3rd Grade...HERE SHE COMES!!

Well, the summer is over and it's back to school for our J'Bear. Yesterday...YES!, on a Thursday, was the first day of school.  And boy was she ready!

J'Bear was so ready to start school in fact, that the following conversations have taken place over the past few days.

Convo #1

Background info: Over the summer, Jayla was doing the 2nd - 3rd grade Bridge worksheets...you know, to keep her brain sharp over the summer. There was 1 worksheet per day - front & back."

M - "Jayla, Mrs. W said it might be a good idea for you to do the Bridge book over the summer, so that you will kinda be on top of things when you start back to school. What do you think about that?"

J - Oooo, can we go get one today? Maybe we can get the 3rd - 4th grade bridge too!!" 

(Everyday, Jayla did these worksheets and read for 15+ minutes a day. Once we got the book, the conversation, went a little something like this...almost daily.)

J - "Mom, can I go ahead and do my worksheets?" OR "Mom, do I ONLY have to do one sheet a day?"

M - "Are you kidding me? :-)

Convo #2
J - "Mom, why does the summer have to be sooo LONG? No one asked me if *I* wanted a summer break from school!"
M - "Are you kidding me? :-)

Convo #3
M - "Jayla, on Sunday, you're gonna have to start back going to bed at 9pm. You know school starts on Thursday?"
J - "Awww MAN! I wanted to start going to bed at 8:30!"
M - "Are you kidding me? :-)

Convo #4
M - "Guess what? We're going to do a little school shopping for you today!"
J - "Mom, I don't mind if I have to wear my clothes from last year. But I think I will need a pair of sneakers because my other ones don't fit. I'm sorry you & daddy have to waste money on clothes for me every year!"
M - "Are you kidding me?"

And...Convo #5 (occurred this past Wednesday evening)
M - "Hey, let's go ahead and take out the outfit you wanna wear for your first day of school tomorrow."
J - "Ok! And after we do that, I'll go ahead and take my shower so you won't have to tell me to. I'm in 3rd grade now, so you won't have to tell me to take a shower ANYMORE!"
M - "Who are YOU kidding?!?" LOL
(That "promise" lasted all of one night. I had to tell her 4 times last night to take a shower!) LOL

The first day of school finally came and Jayla was up at 6:05am! When I went to wake her up, she was laying bed, with her eyes closed and this big goofy grin on her face :-).  And she says to me, "SO...you must be looking for a little 3rd grader? WELL...HERE I AM!!! Let's get goin!"  

Needless to say, the first day of school was, "The BEST day of her life!"  I picked her up yesterday afternoon and she was telling all about her day...BEFORE she even got in the car :-).  Then, she crashed and burned when we got home. Guess they worked her little brain to death.

Today, the 2nd day of school, was ALSO the best day of her life!  Not sure how that works...but ok! Lol

Anyway, here's a couple pix of our 3rd grader.

Have a great weekend, everyone!!!

.......uhhhh, errrr, welll...I'm speechless!

...Ok, for those of you who know me, you KNOW that it's not often that I'm left without words. But being that I AM Jayla's mother, it happens.
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Allow me to share this with you. I pick Jayla up from school yesterday and the following conversation takes place...
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Me: "Hey sweetie, how was your day today?"
*
Jayla: quizzical facial expression - "It was ok."
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Me: "Just ok? What happened? Did you have a bad day?"
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Jayla: "Wellll, kinda."
*
she has now proceeded to take her purple folder out of her book bag and open it to show me.
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Jayla: "Today we got our weekly reports...annnddd, I will understand if you tell me I can't watch TV when I get home today. I HAVE to learn my lesson!"
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Me: quizzical facial expression with slight jaw droppage - "Wait a minute now, WHAT happened?"
*
NOTE: we are now in route to the gas station and she's trying to show me this purple "Thursday" folder. I tell her to wait until we get to said gas station and I'll look at the folder there. So we stop, I start pumping the gas and I read the paper in the folder. Which SIMPLY states that Jayla had a "minor" issue with talking too much (big SHOCKER) in class and in the cafeteria...on Tuesday and Wednesday. So as I'm reading this "send her up the river" worthy info :-D, Jayla has this PAthetic look on her face and says...
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Jayla: "Mom, I'm VERY sorry about my talking. And I understand if you want to punish me by not letting me watch TV anymore. It's the only way I can learn my lesson! I KNOW better than to be a talker at school. I'm SOOO sorry, Mommy!"
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Me: still bearing the quizzical facial expression - "Jayla, I know you're excited about starting back to school this week. However, although you should try and control your talking, this is not THAT serious! You know when it's okay to talk and when it's not ok. Just try and work on that, ok?"
*
Jayla: "But MOM! I need to learn my lesson! And it's ok with me if you need to punish me! But starting tomorrow, I will think before I talk too much at school."
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NOTE: we are done pumping gas and are now on our short ride home.
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Me:...yep, still looking confused and wondering whose child this REALLY is, says, "Ok, when we get home, you can get your snack and you won't be able to watch TV for 30 minutes!" (it is 2:45 when we get home...keep this is mind)
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Jayla: "Mom, you're the best mom ever! I will learn my lesson, I promise! But maybe I should get my snack and not turn on the TV until 3:30! Doesn't matter to me...cuz, that's what I need!"
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Me: "I think 30 minutes will be fine, Jayla!"
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3:00pm
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Jayla: "MOM!! Can I watch TV now? It didn't take me as long as I thought to learn my lesson!"
*
LOL
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ANYWAY...we have successfully made it through the first week of school. Although, Jayla has accused me of picking her up too early (@2:30-school lets out at 2:15). She was also upset with the teacher because not only did she NOT give them homework one day...but she doesn't give it on Fridays...EVER! Again, I ask, WHOSE child IS this??? :-) I PRAY that this girl always has this type of enthusiasm for school and learning. However, I also pray that she stops being so hard on herself when she does "wrong". Love her to death though! What an AWESOME little girl!
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How bout a flower fix? (bout time, right?) ;)

Enjoy your weekend!

One week down

I'm glad to announce, that Jayla successfully made it through the first week of school (so did I). To her, everyday was AWESOME! :-)

My goal was to park and walk Jayla to her new classroom the entire first week of school...just like I did last year. But being that she's no longer "new" to the school, I was a little lenient on the idea. Only thing is, SHE didn't know that. So on Friday, we were on our way to school and our conversation went a little something like this...

J- "Mom, do you think I can walk in by myself today? I'm a big girl, you know!"

M- "Well, I had planned to let you walk in by yourself, starting on Monday."

J- "C'mon mom, I'm a big girl. Can I PLEEZE walk in by myself? I'll go straight to my class!"

M- "Hmmm, well, it's just one day sooner. So I guess so. Are you sure you don't want me to park and go in with you, just one more day?"

J- "Nah, I'll be fine.

M- "Ok then."

J- "Thanks mom! And don't worry mommy, I still need you in my life!"

Ok, now what do you say when the conversation ends like that? LOL My little Jayla is just too much. And I guess I should mention that as she got out of the van to go in the school, she blows a kiss at me, tells me to have a good day and REMINDS me to pick her up after school, LOL. Hmm, I guess she DOES still need me in her life :-).

Alright, about this picking her up after school thing, I wasn't able to on Friday. Several months ago, I scheduled an appointment to have a physical. And of course, they scheduled it at 2pm on a school day. So Jayla got to ride home with one of her friends on Friday. She was so excited about that "change in plans". Talk about an eventful day :-).

Let me just go on record and say that I didn't know that women had physicals. I mean, why would I think that? All women "supossedly" go for their annual appts with the OB...so I just figured that was our "physical". Or maybe, what I really thought was, "SHEESH, isn't the OB appt ENOUGH!?!?!" Hmmm, guess not.

Well, you'll be glad to know that I got a good bill of health. And to be a 41 1/2 year old woman, I'm in pretty good health. Better than I thought, really. For those of you who have actually met me IRL...you'll be surprised by this one comment the ole doc made. She told me that I need to...get this...eat MORE! Maybe she needs her eyes checked...I'd be happy to recommend someone for her, lol. Strangely enough, you have to eat to lose weight. Talk about an oxymoron! I am a VERY, VERY picky eater and to be honest, I don't eat that much or that often. I told the doc what a day of eating consists of for me, and she was in shock. She said she's never met anyone who doesn't LIKE to eat. Well, that's me. Eating is just not at the top of my list of things to do. And by the time I do eat, I'm only reminded to do so by the hunger headache I get (almost daily). A normal day for me is MAYBE eating lunch and a little dinner. Me and Advil are real good friends. To me, it's easier to pop an Advil to get rid of the headache than it is to take the time to eat.

Anyway, I'm gonna try and work on that. But one bit of good news the doc gave me was, that Chick Fil A is one of the healthiest fast food restaurants there is. 9 times out of 10, if I eat fast food, that's where I go. I LOVE IT!!! So, I was happy about that.

Ok, ya'll know Jude, right? Well, although I've never met her IRL, we've exchanged a few emails and we comment on one anothers blogs. So I FEEL like she's an ole friend. A few months back, we talked about doing a photo swap. Well, we finally did that and completed a few scrapbook layouts for eachother. I just got the ones she did for me this past Saturday and they are AMAZING! She's gonna post those on her blog soon. But in the meantime, here are the LO's I did for her of her boys: (not sure if you can click on them to make 'em bigger...but give it a try)

The baby, Alden.

Of the 3 boys, Alden loves the water more than his big brothers did at this young age. He's so cute.

The middle son, Emerson.

Jude says that Emerson loves dogs. But being that he's allergic to them, these stuffed ones are the closest he gets to them...and he loves them just as much :-).

Emerson, obviously had fishing on his mind. So he laid down the basketball goal, propted himself up on it and pretended that he was fishing. I just love that. He's creative like his momma!

And, the oldest, Lincoln.

You all know that soccer is s big part of my life. So imagine my delight when I saw these pix of Lincoln. :-)

Thanks Jude, for trusting me with your memories. I hope you enjoyed these LO's as much as I enjoyed the ones you did of my Jayla.

Alright my fine people, what's going on this week? Anything interesting? Hopefully this week, I won't be in an alone FUNK like I was last week. I think I am now use to the fact school is back in full effect. So that means, I just need to find ANOTHER life, right? (at least until time to go sit in the carpool line, lol)

Have a great week. Talk to you soon.

Last day of Summer break...SNIFF, SNIFF!!!

Well, wouldja look at that! It's Friday the 8th of August and school starts back on Monday the 11th of August. What happened to the Summer break? Ya know, it doesn't really seem like summer if there are NO trips to a body of water larger than the neighborhood pool.

Being that we won the neighborhood drawing back in January, to waive $399 of our $400 HOA dues (Yay us!) I really think we got our $1 worth of time at the pool :-). But still, sitting by the pool does not a summer vacation make.

SURE...we spent some real quality time together. SURE we went to the "Romantical" Gardens. SURE we had playdates with our friends. But still, no sand between our little tiki-toes this year (or the past 2 for that matter).

Alright, alright...I'm done whining.

Jayla and I DID have a great Summer together. And although she's BEYOND excited about going back to school on Monday. I'm still a little sad that it's over...as always. She's SO much fun to hang out with.

We had our sneak-a-peek yesterday and I must say, I'm pleased with the teacher we got. We were fortunate to get one of the two teachers that I requested. So again, I'm happy. Jayla was so funny. When we went to go visit her classroom, she ran up to the teacher and gave her a big ole hug. Once again, just as last year, catching the teacher off guard :-). By the end of our 5 - 10 minute visit, Jayla was already in love with her. So that's a load off my mind.

When we left the classroom, Jayla looks up at me and says, "Mom, I've never had a brown teacher before! How cool is that?" LOL, that girl cracks me up.

Anyway, I had a doctors appt this morning with an Orthopedist. You may remember back in November of 2005, I broke my ankle. Well, I've been having a little pain in my ankle for the past few months. I had x-rays taken about a month ago and MY doctor said it showed mild arthritis and a heel spur. Well, the doctor I saw today said I do NOT have arthritis. But the heel spur is there. Bottom line, there's nothing to worry about. As long as I'm able to readjust my ankle when it hurts and the pain goes away, all is well. So I was glad to hear that. This was simply one of those "better to be safe than sorry" visits. But still, no stilettos for me, lol.

SO, do you guys have any big plans for the weekend? Has everyone's kids already started back to school? Or do you start next week like us? By the way, what do you mom's out there do while your kids in school everyday? I'm just being nosey :-). Tomorrow, we're taking my MIL out to dinner for her 85th birthday. So that should be fun. Other than that, we don't have much planned for the weekend.

Ok, enough rambling. How bout a flower fix? I haven't done one in a while...I don't think. So here ya go....

Ok, so I picked 3 fixes for you. All of them caught my eye today and I couldn't choose. So, there ya go. :-)

I hope you all have a great weekend. Toodles!!