First Day of MDO for MW

Last Tuesday it was Micah's turn to go to "school."
To say he was a little excited is an understatement. Just watch the video clip below to see.


IMG 3813 from Michele Keethler on Vimeo.

This kid is so full of life, it is contagious. He has been begging and begging to go to school for a year now. I was never one for Mom's Day Out and Lo certainly never went, but he wants to go. I tried to talk him out of it, but there was no changing his mind. Every morning he asks if it is MDO day.

I will say it is kind of nice to have 4 hours to get things done or just let the voices in my head talk to one another without being constantly interrupted by a need to be fed, wiped, helped, dressed and so on.

He was so excited to pick out his lunch box and he loves that they go swimming every time. I am glad he loves it and I am glad it is flexible. If it stops being fun or life gets in the way then we stop for a month or two and start back up later.

I am a strong believer in just letting kids be kids. I don't do pre-K, simply because they have their whole lives to be in school, so why start at 3. MDO seems like a happy medium. Only one day/week full of mostly fun and play with just a bit of learning tossed in = perfection.

Here is his chalkboard print. I love that he wants to be a Helicopter Driver. :)

FREEDOM!!

I am going to miss my little buddy though. I am trying to soak up this last year with just him at home all day. I miss Lo, but she had my full attention for two years pre MW and now it's his turn to get all my focus.

The things he says to me. For the record I wasn't sad and didn't cry because it was only one day.

He is incapable of taking a normal picture.

His first craft an Apple for the letter A.

This was from my time hop this past week. I was sort of feeling like a mom failure because MW has zero interest in writing and learning letters. Last year I tried and tried but gave up making him trace letters, one year later he comes running out of his room exclaiming MOM! Look I wrote my name all by myself. {albeit out of order, but hey that is a start!!} I was reminded that not all is lost he will and can learn.

So what did mommy do while MW was gone?

Painted the fireplace. AH!

BEFORE

AFTER

I thought about doing a vlog about this, but maybe when it's all done.

I have been slowly redecorating the living room over the last 6 months. And I have been dying to paint that fireplace for.ev.er. Chad was not on board. And well, something that permenate I needed him to be on board. So I did lots and lots and lots of pintrest-ing and researching on this. I finally wore Chad down with my incessant talk about it. He caved. He really just wanted me to shut up about it. Whatever I will take it. 

Except. Then I couldn't pull the trigger. 

So of course I continued to go on and on about it and lost countless hours of sleep over it.

Finally on the day of MDO I just went for it. I was so freakin nervous. I was having heart palpitations the entire time. 

I kept stepping back thinking dear Lord what am I doing?!!? But there was no turning back. I finished and texted a photo to Chad he said it looked good. I of course then shared the photo to Facebook because where else do you get validation from? HA!

I didn't love it at first. I didn't hate it. But I most certainly wasn't sure I did the right thing.

It took about 24 hours for me to fall in love with it. I think simply because it was such a stark contrast to the original, but now I am so happy I did it. I love it. The room no longer seems like a tomb. 

So there you go what I did on MDO.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas {2014 Part IV}

Welcome to my final installment of Christmas.

Again, I have to re-iterate that this was by far the best Christmas. The kids were both at such fun ages to do things with and they both seemed to really be in the spirit of it all.

Here is a our family Christmas Eve picture. Stunning I know... ;)

We headed to my mom and dad's for soup post Christmas Eve service. It wasn't planned, but when you have zero food at  home it was a fantastic idea. Finally, after we pried the kids off papa aka the fun house, we loaded up and went home to start the Christmas Eve prep.

Notes to Santa...check.

Cookies for Santa and Oatmeal for the 'deer {because we were out of carrots and I heard once oats are their favorite treat!?! ;)} Check.

Write a gift for Jesus. Check.

Lay gifts to Jesus in His manger. Check.

Go to bed!! CHECK!
I really try to get good pics of the tree and silhouette stuff, but I just can't seem to get it right...
Baby Jesus in the manger.

Santa comes. Check.

The next morning the kids came in to wake us. Lo had this great idea for me to take a photo of them "sleeping" in our bed and then do a WAKE UP face. They turned out cute. Great idea sister!!

IT's CHRISTMAS!!!!

First things first we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. BUT Daddy filmed it and videos aren't my thing, so just imagine this was us but one year older...

photo from 2013

Then we moved on to the Santa gifts. MW is super hard to buy for because his mind changes as the wind blows. However, he is always super excited no matter what he gets. I realized after just watching him, that he does like to sit and play with his toys, it is Lo who doesn't...so I Santa figured this Rescue Bot Fire House with Heatwave was the way to go. I Santa was spot on.

Lo got her gym bar...only Santa I no Santa screwed up. Apparently even though I Santa read all the pinterest tutorials and even thoughtful planned this DIY endeavor out, it was a bust. Not sure how it all went wrong but the bar just wasn't stable enough to not topple over or bend. Daddy and I tried all we could and spent another $40 trying to make it workable, again a bust...thankfully all of that was returnable, but still she was disappointed. So was I. I Santa worked so freakin' hard on that thing. However, she understood, because she is the best like that and decided it would be ok if Santa brought her a new gift. {2 weeks later...a Bitty Baby Monitor from the AG store for her dolls}
So here it is the only moment of her on her bar. We are going to make a sprinkler out of it this summer, see lemonade.

Opening stockings.

GUM!! HA!

Now for the best moment.
OUR gift FROM Lo. Look she even wrapped it. Bless her. Just bloody bless her heart.

This is what was inside...handmade drawings and notes. I mean I still tear up seeing this. She is just the most thoughtful girl. She just makes your heart explode and you realize the best gifts are never the expensive things, but the gifts from the heart.

This year since they were older we had them each do something for each other. Again, she made MW this car ramp. She came up with the idea, and I supervised some of it, but she painted it and peeled the tape off for the road lines and then picked him out a special car to go with it...here she is showing him how it works. They are just wooden planks that he can take anywhere to make a road or ramps for his cars.

Heart. Puddle.

Oh my gosh, she so wanted a robe. This may have thrilled her more than anything.

Tangrams!!! Just shows her personality. She loves to create.

Christmas morning was so laid back and low key. The kids played and played and Chad and I just sat back and watched and talked. So very nice. We didn't have to be anywhere super early so we enjoyed the morning. 

Lo playing with her bar with her doll, since that was the only safe way to use the bar. HA! She was the perfect coach.

For lunch we headed to my MIL for Christmas "dinner."
Kids saying hello to her baby Jesus.

Then more gifts!! AH! They are two clowns.

Their faces is what is priceless. He got a TMNT plate and he thinks it is the.best.

Transformer!

Dress up stuff. She modeled everything.

Hey it's 2p...why not put on your jammies. It's Christmas. Matching dollie and me jammies. 

MW wore this super hero costume for 3 days, until he spilled OJ on it and I made him take it off. Such a goof ball. He loves pretending.

Mommy got a Christmas day nap while grandma Rachel and daddy played with the kids!! See I am a cheap person to buy for. Just give me things like a nap, or a bed to myself and I am a happy happy girl!

We left around 430p and the kids assured me they weren't tired through their long blinks...uh huh, not tired. Four days of no naps and sugar and grandparent overload does that to a kid. Needless to say they went to bed by 615p that night and slept 'til morning. Even my Buddy the Elf aka MW was down for the count.

And to all a good night!