Settling In

Now that we have unpacked and settled in we are getting a taste of what life and our calendar will consist of and it’s very different then life in IL.  Back home I had minimal time that wasn’t filled with multitasking:  work (Real Estate), our kiddos, feeding everyone J, church commitments, keeping house,  and time with friends and family.  Also Traever was home every day by 4:30pm and for the most part available when he was home- I know I was spoiled.  So now to the kids’ joy or dismay they now have a lot more of me and a lot less of Traever.  So, now that I have this time at home I’ve been thinking a lot of how best to manage it and praying that I am able to follow through (sticking with a routine is a common failure of mine).  I came up with a basic kids’ schedule I am throwing it out there and hopefully it will stick:

Sun- Church/rest

Mon- Adalai Classical Conversations 9-1pm (M-F 3-5pm Rem and Thatch nap, Adalai school work/color)

Tues- Lunch  with Daddy at the seminary.   One Tuesday morning  per month visit a museum in Balboa Park (free on Tuesdays) or the library

Wed- pool, park or hang out at home

Thurs-Farmers Market / Lunch with Daddy at seminary

Fri- WSC women/family park day 10am-noon

Sat- hang out at home or 1-2 Sat per month go to the beach or for a hike or a movie in the park, etc.

Hopefully the above schedule won’t all be for naught as I do have several fellow schedule breakers in my house… who like to keep it interesting J and provide lots of object lessons and laughs.

Here’s a glimpse at a few of last weeks incidents:

I hauled the 3 kids to the library and up to the 2^nd floor for story time to find that they were on break for the month of August.  We hopped on the elevator and headed back down as we were exiting and the elevator door was closing Remy reached over and slapped the call button.  She totally had a big grin on her face (the movie Elf comes to mind) As I walked to the front desk for check out and a confession I could hear over the intercom “Hello?! Do you need help in there…”

We decided to try to go the pool without Daddy.  As I was packing everyone up.  I held Thatch in one arm as he screamed and with the other arm I tried to keep Rem who thinks she can swim from falling into the pool as she kept going after a ball.  I thought…ok I got this and then I looked over at Adalai  and she was standing next to me BUTT naked.  In her defense we haven’t been to the pool much so she probably doesn’t know what is socially acceptable but I’m sorry 4 year old twin boys who tried to befriend my daughter… you saw more at the pool then you signed up for.

Our children stay in the worship service with us at church which means that we do bring some things in with us to keep them quiet- as we stood up to sing a hymn we realized that the girls had left a present on Traever’s seat- an assortment of crayons which left a rainbow of colors across the backside of his nice khaki suit pants.  Later in the service as we sang another hymn we looked behind us to see our girls dancing along to the music… who has the unruly children?  That would be us J we’ll be working on it.

And last but not least as noted earlier Remy is potty training.  Last night Remy called out to us "I pooped!" Sure enough there it was on our light cream  dining room carpet and a diaperless Remmer Monster prancing about.  I’m going to think twice about letting our kids eat food off the dining room floor now.

Here are a few more pics from the past few weeks:

We are becoming big fans of picnics especially the ones with Daddy.

We’re having fun finding free things to do. A grocery store opened down the road from us and they were offering free face painting so the girls got to have a fun trip to the store.

Adalai has discovered that if she puts an envelope in the magical black box at the end of the drive it will get delivered to the person she wanted to send it to.  It’s been fun for her and she’s learning to write her letters/words better too.   Now I just need to start this habit too.