Weekend Top Five 12/10/12

I am sitting here with a tummy that'schurning but I can;t decided if I am actually sick or not. How weird is that, huh?

It was a whirlwind weekend after a crazy busy week. By the time we tucked the boys into bed last night, I felt like it had been forever since I had seen my kids at bedtime.

This weekend was busy but it really was the end of several weeks of craziness. We had major school projects due, the start of basketball practices on two separate nights, my symphony week, which makes me gone every night until after 10:00, and, I'm sure as a reaction to the craziness, both boys were acting out in school. Very frustrating week. But the weekend was a culmination of it all.

5. Projects, Projects, everywhere
Noah handed in his diorama about the Iroquois Native Americans and Aaron started working on his diorama about the Tropical Rainforest. These alone have taken a lot of time in preparation as well as construction.  On top of that, Noah came home from school on Friday having learned to make these REALLY COOL snowflakes in art class. He continues to make a ton of them throughout the weekend. I love his artistic mind and hope I can keep finding ways to nurture it as he gets older and becomes more hormonal :)







4. Symphony Weekend
I sing with the Grand Rapids Symphony about three to four times a year. The Holiday Pops is the largest money maker for the symphony, but also the most demanding of performances, not because of the music itself, but because of the amount of TIME that is required. Rather than two performances and two rehearsals, we have two rehearsals and FIVE performances (one of which we are allowed to opt out of). Despite the very tiring schedule, I really enjoy the series, especially this year. The first night my parents came to the performance, the middle performance had my sister and her family in the audience, and the last night my in-laws brought Steve and the kids. There is something really awesome about standing on stage and knowing that people you love are in the audience SOMEWHERE. It always cracks me up on the performance that the boys come to because they jump up and down from way out in the mezzanine to make sure I can see them.








3. In-laws Christmas
It is always an adventure when there are gatherings with the in-laws. I will not go into details about the drama. Instead I will focus on the good, which is the happiness of the kids. After the concert, we went out for dinner to Chili's, which the kids love. Then we went back to our house so the kids could open their Christmas presents from them. My MIL has finally listened to me about requests for Christmas presents and the boys were quite happy. She got them character hats that they loved, including going to bed with them on that night. I am glad that they will have warm hats IF we ever get some snow for our Michigan winter.







2. Operation Christmas Child
I have wanted to have the boys be more involved in giving than receiving this year and one of the ways we did this was to participate in Operation Christmas Child at church this year. The boys fill boxes with toys for a child in a poor country that the child will receive for Christmas. If you pay for the shipping online, then you actually get to follow your box and find out where and when it gets delivered. The boys had a great time filling their boxes and also writing the paper about themselves that will go to their new "friend" overseas. At least it is one way for them to start thinking outside of themselves this holiday.










1. NEW CAREER
I have applied for what feels like a million jobs during the year 2012. I have worked every night for the entire lives of my children and it has become clear that they NEED momma home at night. We knew that the only way I could ever be home at night is if I could get a decent paying full time job during the day. Our other worry had been if I get a job, what do we do with kids during the summer? The week before Thanksgiving I got a call for an interview for a teacher position. Then I heard nothing from them so I was quite sad that I was again hopeful for nothing. Then, last Thursday, I got a call asking me to come in for a second interview on Friday afternoon. After much finagling of kids schedule after school, I made plans to go for the interview. About an hour before the interview, I got a call on my voice mail saying that they were going to cancel my interview and were comfortable enough from my first interview to go ahead and HIRE ME and they would be calling Monday (today) with details. The job is on the lower paying side until I get the continuing credits to make decent money but we always knew that if we were going to ever make decent money, one of us would HAVE to go back to school. It's very exciting to know that the year 2013 will most likely be the start of a whole new life for the Wheelz Family.

The Week Ahead
This week is another doozy, but that's a given being that it is two weeks until Christmas. Luckily, Christmas shopping for the boys is done and almost everything is wrapped. It is gong to be a busy week though. Aaron's IEP review is Wednesday and he is worried that he will "graduate" since he loves his speech teacher and is sad that he won't see her anymore. We also have Aaron's Christmas concert at school and a field trip to a nursing home on Friday. Both boys have basketball practices again and we have to somehow figure out a way to finish Aaron's diorama in the next three days. (I am sooooo looking forward to being home every night so that these projects aren't such a stress anymore). Next weekend will be a wonderful one, since I will have some time to hang out with my sister and SIL at the warehouse sale, take my nephew's Flat Stanley to see Grand Rapids, and our family Christmas on Sunday.

I love Christmas. I love that there are so many more lights on or street than in past years. Now we just need some snow.

Have a good week.

Catch Up

So Hubby came in tonight and said, "You know, it's been two months since your last blog post.". This kind of cracked me up since I figured no one ever reads it anymore but I figured that it has been nice having the journal of our weekends so I will try to pick it back up again. I did find two posts that I had written and never posted so I went ahead and posted those. This past week and weekend have quite eventful but I will wait until Monday to post about it.

Lots has been happening, that's for sure so stay tuned :)

Weekend Top Five A Big One 10/22/12

So as boring as last weekend was, it was the complete opposite this past weekend. I am actually having a hard time getting anything accomplished today as I come down off of the busyness. Noah too was in quite a doozy of a mood this morning and I am sure he is feeling the effects as well.

But as busy as it was, it was all GOOD busyness so that's a bonus. I think I could do a top ten from this weekend but I will stick to the meme of Five just to be consistent :)

5. Friday Night Barbershop
Hubby has been a barbershop singer since he was in middle school and has finally found a quartet to help him reach his dream of becoming  district champion, followed hopefully someday by becoming an international champion. About six months ago (I think) he was approached by three guys were looking for a fourth to complete their quartet. They have worked very hard to prepare and this past weekend was the District competition. Steve had to spend the entire weekend in Battle Creek (about an hour or so away) for the full convention but after much discussion, I decided to take the boys over for the preliminary competition on Friday night, given that the rest of our weekend was booked and I really felt it was important for us to  be part of this event.

We only stayed for the first half but Daddy's quartet blew the rest of them away. they were so much better and really in a completely different league than the rest and it was exciting to hear that they had made it into the finals the following night.

BTW...twenty four hours later, my hubby became a DISTRICT CHAMPION and now will be completing in April to perform on an international stage in Toronto next summer. We're so proud of Daddy!

4. Saturday morning at the Farm

We have had an annual trip to a local Pumpkin Patch with many of the cousins for quite a few years now. This past Saturday was our trip. All fifteen cousins were there and all over the place. I can't believe how much easier this trip is for the Wheelz Family now that the boys are older and don't need quite so much supervision. I had to laugh when, given all the activities and farm animals, the boys spent most of the time trying to pet a farm cat that was lurking around the entire time. The kids picked out excellent pumpkin choices and I am looking forward to getting them carved this afternoon with them.

3. Cousin Fun and Football
We all headed back to grandma and grandpa's after the farm to celebrate the cousin birthdays from this quarter, of which Aaron was part of. It was also a time to watch the first half of the football game (Go Blue!) between Michigan and Michigan State. The kids did pretty well playing together and we stayed until halftime before the boys and I had to head home, knowing Sunday was going to be a busy day as well. Oh, and it was good to be home to watch the last nine seconds of the game, where Michigan kicked a field goal to win the game 12-10. Go Blue!

2. Church
It is so weird t go to church without Steve. I had planned to stay in children's church to watch Noah run the soundboard since I hadn't seen him in action yet, but I decided against it. One thing that made me so happy was being approached by another mom form a boy in his Sunday school class saying how eager she was for her son and Noah to get together for a play date outside of church. I have never been approached by someone that way and it is exciting to finally make a connection at church beyond the superficial stuff. I am planning to take a Monday night off of chorus in a few weeks and attend the event to find a life group in a few weeks, which will helpfully help me o dig deeper into some relationships that might help me o become stronger spiritually. And already this morning that mom texted me inviting Noah to a birthday party for that boy next Saturday, a first for Noah as well.

1. Family Memories of Grandma
As you know, my grandma passed away a couple of months ago and my aunts had asked my siblings and me to come to their house for an afternoon to go through the remaining items from her apartment to see what we would like to have as heirlooms/mementos. Truthfully, my siblings and I were all dreading the day, not knowing what to expect.

But it was a wonderful afternoon. The visits were relaxed and enjoyable and the divvying up of items went well.  We all received a nutcracker from grandma's very large collection. Of course, we made the mistake of letting Aaron hold his and it is broken already but that's to be expected :)

I also came home with some baby pictures of mine. Before yesterday, I had NONE. Grandma had letters that we had written to her from when we were little, as well as pictures I had drawn when I was only three years old. It was really neat.

The Week Ahead

We have Aaron's birthday on Thursday, as well as some extra things I need to do at Gymboree this week which is causing some nerves. I haven't figured out how we're going to do Aaron's birthday yet, given that I have to work that night. He is a very excited boy about turning eight.

Weekend Top Five 10/14/12 Boring Weekend

It was quite a dreary sloshy wet weekend.  We only left the warm dry confines of our house briefly each day. Otherwise, it was a weekend in for the Wheelz Clan...including missing church. Bad Wheelz!

5. Movie Marathon begins with Muppets
It was definitely a movie marathon weekend, given the rainy weather. A better mom would have spent more time with games than movies, but I am NOT a better mom. I enjoyed snuggling under blankets with the boys. Part of this was also related to #3 below, though. I was a muppet kid, as was Hubby so it is fun to have kids who are muppet fans. We watched the movie twice more this weekend and the Aaron got settled in on our mini-pullout sofa and slept out in the living room for the night. He has actually ended up in the living room almost every morning for a week now. We're not sure why he does it but as long as he's getting sleep, we're not going to push the matter for now..

4. Organizing

Saturday morning found a rainy morning and kids who had no desire to get dressed. As a matter of fact, momma wasn't really in any hurry either and since Daddy was gone to work, that seemed just fine. As I was wandering around the kitchen aimlessly, I again got frustrated with the clutteredness of our little house. As I was sitting in the kitchen, I espied the to cabinets we have had in there for years...one filled with various unmatched plastic dishes, and other various junk that has been thrown in there throughout the years and the other our "craft cabinet".  I realized that the days of preschoolers doing various crafts are kind of gone, replaced by two boys who enjoy doing their own thing at their desks in their rooms. And having one of the cabinets with a door falling off, even after Steve replacing it countless times, created a drastic decision in my mind....time for a change. So after much much much rearranging, re-rooming, and yes, throwing stuff in the garbage, we had a much less cluttered, much more roomy kitchen.

The mania continued on Sunday when I attacked Aaron's room with a garbage bag.  The kid just doesn't know how to clean and there were various bins full of junk everywhere. So armed with a garbage bag and a plan, we went to work on Aaron's room. It ended up going pretty quickly and Aaron was a happy boy to have a place for his stuff again.

3. Noah's Legs
Noah came home from school Friday afternoon complaining of his legs hurting. By Saturday morning, he was limping around saying the top of his thighs were sore. This was a theme for the rest of the weekend and he spent much of the weekend on the couch with icy hot on his legs. I emailed his gym teacher to give her a heads up and she said that it is very normal for his age and he probably is really experiencing pain. Poor Kid!

2. Dinner experiments
I am trying very hard to broaden our meal horizons, given that I am home very few evenings of the week for dinner. We have failed miserably at getting the kids to eat casseroles of different sorts, which would actually make our lives much easier as evenings start getting busy with sports in a few weeks. So I tried a new experiment, which had wonderful potential.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out too well and there was much complaint from the boys, who are usually pretty good about NOT speaking too loudly out against foods I make. It's not going to stop me and I will stick to my plans of making something 11 times before the kids are allowed to say they don't like it. Personally, with a few adjustments, I think it was a great dinner and I am definitely going to make it again, whether they like or NOT.

1. Weekend Plan Rain Out
So yes, we didn't make it out of the house much this weekend and the one thing we had planned did get rained out. A community Trick or treating event got cancelled for rain, so we really did pretty much laze around the entire weekend. I guess it's pretty good thing though, given that next weekend is going to be a doozy.

The Week Ahead
Not much, especially given that next weekend is going to be absolutely crazy. have a good week.

Wordless Wednesday ArtPrize 2012 Fun Moments

Weekend Top Five 10/7/12

So Fall has arrived in Michigan. After going crazy trying to purchase long sleeved shirts for the boys that fit both my standards of appropriate clothing and the boys' standards of "coolness", I was ready as far as children's wardrobe.  What I was not ready for was BEING COLD. Steve was gone for most of the day on Saturday and I broke down and turned on the furnace. We didn't even come close to making it until November before turning it on.

So the weekend was okay. We got out and about a bit but there were some overtones that kind of hung around over our heads for the weekend, as I will share below.

5. Friday Bullying
Noah came in the door Friday saying some pretty unpleasant things about the kindergarten girl that we share carpooling with. The girl has always been mean to him, kicking him, punching him, etc but since she's a "little girl" everyone just kind of laughs it off, which is quite unfair to Noah who has had enough but has had absolutely no recourse whatsoever. So he comes in the door Friday with blood dripping from his eye, The little snot girl came up to him during the walkathon while he was tying his shoes and poked his face, causing a scratch very close to his eye. As usual, he never told anyone in authority and the mom of course did not require an apology. I know Noah has had enough and I don't blame him. So we spent much of the weekend struggling with whether we continue to carpool with this family, given the out of control nature of the children, yet the very much needed savings in gas that the carpooling provides. The older girl in that same family is the one who caused so much pain to Noah and his friends last year so we are just so sick of it all and it would be nice to be separated from them even a little bit.

Meanwhile, while I was dealing with the fallout from this, I get a text message from a mom who has a child in both Noah and Aaron's classes saying she heard that Aaron got hurt again that day. I had not heard anything about it from school OR from Aaron so I kind of  fluffed it off until I started asking Aaron while she continued to shoot texts my way. Apparently the same boy who PUNCHED him in the jaw the second day of school shoved him into a locker after assembly Friday morning. NOW I was livid. This has got to STOP!  I don't know if I am most upset because it happened again or because I had to hear it from a mom's text versus the school. 48 hours later and I am still steaming about both of these situations. The school that I thought would never allow bullying has allowed BOTH of my children to be physically assaulted in the same day. I am still so angry.

4. Aaron's First Party
Aaron got invited to his first school friend birthday party on Saturday. And it was a girl's party as well.  He was so excited and talked about it pretty much non-stop all week. Saturday morning arrived and he kept quite the vocal tabs on the clock all morning until 11 when it was time to go. He had a great time and when I picked him up, he had a pile full of candy (and the psycho behavior that accompanied it) and a smile on his face telling about how much fun it was to dance with everyone in the basement with the lights off. Got to say...not really ready for my 7 year old to be at a boy-girl party in a basement with the lights off. Hmmmm.

3. Single Dates
I am trying to make good on a commitment to having individual time with each of the boys at least once a month. I figured that we would switch off...Daddy/Noah and Mommy/Aaron one month and then switch the following month. It actually worked a little differently since Aaron had a birthday party so I was able to take Noah out for lunch just the two of us for our one-on-one while Steve was at work and then after Steve got home, he took Noah out for a movie just the two of them. Noah was in Heaven with the special time with each of us. Aaron spent most of the afternoon in a pretty unpleasant funk, either because of the down after the party hype or in reaction to the abuse he took at school the day before. We're actually not sure since his nasty mood continued for the remainder of the weekend. All in all though it is clear that these one-on-ones are so important so we need to definitely make an effort to continue them.

2. Church
We had Aaron come to grown up church with us again this week while Noah went to children's church, where he was thrilled to get to run soundboard again. He is so excited about that and has begged to do it every week that no one is scheduled, which has been okay'd by the man training all of the kids. The series we finished today was about "modern families" and each week has started with a slide show of the families of Cornerstone that we all took in photobooths in our lobby at the beginning of September. Our pictures of course were odd, but it was exciting to actually see ours show up on the big screen before church today. Something of a feeling of belonging when you see our family up there,

1. ArtPrize Finale

It was the final day of ArtPrize 2012 and Hubby had not been down to see anything yet so we headed down Sunday afternoon. It was cold and drizzly, but we still walked quite a few miles and covered a good chunk of the venues. There was a two hour line to get into the museum with winning piece but I think we covered all of the other finalists around the city.  There were definitely some amazing pieces of art that we saw and I was glad we got one more trip down to see some of it before it ended.

The Week Ahead
Not sure about this week. I have some decisions to make regarding how my kids are being treated at school and how we are going to handle them. There were a few other little things at school that came up Friday that we may need to tweak this week as well so I guess we'll just see what happens. Last week on my two days off I took care of a million things out of the house that needed taking care of so this week's two days off will be more internal, hoping to get my house in order. We're kind of getting Christmas Fever around here after turning on the furnace so I am getting itchy for Black Friday ads to come out and to start figuring out the holidays ahead. I know it's the beginning of October but that's just the way we are:) I need the cheer that the season brings.




Have a good week.

Weekend Top Five 9/30/12

What an absolutely beautiful weekend in West Michigan. As you are about to read, I spent a good deal of time in the car this weekend and the drive both days were so incredible with the changing trees. The colors this year seem to much more vibrant than in the past few years and even the boys commented a few times on how pretty they were. I can't imagine living in a climate that didn't have changing seasons. That's one of the nicest things about Michigan...just when you get sick of the weather, it changes to another season that holds all new experiences.

So it was definitely a busy-ish weekend. Hubby was gone for some of it with his new quartet so the boys and I were on our own, which is always fun.

5. Paper Lanterns
As I mentioned last week, the three week art competition that takes over our city is in full swing. One of the entries was a person who purchased 20,000 lanterns (like in the movie Tangled) to be released on cue Friday night. We headed down to face the crowds and found our spot in the grass to wait. The experience was a mixed bag. In one way, it was absolutely stunning and beautiful to see them all released from four sides of the river and see the sky FILL with lit lanterns. Absolutely breathtaking! Unfortunately, we didn't get to enjoy it as much as we could have since I had two little boys FREAKING OUT over the fire that was in close proximity on all sides of us, since people weren't waiting for lanterns to fill before releasing them and people's hair around us was getting singed. Either way you look at it, it was definitely a memorable experience. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

4. Glasses Fiasco
Hubby and first born are both spectacle wearers and that does cause a bit of stress once in awhile. Hubby sat on and broke his glasses Friday and came home to find that his "spare" broken set are also missing since Noah had been trying to use them when HIS glasses were lost. So take a family with a checking account balance of less than five dollars and try to buy new glasses for the head of household and that was our dilemma Saturday morning. For now, the glasses are Jerry rigged and we will go without buying food this week so daddy can get them fixed. At least one more week of mac and cheese and hot dogs for dinner every night for the Wheelz Home.

3. Road Trip One
Saturday afternoon my sister held a grand opening of the preschool she has been working so hard to create for a very long time. The facility is very nice and I took the boys over to the center for awhile. The boys were all excited to do face painting and then disappear to grandpa and grandma's house with their cousins.  It was a beautiful drive north and home. I am so lucky to have so much family close and part of the boys (and mine) lives.












2. A Friend Reunion
The campus ministry in which Hubby and I were involved held a reunion on Saturday but given the other conflicts, I was unable to go but still had wanted to spend time with a friend of mine from college who was in town for the reunion. Her two boys are the same age as my two boys so we drive down to Kalamazoo to spend some time with them Sunday morning/afternoon. It was a wonderful visit. We took the boys out to a local nature center and hiked on a couple of trails, including finding the place that Hubby and I spent MANY weekends together while we were in college. Afterward, we took the boys to Steak and Shake and they had more fun playing with cardboard cars than I ever believed possible. It was just such a good visit and all three of us are anxious to have another visit with them before another three years passes.









1. Family Business

After meeting with my friend (she had a six hour drive ahead of her back to Wisconsin) I drove down to my aunt and uncle's house in which I lived for a couple of years in college. We had a really nice visit for a couple of hours and we took care of some business left over from my grandma. I came home with another box of piano music from my grandma that I am looking forward to sifting through and a few other things that will make life a little better for a little while. The rest was just talking more about grandma and her final days. Another part of this that came from this weekend was scheduling a final day for my two siblings and I to get together in a few weeks and go through the remaining things from grandma's apartment to see what we would like to keep as heirlooms to pass on to our kids and grandkids.

The Week Ahead:
I have two mornings off from work this week in which to take care of some needed business in several areas of my life and get my house in order.  I have a lot of things on the list and I am so thankful to have some time without kids to try to cover as much as possible tomorrow. I am also hoping to make it downtown for one more visit to try to see more of the art I've missed. I keep hearing of more and more things that I've missed in the two times I've been down, probably because I had kids in tow.

All in all, a beautiful fall weekend in Michigan. Have a good week!