Melt Down Week- Part 1

Our first day of Kindergarten went pretty good except for some tears but our week went downhill from there. The second day of school Caleb was a nervous wreck! He was sobbing walking in and I had to peel him off my leg to leave. Abby hasn't had a nap in a couple days and was a whiny mess, not to mention she has no idea what to do now that her brothers aren't around to play with her all day.
When the boys got home from school they were sad because they didn't have a drink for lunch. They had taken their lunch and couldn't figure out how to get a milk so they didn't have a drink. Probably not a big deal but still its their first week of school and they have money on their cards. Couldn't someone help them!?
I have been trying to figure out daycare for Abby for 1-2 days a week with the days changing and I won't know the days until the Thursday before and did I mention we would prefer not to have to pay for days that I get put on call and we don't want to guarantee hours. Yep, surprisingly no takers, and I start my new job the 2d week of Sept. so its crunch time. I also need to figure out my schedule with the neighbor who is going to pick up the kids the days that I work.
So the week was pretty stressful trying to figure out our new schedule of going to bed early and getting up early. Did I mention I really don't like getting out of bed before 8am so 6:45 is coming pretty early. My lack of sleep may have contributed to my all out melt down, I'm not sure.
Our second week of school on Monday, the stress started again.  I sent cold lunch with the boys again and they weren't able to get milk again. (How hard can this really be!) But the worst part was that Caleb got pulled from his table to sit at the Nut Free table. We had talked to the teacher about his allergies and stressed that his reaction was not a life threatening one and we wanted him to be able to sit with Bryce. We had also informed the health office of this. Well the teacher doesn't go to lunch with them and communication was obviously not good among the other staff. Poor Caleb was a mess when I picked him up. He was crying and saying lunch went really bad. If you know Caleb at all you know how important food is to him, so when I unpacked his lunch and he hadn't eaten anything, I was furious. Yep, I was one of THOSE parents. The principal got a call and although I was very polite he got a piece of my mind about them not getting milks and having to sit at separate tables.
Tuesday, I was there for lunch. I picked up food to bring because I just wanted to see Caleb happy again. It was fun seeing them at recess and Abby loved feeling like a big girl. We headed into the cafeteria and someone was waiting for Bryce and Caleb specifically, at the door to show them how to get milk and then they were escorted inside and sat at the same table. The vice principal came up and apologized for splitting them up and said that everyone in the cafeteria has been informed to keep Bryce and Caleb together. I guess my phone call got my point across but still some kids don't have anyone to advocate for them and its too bad that it came to that.
So for now I think we have got lunch figured out. Whew, I never thought lunch would be something that was so hard to figure out.
I think I need 2 posts to write about melt down week. So to be continued......

After the First Day of School

Poor guy was exhausted.

First Day of Kindergarten

Bryce on his first day of Kindergarten

I can't believe that my little boys are starting school this year! I am so glad that we made the decision to hold them back one year. Bryce seems more than ready and Caleb well I think this will be hard for him but I'm glad he got an extra year to mature a bit. I wasn't the mom that we crying about them going to school, I was excited for them but it was hard to leave them that first morning.

Bryce was very ready to go to school. He was up and ready before he had to be.

Caleb on his first day of Kindergarten

Caleb on the other hand was very nervous and scared for the first day of school.

Our Boys are all grown up

Getting a hug before we send them to school.

My boys

Walking up to school

Poor guy was crying and very nervous

 We had to drop them off in the gym and they line up by classes. It was pretty overwhelming the first couple days with so many kids in one space. We waited until his teacher Mrs Martin came to get them and then left. Poor guy! It was really hard to leave him while he was sobbing. They looked so small in the sea of kids.

The boys with their friend Ethan from preschool

Even Bryce looks a little nervous as they walk out.
 

They had a pretty good first day. They liked their teacher Mrs Martin and they have a guy student teacher, Mr Hubbert. They thought he was pretty cool. Caleb said he cried a couple times during the day but it went okay. They liked lunch and recess the best. They were really tired when they got home. Caleb fell asleep on the couch for 2 hours and Bryce should have napped. Instead he was just a crabby mess.

Last Weekend Before School

 This was our last weekend before school started. While other people were working on getting in the routine of going to bed early and getting up early we decided to live it up in Norfolk. Not so sure if this was a good idea or not but we had a couple things we really wanted to do in Norfolk before school started.
The kids and I went up on a Thursday, and went to Plainview to celebrate Grandpa Steve's 29th (haha) birthday with him. We had bought him concert tickets to see one of his favorite bands and Steph and Draven made signs for the kids to hold up telling him what we got him. It turned out really cute! It was really nice to see my Grandma Mona who I haven't seen since last summer. It was hard seeing her for the first time without my Grandpa Larry though.

 Grandma Cindy showed the kids how to pick apples and throw them to the cows. The kids all thought this was great. The boys were all picking apples with the apple picker and filling up buckets to feed to the cows. While they went to all the trouble of picking, Abby would take their buckets and feed all the apples to the cows.

 The next morning we went to the new water park in Norfolk. It was impressive for small town Norfolk. Out of all the HOT HOT days we have had, we managed to pick the one cooler day to go. My mom, sister, and Andy came with us. The boys were thrilled to find out that they were tall enough to go on the big slides. (This may have been from a little help Andy's friends working there). I was a little unsure if they would actually go down but they had a blast. I took Caleb down the first time and my mom took Bryce and after that they went down again and again by themselves and with uncle Andy.

 The boys are getting pretty comfortable swimming without life jackets and spent most of the day without them. They did the slides and went off the diving board again and again.

 This was about the only slide that Abby was big enough for. Luckily she Loved it. She went down the fish slide over and over again with Grandma.

 After a fun day at the water park with their cousin Draven and Grandma the kids were all tired so we sent them home with grandma for the night. My mom had been wanting the kids to stay and it hadn't worked out yet so I figured this was the last chance before school started.

On Saturday, I got to watch Brook at her riding lesson. She did wonderful! I was SO impressed. I always wanted to take riding lessons as a kid so it was fun seeing her get to do this. After her riding lesson, her and I had our school shopping date. The last couple years I have went school shopping with her and it is a fun tradition. We shopped all afternoon and got some really cute clothes. Thanks Brook and Ginger for a fun day.

Weekend Getaway

The end of July, Robb's mom and and I took a much awaited trip to Minneapolis to go shopping. I have been wanting to go to Ikea for a LONG time now and I haven't been to the Mall of America since our family vacation when I was 15. I was so excited to get to do this. It was very nice of Robb to say OK and watch the kids for 4 days without me around. We left on a Thursday and got there and checked into our hotel that evening. The next morning we got an early start at Ikea. We got there so early that the only part open was the cafeteria for breakfast. We ate there and my brother Mitch, who lives in Minneapolis, met us there. I was in awe of the Ikea shopping experience. It was all I expected and more! Mitch, humored us and shopped with us for about 3 hours. By the time he left we were probably only a 1/3 of the way through the store. After awhile we stopped to get a drink and evaluate what we had put in our cart so far. Little did we realize we had shopped for 5 1/2 hours without stopping. I got a lot of organizing stuff that I am hoping with help keep my house slightly less disastrous.  Wishful thinking, I know. We finished in Ikea by 6 or so and decided we needed to think about the rest of our purchases and headed to the mall.
The mall was just as huge as I remembered it to be and at no point in our trip did I ever know where I was when we were inside that mall. I always got so turned around. We did a little shopping that evening and closed the mall down. I got to see what the American Doll store was all about. Abby would have LOVED it, I thought it was slightly creepy though.
We did have a couple interesting things happen while we were on our trip. We were in our last store of the night and heard the cashier talking about a situation in the parking garage. When we asked her about it she said that the ramp in the West garage had collapsed. Crap! Of course we were in the West garage. We were pretty nervous so we headed back to the car and luckily it wasn't a ramp that had collapsed but instead a support had fallen when someone tried to drive a UHAUL truck into the parking garage. Unfortunately the man in the truck ended up passing away.
The next morning we went to the upscale shopping center that was close by. It was fun to look around at Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, Crate and Barrel etc. too bad I couldn't afford any of it.
We did make a quick pit stop at Ikea just to pick up a couple things that we forgot and then shopped the Mall of America the rest of the day. It was hilarious when we were done. It was just Susie and I and not much luggage but we had managed to pack the Yukon completely full with all of our purchases. Successful shopping trip! That night we had a little excitement at the hotel we stayed at. We were both in bed and the hallway was really loud so I peeked my head out to see what was going on. The hallway was full of people and some lady said that someone got shot at the wedding reception downstairs. Crazy! I guess Minneapolis is a bit to BIG city for us. Thanks for a wonderful trip Susie.

Garage Sale

The weekend after we got back from our Yankton vacation I was part of a GIANT garage sale. I felt stressed and rushed all week while I frantically tried to tag, sort and pack up all of our unwanted stuff for the garage sale. 4 of us girls put it on together, which made it so much more enjoyable. We realized, after setting up on Thursday night until almost midnight that we may have a small problem with buying stuff for our children. Between the 4 of us we had children's clothing that ranged in size from newborn to 10-12 in girls and newborn to 5/6 in boys. Those racks took up the entire 2 car garage at the Keim's house. We also had a 6 foot table completely covered with children's shoes. It was amazing how much stuff we had. We opened at 7:30 on Friday morning and stayed pretty busy the entire day. Friday was a bit of a challenge because we had 7 children to watch between us as well as run a busy garage sale. Not to mention it was a 100+ degrees out all day. After Friday we were all a bit DONE! Luckily Saturday, after a bit more sleep and cooler temperatures (90's) and 6 less children we had an easier day. We sold a lot of stuff and made quite a bit of money so I guess it was all worth it in the end. I think all of us agreed that we would maybe be up for doing it again in 4-5 years. :) I can't think of a more fun group of girls to do this with, because although it was a bit trying at times we all did our part and still had fun. Thanks Ashley, Tasha, and Hayley for an interesting garage sale weekend. I can't believe we pulled it off.

Yankton Vacation

 We went to Yankton the second week in July for the annual Lutz, Lund, Gaines trip. This year they had built a new Lodge so we rented that instead of getting 3 different cabins. Little did we know, the new Lodge was a HUGE step up from the cabins, which were pretty nice. It was beautiful inside and very spacious. Even with 3 families and extended families staying there, everyone had enough room. I think we decided this year though that we officially had to stop calling it camping when we had 3 refrigerators, air conditioning, 6 rooms and 2 big screen TVs.
The boys loved swimming in the pool at the resort. It is amazing how good at swimming our little fish are getting. As long as someone was in the pool that was willing to keep a close eye on them they could go without life jackets. They even started to retrieve dive sticks that we would toss in.

 Steph and Draven came up one day and spent some time with us. They kids had fun seeing their cousins Draven, AJ and Brook.

 Grandma Susie was our hair stylist for the week. Since we were in and out of the water so much, Abby and I opted for matching braids.

 Poor Robb didn't have a boat to take again this year. Hopefully by next year we will have a boat to bring. Lucky for us John and Megan are really nice about sharing their boat. We spent many hours on the boat watching Robb, John and Andy wake board. Caleb was even brave enough to try his wake board this year. He stood up for about half a second but was still really excited about it. Robb was really proud that he tried. Bryce decided that it wasn't for him yet, which was fine but he was quitd the jumper off of the boat. I even slalom skied so that the boys would think that their mom was a little bit cool. I wasn't so sure I was going to remember how since I hadn't done it since before Abby was born, but I did. I was sore afterward and it wasn't very pretty but non the less I proved to myself that I could still do it and I think I moved up the "cool ladder" in the eyes of Bryce and Caleb.

 The boating boys. They really could have stayed out on the boat all day everyday. Unfortunately on the 2d to last day the boat had some trouble and we were a bit worried for awhile that we were going to be stuck out there all day or have to swim the boat in, which was not very possible on such a large lake. Luckily some nice family towed us in to the marina so we could get some much needed food, water and just get out of the heat for a bit.

 Caleb is riding on the wake board with Robb. He thought that was the coolest!

 Bryce doing some crazy jump off the boat.

 Abby and John

 We went Go Karte riding one night. The kids had a blast! Abby was excited to go and didn't even cry this year.

 Then we hit up the bumper boats. I am pretty sure that Caleb and Bryce tried to steer into the waterfall each time. Jen, Caleb's poor riding partner walked out of there soaked.

 We had a wonderful vacation week! Everyone was exhausted at the end up we had fun!