Rain Rain Go Away....

it's causing weeds to grow another day...

OMG! I normally love the rain BUT NOT when we have a ton of weeds and with every rain storm, more appear. The only good thing about the rain right now is that it's making the ground soft so the weeds are coming up quicker and easier than with the ground being hard and dry. Plus, less dust for allergy purposes.

First Night of Homework AND...

it went surprisingly well! We had to push Anthony just a smidge but he finished with a decent amount of time to shower and play before bed. He wrote out his spelling words nice and neat and read his book for 20 minutes.

Jackson didn't have any formal homework from school so I gave him 3 worksheets to complete. Of course my spitfire took the challenge and completed them correctly in no time! I pretty much know that he's the one we'll have to continually keep entertained and busy or else he'll lose interest and get bored and cause trouble. I'm bummed that he's 15 days younger than the State cut off but he'll have that extra JUMP on his peers academically.

Taylor did well staying dry...most of my updates about her will probably be potty training related for a while. This starts the second full week of potty training and she's really doing well. Mornings are the roughest for us because she's like her momma and loves to stay up late and sleep in late. So getting the groggy tired girl to go potty w/o slumping over and falling back asleep is a challenge.

Tonight it was me and the boys eating dinner together and OMG they did SOOOOO well cooperating and helping me out! I didn't even have to ask them, they volunteered this all on their own. Hmmmm, whatever aliens possessed them tonight...please keep this trend going, it's AWESOME! I started their Karate Good Deed Sheet and of course they each got 2 lines completed on there. When they get to 20, they can turn in the sheet for a star on their uniforms.

Stopped Daddy's Heart...

Nothing stops a father's heart faster than seeing one of their children get hurt.

Our Brief Trip to Urgent Care on 8/15/08
Our daredevil (emphasis on DEVIL) child threw herself off the futon and landed on her left arm pretty hard.

I was working and in the office, so I completely missed the whole thing but Tony was out there and had JUST finished telling Jackson to get off the futon and to sit on the floor. He looked over at Taylor and just as he was going to say something to her overboard she went. She landed face down on her left arm. She laid there screaming and motionless. He turned her over and she wasn't moving her arm. So he picks her up (there's no blood on her face thank goodness) and tries to move her arm and she's flinching and screaming harder. So he runs her into the office sets her on my lap and tells me to log off from work we are going to Urgent Care. I can't get her to calm down, nor can I get her to move her arm. So he grabs and ice pack, wraps it in a towel and wraps her arm. In the meantime, I finally get her to calm down and I very carefully take off her shirt to get a better look at her arm. It's starting to swell by this time. We load everyone into the car and rush off to U.C. I called Jenny (during her vacation...very sorry lady!) to see what Keira's symptoms were when she broke her arm. Then I remembered the post about nursemaid syndrome but by that time we were already zooming towards U.C.

Fortunately there weren't a lot of patients in U.C. so we got in right away. Taylor is fine, no broken arm, the swelling we saw earlier has gone down. She didn't need X-Rays as she didn't even flinch when the doctor was checking her out. She got stickers for her visit, but is very sore from overstretching the tendons and ligaments around her elbow. She is telling everyone that she broke her arm and is still nursing that side. So we'll see what kind of swelling this weekend brings. The nurse in U.C. said that it sounded like Taylor has suffered nursemaid syndrome and just to monitor her. Ice her arm and give her motrin for the internal swelling and pain. If she really won't move it after about 48 hours, we need to take her back in for X-Rays.

We came back home and she's doing fine. She's not opening any doors or putting any pressure on that side. She definitely KNOWS now to sit on the futon and not to jump up and down out of fear that she'll hurt her other arm.

Anthony was crying/weeping as we were leaving the house because he was scared that his sister broke her arm...sweet boy. Tony's totally worn down and tired from the little bit of excitement we had tonight. It's a wonder he was able to stay with me through 3 deliveries!!! And Jackson...he had NO clue what was going on but...he won't be jumping on the futon anymore either!

Throughout this past weekend Taylor definitely was sore. She hadn't swelled up anymore but certain arm movements would cause her to flinch and ask for ice on her arm. I'm sure through the years we'll have many more heart stopping moments like that one. Tony definitely has a few more gray hairs from the experience and me...since I didn't see it occur, I think I came out of unscathed.

The First 2 Days of School...

ARE COMPLETED! Both boys did great. They woke up on time and we left the house and got to school on time! Jackson's transition in Pre-K is a little harder since he doesn't know anyone in that class but it's only the second day of school and he's going to make tons of friends. His birthday party is coming up in a few weeks so I have to get the invitations set up and mailed out. Anthony of course knows everyone in his classroom but his new thing is that he's going to get picked on and teased. I think this stemmed from what he had to deal with this summer during the beginning of his camps. Ahhh, it builds character!

Tony and I volunteered for lunch time monitoring on Friday. It's so fun to see the kids getting into the routine and trying to either keep with the rules or see how much they can get away with and stretch the rules. This week they both jump in full force. I think both of them will have homework each night. Good...keeps them busy and out of trouble. Tony and I have to get into our routines of chasing the kids to bed by 9pm, making lunches and prepping snacks at night for the next day, ensuring there are clean school uniforms and clean school clothes. Checking backpacks and getting the kids into good habits they'll continue with as they get older.

Right now our night time routine for the kids are:
6-until complete, dinner and homework
8pm, bath/shower, teeth brushing. Some playing and TV before bed IF all the home is completed.
8:30pm, Backpack/homework check. Start choosing lunch and snacks for following day.
9pm, bedtime

Tony and I have until our bedtime to fix lunches and snacks and do house chores such as dethawing meat for the following night's dinner, dishes, general cleanup and putting away of our things. Part of the new school year organization entails prepping meals and freezing them so we have a home cooked meal each night. I have a lot of recipe books and everything that I have read and 99% of the meals can be prepared in advance and frozen.

I'll post pictures of the kids from the first day this week.

Olympic Fever Baby!!!

The opening ceremony was AMAZING! Of course since the opening ceremonies our TV stations have been tuned to replays of the Olympics. Little Anthony took a liking to watching Michael Phelps swim and Jackson really thought synchronized diving was cool. Taylor...she's too little but likes to cheer and caught some of the women's gymnastics prelims and would cheer when appropriate. Tony and I love watching all the action! I'm waiting for the Taekwondo competition to start next week so the boys can see the potential they can rise too. I have dreams that eventually the Gray kids can be the next Lopez family competing in Taekwondo in the Olympics. But for now, it's ALL about Michael Phelps and USA swimming in our house. Tony thinks I'm nuts but I would love for my kids to one day take such a liking to a sport and work hard enough to compete at least at the collegiate level and even better compete in a major event such as the Olympics. Hey, Michael Phelps swim coach saw his potential at age 11 and started developing him into a champion, why not start my kiddos even younger?

Here are some recent swim lesson pictures of my future Olympians ;-D


Anthony "superman" glides underwater


Jackson swimming back to steps after retrieving rings


Taylor blowing bubbles underwater

Girl Milestone!

Today my mom called me and said that the teachers in Taylor's new class (older 2's) told her to tell me that Taylor went potty in the toilet 3 times today! She transitioned to the Dolphin room last week and this week she is full-time in that classroom. They push potty training in that room because in order to move up to the 3 year old room the kids have to be fully potty trained. We still have her in diapers in that room just to use them up but they have the kids try every 2 hours and each time she stayed dry. I guess the first time she actually did something, she was shocked. And then the next 2 times it was less shocking to her. Yay Taylor!

We have pull-up diapers for her to use at home, we just have to open them and have her use them. She's been good though in that she has been asking to go potty it's just that we've been lazy because it's cumbersome to have her go while wearing diapers. Oh well...time to get out of the laziness mode! I gotta get this kiddo out of diapers! :-)

Certificates of Deposit

This is a vent/rant about my bank....

Is it really too difficult or just so uncommon that people open certificates of deposits (CD) these days? Or is it this particular bank that we use has difficulties with them because the training is lacking so much that no one knows how to open a CD for customers? Example: We try and open a CD about two years ago for our kids. The person we dealt with indicates that all our paperwork is fine and then about 4 days later we receive a call that we need to go back AGAIN to resign the paperwork we already spent an hour signing because THEY set up the CD incorrectly. So we vow never to use that branch again to set up a CD. We went to a different branch, same bank company and they set up the CD just FINE for us. Yay, restored our confidence in that bank. Flash forward to last week, we need to set up a new CD and use the same bank company but a totally different branch...they messed it up again! It's a week later and we have been told that we have to go in and sign the paperwork AGAIN. GEEZ!!!! I guess that is a sign that we need to NOT deal with this bank anymore or at least NOT open CDs with this bank anymore.