It's the most wonderful time of the year

 Back to school.
This year we're going Charter.
Earlier this summer I was at a kiddie birthday party having momversations with strangers who are finding themselves in the same public or private school dilemma I was in last year. Even though I was plus one on them in real school experience, I found that I had been woefully under informed in the area of local school choices.
I had shied away from charter and fundamental options for kindergarten, because as a parent, I just wasn't there. I didn't see why there was so much hubbub about regular public education. I didn't make enough money to afford a religious or non-religions private school either.
I shopped for a regular public option near home with a better reputation that the one for which we are districted. In the end we ended up at the school walking distance away. Despite their bad reputation and losing a kindergartner a year before last we signed up and lucked out. My little boy had the best kindergarten teacher in the system, despite that in the end the reality was we were allowed only two options, public or private.
Where we live there are a plethora of charter and fundamental schools. They are as difficult to get into as the best private schools. Many have prerequisites or requirements that I or my son just could not meet. I was informed that the process was lengthy, and the wait lists went to infinity. I had passed hoping that for first grade we could move him to the school originally chosen for its security, technology, and facility.
At the party that was the ultimate lead to our new school one of the parents took me aside and informed me in a hush hush tone that there was a new charter near my home that opened after the existing rolls had closed and they were... wait for it... recruiting 1st graders.
Gasp! could this be what we were looking for? Free public/private education, close to home with no reputation, unlimited possibilities for extracurricular learning, school choice gold...
I went home and immediately looked the website up, sent a registration (application) and educated myself about the mission of the school.
It has truly been a long summer waiting for this new opportunity to pan out. Yesterday it did. The first day of school. Learning, education, socialization. I'm almost high on possibilities of opportunity for my little boy.

 Sadly though my poor son has been affected with memory loss. What did he do yesterday? He doesn't remember.... Nice to see nothing has changed...

Hello There!

Hello There!
It's been a while. OK, OK, it's been about 5 months.
I haven't forgotten what I started here. I have been putting things together, making some decisions and enjoying myself as much as possible within the limitations of my daily schedules. Things have changed, and more things have stayed the same.
I have no idea where I left off, so I will simply start again.
I'm going to put up a new "poll" and maybe some new pictures of my favorite and only son doing what he does best, acting like a kid...

It worked! It really worked!

It's early in the morning and I still can't sleep.

I the interest of keeping a promise to myself, and because I really had to know, I broke out one of the clear glass Christmas bulbs that I bought at Michaels over the weekend. I opened up a bag of dollar store microwave popcorn that I bought for the project. I wiped most of the buttrery stuff off of a bunch or kernels and counted 30 into the top of the bulb.

I put the bulb into a paper lunch sack and stuck it intot he microwave. Two minutes did the trick and now I have a clear glass bulb filled with popcorn! This is so cool!

I'm going to wipe off a handful more and put them aside for tonight so that James, Woody, and I can make more of them together. This totally beats trying to string popcorn for the tree!

 UPDATE

We worked on them together and they came out very well. One bulb out of the 6 broke, but it was worth it.

Pictures below.

~later!~

Following through, a slacker no more...

We made the mini chinese food take out container advent calender tonight. My guy and I stickered the heck out of some boxes, glued on some ribbon and added some goodies. It was cool.

If you get the basic intent of the advent calendar, you'll find that this is easy to make.

It was so easy to make,
Items needed below...

Strong garland for hanging (and a place to hang it) got ours at Michaels for $4.50

24 take out containers (we used mini and some large for bigger presents)

Strong clothespins (plastic)

Stickers (pictures/numbers/letters)

ribbon

scissors

glue

Mini toys and gifts (alternated with candy and stickers)

candy

left over stickers

Assemble, hang, enjoy!

Bye, Mom!

 This morning I watched at the door while my guy got ready to take James to "School".

They have the coolest routine. James climbs in to the truck through the drivers side and shimmies over to his spot on the bench seat. Dad gets in and grabs James' belt buckle and buckles it. He buckles his own and they both say" Buckle up". It was very entertaining, like watching a well rehearsed play.

They both looked out the windshield and waved goodbye. The truck wasn't even started yet.
I think they expected me to turn and go back intot he house. I didn't move.

All of a sudden James started rolling his window down, which for a 3 year old in a 17 year old truck is not an easy task. The truck engine started and held while James continued to roll.

Once the window was down James leaned against his belt as far as he could and stuck his face out the window. "Bye, Mom." he said and then proceeded to roll his window back up. I just stood there giggling, waving, and saying my goodbyes in turn.

My guy added, "You know he rolled that down just to say goodbye to you, right?"

Yes I did, I do, and I LOVE IT!

~ ~ ~Wave ~ ~ ~

Goodbye for now.

Ooh look what I "found"

WHAT A FLIPPIN' FANTASTIC IDEA!!!

James has a small obsession with popcorn. It's my fault, I admit it.

We have an air popper that's been "in" my family for at least 15 years and it still works (although some pieces are missing).

One day while we were out and about I got him all excited about making popcorn and we came home and made 4 HUGE bowlfuls! He hadn't ever had more than a handful before. I usually save it as a treat because it's slightly time consuming to pull out the pieces and put it together then get out the corn and measure a couple servings (popped bowlfuls) worth.
The butter tray is missing so we melt some butter in the microwave and then add salt or cheese or spices....
Needless to say this is a favorite activity. I think it's mostly because we only do it a couple of times per month.
My new preoccupation with reading the blogs on this site brought me to something new and interesting, so I've added it to the blogs that I follow and I've ripped off the potion of the post that I thought was cool...

Christmas Craft

Clear Christmas Ornament Project

"I've had clear ornaments for a few years and decided to find a project to use them. ...I'm sitting here eating a bag of popcorn I don't want (at 12:30 a.m.) because I was supposed to put the kernels in the ornament and then microwave it.

Here are the instructions...Unlike myself, read them before you start the project. Even though my popcorn is small inside the ornament, it is still adorable.

Remove the metal top. Place 15-25 kernels of microwavable popcorn in the ornament. (Wipe off some of the oily gunk first.) Place the ornament in a paper bag and put in the microwave for 1-2 minutes. Listen carefully, you may not need to leave them in for a full two minutes. When the popcorn is done popping, remove the ornament carefully, it will be hot. Sprinkle some glitter in if you like. Tie a pretty ribbon on the top and hang from your tree."

cool, huh?            

                        Oh Ok, I "borrowed" this one too... 

Angel Feather Gift

This angel feather makes a great gift for Christmas, but it can also be used for gift giving during other occasions or even for a friend that is battling cancer. All you do is remove the top from a clear ornament and suspend the feather. Add a bow and the following poem.

I am an angel feather

sent from God above

To serve as a reminder to you

of his precious love

I'm from your guardian angel

that God assigned to you

and fell out in her struggles

as she protected you

Each time you almost stumble

and each time you nearly fall

Thank God and all his angels

for answering your call...

Sniffle... I LOVE IT!       

       

I am a slacker...

k for the last 3 nights I have planned on writing. I had some great ideas... But I got online and hit "Next Blog" and "click this link" and well, you know how it goes...
 I've added more facebook friends in the last 3 nights than I ever thought that I had.
It's 2:45 and I still want to write but I have to sleep... I keep saying that "I have to sleep", click "ooh look at that"... and so on.

 My largest accomplishment for today I cleaned out both my Saved and Baby mailboxes on AOL. Believe me, it was a chore.

My next  - finding a new craft for Christmas. I am going to make a chinese food take-out container
 advent calendar for James, with James and my guy, then stuff the containers with dollar store toys and such. Maybe one for each of us, hmm. 'Tis the season to be craftie...

I am also going to crochet, well, finger crochet some christmas garlands... I think that will be fun. I used to make them when I was a kid but later in life I tossed them because they weren't "adult" enough.

They say that Idle hands are the devils playthings, so I think I've got my work cut out for me.

By the way I got both of these ideas from Apartment Therapy which is my favorite design blog ever.

The last thing I'll write about is this;

While cleaning out the old e-mail this evening I found my James' Halloween portrait from last year.

I had seen an ad on Craigslist for a free halloween costume photo session with 1 free print by e-mail. The deal was in exchange for the possibility of using my son's likeness on advertising for the photographers business.

Let me tell you that it was a wonderful experience! We were in the "studio" for about fifteen minutes and James was restless and nervous but the photographer got some of the coolest poses out of James.

I take pictures people! I snap everything but I couldn't have ever taken pictures as good as he got in that type of situation.

ANYWAY... I thought about it and decided to post pics of the last 3 Halloween costumes, because they were all pretty cool.

Um, Hugs, Kisses and Goodnight!