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.

Friday, June 24, 2011

I love this Girly Girl!

I love this little girl! She's so much fun! I always wanted a little girl who loves clothes, dressing up and princesses! I took some pictures of her this morning in a new outfit that I made for her and she hammed it up for the camera. I just had to share them.





Trying to twirl















































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!!!!!!!!

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.