Sleeping

 

I love pictures of kids sleeping.  I love how they will sleep in 800 different ways and only a few actually look comfortable.  So I enjoy this picture of Luke, sleeping with his legs crossed, surrounded by a few of his “favorite things.” Obviously, Sally is there, as she is omnipresent in his life. 

And the new passion in his life . . . Spiderman.  All Spiderman, all the time.  I have learned more about Spiderman in the last few months than I have ever known or ever felt that I needed to know.

Seriously. This is a villian. A guy in a Rhino outfit.  I laugh every time I read the stories with the Rhino in it. *snort*

 

That being said, watching Spiderman cartoons has been a nice break from Thomas the Train.  Do you know what Spiderman series Luke likes to watch the most? The 1967 version that streams on Netflix. I appreciate that my son shows taste and good humor.  He has absolutely no interest in the flashy CG 1990s and after versions.  And I find the humor in the 1967, cheap animation and serious gender inequality humor.

 

So of course, that leads to the inevitable conversation: “Luke, what do you want to be for Halloween?” Is there really any question now? Luke will be one of the Spidermans at preschool. The challenge? They have to be able to go to the bathroom by themselves, even with their costumes on.  I will need to be creative to be able to make this happen.

Calm

 

It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally we do have moments of calm around the house.  This was the last moment of calm, back in August.  I guess you could say it happens quarterly in the Bickel residence.

We’ve noticed that Luke’s focus has improved this year with preschool, as well as his interest in participating in these calm activities. They don’t last long (15 minutes, tops) but it is fun to see that he will color.  The artist in me keeps hoping he’ll become more interested, but the athlete in Todd seems to be winning so far.

What do I really enjoy about all of this? The father/son moments that they have together.  They’re so cute.

 

Focus, focus, focus . . .

Pie.

 

Yeah, I know it September. But I’m still going to blog about 4th of July.

Everyone’s got a “thing.” My thing is pie. I love pie. I love pie in all its glorious forms: from sweet to meat. (not together.) I love funny shirts about pie. I have a “I <3 Pie” shirt, I’m wearing a shirt that says “Easy as 3.141592 . . .” and shoot, I have a tattoo of a slice of chocolate pie on my foot.

A lot of what I connect to my mother and grandmother (2 of my all-time most favorite people) revolves around pie.  My grandmother baked the most amazing delicious pies, which she passed on to my mother. I have developed a complex of sorts . . . I don’t bake pies because I know they just won’t be the same. I baked one pie with my mom (apple), a few years ago which was pretty awesome, but I didn’t want to press my luck. But I decided I needed to get over myself and bake a pie for 4th of July.  I found a great berry pie recipe and decided to go for it.

My tools:

• Silpat
• Pie plate
• Grandma’s rolling pin
• cider for liquid confidence

 

I made a crust! Todd was impressed.

 

The pre-baked pie.  Guess what? Lattice work is TOUGH.  So I faked it, broke the strips, used a cookie cutter to make stars and cover up the breaks. Go . . . . creativity!

 

Its me! And a pie!

 

My finished pie. I forgot to adjust the recipe to add my secret ingredient: love. My pie spilleth over.

It was awesome, I really loved it.  But when you’re living in a home where everyone is watching watching what they eat, the pie actually takes a while to finish off.

Swimming

 

We spent the summer at the pool “learning” how to swim.  I use the term “swim” loosely, as Luke really just played in the water. Okay, that’s not really fair. Luke is not so apprehensive about being in the water, which is great.  Most of the time, he worked to negotiate with his teacher, trying to get out of holding his breath underwater and flipping over. *sigh*

Luke got a ribbon with his buddy Jake – hooray!

Mostly I love Luke’s “old man” swimming trunks.

True Story.

So, it's kinda my mantra when things start getting tough.

I mean, I will get my photos up one of these days. Granted, I need to find my hard drive . . . it's around here somewhere . . .

It's the second week of school and I'm already swamped! Argh!

Note: I received a 98.8% in my Tech class. I am such a "gold star" girl.

Celebrate!

I'm so excited!
I am proud to report that . . . (nope, still have a kidney stone hangin' around). . .

that I am officially DONE with my credential classes. HOORAY!

After four long years of taking classes on and off, I finished my last homework assignment, sent it in and now am waiting for my final grades.

That being said, I don't actually have my credential yet. (curses) Still have to take all those tests - argh! But, I am going to be able to skip over student teaching, which will save me time/money.

School starts tomorrow, which always gives me the butterflies. It is clearly past my bedtime, but here I am, blogging.

Here's to the 2011-2012 school year!

Updates . . .

Curses! Another no picture blog update . . .

So life is chaos again, just when I thought I was out of the woods. So I'm on my very last credential class and I was rocking it, until . . . (dum dum DUMMMM)

Kidney stones.

That's right, I have kidney stones AGAIN. Seriously.

Started having pain last Friday, went into the doctor who told me it was a bladder infection and gave me antibiotics. When I mentioned that I thought it might be kidney stones, judging from the fact that the pain was in my KIDNEY not in my BLADDER, she blew me off. *sigh*

Started feeling better, but Saturday night, I was out for the count. I will post my whole kidney stone story as well as pics of my kidney stone buddy, Sherman. (Yes, my kidney stone has a name . . . doesn't yours?)

As for now, I am currently attempting to:

• get my class ready for school to start on Monday
• get all my paperwork ready for Monday
  
• finish all my assignments (last week's HW that I missed due to THE STONE and this week's HW)
• laundry? Maybe.
• Oh, and blog. Hee hee.

So the story of Noella and Sherman will be coming to you soon, as it is a great tale of determination and destruction ("Sherman's March," if you will).

As for now, let the chaos continue!