My big girl is 8!

HAPPY

BIRTHDAY

DEAR BRENNA!!

My #1 baby girl is a lot bigger, a lot blonder, a lot sweeter and a lot sassier too. Happy birthday to our darling Brenna Boo!

We celebrated with dinner out at her favorite Chinese restaurant and came home for some cake and ice cream. The newly minted 8 year old declared that her day was perfect!!

Post her some messages because she loves coming on here with me to read them!

"Dear God,"

One of the side effects of Molly's chatty Kindergarten class is that they've been late going to lunch nearly every day because they have trouble lining up quietly. And because they have to eat their "healthy food" first, Molly has brought home the same 3 Oreos (now mere crumbs) each day because she hasn't had time to eat them. Last night I made cupcakes for Brenna to bring to school so I promised Molly she could have one in her lunch today instead of the cookies.

So after breakfast this morning I sent Brenna upstairs to brush her teeth and Molly was finishing her juice while I packed the lunches. I looked over and Molly was sitting at the table in her little plaid uniform with her head bowed and her hands folded and she was whispering. When I asked she told me she was praying. So I encouraged her to pray out loud so God could hear her easier (and because I was being nosey!) This is what I hear . . .

"Dear Lord, please help me and my friends get our apples back today.

Let us be better listeners and go to lunch on time.

Let us not make Mrs. M angry because we aren't being good.

Make sure everyone brings their new ears and tries real hard to listen.

I hope we can do good things and not be late for lunch

(and here she whispers really quickly)

because I have a cupcake for my sister's birthday in my lunch and I really want to eat it!

Thank you Jesus. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

I nearly choked trying not to laugh.
Which was better than her teacher who nearly wet her pants when I did my imitation of my pious little girl. The prayer was so heartfelt and concientious that I should have known there just had to be some ulterior motive! She really wanted that cupcake!

And Mrs. M told her she could eat it first because it looked so delicious. I have one happy girl on my hands today!

Oh and later in the day she told me, "Mom, you're the best mother in the world! Well, except for Sharon. She's my best mother too because she's my godmother in case you die."

Okay then! First she wants to pick Dean off for a cat and now I'm on the chopping block so she can get to live with Sharon! This kid is crazy!!!

New Ears

Molly's class has been giving their teachers a run for their money. They're a large group and are very energetic. Many are new to the school this year and not quite in step with the whole Cathoic school discipline thing. The "old" kids (who were there last year) are also unique in that they're all siblings of older students. It changes the dynamic in that these tykes have been in and out of that building since they were babies and thus have a certain confidence there and tend to be very "cool" in their attitudes. All in all they're great kids but it's taking a while for them all to gel as a group. They have an apple chart that is used to track behavior and from what I gathered today there are no apples to be had on that chart!

So this afternoon the class was going to church to get ready for First Friday Mass next week. This will be the first time they go to Mass with the rest of the school so they're practicing where to sit, etc. So my intercom buzzes and the teacher says, "We're leaving the building now. We'll be in church asking God for new listening ears." The principal (a nun) is standing with me and we cracked up laughing.

Tonight as Dean was tucking Molly in I hear:

Molly: Daddy, I put my old ones on your dresser.
Dean: You're old what?
Molly: My old ears
Dean: You have new ears?
Molly: Yup, brand new. From God.
Dean: (looking completely bewildered)
Molly: See, all our apples came down so we had to go to church to pray for new listening ears. And it worked! God sent me new ones so I switched them and left my old ones on your dresser. But you know . . . my old ones weren't really THAT bad. Oh and Daddy? I think when we go back to church next week we're supposed to pray for new lips or something. And when we do maybe then we'll get our apples back.

I love Catholic school!

Bad Mommy Award coming my way . . .

And what did I do to deserve this award you ask? I sent my child to school in her uniform.

You see today was picture day and the kids are allowed to wear "dress clothes." That's all well and good but because I do portraits each year on their birthdays, this Mommy insists that at least one school picture during their school days be done in uniform. That shouldn't be too much to ask considering they both rather like their uniforms. Brenna wore her uniform in her Kindergarten photo (the first year they wear the plaid jumper) so silly me thought I would do the same with Molly.

That would have been fine except that Molly is not Brenna and oh my does she have a mind of her own! I finally had to bribe her by promising to buy her many books but she finally did go out today in her uniform.

. . . after scowling at Brenna all through breakfast. (Brenna was in dress clothes and I admit that would have been hard to take!)

. . . after announcing to EVERYONE she saw on the quad at arrival "My mom made me wear this." or "My mom said I had to wear my uniform."

. . . after putting on shorts under the jumper so she could whip that jumper off the moment the photo was taken.

What a day! But when all was said and done she had her picture taken in uniform (as did at least 6 others in her class who also wore uniforms - clearly with less trauma!) and God willing it will come out good because I can't bear the thought of having them redone!!!

And now I need to go order some books for my darling child who came home and announced "Phew! I did it. Can we order my books now?"

Here's Brenna's Kindy picture. It's hard to believe that was 3 years ago already!

Farm Girls

But you can't see the farm girls because I forgot to bring my camera!

Anyway, we packed up our picnic basket and headed out to Homestead Farm on gorgeous, sunny Sunday. We picked three huge bags of apples and grabbed some fresh tomatoes and squash while we were at it. The kids enjoyed the animals and Molly was very happy to meet up with their dog (a gorgeous golden retriever also named Molly) again. It's a bit of a tradition!

Now it's back to the grind at school. Brenna is adjusting to the new workload of Grade 3 - studying for tests, more homework in general . . . Adding in dance classes, scouts, soccer, choir, and such means we are on the go a lot but their school work has to come first! So far so good!

Phew - Friday!

It's been a long and crazy week and we're al looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow! We had Back to School night on Monday for Molly's class and Tuesday for Brenna's. I now have a stack of papers with dates to add to the calendar, forms to fill out, checks to write, etc. One depressing thing was that I wasn't able to sign up for any of the field trips or special celebrations at school since I now have to be in the office. In some ways I'd rather do those fun things even if it meant not seeing them at school all the time. Actually, there are many days I don't see the girls at all! I am enjoying the job though and today I even held down the fort by myself as my co-worker went home sick at 9am. So far so good!

After Back to School nights, the rest of the week went by in blur. Brenna started Irish Dance at a new studio this year. It's still convenient (although not as much as having it right after school and right in the school building!) and I think she'll enjoy this new place even more. She did camp with Sean (the owner) 2 years ago but this time around she has the other teacher, Nikki. We'll keep you posted as to how things go!

She also started choir at school this week. I know it's a lot of activities for her but how could I say no to church choir?! The director is the school's new music teacher - who is also a 31 year old nun. She's a wonderful woman and I think she'll bring a nice, fresh perspective to the group and help the kids to really enjoy it.

A final activity for the week was a return to scouts. And sucker that I am, I led today's meeting (each parent commits to one though I know I'll wind up doing more!) The troop was dropped down to 8 girls which is actually a great size for this age. They are fun kids and I enjoyed it - I was just a bit too tired to look forward to it the way I had hoped!

Miss Molly is doing well and adjusting to life in kindergarten. So far so good and, other than feeling the need to tell her teacher 5x today that she had on new knee socks (hey, it's a big deal when you're 5!), I haven't had any reports that she's too disruptive. With Molly you never know what you're going to get!

Fundraising

As every other school in the world does, the girls are in the midst of their school's project. If anyone needs wrapping paper for the holidays or birthdays, check out www.sallyfoster.com (they also have other stuff but I just like the paper)

If you'd like to order (they can ship directly to you), give me a shout and I'll give you the code that sends 50% of the proceeds to our school and credits Brenna and Molly for the sale - you know, so they can get more rinky-dink prizes that they "soooooo NEED to have!!!!"

Guess who's coming to visit?

It appears that our good friend the Tooth Fairy will be making another trip to our house tonight!

Molly didn't want to go to school today because she was worried her tooth would come out and get lost. It was a bit wiggly and then a little good-natured tussling with a friend yesterday loosened it a bit more, but not a whole lot in my opinion. I checked it and declared it was no where near ready to come out (mind you the last one was literally hanging out of her mouth before we could get it out!) and sent her on her way.

Imagine my surprise when she was down in the office less than an hour into the school day to get an envelope for the newly missing tooth!

What do I know, I'm only a mom! And she's a smart little gal ("I TOLD you so , Mom!!") who will no doubt have some shiny new coins in the morning!

HAPPY (early) BIRTHDAY BRENNA!

We had a pool party today for Brenna and her best friend who is conveniently also a Sept. baby. Sixteen of the 20 girls in their class were able to come plus one who transferred out this year (but will continue to do scouts with them) and their collective 3 little sisters. It made for a lot of squealing girls but it was awesome to see them all having fun together. Because their school has only one class of each garde, most of these girls have been together for several years and have formed neat little friendships. Amazingly, they also still do really well as a big group too - no cliques or girly cat fights yet!

Things got off to a rocky start when I woke up at 6:30 am to rain and gale-force winds. Oh nooooo! I said a few quick prayers for sun and jumped in the shower before wrapping the favors. How cute are these "cupcakes" filled with cool girly stuff? Though the rain stopped as the morning went on, it was still quite windy and chilly (I was wearing jeans) when I went to the pool at noon. I brought basketballs and jump ropes we could use if it was simply too cold as well as our CD karaoke player and the High School Muscal and Hannah Montana CDs to use in a pinch. There would be nothing worse than a posse of bored 8 yr. olds!!

I was pleasantly surprised to find it was quite warm on the pool deck though and when the girls arrived at 1pm, they happily jumped right in with nary a shiver. I guess since the pool is set up high on a hill, it's much warmer there or something! Everyone behaved beautifully, had fun together and ate the ton of food we brought. And the wind must have scared everyone else away because we had the whole place just about to ourselves. We had reserved the big pavilion and deck in the back, but there were only a few lap swimmers in the pool and no one else on the main deck anyway. Good, because no one else would have wanted to be subjected to the dance party they put on after eating!!

The only downside to the whole thing is that Brenna's "real" birthday is still 2 weeks away but now she's "in the spirit" so to say. It's going to be a long wait until that big day!

A "Good Kicking Foot"

Miss Molly started soccer today to take advantage of her "good kicking foot" as she termed it. It went well and the popsicles they got at the end of the session may go a long way in keeping her happy.

Let's remember back to the spring of '05 when she did a soccer clinic with her preschool: It started well but she quickly developed a weird aversion to the games the coach played and spent most of her time crying. That is, playing and crying, because she would gamely go out onto the field and try to play despite the tears. It was really heart-breaking to watch. When I'd tell her to come sit with me and watch for a while she'd just say no and keep going. After a few weeks of that she took my advice and we'd go to soccer purely to watch the other kids. The season finished with, go figure, her playing the whole last session very happily and being devastated that it was over.

I truly couldn't take the pressure of it all so I was thrilled when she said she didn't want to do soccer last fall. If I remember correctly, her exact words were "I'd rather die than do that soccer thing." Okay then . . . I'll take that as a firm "no"! (Perhaps drama classes should be the direction we look for this kid!) I was a bit skeptical when she insisted she wanted to go back this year. But the clinic is on the field right at their school during the same time Brenna has choir so I figured we had nothing to lose. Well so far so good so please wish us both (because Lord knows I can't take any more drama!) well and we'll let you know how things go in the upcoming weeks.

Rewind: Highlights from "Camp Nana"

Here are just a few photos from some of the fun things we did during our time at Camp Nana. We didn't begin to capture things like going to Build-A-Bear, playing Webkinz, eating at Gerard's with Nana, helping at Nana's school, swimming fun with cousins Jenna and Benjamin (there are some here from the day with Jack, Brody, Johnny, Coleman, Nora, Nolan, Aidan, Michael and Nick though. We sure do have a lot of cousins!), almost-sleepover (Mommy made us go home because we were leaving the next day. Boohoo!) and many many other things we were able to do. We saw lots of our aunts, uncles and cousins from Canada who spoiled us rotten with gifts and attention and weworked really hard to keep everyone straight. Let's see, we spent time with (Great) Aunties Bev, Kim, Kaye, Marie, Judy, Bonita, Dottie, and Lynn. We call Mommy's cousins our aunties too so that means we saw Aunties Sharon, Lisa and Shannon too. Let's complicate this with 2 Debbies and 2 Dianes so we have Auntie Big Debbie and Auntie Little Debbie as well as Auntie Big Diane and Auntie Little Diane. And don't forget Auntie Kristin who is technically our only "real" aunt in Boston. Remeber all of this is hard work - and those are only the folks we got to see. Mom claims there are still lots more! But we wouldn't trade it for the world. It's neat to be part of such a warm and loving family.

Mangia!

Today is Brenna's best-friend-since-nursery-school's birthday. Her party was an Italian theme - quite appropriate for that family! The invitation read: "Sophia's turning eight and her party will be great! No princesses, no pinatas, no streamers, no malls -- Just come to my "restaurant"; we'll be making meatballs!"

They had a chalkboard sign outside that said "Bienvenuto al Ristorante Sophia" with red and green balloons. The girls each got an apron and a paper chef's hat and decorated namecards for the tables (red and white checkered cloths with chianti bottle candles and wineglasses) They made their meatballs and garlic bread and played some games while they baked. Then Soph's dad Frank served their tables, taught them some basic Italian and then they had cake and spumoni. They all looked so cute and all had a great time.

This was her party for her "home" friends. Next weekend Soph's mom and I are having a joint party for both Sophia and Brenna at our pool. Neither of us felt up to hosting all 21 girls in their class at our house. Talk about chaos! If all goes well, I'll propose we do a joint party again in the spring. Conveniently Sophia's sister Francesca is Molly's best friend and they too were born just weeks apart! And believe it or not, they have 21 girls in their class as well. Clearly no one in our area produced boys in 1999 or 2002! And I'm lucky that our families line up so well! (Deanne and I have birthdays just days apart and our husbands are a few weeks apart as well. Weird, huh? They do have a third daughter though - but we felt no need to match them on that one!!!!)

School: Day 3

Day 2 was a big success with both girls and myself there all day. The new job is going well and the office is really busy with all of the back-to-school forms, supply fees, milk and lunch orders, etc. all coming in. Dean didn't have it so good as yesterday he had his surgery scheduled. They wound up removing both his gall bladder and his appendix and he was home last night - doing well but very uncomfortable.

Day 3 dawned as a "playing-it-by-ear day." He wanted me to go to school but I wasn't thrilled about leaving him alone. Well, not alone because his mom wanted to come over, but we were all trying to figure things out. Leave it to Molly to solve the problem. A 103.7 fever brought her perfect attendance career to a screeching halt. Sound familiar? So she wound up home today, with Grandma and Daddy. So our day looked like this:

Brenna

Molly

Daddy

(he wouldn't let me take his picture but he's feeling better.

He keeps getting the hiccups though which are tough

when you have a lot of abdominal pain.)

Molly's fever still hasn't broken but her pediatrician said it's not her ears and, though her throat looks red, it probably isn't strep. So she's earned another day off tomorrow and we'll take the weekend to get both of our patients better and hope next week brings better luck!

Here we go again!

Heigh Ho! Heigh Ho!

IT'S OFF TO SCHOOL WE GO!

Today was the first day for both girls. Early reports (it was only a half day after all!) are that all went well, both girls really like their new teachers (both classrooms have teachers new to the school) and they are excited for what else in in store. Molly was excited to be sporting a uniform this year and Brenna was excited . . . to see her friends mostly!

So here's to the start of what will hopefully be a fun and enjoyable year for both of them!

Enjoy a little glimpse back at our earlier school days . . .

Home Again

Bear with me as I get my bearings! The girls have been away for a month and it will take me another month to unpack the suitcases. They accumulated a lot of things in their time at Camp Nana! We are quickly switching gears into school mode but I have lots of things to backtrack to and share some pictures. All is well though so stay tuned . . .