Wednesday night activities at church

I thought it would be a great idea to volunteer as a Wednesday night teacher at church in the four year old classroom. After one night - given my current challenges, with Kate, I wondered why in the world I would volunteer to be in a room of 18 four years olds, 16 of which are girls, for two hours each week. Is it even possible to "teach" that many at one time? The funnest activities of the evening were not the craft or the snack or listening to the story, complete with puppets, it seemed to be sneaking over to turn off all three sets of lights to put everyone else in the dark and throwing the building blocks AND climbing up on top of the heat registers to jump down.

Actually the most fun was probably walking down to the gym to see a presentation by a magician, a 13 year old boy who had an impressive array of tricks and illusions!

I digress though - after hearing Kate scream in our home, you can just imagine what it sounds like to be in a room full of 16 girls and two boys. Wow. The other teacher Tom is a saint!

Literally, I took four girls and two boys down to the bathroom - remember they are four! Not all four year olds wipe themselves. I saw the youth coordinator in the hallway and said, "She wants me to go in and wipe her." The response, "It's okay, you are an adult, line them up." Okay!

Okay - that's all of the bad stuff - I found myself seriously wondering what in the world I had signed up for, I grabbed Kate's hand and hightailed it out of there faster than you could have imagined.

After thinking about it overnight, I decided God does work in mysterious ways, I have a new appreciation for my four year old daughter - in just one night, I developed an even deeper respect and appreciation for teachers, especially those who wiped Sam and Kate's bottoms while I wasn't there! I started to think about the good things that did happen - I was capable of playing a game with six four year olds at one time. I remembered how Erika said, you spell your name funny. I remembered how three of the girls fought over who could hold my hand. I remembered the pleases and thank yous I heard. I remembered the little things in the big picture. I remembered it was the first night and maybe they were a little scared and nervous too. After a bit of remembering, I started to think and plan for next week and how I would be a bit more prepared and I found myself looking forward to it. Ah, next week!

Great Grandma's 91st Birthday!

Saturday, the Earl's traveled to Macon, Missouri for a surprise birthday party for Chris' grandma.

As it is the "steal of a decade," I must post Chris rented a car again, from Enterprise, for $14 per day - so we traveled in the luxury of a navy blue Ford Focus with Sirius satellite radio - we argued back and forth between eight football games, Radio Disney and CNN. Too many options I guess. Chris is very proud he secured this car and rate last weekend when he and Sam went to the Notre Dame game, this weekend for the Macon visit, next weekend to visit the Creek and another weekend for a trip to St. Louis. In my mind, this is saving us six months of car payments :)

Back to the visit - we had a pretty uneventful ride down - one stop light between here and there - but we did do a stop off at the Coralville mall to run into Gymboree, Build a Bear and Game Stop! I snuck a peek in Ann Taylor and grabbed a Starbucks Pumpkin latte and cinnamon scone. Yummy!

200 miles later - we were there for the surprise party - 30 people, at least were present to celebrate great grandma's 91st birthday. Sam and Kate were on their best behavior - bribery works wonders. The cake was scrumptious and we had a nice visit with grandma and were able to visit with Uncle Rich and our cousin Kelsey. The upper photo is of all of us with grandma. The lower photo is of Great grandma and Kate. Great grandma is always quick to point out Kate is the first girl in the family since aunt Roz was born 53 years ago. Chris has three boy cousins, then Sam, then Kate - hopefully the Buse Oberto clan will add a few more girls to the mix.

The trip back was less than pleasant - our kids don't like to ride in the car for extended periods of time too much anymore. I didn't pack the DVD player, gameboy or books as I normally do - dumb mom. Chris actually pulled over on the side of the road, made them get out of the car and stand on the side of the road while he gave them "a talking to." I just innocently watched, of course. Despite the long drive back - a great trip and more great memories.

Kate's first day of school

Kate's first day of school at Pierce. It feels a bit like sending her off to kindergarten as this is where she'll go next year also. I think the transition from going to preschool every day for four hours will be much easier for her to graduate to kindergarten. After weeks, I mean, months of talking about it, she was all set to get out and follow her brother into the building. No hesitation or tears in sight. She's grown up so much over the past three months. I still see her as a baby even though she's going on five!