Frogs

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago, but I'm still trying to get caught up. There is no point to this blog post besides the fact that I just took a lot of pictures at one time that I thought were cute.

We let the boys play outside one afternoon and they were having such a great time and playing so well, so I got a few (and by few, I mean few dozen) pictures of them playing.

Greg found a few frogs while he was cleaning something up, so he showed the boys and Evan immediately picked it up. He has no fear and will pick up any insect/bug/animal--we're working on that. But, he loved carrying this little frog around.

I love his little muddy hands and the fact that  he's holding a frog, this is what I pictured when I found out I was having two boys.

He just walked around the yard with the frog, showing him his swing set and stuff.

Carter wanted to hold it, but wasn't able to pick it up like Evan does (he'd jump back when the frog jumped) and so Evan picked it up and gently placed it in Carter's hand and then put Carter's hand over it, it was the sweetest thing. I don't think I'm explaining it very well, but I think you can tell from the pictures what Evan was doing.

He was petting the frog, I know it looks like he's pushing down on him, but he was gentle. I promise the frog was fine. When they were done, they put him down and he hopped away.

CFA Touch a Truck

Evan is always telling me to take a picture of him for some reason or another and I always do it. He wanted a picture with this Tazmanian devil, so I was happy to take it for him.

He also asked me to take a picture of him matching the words with the correct letter they start with, so I took a picture of that too.

We went to Chick Fil A for Touch a Truck a few weeks ago and the boys had blast. There was a police motocycle there that you could check out, but you weren't supposed to touch it or sit on it.

There was a trolley there that the kids could explore. There was a bell/horn thing at the front that Evan loved ringing.

A John Deere tractor, that was a hit with all the boys that showed up.

There was an ambulance there for the kids to climb into and check out.

The boys thought that was neat.

Evan kept going back to the trolley. It was his favorite thing. I think he would just love a tour around Augusta riding around in this thing.

The bomb squad showed up and had their robot there for the kdis to see.

More time on the tractor.

 

There was also a K9 unit there with a very friendly dog that both boys just adored. There was supposed to be a fire truck there, but it got a call. :( The event was free, it was just a great thing that Chick-Fil-A did for the kids in the community. The boys always love things like this and they had a great time. We pretty much also enjoy anything that CFA puts on.

 

Going Back to School

So, I decided to go back to school. I got my bachelor's degree in psychology and I can't do much with it. I'm not planning on going back to work now but I know that once the boys get older and are in school full time, I'll go back to work part time. I had considered waiting until the boys got older to go back to school, but since it'll take me about 3 years, I thought I might as well get started on the school right now so I can get that done and out of the way.

I'm going back for nursing. I have 3 prereqs to take and a TEAS test and I apply for nursing school in May. If I get accepted, then I'd start fall 2015. It's four semesters, but the program I hope to get into takes summers off, so I would graduate Spring 2017 with my RN.

Greg and I had talked about this a lot over the years, but we never had a real in depth conversation (two toddlers running around makes it difficult to talk sometimes) but one day we were talking at the park while the boys played and decided to just do it. This was the first week in August and I ended up applying to school the day the application was due. I looked into different options, like getting my Master's since they offer one specifically for people who have 4 year degrees in something other than nursing, but financially, it made more sense to go to a community college for my RN. So, I'm going to Aiken Tech in South Carolina. They give people in Augusta (Columbia and Richmond county) in state tuition since we're on the border, so that's nice. It takes me about 20 minutes to get to school.

I'm taking Anatomy and Physiology and Microbiology. I'm taking them as hybrid courses, the lecture and everything is online, but each class meets once a week for lab. I purposely didn't say anything on my blog about it because I wasn't sure how it was going to go. I've been out of school for so long, they're very hard classes, and I just wasn't sure I'd be able to manage it all. When I opened up my Microbiology book and nothing I was reading made sense, I considered dropping it. I was so scared that I was too old for this, but add/drop had passed and if I were to drop it, I wouldn't get my money back, so I stuck with it.

I am definitely stretched thin, my house is a pig sty, all our dinners are made in a crock pot, I haven't been to the gym since school started, but I'm doing well in my classes.

 

I spend a lot of time doing homework. The boys have school 3 days a week from 9:00-1:00. On Mondays, I volunteer at their school, so I usually get home about 11:00. I try and use all that time while they're gone to get school work done.

I stay up after everybody has gone to bed and watch lecture videos, take notes, do practice quizzes, read the text book, etc. I've been drinking a lot more coffee lately.

Greg has really stepped it up. He not only watches the boys when I go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays (1-4:50 and 2-5:50) but he has taken them out several times on the weekends or after he gets home from work to give me more time to do homework. He's been helping out more around the house. One day, he even had cheese, crackers, dip, and wine ready for dinner when I got home.

I'm at my computer a lot. It's hard not to get distracted by Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, blogs, etc. But, I've been doing pretty good about staying on track.

Mmm.....sugar and caffeine. It's what gets me through the day.

I have taken 2 tests and a lab practical so far. I got "A's" on all 3. I'm so excited and so proud of myself. I didn't care in high school or even when I got my bachelor's degree if I got an "A", I was perfectly content with a "b" and there were semesters that I really didn't mind if I had a "c" My priorities were different then (I don't think that's a bad thing) but this time with school it's different. It's really important to me that I do well. Tuition and books are not cheap and the amount of time I'm spending on school that I could be spending on my family really motivates me to make it worth it.

Screen shot of my first test grade. I was so excited!

I can count on one hand how many times I've done schoolwork while the boys were home and awake. I don't like to take away from that time with them and even if I did, it'd be impossible to get anything done with them running around, but I did manage to study for a test one day while they watched an episode of "Oswald"

It paid off, I got a "98" on my first Microbiology test. The class that I looked into dropping and if it hadn't been past add/drop, I would have. I opened the book and started reading the chapter and thought there was no way I was going to understand any of it.

 

I had to take our van in for a service while the boys were in school one day. I usually don't mind doing that because I bring a drink and fun book or magazine to read, but this time I packed up all my school stuff and did school work the whole time.

The hardest thing has been managing it all, I'm not doing any more than any other mom, it's just the transition from not being in school since 2006 and being strictly stay at home to going back to school with two 4 year olds. It's just taking some getting used to. I'll feel like I'm getting it somewhat under control and then the boys school calls me to pick up Carter because he threw up,  or whenI got strep throat and was completely out for a weekend and really struggled to focus for a few days after getting on the antibiotic. It's just two classes right now, so I know this is nothing compared to nursing school, I'm just still trying to get the hang of it.  I really hope I get in the first time I apply to the nursing program, they get about 750 applicants and last semester they admitted 35 students.

Anyways, I didn't want to say anything until I took a couple tests and made sure I wasn't going to flunk out. But, that's why I've been more behind on my blog than usual. If I'm on my computer, than I am doing school work, but I'm going to try and get my blog caught up this week.

Pendleton King Park

A couple weekends ago, we took the boys to Pendleton King Park. We went there once a year ago (you can read about that here) It's not super close like the other ones we go to and we've just got into a habit of going to certain parks. So, it was nice to change it up and go somewhere else.

The boys had such a blast. There's two different playgrounds there to play on. There were several bbqs and things going on at the different gazebos and picnic tables so the boys played with some other kids while they were there.

They loved this monkey bar thing. They loved balancing on it.

It was a little warm, but there's a ton of shade because of all the trees.

Last time we went, we just checked out the playground and then left, but I found out online that they have a pond (the park is actually a bird sanctuary) so we checked that out. The boys love feeding the geese.

There was also tons of little fish in the pond that came up to eat what the boys were throwing in.

After the pond, we walked around and saw this tank. It has a ladder on it for kids to climb up and explore it. The boys thought it was the best thing ever. They loved exploring it and acting like it was shooting canons. I thought it was pretty neat, so I can only imagine how fun it was for a 4 year old boy.

I love that they something so hands on at the park.

The boys had to check out every single inch of it before we left.

 

The boys enjoyed it so much, that Greg actually took them back there a couple days later to play on the tank.

Slightly Behind

So, I'm a little behind on blogging. It's been a month since my last post, I have at least 7 blog posts to do to get caught up. A few are photo dump type posts, but I have a couple from a park we went to, our Tennessee trip we just took, etc. It's been a very busy month and I don't have as much time to blog, but I don't want to get too far behind, so I'm going to try and get caught up.

The boys got these pirate bandanas for their birthday and love wearing them around the house. They call them their "pirate hats"

The boys are doing great at school, they absolutely love it. They love their classmates and they adore their teacher. I try and get pictures of them before school like I did of them over the summer, but most of the time, they are not interested in getting their picture taken. Carter has Mickey Mouse because they had show and tell and you had to bring something that started with the letter "m".

The boys and I go to Chick-Fil-A about once a week, usually on Thursdays after bible study. We usually meet my sister there, they're always so excited to see Aunt Caroline and I get to talk to another adult while they play.

Almost all my school pictures are of them walking in because it's the only way I can get a picture most days.

My parents kept the boys overnight a few weekends ago and Greg and I got to go out for a date night. We went downtown and tried out Farmhaus. I've been wanting to try this place for awhile.

We got drinks and fried pickles. Since we had so much time, we decided to do drinks and appetizers at one place and then dinner at another, but we plan to go back and try their burgers because everything on the menu looked delicious.

We also went to the movies for the first time in 5 years without the boys. We saw "Let's Be Cops" and it was hilarious.

We went to a pizza place downtown for dinner. We didn't want to get pizza since that's something we get a lot with the boys, but we did want a good beer selection and fun atmosphere, so we decided to go to the Pizza Joint. We got the buffalo chicken pizza and it was amazing. I also had a great beer that I can't remember the name of, it was spicy and really different than anything I've ever had.

The other day, Carter was playing with his coffee maker and I said something to him and he said "Don't talk to me until I've had my coffee" haha!! I swear I have never said that to the boys. Greg thinks maybe I said it jokingly to him one weekend and they overheard it. But, I got so tickled.

So, he made his coffee.

I really need to write down the things they say because if I don't, I'll forget. If I didn't have this picture on my phone, I would have forgotten all about this already.

I took a quick picture of them on the way to the mall one day because their expressions cracked me up. It's like they're twins or something. ;)

One Thursday after bible study, the boys and I met Caroline at the mall and we let them play and then had lunch there. They hadn't been to the mall in awhile, probably since winter, so they had a blast.

The boys finished up their swim lessons. They started a 4 week class in mid August and they did great. They graduated to the next step up. They can now swim 10 feet unassisted.

At the end of the 4 week session, they end the last swim lesson with a talent show for the parents. So, the parents all stand around and each kid gets to show off what they learned. I wish I had got it on video, but I wasn't even thinking. The boys did so good. Evan loves this part, he loves having all eyes on him.

 

I'm going to try and get caught up with my blog this week because we usually do a lot of fun things in the fall and I want to be caught up so I can blog about those things when they happen (pumpkin patches, fall festivals, trick or treating, decorating pumpkins, etc)