a VERY GREAT day

Today has been, well, a VERY GREAT day. I assume most of you who read my blog (if any that is) also are friends of mine on Facebook & on my mom board. And so this means that if you've been paying attention, you know I've been hitting the gym HARD core since 2010 began. I've started weight training as well as cardio and I even tried a zumba class once (which I really did enjoy, thanks April) and it's been going pretty damn good if I do say so myself. On my mom board, we are having a Biggest Loser Challenge contest and Fridays are our dreaded weigh in days. Today marked week three and so at 7:00 this morning, my VERY GREAT day began. I'm down 7 lbs since I weighed in on January 8. SEVEN POUNDS! I weigh the least I have probably since I was 18, no lie!!

Then I get to work and overall had a fantastic day there due to some budget news. I'm not at liberty to discuss it on a public forum but trust me, VERY GREAT news! Not even 8:30 yet and I've had two VERY GREAT things happen. The rest of the day was good enough. And then I even hit the gym before coming home and had another excellent workout (watch out TBLC bitches!) before coming home to the easiest dinner in the world - PIZZA!

The final part of the VERY GREAT day was Tyler's report card. The boy kicks ass, that's all there is to it. He received a 100% on EVERYthing. He didn't miss a thing in reading or math:
identifies upppercase & lowercase letter 26/26 (13 sets)
letter sounds 13/13
reading high frequency words 15/15
writes uppercase & lowercase letters - 26/26 (13 sets)
shapes 4/4
recognizes numbers 11/11
1 to 1 correspondence (?) - 10/10
counts to 50 - checkmark
patterns - checkmark
orders events - checkmark
100% !!!!!!

He also received a 4 on writing which means he "writes in complete thoughts with conventions of print and some words spelled correctly." This one really makes my day b/c last 9 weeks he received a 2 so he has really improved!

Then, Miss Thornburg remarked in the comments section:
"Tyler works hard on his assignments and is anxious to please. Keep up the good work!"

The above statement made Bryan remark - what is he, a dog? LOL

So yeah, like I said it's been:
a VERY GREAT day!!!!

Discovering new talents

Today we discovered that Delana knows how to count to 15. We had no idea whatsoever. It's the cutest thing too. She counts it off in her cute little baby voice & talk and then gets stuck after fifteen and just says fifteen, fifteen, fifteen, fifteen...you get the picture.......

Strangely enough Tyler claims to have known this for a few days. He insists that he taught her how to count on Sunday night while they were watching Mickey. Maybe, just maybe, he's moving beyond wanting to be a bus driver? We certainly hope so!!

Sometimes it's better not to ask

Today on my mom board (you're going to find out I talk about this place a lot - we've been together as a group for over 6 years) there was a discussion about how to get our school aged children to open up more about their day. This is a constant struggle with Tyler. He's mostly happy to report: "oh we learned stuff and went to (insert special here). That's all mom." Yeah, that's descriptive right? It also makes me wonder just who this kid belongs to as I'm pretty sure I was FAR more talkative at that age. In fact I know I was - my grandfather didn't call me "Windy" for nothing you know.

So anyway, back to today and the discussion. There were several good suggestions for "better" questions to ask to get better answers. One of them I really liked and decided I'd try it out today on Tyler on our way home. And so it goes:
Me - "Tyler what did you like best about school today?"
Tyler - "Oh I'd say the funnest part was the end of the day."
This excites me - I mean after all he did say FUNNEST! Yes, this is working! Awesome!

Me - "Oh really. Why? What made it the most fun?"
Tyler (quite exasperated I might add) - "Because that's when we get to go home!"

Communication: FAIL

MLK through the eyes of a 5 year old

The following conversation took place between Tyler & I on the way home. At first I was so confused, wondering where this all came from. However a friend on my mom board suggested that they probably had a lesson about Martin Luther King, Jr at school. Duh! Why didn't I think of that?

T - "Mom, Mrs. Powell (a K teacher at school) is brown."
M - "Oh she is? What do you mean?"
T - "MOM - she's brown!"
M - "Tyler do you mean she's black?"
T - "No, black people aren't allowed in my school. She's brown!"
M - "Okay, does she have black hair?" (trying to figure this out)
T - "How did you know that?"
M - "Well Tyler most people that are brown have black hair."
T- "Well grandma (my mom) is brown and she doesn't have black hair!" (so now I'm really confused!)
M - "You mean Mrs. Powell is tan, like when you go out in the sun in the summer?"
T - "MOM - how would I know? I only see her face. She wears clothes to school!"

Ooookay then.

Work it girl - supermodel!

Delana picked out her own outfit today. And then she wanted me to take pictures. As if I wasn't going to do that anyway. This kid is going to be a handful!

This was her first pose. She kept doing this - I have no idea why



Striking a better pose:



I call this the DI-VA

A geology lesson

Today on the way home from basketball, Tyler asked an extremely random question. At least I thought it was random, coming from a 5 year old. He said:
"Mom, what comes after all the rocks in the earth?"
I'm thinking....only my kid would ask this. But I do know the answer, thanks Mr. Stafford. It's lava.
So I answer, "Lava buddy"
Now you know that isn't sufficient
"Mom, what's lava?"
"You know buddy, what comes out of the volcanoes. It's melted rocks"
"Oh well, will it burn you pretty bad?"
"Yeah buddy it will burn you pretty bad."
"Oh okay, so kinda like what burned Annikan?"
A-ha - I knew it. Everything in my son's life relates to Star Wars somehow.
I figured that was the end of it. He was quiet for a while. Well by quiet I mean he was humming a Star Wars theme song - the one he claims is going to be for Episode 7.

Then "Mom, what comes after lava?"
Uhh....yeah mom what DOES come after lava. I thought I knew but I didn't want to be wrong so I told him I'd look it up later. So thanks to Google I'm happy to report that I once again know the layers of the earth and what they are made of:
crust
mantle - these two are the rocks (and did you know it's 1800 miles of rocks)
outer core - the lava
inner core

And in case you're really wondering what comes after lava - it's mostly solid iron. :)

Bowling, bowling, bowling - keep those balls a'rolling

Next Saturday, Tyler's buddy Cade is having his birthday party at the St. C bowling alley. So we decided to take the kids over early to get a little practice. I can't possibly have my child be the worst bowler at the party - that's MY title! We managed to get 2 games in but the boys were pretty much done about halfway into the second games. We opted not to let Delana bowl officially which wound up not being a good idea because she loved it too. She kept saying "helpy mama/daddy/Tyber" and then wanting to take our turn. Or she'd yell out "ME TURN!"

We definitely had a fun time! This could be our new winter activity.

Me and the kids


Delana bowling with Daddy


Bryan, Tyler & Cade

Indoor fun

Today was just entirely too cold to venture out into the snow. Oh wait a minute, every day is entirely too cold to venture out into the snow for me - I leave that stuff to Bryan. Still though it is disappointing that we have all this snow and a really great hill for the kids to sled on but it's too cold to do so. Oh wait another minute, we don't own a sled. Okay enough with the funny intro - you get the picture.

Once the kids & I got home from my parents' house today (my parents watched the kids last night so we could go out for my sister in law's birthday dinner at Fusion which is a Japanese hibachi place - DELICIOUS! and happy birthday again April) it was pretty much decided (by me) that we would not set another foot outside the rest of the day. The kids didn't seem to care. Tyler kept himself busy most of the early afternoon trying to collect points on Lego Star Wars as he's saving up to buy the big man himself - the Emperor. Delana ate a quick lunch and then wound up taking a 4 hour nap. I pretty much lounged around in my fat pants and iced my back since I decided yesterday was a great day to work on perfecting my newest dance move. I plan on calling it the "Down 5 Steps Almost Break My Tailbone" move in case you were wondering. It was definitely graceful, trust me.

After Delana woke up, Tyler decided he'd had enough of the Wii (shocking I know) and so we went into the toy room to hang out. The past few months Tyler and Delana have really been playing well together and today was no different. At first they each kind of did their own thing. Now I know this is going to be a huge shock to everyone but Tyler played with........



Yep, that's right - Star Wars Legos

Delana kept herself busy with her Little People sets & her Mickey Mouse "cubhouse"


She decided that there needed to be a birthday party and so she & I set this little scene up!



Then after a while they decided to play together. Tyler brought his little Lego dudes over to invade the Little People castle.


Hilarity ensued because Tyler found the fact that they could fit through the windows of the castle just downright, well, hilarious:


One last pic of them playing so nicely:


All in all, it was a pretty fun day.

Christmas break keeps going and going and going....

Thanks to the wonderful weather, Tyler's Christmas break has been extended by 4 days so far. I figure we can safely assume it will be extended by yet another day tomorrow. That's awesome because it allows us to put his sorry butt to work.

I think he'd rather go to school!

Okay, so clearly we didn't make him do this. He (along with daddy & Delana) was just outside playing!


Meanwhile mama's sorry butt really was at work. But that's okay - they look way too cold to me anyway.

What's in a name?

I always thought picking out names for the kids was bad enough. But tonight, I discovered one even more difficult - naming this blog. Why must this be so difficult and why must the name suggestions be so stupid. I thought I had it in the bag from the start. We all know I love country music and since I want this site to be about our family, I just knew I had nailed it with:
Little Bit of Life

Unfortunately it seems some other blogger nailed that one. The suggestion from Blogpost was the ever so creative summer-little bit of life or the even better little bit of life-summer. Oh gee thanks Blogspot. And honestly I kinda did like little bit of summer life but I wanted everyone or noone as the site name. Becoming a mom does make one less selfish after all, I guess.

My creativity was tapped - and if you know me well enough you know this is not surprising. I finally asked for some advice on my mom board and after quite a few suggestions such as:
Jenkins jollies (that was mine, rather perverted though)
something with family market custom killing (inside joke)
the stinkin' Jenkins (I knew I should have kept my maiden name)
it's always Summer in podunk (I did kinda like that one)
I love my Jamboree hat so suck it (which I do and you can)
F this S (if only I'd married a Fred)

we finally found a winner!
So we're officially on record as bunchaBSandTDs
I find it to be rather perfect don't you think? Bonus points if you know why.

Disney on Ice

Today we took the kids to see Disney on Ice: Celebrating 100 Years of Magic along with Grandma Cindi (Bryan's mom) and Aunt April (Bryan's sister). I'm not sure that Bryan was all that excited about it but even he wound up having a great time. The show was pretty amazing and the kids just couldn't get enough of their favorite characters. Delana was really excited when Cinderella came out and of course Mickey too. She cracked all of us up by waving at all the characters over and over :


Tyler really enjoyed the Aladdin & Genie part.




My favorite part was when they recreated the It's a Small World ride:



And of course no Disney show is complete with the fab four:






If you've not been to a show yet, you really should go!