That Look to That Smile

Well school is back in session folks, and I gotta tell ya straight up... I was BORN to be a teacher.  I la la la LOVE the first day of school!  I was so excited to see my shrimp-o's swagger through the door.  And oh yes, swagger they did.  My four older students feel like they own the place.  Love it!

And as much as I love the excitement, there is a teeny tiny part of me that LUUUUUVS giving "that look" to kids.  And give it I did today.  Several times.  Yes friends and family... I'm not just a nicey nice teacher.  I'm the hall nazi.  I'm the cafe nazi.  I'm the "we can have fun but if I want the fun to stop and work time to start you better be with me" nazi.  I shot "that look" at each kiddo of mine today and boy oh boy, I have done my job.  They knew to stop!!

But what's better than shooting "that look" is getting "that smile" when I come home.  Lovebug gets sooo unbelievably happy when she sees me (or Coach) come through the door.  Not only do we get "that smile" from her {ya know, the one that goes from ear to ear filled with climbing up on the gate at the top of the stairs and a laugh and snort all mixed into one}.  I've hated that I've been coming home late each night this week {by late, I mean 4:30 or 5}, but I think that the old saying absence makes the heart grow fonder sure does mean something for us. 

Of course, it's nice to get sweet pics like this during the day though :)

Love/Hate

Here is an email that I got from Holly today about our lil' Lovebug's first day back to daycare.  Enjoy :)

Hi Heather, hope you first day back is going great. Lovebug is having an emotional day. She has a "love" "hate" relationship with Alexander.

She loves looking at him and touching his legs but she HATES if I look at him, feed him, pick him up or even look like I am going to do any of those things!! :)

She HATES that he gets a bottle and she doesn't! She loves sitting on my lap when I feed him and cuddling up as tight as she can to me, of course I love that too.

For awhile I thought Chuck might have to come home and get her and take her to work with him. LOL


Lovebug says "Chuck" now on a regular basis and has been calling what sounds like "papa" all day on the phone. She probably wants rescued.

Lovebug has eaten and drank great and is going on a 2 1/2 hour nap. She is worn out from all of the excitement from today.


Lovebug knows what "no" is and does not like to hear me say it, one time she layed on the floor on her back and cried. She also knows what 1-2-3 means and listens to it, but of course gives you the look as she slowly puts it down.


Oh, and Lovebug has yellow high lighter on her hands because while I was trying to feed Alexander she found it on the floor and preceded to use it.


Over all it has been a great day and Marcus is sure happy to have his "girlfriend" back.


Holly




**This description has Lovebug nailed to a "T"!  This was her all.summer.long  :)**

Adios, summer.

Well here it is... the end of yet another summer, and the start of yet another school year.

I can't help but think... will next summer be more relaxing?  I know, I know, some of you are probably thinking you're a teacher, what makes summer NOT relaxing?

Let's take a quick walk down summer memory lane, shall we?

Summer 2010--Lovebug turns 1, gets 3 regular teeth and 2 molars, paint the exterior and some of the interior of our home, get new floors in kitchen & baths, put our house on the market & sell in 15 days, buy a new house and all the craziness that goes along with it, floods in the big city, and Coach's baseball games, my part-time job

Summer 2009--Coach's baseball games, baby shower, put new shingles on the roof, put in a new garage door, and oh yeah... had Lovebug :), my part-time job

Summer 2008--Coach's baseball games, 3 or 4 grad classes, my part-time job (which I worked 40+ hours a week doing)

Summer 2007--Coach's baseball games, 3 or 4 grad classes, my part-time job

Summer 2006--Coach's baseball games, 3 or 4 grad classes, my part-time job

Are you sensing a little similarity in some of our summers?  Don't get me wrong... I love my part-time job and I love going to all of Coach's games, but the end of his games=the end of summer :(.

Don't get me wrong folks, this was one heckuva summer for us!  I got to spend sooooo much time with my lil' Lovebug.  I just hope that next summer we can all relax a little more and not have such big life-changing moments :)

All the Fixin's

And no, I don't mean food because my kitchen is pretty much packed up.

I mean that literally, we are in a week of needing to fix things.

Don't believe me?  Here's the list...

1. My tooth.  I had to go to the dentist yesterday because something was wrong with my crown.  Turns out my crown twisted in my mouth and sliced the tooth next to it.  How does that happen?  Not even my dentist could figure it out.  Either way, they had to fix it.

2. My van.  It has/had:  a screw in the front left tire, a nasty white-trash sounding squeal, an ABS sensor that was CONSTANTLY on, and a back hatch bolt that was *ahem* busted by Coach.  How?  Who knows.  Either way, it had to get fixed.  And it's still there.  So I have a sweet rental car.  How sweet?  It had 16 miles on it when I got it.  OH YEAH BABY!  Mama's ridin' in a brand new Malibu.  Not gonna lie, feels kinda good to ride in a new car (not van) without a carseat in the back.  Alas, this will come to an end tomorrow, but I'm livin' it up while I can :)

3. Our current furnace.  We had our house inspection last week, the new owners wanted our furnace cleaned.  The peeps came out to do it yesterday and told us we have a crack in the heat exchange thingy (technical term, I know) and that Iowa code states it MUST get replaced.  It will leak carbon monoxide.  Great.  We're currently negotiating how that's going to work out.  Stay tuned.

4.  Lovebug's naptime and night time schedule.  Somehow... not sure how... this summer, Lovebug was "rocked" to sleep while "watching TV" with Coach every.single.night.  Thus, she would not go to sleep for anyone else without throwing a major tantrum.  And I *ahem* may have done the same thing for naptime... as well as when Lovebug would wake up in the middle of the night.  That's all getting fixed, as Lovebug entered boot camp yesterday.  That's right folks... Mama is getting her on schedule for her to go to Holly's next week.  Naptime for 2 days in a row=straight to bed, no rocking.  Yesterday was tears for 7 minutes, today tears for 5 minutes.  Same thing is being done at bedtime.  Last night=20 excruciating minutes of crying.  Tonight?  NONE!  I kept her up a little longer, and started a bit of a night time schedule.  Wanna know what it is?  Eat, then play, then bath, then books, then bed.  Worked out GREAT!  Let's see how it goes tomorrow.

5. Our classrooms.  Today we traveled as a happy family of 3 to Coach's room and worked on his word wall, hanging posters, and doing last minute things.  Tomorrow I will be going to my room for the last time... the last time, that is, until I am FORCED to go there next Monday :(. 

Here's hoping I haven't jinxed myself to needing to fix more things as the week goes on. 

Happy Birthday Uncle Jason

Happy Birthday Uncle Jason!

We hope you have a great day!!

Love, Keelyn, Heather & Sean

Good-bye old friend...

I write this with tears flowing down my cheeks...

Tonight was one of the worst nights of Coach's and my life.  Bogart, our beloved beagle, was put to sleep.  Coach noticed poor Bogie wasn't quite acting like himself the past 24 hours.  Coach rushed him over to a 24-hour pet hospital here in town and called me several minutes ago with the horrible news.  He had very bad abdominal pain and the vet was not going to allow him to come home until it was figured out.  We were given the two choices no pet owner ever wants to hear... spend lots and lots of money to begin to find out what's wrong, or take the pain away forever by putting him to sleep. 

All of you should know how much of a dog lover Coach is.  This is such a hard thing for him right now.  Bogart was Coach's first baby, if you will.  You should also know that I am not the world's biggest dog lover like Coach.  But I sure did love that dog!!

Bogart... you were the best pet we could have ever asked for. We're so sorry that we had to do this, but we are so glad to know you are no longer in pain.  We love you!

We're Gonna Miss This...

Though Coach and I are very excited to move, we will always be tethered to our first home.  It holds so many of our firsts as a family.  I recently ran across a virtual tour that Bob, our realtor, put together.  What a great home this has been for us.  Push the play button on this link and enjoy.


http://www.visualtour.com/shownp.asp?t=2248655 

Kissing Cousins, Round 2

They're baaaaack...

the Kissing Cousins

Updates Revealed!

I told you several weeks ago that I had updates and boy do I!!!

1. We sold the house!!!  Yes, that's right folks.  AND we did it in 15 days!!!  Unheard of in these times, don't ya think?  We were so excited that it went so smoothly and quickly.  I can now reveal that we had 7 or 8 groups come through and from those, we received two offers.  What's better is that we got $1000 less than our asking price.  BOO-YA!!!!!

2. We thought we had bought a house 12 hours after selling ours.  Long story short... if you ever sell your home, do not... I repeat, do NOT have co-realtors sell your home {unless you go with our fantastic father/son Eisenlauer team ... shameless plug... if you are thinking of selling your home, I highly suggest you go with them... they have a professional stager who tells you what to change in your home for a better sale... it works!!!:)}.  One of the sellers' realtors worked with Bob (our guy), the other one worked with a different potential buyer.  The sellers' verbally agreed to our offer and 20 minutes later their other realtor said she had another offer.  They liked the other offer better, so we had to scramble to find another home.

3. We found our new home!!!!  We're movin' on up to NW Ankeny.

This is it!  Good for us/bad for you, the good picture that was with the online listing is gone (because the listing is now off line!!!), so you're stuck with this one from the assessor's site.  Imagine a 6' wood privacy fence on both sides, and landscaping around the home, and you've got it :).  Formal dining=room for my Grandma Smitty's piano & a play room for Lovebug, 3 bedrooms up, a 4th non-conforming bedroom down, finished lower level complete with 1/2 bath and wetbar :), a great deck for entertaining {lots and lots of it}, and a fantastically huge family room with built-ins flanking the gas fireplace.  Can you tell I'm pumped?!??!??! 

We close on both homes on the 3rd day of students being in school so Coach and I have to take that day off.  Oops!  We'll move like mad that day because we have to be out of our current home for the new owners on the 31st. 

4. Inspections on both homes were done Thursday and Friday.  We gave the sellers' our list and we are patiently nervously awaiting what our buyers' come back with for us.  Hope it's not much because we've redone nearly EVERYTHING in the 6 years we've been here!!!

Those are my updates folks... plus the few other posts I've done today.  I know, I got behind but in my defense, we have had a LOT of things on our plates these past few weeks.  That, and Coach and I have been sharing my laptop since his computer was moved to "stage" our former guest room as an office.  Mama will be happy to have it 100% back in two short weeks :)

Lovebug's Birthday

Though I may be a bit *ahem* late with posting, Lovebug's birthday was absolutely perfect.  We had such a great time and are very thankful that our family could help us celebrate.  Enjoy the slideshow below of all the fun!!!

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