Update on Owen's wrist

The lump on Owen's wrist wasn't going away so we decided to go ahead and do the MRI. It was scheduled for last Monday and went pretty well. Owen was actually pretty excited about getting to go in "the tunnel" and he did FANTASTIC. It took about 40 minutes for them to get all the images and he was so still for the whole thing. I was very impressed. But then that afternoon after we got home, they called back and said they needed us to come back in for a couple more images. At that point she told me one of the images hadn't turned out clearly so they needed to retake it and then they were going to take one more just to make sure they got a good image. The whole thing would only take 10 minutes she said. When we got there Tuesday though she said all the images from Monday had come out fine but there were just a couple images she didn't get that the radiologist wanted. And of course it took an hour to get these two images, not 10 minutes like she said. And much of that hour, she was standing in the hallway talking to her pal. ANYWAY, we had to wait until Thursday for the results even though we asked if we could go ahead and talk to the radiologist Tuesday (since they made us drive all the way back down here), but it was no deal.

Of course, after the second round of images on Tuesday, my mind started spinning. Was there something suspicious on Monday's images that made him want more? Is it a bad sign that he couldn't determine anything conclusively with just the images from Monday? No matter how I thought about it, I couldn't find a way to make myself believe having to go back for more images was a good thing. By Thursday I was beginning to feel sick!

But on Thursday when we went to see the PA at the orthopedic clinic, the first thing he said when he came in the room was that it was good news! Hallelujah! I almost burst into tears of joy right then and there. It is a cyst. It is benign. It is filled with blood and there's some calcium crystals in it as well. He said there's no need to even discuss the "c-word" which made my heart jump for joy.

Other than the lump shrinking by about half in the first 24 hours after I noticed it, it didn't shrink any more in the next 3 weeks. We always took it as a good sign that it wasn't growing any larger, but we were still concerned that it wasn't shrinking. But that Tuesday of his second MRI, I thought it looked like it had shrunk just a bit. The next day it looked slightly smaller and by his appointment on Thursday we were certain it was shrinking. This is, of course, a GREAT sign. His PA was definitely glad to see this and it has continued to shrink and the bruised coloring has faded drastically. It's a small bump now and just slightly darker in color than the skin around it. His soccer practice Thursday and game Saturday were both rained out. He should be able to start practicing again this Thursday though! The PA just wants to see him again in about 6 weeks to make sure nothing changes, or if it does change it's for the better and he can basically return to normal activities.

The bump may not ever go away completely. It might be something he always has. Or it might go away and never be seen again. Only time will tell. Until then, we'll continue to wrap his wrist for soccer or anytime we know he'll be particularly active (and therefore likely to fall on it), but it's not necessary to keep it wrapped at school or while he's sleeping at night. And we don't need to keep giving the ibuprofen either. For all practical purposes, he'll be returning to life as a regular 5 year old boy. Praise God!

Ganglion Cyst???

So Tuesday afternoon I noticed this big lump on the inside of Owen's wrist. He had no idea how it got there or how long it's been there. He has no recollection of having hit it on anything, but it looked like he had a grape under his skin and we were concerned so I took him to Urgent Care to have it looked at. First we saw a Nurse Practitioner and she wasn't sure what it was but was thinking maybe a hematoma. So she went and got the doctor and he came in to look at it. He also seemed a bit unsure but thought it was probably a traumatic ganglion cyst but he's never seen one "that color" (it was a bruised purple color) and he's never seen "one like that on someone his age." So he referred us to an Orthopedic clinic and I got an appt for Owen for this afternoon.

Owen saw the Physicians Assistant for the orthopedist who specializes in the lower arm (elbow to fingers). He agreed that it's probably a traumatic ganglion cyst or a hematoma. He's encouraged by the fact that it has shrunk by about half since Tuesday and wants us to continue with what we've been doing (ice, wrap in Ace bandage, elevate, and anti-inflammatory) and come back on Monday to see how it's doing. Hopefully it will be greatly reduced by then. He did say no to soccer practice (the doc at urgent care had said it would be okay) and then tonight's practice got rained out anyway (yay!), so MAYBE Owen will be doing good enough Monday to return to practicing.

Still not sure what caused it. The PA said it almost had to have been from an injury and he especially liked the idea that maybe it happened at some point Monday night at soccer practice since he fell a few times. But then he also said Owen would have come to us crying/screaming in pain when it happened and he never did that. Owen still maintains that he has no recollection of anything happening that could have caused this.

So we're hoping for it to resolve itself on its own and hoping that will happen SOON. Not sure exactly what the next step will be if it doesn't get better on its own, but I think it will involve either using a needle to remove the fluid or surgery to remove the whole "lump." If I understood him correctly, we will have to determine whether it's a ganglion cyst (filled with joint fluid) or a hematoma (filled with blood) before deciding how to proceed.

So, we're waiting and seeing now. And hoping to see improvement everyday. I'll try to remember to take a picture of it tomorrow although it's not nearly as dramatic as it was. Or maybe, if we're lucky, there won't even be anything to take a picture of by the morning!

Thrift Shop Finds!

The conversion of Riley's room into a playroom and Owen's room into a bedroom (for both boys) is an ongoing process. We need a lot more storage options in the playroom and I want to set up a reading corner in their bedroom for all their books and such. Anyway, a little while back I found this great coffee table at the local thrift store. They were asking $20 and everything was 20% off that day, so I could have gotten it for $16, but I felt like I could wait and get it for 50% off. So I went back the next week only to discover furniture was only 25% off saving me only an extra dollar from the previous week. But then I discovered they'd marked it down to only $10!! So with 25% off I got it for $7.50. Needless to say, I was thrilled. It was a sturdy table with simple lines (making it easy to sand and paint). The only problem was the supports are partly chrome and they were quite tarnished. I used leftover paint from when we painted "the nursery" (now the playroom) so it's a very light blue to match the walls (I actually meant to paint it white and didn't realize I had the wrong color until later). And used a can of silver Rustoleum spray paint on the chrome part. I didn't think to take a "before" pic, but this is what it looks like now:
My beautiful model refused to move out of the way, so I just went with it!


I use it to store some of the larger toys that previously were taking up all our floor space. Some fit nicely underneath and others sit on top. See those toys piled up tot he right of it? Those are the ones that go on top. I haven't finished "decorating" it, but that will have to wait until next month when Riley starts to school. Owen has specifically requested it have sharks and fish and such on it.

I've been going back to the thrift store periodically and so far haven't found anything that was exactly what I was looking for AND at a price I was happy with (they like to price all the endtables and coffee tables at $20). I had 30-60 minutes to spare today so Riley and I headed down there. Got there around 11 am and saw that furniture was 50% off until noon! Found 2 tables I liked. The first is going to be used in the "reading corner" in their bedroom. I'm actually considering NOT painting it white like I'd planned because we're kind of going for a rustic look in there anyway. I do still need to get some chairs to go with it, but for now the Lil' Tot Spot will have to work. Again, it was sturdy with simple lines so if I do paint it, it will be fairly easy to sand down first. This one was marked $20 so I got it for $10.

The other table I bought was another end table. This one is also very sturdy but will require a little more time to get it sanded before painting because of all the little groves on it. Maybe I can just get a really good primer and not have to sand??? Anyway, it will probably eventually have fish or something on it too to tie it in to the coffee table turned storage shelf. You know the cute little fabric-covered, polka dotted bins on the table in the first pic? I got those at Michaels for 60% off (I think???) so they were $3-4 dollars each and I think they'll work perfectly on the little shelf of this table. Not sure when I'll have time to start working on this one, but hopefully next week! It was marked $15 (it's been there a while so I think they'd marked it down) so I got it for $7.50!


I'll post more pictures when I get it all finished or maybe even some "in progress" pics.

Gotta love a good deal... or three.

First homework assignment

I know ALL of my followers (yes, all 3 of you!) have been waiting on pins and needles for the promised pics of Owen's first homework assignment. It was a poster they were given at Open House to fill out and turn in at the end of the first week of school. I cannot put into words the amount of excitement surrounding this assignment. Owen kept begging and begging to do it. We actually worked on it 3 separate days and unfortunately I don't have a pic of the FINAL version (not sure why???), but it's basically done in the last pic.

This is the Saturday before school starts. He sat at the kitchen table to work on it while we were getting dinner ready.

Now, the little disk on our camera that lets us know what mode it is in is missing. I'm not sure what happened to all these pictures to make the poster so blurry, but I'm guessing it was on fireworks mode or something. I think I took 5 of these and only one has the poster semi-infocus but of course that's the only one where he's not grinning from ear to ear. So I'm including this blurry one on the left just to show you the level of excitement.

This is the almost finished version of the poster. He opted for drawing himself and his family but then decided he wanted to tape a picture of our (now deceased) dog on there. We put it in his book bag to turn in Thursday (a day early) but I guess his teacher didn't notice and he didn't say anything so it was still there Thursday night. We got it back out and he colored most of the stars and circles and decorated it up a little more before turning it in Friday so the final version was even more beautimous that this pic!

On a side note, I've been really impressed with his school so far. I was a little concerned before school started because all the lists we got from the school of things they should know listed things he's known for 1-2 years! And when looking through some homeschool materials for Kindergarten I realized he knew 95% of it so I was worried that he would be bored at school and might not learn much. I was wrong! He's loved everyday of it so far (well, one day was just "okay") and has learned something everyday. We have learned more recently that his teacher is gifted-certified so I think she incorporates a lot of that into their daily lessons.

I almost wish I hadn't seen this...

Remember the blog I mentioned a few days ago about cooking with food storage. I'm still looking through that blog and came across the cutest recipe. It makes a single-serving of cake in a coffee mug! I love it. Haven't had a chance to try it yet, but maybe tonight after the boys are in bed... And I have a feeling the boys' teachers will be seeing this come Christmas time. ;-)

Anyway, here's the recipe and you can go to her blog for a video showing her making it in case you have any questions. Note: She uses egg powder and powdered milk in hers but you can just use the regular stuff instead.

Minute Chocolate Mug Cake
1 coffee mug
4 T. flour
4 T. Sugar
2 T. baking cocoa
1 egg (1 T. dry egg powder and 2 T. of water)
3 T. milk (1/2 T. Dry Powdered Milk + 3 T. Water)
3 T. oil (or applesauce)
3 T. chocolate chips
small splash of vanilla
Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips and vanilla. Mix again. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug but don’t be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired. EAT!

First Day of School! First Day of School!

Owen has been so excited about starting Kindergarten. I was a little worried that after going to Open House last week he might get a little worried about being at a school so big, but he LOVED it. They gave him a homework assignment already and we worked on it some Saturday night but we haven't finished it yet (it's not due until Friday). So he gets up this morning and was NOT excited. He complained about being tired despite getting to bed plenty early last night. Then as we pulled into school he starts saying he wants me to stay with him. Oh boy, here it comes. He did this at the end of last year and it was NOT fun. As we're walking down the hallway, he's crying. He doesn't want to stay. He needs to go potty (and thinks he needs me to help him!). Luckily his parapro took him under her wing and ushered him in (very lovingly) and took him over to the restroom. I'd already given him a kiss, so we went ahead and left at that point. I hope he wasn't too upset when he got out of the restroom. There were some days last year where it would take him an hour or more before he'd relax and join the class. I REALLY hope that's not the case this year! He does always have fun once he gets settled, it's just getting him to that point that is the problem.

I'm not Mormon, but...

...I really like this whole food storage thing they have going. I've always been one who likes to stock up on the staples when they're on sale and in the past I've been really good about keeping around a half dozen cans/jars of each of my favorite things on hand. We have a big shelf in this back hallway we keep it all on and it's not too far from the kitchen so that keeps it convenient.

Anyway, I don't know all the details but apparently the Mormon church puts a big emphasis on being prepared for when disaster strikes. I think it's mainly talking about natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, etc, I guess) but being prepared is never a bad thing and I'm sure more than a few members of the LDS church have been extremely thankful for the food they had stored up in recent months as economic times have been tough. From what I understand, the Mormon church encourages its members to have 3-12 months supply of non-perishable foods (3 months of certain things and 12 months of other things). I've seen a few blogs about this recently and although I don't personally have anywhere near a 3 month supply of food, it sounds like something that would be good for any of us to do.

One blog in particular has caught my eye and this lady does the type cooking I do. I've been going back through all her old posts reading and finding recipes and ideas that interest me. I just thought I'd share it with you in case you find it helpful as well. In particular I like the idea of having powdered milk and powdered eggs on hand to use when you run out of fresh milk and eggs. I looked at powdered milk at the store tonight and it was actually slightly more expensive to buy powdered milk than fresh milk although apparently that is not the norm. I couldn't find powdered eggs though. Not sure if that's something Kroger doesn't carry or if I just didn't look in the right places. If anyone knows, I'd love to hear! Or if any of my LDS friends out there want to enlighten us more on this or correct anything I might have said that's wrong, please do so!

COMING SOON: Owen's first homework assignment!!!

P.S. Anyone know if/where I can get wheat kernels? I SOOOOOOO want to try making these Blender Pancakes.

I really want to try her recipe for Breadsticks or Deep Dish Pizza soon!

Ready to Make Craft Kits

Owen's best friend, Emma, just turned 5. She's got plenty of toys and I was having a hard time coming up with something she'd really enjoy. She loves doing crafts at our house but her mom has told me they don't do them at home. So I decided to fix up some Craft Kits with directions and everything she needs to complete the craft all together in one spot. Owen loved this idea and helped me put them together and, of course, insisted on trying a couple of them out himself to make sure they work right. ;-) These are all crafts I found around the internet in various places because, let's face it, I'm just not creative enough to come up with these things on my own.

One of the crafts uses scrapbook paper, chenille stems (a.k.a. pipe cleaners), and buttons to make flowers. This is one of the ones we "tested." I put everything she could need to make 4 of these into a bag and added a little topper to it. I wanted to do the toppers on the computer like I did for the boys' birthday favor bags, but we were at the lake all week and I just didn't have time to design it, so I printed out the name of each craft on card stock and quickly (VERY quickly) decorated them by hand. By the time I got to the tenth craft kit, I ran out of creative ideas for the toppers.


Another one uses scrapbook paper and googly eyes to make a little bird. We also "tested" this one, and let me tell you my boys loved this. Riley, in particular, fell in love with this little paper bird and took it everywhere with him for a few days afterward. The sample in the picture is Owen's and he insisted on putting both googly eyes on one side, but both sides of the bird are done with the patterned paper so it's pretty all around.


Here's some of the other toppers. On several of them I sketched what the finished project looks like. The crafts included making crabs, jellyfish, mice, birds, zebras, giraffes, butterflies, submarines, caterpillars, and flowers and included materials such as felt, patterned scrapbook paper, chenille stems, buttons, beads, googly eyes, and clothespins. Mostly just stuff I already had at the house and I did alter most of them in some way to make it easier or prettier or to use materials I already had.

Then we decorated a little tote bag with ribbon and rhinestones. I had planned to put her initial on it too, but I forgot to pack the stuff for it to take to the lake with us, so we just kept it simple. > All the craft kits fit in this nicely and HOPEFULLY she'll use it to help keep everything organized so it's not spread all over the house.

Then we put the tote bag with the kits into a craft organizer along with markers, colored pencils, and glue so that she has everything she could need to complete the crafts! The tote bag fit perfectly into the large section of the organizer. The only hard part was figuring out how to wrap it!!!

Oh, and an added bonus is that many of the crafts came from a website of a homeschooling mom. At the bottom of each set of directions I put the website I got the craft from so they can go there for help if needed and the ones from the homeschooling mom all have tips on tying it into your school lessons. Emma is going to be homeschooled this fall so her mom can use the crafts as part of her homeschool lessons!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOYS!!!

We had the boys' birthday party the other week. This year we just did one party for the both of them since they're birthdays are just a couple weeks apart and since we'd be inviting pretty much all the same people to both parties... Plus with Easter to plan around it was just too much. They wanted different kinds of cakes though so we had 2 cakes and we sang "Happy Birthday" twice.

First was all the prep and luckily my mom came early in the week to help me with everything. I couldn't have done it without her!!! First we had to get everything ready for the goody bags. We personalized some Hershey miniatures with a special think you from the boys:


Then I printed out some coloring pages with the boys' favorite characters on them and I wanted to include some crayons with them. Also wanted to include some sidewalk chalk since my boys LOVE that. But I didn't want to just throw the crayons and chalk in the goody bags loose, so I put them in bags with topper that match the mini candy bars. One side of the topper is a message from Owen and the other side is from Riley:


After that, the bags were ready to assemble with pencils, pencil sharpeners, erasers, stickers, small homemade coloring book, crayons, sidewalk chalk, and mini candy bars. Tucked it all in a brown paper bag that I'd stenciled each kids' inital on and Owen decorated (with my mom's help) and then tied the bags with some jute. I wanted to do something to add a little more color to it, but we just didn't have time so they're a little "Uncle Knit Knot"-ish.

It was a little warm in the sun, but we had the canopy set up and it wasn't too bad in the shade.

The kids had fun driving the cars around:


And Eric's boss loans us his small bounce house every year for the party but now that the kids are getting bigger we thought we needed something more so we rented a large one to go with it so the little kids could be on one while the big kids were on the other.

Then there's the gift that keeps on giving (don't ask!!):

Riley's cake request was originally for a Buzz Lightyear cake. I'd looked and looked online for some ideas for this but was really not feeling creative about it nor looking forward to it. Then he came up with the idea of a Frank cake. For those of you who have not seen the movie Cars 8 billion times, Frank is the combine tractor that chases Lightning and Mater out of the tractor field when they go tractor tippin'. My mom helped me out with this and luckily it came together very easily and turned out pretty much just like I imagined. And Riley loved it, so that's what mattered.

Owen wanted a Star Wars cake. It HAD to be blue with stars all over it. I took the easy way out and just bought some Star Wars people to go on it, so it ended up being a cake and present all in one! Owen can be a little picky about his cakes and tends to get upset if it doesn't end up the way he envisioned it, so I was a bit nervous with this one. Turns out he LOVED it! Yay!


All in all, it was a good day. Owen even said it was his best birthday ever (and he had a firetruck at his 3rd birthday party so that's really sayin' something!).

A few extra pics of the birthday boys:

The BE5K

So almost a year ago Eric decided, on a whim, to run a 5K. Our church was sponsoring it and the proceeds go to missions, so it's for a good cause. Little did we know this one simple run would get him hooked. I'm not even sure how many 5K's he's run in since then but probably somewhere around 15-20 of them in the past 10 months. I've also started running although I didn't catch the running bug the way he did. I have more trouble getting motivated and prioritizing my time to fit running into my already crazy schedule. But Every couple of months I'll run in a 5K and about once a week I'll run in our neighborhood or at the track (with Riley in the jogging stroller) or on the treadmill.

I was very excited when the day after Christmas I ran for an entire mile... without stopping... for the first time EVER in my life. Sad, but true. I've just never been much of a runner. That Saturday I ran in my 3rd 5K and my sister-in-law, Whitney, and her husband, Nathan, ran in it as well. Nathan finished just a little bit ahead of me (probably 30 seconds or so). I knew about 6 weeks later we were all going to be running in the BE5K in Birmingham which is hosted by BE&K (where Nathan works). Since I had come SO close to beating Nathan in the December race, I decided I would train hard and beat him in HIS race. But then I had PRK eye surgery and was out of commission for 2 weeks and then Riley had his eye surgery and, well, I know it's just excuses, but I only ended having one week to actually train for the race. Not looking too good for me to beat Nathan.

The Thursday before the race, I did finally break my previous record of running 1 mile without walking. See, usually, as soon as I hit the 1 mile mark I CANNOT make myself run another single step. I HAVE to walk. But that Thursday, I ran 1.5 miles without stopping. I was so proud and excited. I know, pride isn't good, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm still going at a snail's pace so I figure it's okay to proud of yourself for being mediocre. :-P

So race day came. And I ran. I was watching my time hoping to reach the 1 mile marker in less than 11 minutes, but 11 minutes came and went and I didn't see the mile marker. Then 12 minutes. Then 13. At that point I was still running and I was pretty sure I HAD to have gone a mile already. It was a pretty big race so I thought maybe I was in a crowd when I went by the 1 mile point and just didn't realize I had passed it. And I had no way to know when I'd been 1.5 miles, but I decided I'd run for 16 minutes before allowing myself to walk. This turned out to be right at the water station which turned out to be... right at 1.5 miles! I guess I should have known. So anyway, I walked and ran the rest of the race. There was an out and back part from about 1.5 miles until somewhere around 2.8 miles which was kind of nice because I was able to see Eric (and cheer him on!) and I knew he was doing well and way up toward the front. And then I saw Nathan and cheered him on as well which he said was a real motivator because he was about to start walking but decided to run one more block after hearing me yell at him. ;-)

I was finally getting near the end of the race. There was a couple of turns right at the end so you couldn't see the finish line until you came around the last corner, but a block before that they had the road all blocked off to keep spectators out of the street so I knew I was getting close and I poured on the heat. There were a lot of other runners around me and ahead of me but I sped up and passed at least 2 dozen of them before crossing the finish line. Boy was I glad to be finished. Unfortunately I didn't meet my goal of finishing in under 35 minutes, but I was close. And I'm pretty sure I'll make that next time. We didn't get any pics of any of us running (although there are some from the finish line at brightroom.com) but we did get a pic after the race. **Please pardon my brother-in-law for the shirt he's wearing. No one is perfect.**

And did I mention how awesome my husband did? He finished 4th in his age group out of 56 runners! How amazing is that! And he was only 11 seconds behind 3rd place so he ALMOST got an award. He was 54th in his division (men) and 61st overall out of over 1100 runner! Can you tell I'm proud of him? ;-D My brother-in-law, Nathan, did really well also. He finished in just over 30 minutes (more than 5 minutes ahead of me!!!) and was 32nd out of 57 in his age group. And if you care, I was 45th in my age group out of 81. That sure beats my usual LAST place in my age group finish I always seem to have at all of the local races.

Valentine's

I helped Owen make his own Valentine's for his classmates this year. We did monster-tines and he got a little creative. I found the idea on familyfun.com but it only had one-eyed monsters. Owen couldn't stick to just one eye, so we did 3, 5 and even 7-eyed monsters. And I loved all the logic behind deciding who got which monster (the seven-eyed monster had the smallest eyes so it went to Blake "because he's little"). And for what it's worth, I tried to think of something a little more clever to put on the paper the monster's holding but I was tired and couldn't think so we just used the suggestion given with the instructions. :-/



Coming soon: The BE5K and this weekend's trip to Birmingham.

I'm Baaaaaaaccccckkkk! Again.

I swear this darn computer spends more time off getting fixed than it does here working. But it's here and working... for now. There's been a lot going, but I won't take the time now to fill you in on all of it. The most recent craziness has been eye surgeries for both Riley and me.

I had PRK laser surgery to correct my vision 4 weeks ago. It's kind of like LASIK but in PRK they don't cut a flap on your cornea but put a contact in to act as a bandage instead. They say the recovery is a little longer than with LASIK (supposed to be 4 days instead of just one day of discomfort), but my recovery was much longer. It took a full 2 weeks for me to reach the point where I could function anything close to normally. I'm not sure exactly why it took so long. I do think that on days when I'd start feeling better I might have over done it a little but who knows for sure. Luckily my mom was able to come down and stay for 10 days, then came back for a couple more days. I could not have made it through it without her! I'm doing fine now. My eyes are slightly sensitive to light, but other than that I'm doing great. My vision was 20/15 at my last check up! I guess it was worth it all.

Then fifteen days after my surgery, Riley had surgery. His was for his nystagmus. Nystagmus is a condition that makes his eyes wiggle side to side. Some people with nystagmus have a null point where their eyes wiggle less and therefore they can see better. Riley's null point was the extreme right corner of his eyes so when he wanted to see something clearly he would always turn his head to the left so he could look out of the right corner. So his doctor cut the four eye muscles on the sides of his eyes and shortened the left muscles while reattaching the right ones in a more relaxed position. The surgery went well and he was playing with Owen that very evening and the next day. But then, for some reason, he decided to keep his eyes closed for two and a half days! He finally decided playing would be more fun than sitting with his eyes closed and he opened them. He's been doing fine ever since. He does have what his doctor just referred to as a "raised area" on the sides of his eyes. I'm not sure exactly what is going on with that but she did say it's possible for a cyst to form at the suture site so we're still praying for continued recovery for him.

Here's a pic from the fall where you can see the way he looks out of the corner of his eye. Most of our pictures have his head turned like this. You have to kind of catch him by surprised to get a straight on shot of him.
Owen finally started back to school this week for second semester. I LOVE his school, but the one draw back is they don't go at all in January. The plus though this semester is that they're staying for a longer day. It's 8:30-1 now instead of 8:30-11:30. I have to pack his lunch each day, but I think it will make the transition to full days a little easier in the fall. Riley's not too keen on the longer days without his brother though and asks me a dozen times a day if it's time to go get Owen yet.

Hopefully, if my computer doesn't quit on me again, I will be on here more.