Tuesday, December 27, 2011
I'm Back!
Hi there blog world! It's been a long time! I thought I would jump back on the bandwagon since Brandon put our blog into books for me for Christmas. It's a motivator for me to get back in the swing of things. We have had a busy couple of months since I have updated. Teaching preschool is a lot more intense that I had imagined. It makes me super tired to keep up with that and all of the home things I have to get done. Who decided to build a house with all of these bathrooms anyway. Well, soon I will post Christmas pictures!
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Lots of Changes Headed Our Way
It's been a while dear old blog!
Our summer has been CRAZY. At the beginning I thought it was going to drag, but boy did it ever go by fast. Anderson starts school two weeks from today! We've been busy with VBS for two weeks at the beginning of summer, lots of trips to Carowinds, riding bikes in the street (I love our little secluded neighborhood) and even a little weekend trip to Charleston with the Holby's. I've been crazy busy the last few weeks with Sew What Mommy. Our little venture has really taken off and right now people are in full "get ready for Fall" mode, which is great!
The Snyder Family is going to have a lot of changes come school time this year! Anderson will be starting the 1st grade and is really excited about it. He ended up in the same class as his best friend Kai! They are really excited about that! I think he will be glad to get back into school, routine and normalcy. The big changes come with Grayson, Aubree and myself.. yes me too!
Grayson got into the Pre-K program at Crowder's Creek which is a state supported Pre-K that starts a week later than regular school but has the same schedule as elementary school. I have my fingers crossed that 7:30 - 2:10 five days a week won't be too much for my little guy. I really feel like he will benefit from it though. He's always been my "challenging" one and the one who I didn't push to learn things too fast, because he gets frustrated. Although right after he broke his wrist this summer, he just started to bloom with handwriting and spelling. It amazed me that even with a cast on his right hand, out of the blue he began to write all of his letters (most the right way) with his left. He learned how to spell his name and loved to write it. He is a child that does things in his own time and does them well. I love that little guy. I'm praying that he will love his new school. It's just going to hard for me to drop off my 4 year old in line and watch him walk into that big school. At least he will have his big bro bro (as he still calls him).
Aubree and I are going to have an adventure of our own. I haven't really announced yet, but after 7 years of not officially having a "money paying" job, I now have one. I was offered a preschool teaching position at our Church/Grayson and Anderson's old preschool. I'm really excited about the opportunity to teach little ones again, although they are a lot smaller than my 4th graders were. Aubree will be going to the 3's class since she turns 3 at the end of August. She will be the baby which I'm a little nervous about, but I think she will love it! It makes me feel better that I will be there with her though if she needs me.
Brandon also continues with his MBA program after taking a few weeks off to enjoy the end of the summer. He's doing really well in it! He's a little straight A student so far.
So, this Fall shall be interesting with all of us schooling! Now off to enjoy the last two weeks before all of this starts to happen.
Our summer has been CRAZY. At the beginning I thought it was going to drag, but boy did it ever go by fast. Anderson starts school two weeks from today! We've been busy with VBS for two weeks at the beginning of summer, lots of trips to Carowinds, riding bikes in the street (I love our little secluded neighborhood) and even a little weekend trip to Charleston with the Holby's. I've been crazy busy the last few weeks with Sew What Mommy. Our little venture has really taken off and right now people are in full "get ready for Fall" mode, which is great!
The Snyder Family is going to have a lot of changes come school time this year! Anderson will be starting the 1st grade and is really excited about it. He ended up in the same class as his best friend Kai! They are really excited about that! I think he will be glad to get back into school, routine and normalcy. The big changes come with Grayson, Aubree and myself.. yes me too!
Grayson got into the Pre-K program at Crowder's Creek which is a state supported Pre-K that starts a week later than regular school but has the same schedule as elementary school. I have my fingers crossed that 7:30 - 2:10 five days a week won't be too much for my little guy. I really feel like he will benefit from it though. He's always been my "challenging" one and the one who I didn't push to learn things too fast, because he gets frustrated. Although right after he broke his wrist this summer, he just started to bloom with handwriting and spelling. It amazed me that even with a cast on his right hand, out of the blue he began to write all of his letters (most the right way) with his left. He learned how to spell his name and loved to write it. He is a child that does things in his own time and does them well. I love that little guy. I'm praying that he will love his new school. It's just going to hard for me to drop off my 4 year old in line and watch him walk into that big school. At least he will have his big bro bro (as he still calls him).
Aubree and I are going to have an adventure of our own. I haven't really announced yet, but after 7 years of not officially having a "money paying" job, I now have one. I was offered a preschool teaching position at our Church/Grayson and Anderson's old preschool. I'm really excited about the opportunity to teach little ones again, although they are a lot smaller than my 4th graders were. Aubree will be going to the 3's class since she turns 3 at the end of August. She will be the baby which I'm a little nervous about, but I think she will love it! It makes me feel better that I will be there with her though if she needs me.
Brandon also continues with his MBA program after taking a few weeks off to enjoy the end of the summer. He's doing really well in it! He's a little straight A student so far.
So, this Fall shall be interesting with all of us schooling! Now off to enjoy the last two weeks before all of this starts to happen.
Friday, June 24, 2011
I love this Girly Girl!
Friday, June 17, 2011
Only Grayson
Our little Grayson took after his mama... I'm very clumsy and he got the clumsy gene. On Wednesday evening we were outside and Grayson was on the playset, saw a tree limb, tried to swat it away and fell to the ground on his head, shoulder and then wrist. He was pretty scratched up on his head from the fall, and very scared. His little heart was beating out of his chest. We got him calmed down and tried to get him to move all of his limbs to see if they were all working properly. They seemed to be, but he was still saying he was hurting. We thought we would let him watch a cartoon to see if he could get his mind off of it. He did well during that and then we took him up for a shower. He was still upset but seemed to be getting better. After the shower he wanted some crackers, so we got some for him and when he pushed himself up from his seat with his right wrist, he cried out in pain. I quickly got him ready and took him to the Steele Creek ER. They are so great there. They got him in quick and brought the xray machine into the room for him. He has two buckle fractures in his right wrist. They put a splint on it and told us to call the orthopedic the next day. He got really upset when they put the splint on and in between tears said, "but we have bandaids at home."
He didn't like the splint and tried to take it off several times before his appt. at 1 the next day.The doctor said we had options on how to treat him. Since it was a fracture, we could do a velcro splint thing or cast him for three weeks... His next question was, "How rough is he..." and we both looked at each other and said, "Let's cast it." He is one rough little boy. He now has a beautiful red cast.
He's been a real trooper over the last week. The white part of the cast isn't so white anymore, but he is a 4 year old boy! Only Grayson!
Monday, June 6, 2011
Operation DWD
I've been doing it for 6 1/2 years non-stop. For several months two seperate times I was double teaming it!!! What was it? Diapers.... We are offically Done With Diapers!! My diaper duty started back in September 2004. I had never chaged a diaper before having Anderson. One quickly learns! Once I had Grayson in 2006 , I had two in diapers until March 2007 when I got Anderson trained. So then, I was only down to one! Aubree was born in 2008 and I had two in diapers again until April 2009. Then I was only down to one again!
I attempted to potty train her over Christmas break and that ended up with us both in tears and me needing a "chill pill." Needless to say I gave up and thought I would attempt again when she was more willing. She was my baby anyways, so why rush her right? She showed me some signs along the way, but no real, "I'm ready" signs, so I kept putting it off. We were so busy anyway, who has time to sit at home on the potty. I kept toying with the Spring Break idea, since I didn't have to shuttle kids back and forth to school. We were busy the first part of the week, so we opted for the second half to "try" it again. She was ready this time!!! It only took her a day to get the pee pee part down and only one or two big accidents to get the other part down. I was glad of that since I was leaving her with my mom just a few days after starting to train her. Mattie taught her how to use the big girl potty and even a potty out in public. She trained amazingly fast. She is even wearing panties at night now! She will scream if we attempt to put a diaper on her. I'm pretty proud of her for being so easy, once she was ready and I'm pretty proud of myself for potty training all of my kids. It's one of sthe most intimidating things about parenting, I think. Hooray for being Diaper Free!!!!!!!!
I attempted to potty train her over Christmas break and that ended up with us both in tears and me needing a "chill pill." Needless to say I gave up and thought I would attempt again when she was more willing. She was my baby anyways, so why rush her right? She showed me some signs along the way, but no real, "I'm ready" signs, so I kept putting it off. We were so busy anyway, who has time to sit at home on the potty. I kept toying with the Spring Break idea, since I didn't have to shuttle kids back and forth to school. We were busy the first part of the week, so we opted for the second half to "try" it again. She was ready this time!!! It only took her a day to get the pee pee part down and only one or two big accidents to get the other part down. I was glad of that since I was leaving her with my mom just a few days after starting to train her. Mattie taught her how to use the big girl potty and even a potty out in public. She trained amazingly fast. She is even wearing panties at night now! She will scream if we attempt to put a diaper on her. I'm pretty proud of her for being so easy, once she was ready and I'm pretty proud of myself for potty training all of my kids. It's one of sthe most intimidating things about parenting, I think. Hooray for being Diaper Free!!!!!!!!
Friday, May 27, 2011
My Little Slugger
Anderson's last baseball game was last night and he knocked in the game winning run! If you look close enough his eyes are closed! and the ball he hit is right in front of the second tree from the right. I know he watches the ball, but it probably scared his eyes shut when he hit it. He was pretty excited! He's really done well this year and loves the game! It makes me one proud mommy!
Monday, May 16, 2011
Things I Learned this Past Week
Boy, was it a week. From beginning to end there was never a dull moment. Below are mostly things I have learned from the week and/or reflections to look back upon.
1. Don't procrastinate. Sometimes I should just go ahead and do things to get them done because who knows what the days ahead hold.
2. Follow my gut...always. Especially when bad storms are happening in the middle of the night. I wish that I would have done that on Tuesday night when the storm hit and taken the kids downstairs in the laundry room. Everything was ok, but it could have been a lot worse.
3. We wanted a neighborhood with trees, but didn't think about the fact that 80 foot trees can be knocked over by storms. We have a smaller one hanging over our driveway and another very large tree that fell to the left of our house. It could have fallen onto our house, but we were spared.
4. One should always know where a battery powered radio and flashlight are located...even in the middle of the night and pitch black dark. We spent the entire time of the storm looking for these to see if there was in fact a tornado near. Note to self: make an emergency kit pronto!
5. Power is a wonderful thing to have and when you are without it (for let's say 41 hours) life gets all out of whack! Hence:
-curly hair for me=not a happy girl
-washing clothes: isn't getting done. It doesn't help when I've procrastinated (see item 1) for 5 days before losing power about doing laundry
-At least Walmart had power so I could go and buy "necessities" for our out of town trip for the weekend... necessities=undies (I just wasn't going to visit the laundromat!)
-it gets hot even in May
-The hubs burns candles without checking to make sure they weren't special candles.. They were only our 25th anniversary candles we got from my Sister in Law for our wedding to burn on our 25th anniversary....
-Saying bye bye to all of our cold food in the fridge and freezer wasn't fun. It was really hard throwing out the food I had bought the day before. At least I don't have a membership to Sam's or Costco and don't buy in bulk!
-Sometimes you just have to send the kids to school in wrinkled clothes.
-I had procrastinated (see item 1 again) to hem my dress for Uncle Nick's wedding and sewing machines don't work without power!
6. If one takes her sewing machine to a hotel that has power because she procrastinated (see item 1) one should remember the POWER cord. Packed up the machine so I could hem the dress and forgot the power cord and foot pedal. I'm guessing it was because it was so dark in the house when I was packing things up.
7. Even if it's cloudy on the beach in May and you are pasty white you should still apply sunscreen. Really... just do it. I achieved my goal of having color for the wedding, but didn't really want the color to be red.
8. The SC/US government should really do more background checks on who they give government assistance to. We were behind a girl in Piggly Wiggly (yes, that's a grocery store) on Saturday in Charleston and she was buying formula and diapers for a child with WIC money. She may have been 20 and was clearly pregnant AGAIN! We walked out to the parking lot as she drove away in her Jaguar!~Really, do more extensive checks people. Some people need to get their priorities straight. What's more important, taking care of your children or driving around in style? REALLY!
9. Wedding Coordinators should always attend the rehearsal. I have NEVER witnessed a coordinator be so nasty! She didn't have a clue what was going on b/c she didn't attend the rehearsal the night before... she just said, "we don't do rehearsals"... maybe "We need to get a new job"
10. When you go to that big box "bridal" store.. you know the one I'm talking about. Starts with a D and is my brother's name. Anyway, never order the size bridesmaids' dress that fits. Most likely 500 girls bigger than you have tried it on and stretched it out before you. It was roomy in the store and then mine comes in and WON'T zip! I got it to zip when I got home, but it was uncomfortable. Let's just say I was ready to jump out of my skin after wearing this dress for 7 hours. It was only tight around my ribs, but rib crushing doesn't begin to describe what it felt like. Being claustrophobic doesn't help either.
11. Sometimes it's good to have no expectations, because you may get what you have "not expected."
It was a crazy week! Storms, no power, sunburns all around and my brother in law took the plunge into marriage. This week has got to be calmer... I hope! I will have some pictures of the wedding up soon.
1. Don't procrastinate. Sometimes I should just go ahead and do things to get them done because who knows what the days ahead hold.
2. Follow my gut...always. Especially when bad storms are happening in the middle of the night. I wish that I would have done that on Tuesday night when the storm hit and taken the kids downstairs in the laundry room. Everything was ok, but it could have been a lot worse.
3. We wanted a neighborhood with trees, but didn't think about the fact that 80 foot trees can be knocked over by storms. We have a smaller one hanging over our driveway and another very large tree that fell to the left of our house. It could have fallen onto our house, but we were spared.
4. One should always know where a battery powered radio and flashlight are located...even in the middle of the night and pitch black dark. We spent the entire time of the storm looking for these to see if there was in fact a tornado near. Note to self: make an emergency kit pronto!
5. Power is a wonderful thing to have and when you are without it (for let's say 41 hours) life gets all out of whack! Hence:
-curly hair for me=not a happy girl
-washing clothes: isn't getting done. It doesn't help when I've procrastinated (see item 1) for 5 days before losing power about doing laundry
-At least Walmart had power so I could go and buy "necessities" for our out of town trip for the weekend... necessities=undies (I just wasn't going to visit the laundromat!)
-it gets hot even in May
-The hubs burns candles without checking to make sure they weren't special candles.. They were only our 25th anniversary candles we got from my Sister in Law for our wedding to burn on our 25th anniversary....
-Saying bye bye to all of our cold food in the fridge and freezer wasn't fun. It was really hard throwing out the food I had bought the day before. At least I don't have a membership to Sam's or Costco and don't buy in bulk!
-Sometimes you just have to send the kids to school in wrinkled clothes.
-I had procrastinated (see item 1 again) to hem my dress for Uncle Nick's wedding and sewing machines don't work without power!
6. If one takes her sewing machine to a hotel that has power because she procrastinated (see item 1) one should remember the POWER cord. Packed up the machine so I could hem the dress and forgot the power cord and foot pedal. I'm guessing it was because it was so dark in the house when I was packing things up.
7. Even if it's cloudy on the beach in May and you are pasty white you should still apply sunscreen. Really... just do it. I achieved my goal of having color for the wedding, but didn't really want the color to be red.
8. The SC/US government should really do more background checks on who they give government assistance to. We were behind a girl in Piggly Wiggly (yes, that's a grocery store) on Saturday in Charleston and she was buying formula and diapers for a child with WIC money. She may have been 20 and was clearly pregnant AGAIN! We walked out to the parking lot as she drove away in her Jaguar!~Really, do more extensive checks people. Some people need to get their priorities straight. What's more important, taking care of your children or driving around in style? REALLY!
9. Wedding Coordinators should always attend the rehearsal. I have NEVER witnessed a coordinator be so nasty! She didn't have a clue what was going on b/c she didn't attend the rehearsal the night before... she just said, "we don't do rehearsals"... maybe "We need to get a new job"
10. When you go to that big box "bridal" store.. you know the one I'm talking about. Starts with a D and is my brother's name. Anyway, never order the size bridesmaids' dress that fits. Most likely 500 girls bigger than you have tried it on and stretched it out before you. It was roomy in the store and then mine comes in and WON'T zip! I got it to zip when I got home, but it was uncomfortable. Let's just say I was ready to jump out of my skin after wearing this dress for 7 hours. It was only tight around my ribs, but rib crushing doesn't begin to describe what it felt like. Being claustrophobic doesn't help either.
11. Sometimes it's good to have no expectations, because you may get what you have "not expected."
It was a crazy week! Storms, no power, sunburns all around and my brother in law took the plunge into marriage. This week has got to be calmer... I hope! I will have some pictures of the wedding up soon.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Chicago Trip
Brandon grew up loving the Cubs and after we started dating he soon turned me into a Cubs fan. Although they are never very "good" we still love them. Our first trip to Wrigley was after graduating College in 2001. We drove with a friend of ours up there and stayed with another friend in the burbs. Our second trip was in September 2007 and we stayed in Downtown Chicago. Staying downtown is lots of fun and kinda scary at the same time. We decided that for our 8th anniversary we wanted to go back to Wrigley for a few nights. This time in April, but boy that wasn't the smartest thing we've done. We left Charlotte's 80 degree sunny days for Chicago's 40 degrees rainy days... We managed to have fun though and relax a little. We left on Tuesday really early in the morning from Charlotte. I do not like to fly, but since we were only going for two nights, that was our only option. I had a mini panic attack after boarding the plane, but after sitting on the plane delayed for 1 1/2 hours I got over it. Once we landed in Chicago, we had to hop on the train to get to our hotel. We stayed right off Michigan Ave. this time, so it was perfect for shopping before we got ready to do the game. We caught a night game on Tuesday. It was COLD.... I didn't pack enough clothes, so I bought a Cubs hoodie the first night and proceeded to wear it the rest of the trip, hence why all of my pictures look the same!
We sat in the bleachers for the first game.
We sat in the bleachers for the first game.
The outfielders chatting during a pitching change. The Cubs did lose this game, but we always had the day game on Wednesday...right????
We woke up to a cruddy day on Wednesday. Rain falling and the skies were grey! I could never live in Seattle...Anyway... We headed over to the ballpark to grab some lunch before trying to get some cheap tickets for this one.
Inside Wrigley.. hoping for some baseball to be played.
We got covered seat tickets for $10 a piece, but by game time they hadn't taken the tarp off of the field. It wasn't even raining at game time???? About 30 minutes later, it started to lightly rain and we continued to wait, and wait and wait.... still sprinkling rain.
And then the announcement was made! Postponed... Really, we flew 700 miles to watch a baseball game and it gets rained out...really!!!!! REALLY! They only waited an hour after start time to call the game. We decided since we had flown 700 miles we were going to sit our hiney's in Wrigley as long as we wanted!!! About 30 minutes after they called the game it quit raining and didn't rain anymore the entire day! I just think the grounds crew didn't want to prepare the field! Booo hooo...Game to be made up June 27th..
So here are our sad face pictures
But, we did take some pictures
and more pictures
We were able to go back to the guy we bought the tickets from and sell them back to him for $5 a piece. So we only lost 10 bucks.. glad we didn't get those tix ahead of time.After the no game we took a stroll around town in the cold....
They even have Qdoba's in Chicago
We found this Lamborghini... Someone had just given it a test drive.
We walked to the Navy Pier in the cold.
After our walk, we decided that we would go find some dinner. We had already tried out a lot of local food joints so we thought we would go to one "chain" type place. We pigged out at the Grand Lux Cafe. I knew I wanted dessert here, so I tried to talk B into splitting something, but we couldn't agree on anything. We both ended up getting pasta dishes and the apple pie with ice cream to split... What were we thinking?
We managed to eat all of the dessert. We couldn't finish our pasta though.. Come on, what's more important??
Thursday morning... here I am again in that same shirt. Only today it was so cold, I wish I would have brought my Winter coat. We got some bfast, and some things for the kids, before heading back to the airport.
Here's the hotel we stayed in. It was a cute little historic boutique hotel.
A big tall building.????
We ventured into the American Girl Store.. Lord help us if and when Aubree ever gets interested in these... REALLY... Lord help us!
Getting onto the train for the last time.
Waiting for the train to come zooming in.
There was always a "musician" performing wanting money.
And our last picture in pure Anderson picture taking form. This is how he would take all pictures if we let him.
We came home to a dead car battery in the long term lot with Brandon's sunroof mysteriously open... Who knows what happened. It wasn't opened when we left. Nothing was missing from the car but there was something left....rainwater from last night's storm. We got a airport employee to get the car started for us and we came home to the three sweetest children in the world. They welcomed up with open arms and were super excited to have mommy and daddy back! I think Mattie was pretty glad we were back too! We enjoyed our little getaway even if it was COLD, and the game was postponed.... I guess it was appropriate for rain water to be in the car when we got back...Sunday, April 24, 2011
Happy Easter
Happy Easter! He is Risen!
Didn't the Lord give us the most beautiful day to celebrate? We did Easter Baskets first thing, but none of the pics turned out really good. After church we took some pictures outside, well most of us did. Aubree fell asleep on the way home from church, so she made an appearance later. She hasn't napped all week so she was beat!
Mommy's Sweet Boys
Yes, I managed to make it into a picture... 
or two!
Here's the one Anderson took of us... a little far away and fuzzy... he tried.
More on the porch.. They were starting to get annoyed with me.
Here's where Aubree was. Notice she has a rock lodged in her ear as well. Her pretty rock as she calls it that she got from Uncle Michael and Aunt Brandy when we went to Atlanta. She thought that would be a good place to keep it while she slept, I guess. It came out pretty easily though.
Once Aubree woke up(well kinda), I got a few of the three of them.
After church I cooked a big meal for us and the Holby's and we hung out all afternoon hiding eggs, and playing in the backyard. The big kids (parents) even had a football throwing contest and Jenn and I managed to soak up some rays.. Made us wish one of us had a pool in the works. It was a wonderful day! Hope you had a good one too.This week Brandon and I are off to celebrate our 8th anniversary a few weeks late with a trip to Chicago to see the Cubs. Forecast is rain all three days we are there, so we'll pack the ponchos and keep our fingers crossed for no rain during game time! Go Cubbies!
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