September, 2008 | The Angel Forever

Monthly Archives September 2008

Prev Month( 8th ) Next Month( 10th )

Aloha Friday #12

Posted on September 5, 2008 8:14 am by TheAngelForever

Aloha and TGIF everyone!

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

My question for this week is:

What song did you have your first dance to at your wedding? Was there a special reason for this song? If you are not married yet, what song would you pick and why?

Talk about your random questions, but I needed something not related to school, so please humor me!

JL and I had a tough time coming up with songs to dance to at our wedding. We knew that we would start off the reception with the traditional Horah, but after that it was tough. Decisions had to be made for our first dance and for the one with my father and JL’s mother. We did not want to use things that were constantly used at the time.

A few months before our wedding my father bought a new CD from the BeeGee’s. He sat us down to listen to a song. The song was Wedding Day and had just been released. JL and I had never heard it before. Once we heard it we fell in love with the song. We knew we wanted this for our wedding day. I called our band to find out if they would be able to do it. It was new to them, but she said with some information they would likely be able to do it.

Thanks to my father’s suggestion we had a beautiful song for our wedding day. Here is a video of the BeeGee’s performing this song not long after it was released.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Categories:
Aloha Friday family jl looking back photos video

My kindergarten kid

Posted on September 4, 2008 12:05 am by TheAngelForever

It is official, I am the mom of a kid in kindergarten. I thought I would feel different, but I do not. Eventually it will probably hit me, but for now it just seems like any other day. The best part, my kindergarten kid is happy. He likes school and is excited to go back. What a huge difference a year of maturity from the start of PreK at a different school makes. No less the addition of an amazing teacher who cares.

This morning NHL woke up and was ready to go. He hopped out of bed, got dressed, ate breakfast and grabbed his backpack. When we went outside we took a few quick photos before heading out to take him to school.

He was all smiles and so happy to be on his way to school.

This photo makes me realize that my little boy is growing up. Before my eyes he is changing and turning into a big boy. When did this happen?

When we arrived at school the kindergarten kids are assigned to tables in the cafeteria to wait for their teachers to come and get them at about 8:00. When his teacher came into the room NHL’s face lit up. He was eager to get on the line going to his class with the rest of the kids.

Outside the classroom the kids arrived to see their names on a display with the theme for the start of the year. "I Think I Can" is being used to inspire the kids to gain confidence and see that they can do things, especially with some practice.

NHL quickly went into his room, grabbed his name for the attendance chart, put his backpack in his cubby, and took his place on the rug.

Daddy was quite impressed with the beautiful new classroom. It is really large and has amazing items in it. Here are a few photos that he took.

Then the teacher nicely said goodbye to the parents that were in the back and reminded us of where to pick up the kids at the end of the day.

No tears were shed by anyone. . . except one little 15 month old. JSL was quite upset that his big brother (his entertainment system) was not coming home with us. He chanted for him the entire way home. Nap time was off since he was lonely. Mommy never shed a tear. I think this was anti-climatic after the things that happened at the start of last year. That was rough and hard to handle. I just wish I had stopped the craziness earlier and listened to my child. *sigh* I guess you live and learn.

At 2:30 when NHL came out of school he said he had a great day and was excited to go back tomorrow. Of course he was also quite anxious to go home since he needed to use the bathroom. He apparently did not have to go all day and held it in from 7:30 to 2:30 . . . he has the making of a teacher bladder like mommy (pre-kids) already!

We hope that this is just the beginning of many wonderful days ahead this year.

Categories:
milestone nhl school

Go, Go, Go!!!

Posted on September 3, 2008 12:05 am by TheAngelForever

What do you do when you have a stubborn toddler that refuses to do what you want when it comes to walking?

For weeks now JSL has been SO ready to walk, but he refused to do it. If you even said the "w" word he would immediately drop to a crawl, give a laugh and bolt away from you. Clearly he was showing us that he would do things on his own timeline, not ours!

Note to self: If this is his true colors coming out, then the teen years are going to be mighty fun!

Over the last week we have noticed that when JSL does not think we are watching he will cruise, let go and take 6+ steps at a time. Over the weekend this increased. Now he is trying to pick things up, turn and stand up in the middle of the floor.

When I went to pick JSL up at my grandmother’s today he came out her apartment door and charged at me on two feet down the hall. It was so sweet to see how excited he got.

So how did we FINALLY get the breakthough? We were quite creative. Rather than asking JSL to "walk" to us we said to come here or used his favorite new demand to us "GO!" We told him to "go, go, go" and he went!

JL was able to get some video of the little guy charging around and chanting "go go go" tonight.

It has been so much fun to watch JSL reach this huge milestone. He is quickly getting more balance, but his need for speed often causes him to fall and restart his adventure.

Categories:
jsl milestone video

It only took 15 months

Posted on September 2, 2008 10:42 am by TheAngelForever

Why is it that after the first child we become so lax with each subsequent child and often put things off?

Seriously, JSL is 15 months old now and we JUST had the first family photo with all four of us in it today. We had them done regularly when NHL was a baby, but never did it before this with JSL.

Of course there is a likely reason. Perhaps it is trying to wrangle all four of us into a photo. More specifically the two non-adult members of the family. Just trying to get a photo of each of them alone is a challenge, no less with each other and then the two of us.

Case in point, it happened Monday. Late Monday morning we went to a local amusement park with my parents and Aunt L and Uncle J (in from CA). We had a fabulous time out in the nice warm weather. At the end we happened to bump into someone we knew. JL asked her to take a photo of the four of us.

*** Please be warned – YES we were dorks and all had the same basic shirt on. NO, I did not purchase them. My parents brought them back for us after they went to Disneyland in April and we wore them Sunday for the first time.

The first photo is not too bad when you consider we had been in the sun and heat for two hours and both boys were hungry. In addition to this JSL had not napped.

My friend asked if she should take another one just to make sure we had a decent one. We thought it was a good idea. The result is below.

Yes, this is why we have never attempted to do anything before this point. I believe I have now scared off a person that has volunteered to take some family photos for us. Hmmm. . . maybe I should not have blogged this! Of course if we do those it will not be after 2 hours of play without rest/nap time.

There are so many other items that I need to catch up on (like we have another walker in the family!), but this was a busy weekend and NHL starts kindergarten tomorrow. Today we have orientation of sorts for a little while in the afternoon. More to come soon! That is a promise not a threat.

Categories:
family milestone my boys photos sarcasm

Mistake of driveway proportions

Posted on September 1, 2008 10:28 pm by TheAngelForever

A little over a week ago the boys and I were visiting my grandmother for lunch and an afternoon together. Mimi made fresh chicken soup with giant matzoh balls for them to gobble up. For a treat after she had gone to the local farmers market and bought fresh ears of corn. The boys LOVED this part as you will see.

Toward the end of our visit my father called my cell phone. He wanted to tell me something interesting that had happened. He arrived home to find that the end of the driveway was blocked off so nobody could drive on it. When he got out of the car he saw that it had been sealed.

You are probably thinking to yourself . . . "So what? People have that done all the time."

True, but the difference here is that my parents were not supposed to have this done!

When my father got to his front door there was an envelope with a bill inside. He looked at it closely. It was for 43 Grover Street and they live at 43 Big Bird Lane (obviously made up names – since we do not live on Sesame Street).

Ooops! Yes, someone clearly made a rather large mistake. The street signs are quite clear, so that was not an excuse. Plus when we went by the other house it is a shared driveway, so quite different actually.

My father put in a call to the company letting him know that they had made the mistake and that he was not paying for this since he did not have a contract. Sure, my parents were thinking of having it done soon, but it would have been done AFTER major repairs to their house were done so as not to be ruined by that.

The company must have been quite embarassed since they never called my parents back. For their sake it will hopefully serve as a lesson.

Oh well, thank goodness they did a decent job and did not ruin my parent’s driveway.