No Whitney, I'm not dead.

I was going to post a few pictures, but I emailed them to myself from my phone and can't get them saved somewhere to upload them here...I usually don't have a problem with it, so pictures will have to wait.

Poor Whitney thinks I'm dead even though we chat on gmail a few times a week. As you can see, I'm not dead. I just have a very different life than I did a few months ago.  We are learning the joys of owning our own business. To make ends meat I had to start working there as much as possible while not putting the kids in daycare.  I work 9-5 on Monday because only one other employee can work on Monday from 5-9.  Luckily we know some great people and Emily gets to walk home with her friend and stay with them until I can pick her up at 5.  Tuesday-Friday I work 9-2.  We also work 6 or 7 to 9 on Wed, Thurs and Friday.  Owen and Tyler get to spend their day with me at the salon.  We have empty rooms still so we set one up for them to hang out in. They've brought a bunch of their toys with them and they get to watch Sesame Street etc on my laptop as well.  Owen gets to spend the entire 9-2 shift with me, but Tyler is in kindergarten so he gets to come join us after I take "lunch" and go pick him up at 11:00.

They have done really well transitioning to not being able to play at home all day.  We are even starting to get a routine down.  Owen plays by himself when we first get there while I spend an hour or so doing all the chores etc I need to get done first thing in the morning.  Then he gets to come up front with me and we work on some preschool workbooks. I think this is one of his favorite parts of the day as he spends the entire first hour asking if it's time to color his books yet. After we've hung out, we close down and go get Tyler at 11:00, 10:45 on Wednesdays.  Sometimes its tricky timing the customers so that I won't be late and other days we get there really early and just have to sit and wait.  When we get back to the salon, Tyler and I work on his homework while Owen plays quietly in the waiting room.  Once that is done, it's lunch time.  After lunch the boys watch an episode of Sesame Street. I was so excited to see that netflix offers tons of episodes on their instant play selection. I'm hoping that watching it will help Tyler because he seems like he is going to need a lot more help with school than Emily.  By this time it's about 1:00 and we only have an hour left.  The boys get to choose what they want to do for the last hour...they usually choose watching Lightening McQueen videos on youtube.  They could watch them four hours and hours and never get bored.  At 2 o'clock we get to go home.  The weather has been fantastic and Kevin fixed Tyler's power wheels Jeep so they spend as much time outside as they can once we get home. They love to ride in the Jeep and ride their bikes.

We already had our first parent teacher conferences and Emily is doing great.  She is almost already at the level of reading she needs to be at the end of 2nd grade, so she's a fabulous reader, even though like me (when I was a kid), she hates doing it.  Part of her homework is to read 20 minutes every day and she whines and complains about it every single day.  Her teacher says she doesn't talk much in class either, which is good, but it makes me wonder why. Is she finally learning to be good in class or is something wrong that is making her not as outgoing as she used to be? I hope she's just learning to be good in class.  She is still doing cheerleading and absolutely loves it.  She even got moved up to the higher class that is for 3rd to 5th graders.  I'm not sure if it is because she is good or because they needed someone small to be the one they lift in the air. Either way, she loves it.  She also knows though that she has to keep doing good in school or she doesn't get to keep doing cheerleading. Bribery is a wonderful thing.

Are you bored yet? Tyler seems to have Kevin's brain and like I mentioned is going to struggle in school, but I'm doing my best to have patience and keep that in mind when working on his homework with him.  He seems to not think he can do things, but once I show him he can, he gets pretty excited.  We are working on the days of the week and counting to 20 right now.  They are also starting at A and going through the alphabet.  He is struggling to remember the sounds that each letter makes; this is one of the things I'm hoping Sesame Street will help with.  He already has great handwriting for a kindergartener.   It looks just as good as Emily's and sometimes better!

Owen is learning some of the same stuff as Tyler as he's around when we do his homework.  He has started to answer some of the questions I ask Tyler and it's pretty cute.  He is going to be 4 in exactly a month! When did my little guy get so big?

There is a little (sort of ) update on our life.  Sorry there are no pictures, but I'll try to get some up this week.