to put our tree up. We’re looking into buying a new tree. Ours is 6 years old this year and when I put it together last year, a couple of the branches fell off. I took that as a sign that it’s time for a new one. So, we’re pricing.

Speaking of pricing Christmas trees, we went to WalMart on Saturday after taking the boys to see High School Musical 3 (good movie!). We parked and walked in through the garden center and what were we greeted with? Christmas decorations! I was not prepared for that AT ALL! It isn’t even Halloween yet, for crying out loud! I am the person who is adamant about not putting up any Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving. I just can’t be in the mood before then, even if there is snow on the ground. I have to take the holidays one at a time. It’s just the way I’m wired, I guess. Besides, it’s more fun to make a mad dash for the finish line than to start 2 months early.

Anyway, 15 days after Alex’s birthday is Christmas. Then we’re leaving to head to Erie for Jen and Matt’s wedding on New Years Eve. We’ve decided from there to go back to Indiana for a couple of days so that I can see my niece for the first time. I am super excited about that! She’ll be 3 months old then, but at least I don’t have to wait until April! Then it’s my birthday, which I am NOT looking forward to this year, and my sil’s birthday. Fortunately, after that, we have nothing until April when we have sil’s wedding, our anniversary and the twins’ birthday.

In all fairness, this is my favorite time of year. I love fall (though we haven’t had much of a fall this year) and Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s such a joyous time of year. I love cooking a big dinner and celebrating with family and friends. I don’t even mind that it’s just the 5 of us. It’s a compete contrast to the frenzied Thanksgiving and Christmas days I had as a kid, hoping from one grandparent to the next, eating dinner at one and dessert at the other. It’s nice to just be able to relax and take it all in.

And speaking of relaxing, I think I’m going to do that for what’s left of the Colts game. After doing 2 blog posts for my class blog, dishes, and 3 or 4 loads of laundry, I think I’ll chill for the rest of the game and then head to bed. Night!

Ryan and Zach’s first day of school. Not too many pics since they start second grade. However, Alex starts kindergarten tomorrow and you can bet there will be lots of pics for that!

As of today, it is T-24 days until my first day of classes. I am both incredibly excited and incredibly nervous. I don’t think I’ve been this nervous before. Or at least not in a long time. And I can’t really say it’s a bad kind of nervous. More of an excited nervous. Does that make sense? Either way, there are butterflies in my stomach something awful! I don’t think I was this nervous on my first day of college 10 years ago!!

All-in-all, though, my classes aren’t incredibly hard. Well, ok, they may be, but I’m only taking 12 hrs since I have to work around Alex’s afternoon kindergarten schedule. They are all political science classes, so they could get a bit heavy. I’m hoping I can mix it up a bit next semester. Once I see my advisor, I can schedule my classes online and I don’t have to wait forever to get an apt. like I used to have to do. Thank you, internet!

The hardest part, so far, is trying to find a job. I’m hoping to find one on campus so that I can save on gas. There are a few listed on the job board. I just need to find out if they are still available. It’s going to be a crazy semester for me, I know. However, the craziness that our family will have to deal with for the next three years will be worth it in the end. Once I have my degree and we’ve got a dual income, we can finally buy the house we’ve been longing for and start saving for college for the boys and retirement for us.

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Oh, and happy birthday, mom!

Other than my post in CT last Sat, I haven’t had time to post anything! We’ve been super busy since we got back Sunday afternoon. Sunday evening the boys and I went off to the kick-off party for the Steve Tasker March of Dimes Golf Tournament. Monday was the tournament. It was a long day, but it was fun. Well, it’s been a long two weeks, really. My sisters shower went smashingly and our trip to CT was loaded with fun, even though it was during some of the hottest days of the year! I thought I’d show off some of our pictures from our trip to CT. I’ve embedded them as slideshows and there are 2. You’re welcome to click on them and see the stills in my webshots photo album.

These pics are from CT. The first half of the pictures are from Quassy, one of only 11 trolley parks still remaining in the U.S. We had a lot of fun, especially at the Saturation Station (the water park.beach area).

Connecticut 2008

These pictures were taken on Saturday when Brian and his dad took the boys to a Yankee’s game. They only stayed 3 innings, but in their defense, it was 100 degrees out that day! The boys said their favorite part was riding the subway. Funny, but no surprise since they love trains so much, lol.

Boys Day Out

Here are the pics from the Golf Classic.

March of Dimes Charity Golf Classic

Happy Friday! Enjoy your weekend

Today is a great day (although, admittedly, I’m really tired. I haven’t been sleeping well at all.) It’s a beautiful day and I’ve shooed the kids outside to play. We will be joining some church friends for a barbecue and fireworks later this evening. I am excited to see what Rochester has to offer for fireworks. There are fireworks downtown and in just about every ‘burb, so there are plenty to choose from. We’re heading to a neighboring ‘burb to see them, since that’s where our church friends typically go.

I hope everyone has a great Independence Day!

Oh, and thank you to all active and retired military personnel. We should be thanking you every day, not just on holidays that remind us of our freedoms.

I often get inspiration from my kids. Sometimes I’m inspired to take pictures. Sometimes I’m inspired to do a scrapbook layout (which I haven’t done in forever, btw!). This weekend, however, I was inspired to do something completely different. It’s the time of year where I purge winter clothes, and sometimes summer clothes, that are too small, pack them away for later use when appropriate (in the case that they are too small for the twins, but will fit Alex in the future), or list them on e-bay. I also do the same for boots/shoes that are no longer in season or no longer fit. Since shoes are something I’m not able to hand down because, well, let’s face it. Kids, but probably specifically boys, are hard on their shoes. DH also had some shoes he’s not worn in a few years that needed to be purged.

My first instinct was to thrown them in the garbage. Then I stopped myself. *Insert inspiration from my kids here* Ryan had brought home one of those scholastic newsletters that his class gets a few months ago and I happened to read the back article. The story was about recycling old athletic shoes and what they do with the recycled materials. They, of course, us the materials for playgrounds and tracks. Erie had a playground made with this sort of material. It happened to be our favorite playground. I decided to look on the web and see if there were any such stations around here where I could take these shoes. There happened to be a drop-off location right around the corner from our house. Needless to say, I was thrilled! I intended to take a picture of Alex dropping the shoes in the barrel, but when we got there, it was overflowing with sneakers. How great is that?!

Alex is enraptured with busses. Big busses, small busses, trolley busses, etc. While we were driving around this morning (I also had to drop off dh’s dry cleaning), he spotted several, and pointed them out to me. We even followed an RMT bus for a short time. Most of the busses we saw were the yellow cheese boxes that transport our little crumb-crunchers to school each day, but we also saw some of the hospital busses. You know, the little mini-busses that take patients back and forth for treatments and what-not. Alex has coined those busses “piggy busses.” I’m not sure what made him equate the little mini-buses with piggys. I guess because they are short and little, and he thinks of piggys that way. Whatever the thought process was, it was cute. And it isn’t so much the coined term that is cute, it’s the way he says it, with that little high-pitched “piggy bus!” and that big ‘ol dimpled grin that I love so much.

My dad is right. I’m gonna miss this.

Lots of school stuff going on today…well, this week, actually. Tuesday we had a parent/teacher conference with Ryan’s teacher and had an impromptu meeting with the speech teacher as well. Today, Alex had his kindergarten physical and 4 immunizations. What a trooper that kid is, I tell ya. He didn’t really cry for the first three shots. The last one, the MMR shot, was the one he screamed for. I don’t blame him, really. That’s the one that stings like heck. He dried right up when he got to choose a toy and a sticker, and I gave him a little packet of Oreo cookies that I still had in my purse from his Bill Gray’s kids meal from last weekend. He isn’t the type of kid that has any kind of reaction to immunizations so I don’t have to worry about giving him any meds at all today.

And on another school note, I’ll be transferring in to SUNY Brockport this fall! I am super excited about going back to school. I’m transferring in as a senior, based on the number of credits I have. I can only transfer 90 at the max, so It’ll be interesting to see how many of them (and which ones) transfer. I’ll find out in June when I go to schedule my classes for the fall. It also appears I have received a massive amount of financial aid, which I’m also super stoked about! I’ll be sure to let everyone know how it all goes. My major is Political Science within the Department of Education. My actual degree will be a Childhood Inclusive Education degree, with dual certification in both Childhood Education (k-6) and Special Education (k-6).

What you can’t see is that behind the cows, on the wall to the left, is a big California postcard. I couldn’t resist taking that picture!

I haven’t graced my blog with pictures lately. In fact, I haven’t graced my blog with much of anything lately. Now that I’m finally starting to feel better I thought I’d post pictures from our visit to the Strong Museum last Saturday. The Strong Museum has been named the “National Museum of Play” and let me tell you, there is a LOT of playing going on in there! We only stayed about 90 minutes, and only perused the first floor (there are 2) and we still didn’t see it all. I took quite a few pictures, especially of the “Grossology” exhibit. I think the boys (all 4;)) liked that the best. Prepare to be inundated with pictures!