sorry....

sorry it has been so long since I last posted but as you will read we've been having a very busy time.

9-3 Aiden had his first day of school today. It was only an hour long and I stayed in the muscle room in case he needed me but of course he didn't. I am so happy that he is getting back in the groove of school again. I think he missed it over the summer and was quite upset to find out he only got to stay an hour today.
9-4 While I was at my parents over the weekend I worked on some scrapbook pages. I still have to journal but I was able to get quite a bit done including Aiden's first year of pre-school and Zach's first grade year.
9-5 Zach came home with his Homework Challenge binder today. It seems that his teacher has determined that he is a student with "above average potential" and these activities are mandatory for him. There is only one a month and the first one is a haiku poem. Chris will have to help him with that one :)  Zach also tested for his lexile score and he scored a 648 (!) I'm not sure what it means, I think it means he is at a 4th grade reading level. I know that at the end of last year he scored a 360-something and was at a 2nd grade reading level. That's a huge jump in just one summer!
9-6 I'm trying out having pictures on low tables. I have avoided it up to this point because of the likelihood of disaster but I'm hoping the possibility of that has passed. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
9-7 We went to King's Island today and it was a beautiful day for it. There were barely any lines and the weather was comfortable. We only stayed for 4 hours because Chris had to leave for Champaign that evening but we enjoyed every minute of it and rode as many rides as we could. This picture was taken by Chris when they were on the pirate ship that goes upside down. 
9-8 Zach's first homework packet of the year. He now has 20 spelling words instead of 5! Plenty of language sheets (4) and they now take timed math facts tests on Fridays so he has to practice for that every night. He is off to a great start and homework isn't nearly the battle it was last year.......so far.
9-9 Today was the first day of MOPS, it will be my last year :(  Aiden moved up to the big kid room. He was nervous about it at first and didn't want to separate from me but he was great about telling me what he needed when I asked so we went together with one of his teachers to see the room he would be in. That helped a bit and when I picked him up he was happy as can be.  He also go to make this very cool visor :) Hopefully next month the separation won't be so difficult for him.
9-10 If it wasn't such a safety hazard I would seriously consider wearing earplugs in the car.  I get so sick of hearing the bickering and the "he touched me" "he looked at me" "he is singing" "he isn't singing" I literally want to pull my hair out....or wear earplugs. I need a mom to invent some sort of affordable devise to drowned out the sound of my children's arguing.  
9-11 It's hard to believe it has been 7 years since 9-11. I thought of it many times today but couldn't watch the news or the reading of the names knowing I would be a mess on the floor by the end of it so Aiden and I kept busy with other things.

Here he is on the tire swing with Miss Abby. He was pulling on a rope to make himself go back and forth, that boy is strong. This was the first time he had ever been on this swing and he was having a blast. He is doing really well with Miss Abby and she is just wonderful with him. She is a blessing for us and especially for Aiden. 
9-12 Chalk kids. Drawn by the neighborhood kids.
9-13 Soccer pictures. I'm too cheap to spend $12 on a soccer picture so I have Chris stand off to the side and take one of our own. The boys won their game 2-0. 
9-14 Well, we were hit by Ike. It was CRAZY. We lost power around noon. Chris had just started to steam clean the family room carpet and the power was flickering, he kept yelling at the kids to stop touching the outlet. After about 20 seconds of flickering it went out completely. This is a pole across from Zach's school that snapped in two and draped the cars there with power lines. There were houses in our neighborhood that lost shingles, a couple all the way to most of the roof, some houses lost siding, some lost trees, we only lost our two HUGE beach balls.  In West Chester they measured gusts up to 94MPH! We had about 4 hours of strong winds mostly 30-60MPH.
9-15 Tonight a lot of the neighbors got together to make a feast with what we had available. We had Tuna, venison, chicken, and potatoes cooked on the grill. I was able to make mac and cheese, and green beans on our gas stove (I knew that was a good purchase :) We also had baby carrots, peanuts, veggie chips and mandarin oranges. It was quite a spread and I enjoyed every minute of it. When it got dark our neighbor projected Monday night football onto the side of the house (they have a generator) and people were driving up and parking in the street to watch :)  I also met a neighbor from a couple streets over named Kristin who has a boxer named Maddie. She was the sweetest thing and I so wanted to keep her, I spent about 1/2 an hour on the ground playing with her.  (the dog not the neighbor ;) Chris kept giving me dirty looks as there is no way we can have 3 dogs in the house but in 10 years or so I am so getting a boxer.
9-16 Chris went back to work today bright and early so I let the boys watch a video after breakfast on our portable DVD player which was (Thank Goodness) charged up. After about 45 minutes though they were ready to go outside for some fresh air and just before noon our power was restored.  Part of me was a little sad though, we were having a lot of fun being outside and enjoying the nice weather.  It was like camping but with a nice bed at the end of the day. It was an inconvience to have to throw all of our food away, especially after just grocery shopping on Friday, but we were so lucky to not have any damage to our home or our cars. We live in a neighborhood where everyone pitches in to help each other and there are children to play with. This storm could have been much, much worse for us and I feel so blessed that it wasn't. I am praying for those that were hit much harder by Ike.