It's been a BUSY, BUSY week!

This weeks has been a bit of a whirlwind around here!

Things started last Friday, one week ago, with a planned trip to the hospital for some tests for Marty. Fortunately, everything was "normal", but I will say that doing bowel-prep is NOT the way I really wanted to spend my anniversary!

Then, on to Saturday where we had Chelsea's Best Day Ever surprise, and just kept moving from there.

When we got home Saturday night, dear hubby had to go into work (I hope you Alabama folks enjoy your power!), and work ALLLL NIGHT LONG and ALL MORNING LONG on Sunday, so that meant it was up to me to get everyone up and at 'em for Church. While in the shower, I suddenly had a PANIC MOMENT when I realized....

"MY KIDS START TO SCHOOL TOMORROW!!!!!"

I mean, I knew that my kids were starting school, but the realization that the first day of school was actually already HERE really freaked me out!

I WAS NOT READY!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE summertime with my kids! Even if they do occasionally get on my nerves, I still love having them near me....free from schedules and time restraints.
I was not ready to get back into that strict routine that school days require.

So, after Church, I started getting Jameson's things labeled and put in his backpack. Chelsea's backpack has been labeled, packed, unpacked, repacked, unpacked, and repacked again since sometime around the first week of July.

Then it was the struggle to get Jameson to slow down long enough to try on his one new pair of pants to see if they fit. I'm such a slacker, I didn't even buy their new school clothes yet. I have several cute pairs of shorts for him, but he refuses to wear them to school. He says "MAMA, the slide is HOT and I burn my legs when I wear shorts!!!" Fortunately, the one pair of pants I did actually get fit like a glove (**whew** thank goodness). Chelsea's outfit has already been laying out ready to go for about 3 weeks. She wears uniforms, so a lot of the stuff she had last year still works.

Then it was on to make sure there was a juice in Jameson's backpack and a check for this month's breakfast and lunch. Jameson DOES eat breakfast at home, but for some reason, he feels the need to eat breakfast a school, too. (I didn't find out that until his lunch money ran out about 3 weeks into the school year last year...lol!)

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So that brings Jameson's grand total for the cost of school so far this year to $123.61. ($63.61 for school supplies PLUS $60.00 for lunch/breakfast)
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As the evening came to an end, Jameson was WIRED FOR SOUND! He did anything and everything he could to keep from going to bed. Sometime around 11:30 pm, he finally went to sleep, only to wake up and crawl in our bed around 4:30 am. He said "I am so nervous, can I get in bed with you?" I mean, what were we supposed to say to that?

I was told by my mom that Chelsea was in bed, asleep by 7:00 pm and slept soundly until she woke up around 6:00 am. Nothing like a full 11 hours of sleep before the first day of school. She promptly got up, ate breakfast, got dressed, unpacked and repacked her backpack just one more time, and was ready to walk out the door by around 6:40 am.

Jameson was still asleep....in MY bed.....at that time.

I finally managed to get Jameson up and fed and dressed, and attempted to get him out the door....but not without a picture first!

As we were getting ready to head into the school, Jameson said goodbye to his buddies, Puppy and Mr. Dolphin.

Jameson was THRILLED to find that his BFF, Isaiah was also in his class.

He wanted me to hang around for a while, even though he wasn't paying me a bit of attention. So, I stuck around for a few minutes, and when I was sure he was OK, I left him in the capable hands of Ms. Shiflett. I am so thrilled that he got into her class. She was Chelsea's teacher when she was little and she took great care of her.

Then it was off to see Miss Chelsea and all of her classmates!

Since Chelsea is in a self-contained Special Ed classroom, everything for her was pretty much the same as the year before. Some helpers had graduated, but all of her classmates and teachers are the same. The aide, Ms. Gallman, was out recovering from shoulder surgery, but she will be back soon.

You see the little baggie in her left hand??? Those are her pictures from her Best Day Ever. She was so excited to show them to ANYBODY and EVERYBODY who would look at them. Her principal found out about her adventure and asked her to bring the pictures back to school yesterday. So, when she went to lunch, the pictures were on the in-school television system! She was tickled-to-death!


Here is Chelsea and her BFF Megan. They have been together since they were 3 years old! The funny thing is, Megan has a little brother, Jerry Ray, that is the same age and in the same class as Jameson. Two families growing up together!

I hung around Chelsea's class for a little while, and then thought it best to get out of everyone's way. So, I decided since I actually had a few hours of free time, I would go to town to see if I could find any deals.

And DEALS I did find!

I think I have figured out WHEN to go school clothes shopping.....the day AFTER school starts (or technically, the day school starts).

I found Chelsea uniform shirts at Target for $6.00 apiece!!! I bought her one of every color! I then went to Old Navy looking for some pants for Chelsea, but ended up finding Jameson jeans for $10.00 a pair. That beats $19.99-$29.99 a pair! Every single store I went into had HUGE sales!

Next year, I am only buying them ONE outfit to wear on the first day, and then will buy the rest after they go back!

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Tuesday was a work day for me, so the schedule changed a little as I had to get Jameson up and out before 6:00 to take to my mom's. He did better than I thought he would, but he still wasn't a very happy little boy.

I wasn't in a very good mood either.....it was sort-of a big day for me.....and I wasn't too happy about it.

It's not that I mind being 40 (better than the alternative), I'm just not happy with the way my life is right now. Finances, friendships, finances, family, finances....you know, just life in general. And I think it just really hit me hard on Tuesday. It didn't help that I had to leave my kids on their second day of school and drive 100 miles away to work. But, I made it though the day, and the next, and so did my kids.

Wednesday was another work day, and Thursday was spent trying to clean up this pig sty house, washing clothes, washing dishes, paying bills, buying groceries....

Oh, and on the subject of groceries.....it's only taken me 40 years to figure this out, but it is a good idea to clean out the refrigerator BEFORE you actually buy the groceries.....ummmmmm, I kinda figured that out the HARD way yesterday.

After I waited in car-rider line for over an hour, Jameson and I got to spend some time together, just the two of us, before Marty got home. Thank goodness I put something in the crock-pot earlier in the day. We hung out, ate a snack (yummy birthday cake), talked, watched some cartoons, listened to "The Thunder Rolls" by Garth Brooks on YouTube....Jameson's choice, not mine, and then Jameson decided he wanted to go play outside.

Little did I know, he wanted to play in the ONE mud hole we have in our yard. He came in through the front door, behind where I was sitting, so I didn't see anything but his arms. I immediately told him to go wash his hands and arms before he touched anything. After several minutes, he came out of the bathroom, through my bedroom, the kitchen, and then through the middle of the living room. This is what he looked like....

I FREAKED OUT!

I then started following the trail of mud into my bedroom, and this is what I found.
However, this is AFTER I had already swept up the big hunks of mud!

When I asked him WHY he felt the need to SIT on MY BED with wet, muddy pants on, he said "Mommy, I was just so tired of standing."

Needless to say, he was immediately sent outside to play until he was ready to come in and go straight to the shower!

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So, that brings us to today. Friday. The end of my babies first week of school. So far, Jameson hasn't gotten one single note sent home or one frownie face. I wonder if that will still be true by this afternoon?

Chelsea is handling her 10th grade year like a champ! She is our little social butterfly that just THRIVES in social settings. She is loving every single second of school! I am so happy that, if she wants, she can stay in the same place until she turns 21.

Today is also the first day that hubby and I have gotten to spend ANY alone time together in MONTHS. He was actually off work today. **SHOCK SHOCK** We wanted to try to go see a "grown-up" movie (you know PG-13 or **gasp** R rated), but the first movies don't start until after 1:00....and that doesn't give us enough time to pick them up from school. So, as you can see, I am blogging and hubby is outside cutting grass....lol! What will we do when Jameson turns 18??? We won't know how to act! LOL

So that's the extent of my week. Not very busy to some, but hectic and chaotic for us.

What kind of things have you been doing this week??