Living Life

Best friends climbing trees

We are rockin it over here.  We have been super busy, from soccer practice, soccer games, birthday parties, homework and just every day life.  The days are quickly passing us by and the warm weather is turning cold much to quickly, pretty soon pumpkins and Halloween Costumes will be upon us.  It's crazy how time really does fly.

Austin is doing awesome at Kindergarten.  I'm so impressed with him.  He's getting green cards at school, which is awesome.  It's a behavior card, green means great day, yellow means good day and red means bad day.  We want Austin to get the green cards!  And so far, that's all he has gotten.  After 30 green cards, he gets to pick a prize out of the prize bin at school.   He gets 5 sheets of homework on Fridays, and this week he had them all done on Sunday, he has a week to complete it all.  Someone mentioned when they don't have homework, to have them read for 20 minutes.    I'm going to incorporate some of that as well as working on our speech words.  He has 2 sheets of speech words to work on too.  I'm not ready for this homework, it's definitely a new concept for us, but we are doing our best.

Austin doesn't really like to talk about his day.  Although in the past couple of days that's gotten much better.   I read a blog post about questions to ask, so I have to remember that.  Kevin, tickles Austin until he tells him a few things about his day.  Oh and at bed time after things have calmed down, he likes to talk about his day a bit more.  Hoping that gets a little better.

The transition between picking him up at school and coming home has been awful.  I've been really stressed out about it.  He's tired and probably hungry.  Going to start bringing a snack in the car to see if that will help his mood by the time we get home.  It's been rough, that and this whiny stage we are in.

John David is doing very well in pre-kindergarten!  I've been getting great remarks on him!  I knew, I would, he is such a good kid, and wants to please you.  They were a little concerned that he still wore a pull up for nap/bed.  He doesn't nap at home, so I haven't tried to stop the pull up during naps.  So all of a sudden, he just asked to sleep in underwear during nap, so they let him and he's doing FANTASTIC!!!! Woot woot.  He has also asked for underwear at bed time.  And that's a work in progress.  As long as I wake him between 12:30-2:00, it seems to work fine, he pees, goes right back to sleep and wakes up dry.  When I didn't get him at that time, he was wet.  I don't know if what I'm doing is right.  I know I'm exhausted waking up and having both boys go potty and then back to sleep.  It's a good 20-30 minutes of interruption.  5-10 minutes getting them up and back to bed and then another 10-20 falling back asleep <---- I wrote that about a week ago, update, I no longer wake him!  Sometimes, he wakes me up when he wakes up to go and other times, he makes it dry all night.  Here and there he is wet, but I say JD is done with DIAPERS!  Woot woot!!!

JD doing yoga, kids got style too

John David has been a comedian lately, his facial expressions and the way he makes these faces has us cracking up.  And his remarks, one day, Kevin, John David and I were laying in bed, and Austin started walking towards us and John David says, "he comes trouble maker"  just how he said it out of the blue was hysterical. He is definitely a character and we love him.

Austin self portrait

Austin has this new thing, making books.  We get some white paper and fold and staple.  He has been having a blast making these books.  I love how he draws him and John David.  Really shows how much he loves him.  Austin is quite the artist!  He loves making people, self portraits and coloring pictures.

looking good in uniform

I'm not sure if Austin likes soccer.  I'm not sure if it's just too much with school and being tired.  The first game wasn't good.  He got tired quickly and wanted to be done. The second game was better and by the 3rd game, he almost scored!  They take turns in the different positions.  Last week, he was goalie and I have to tell you that is the most nerve wrecking position.  I was timer that day and was constantly looking at how much time was left.  Luckily his team kept the ball on the other side.  I was just so glad when I got to call time.  We still have plenty of games so hopefully it continues to get better each time.


The Artinghelli clan participated in the 2014 lung run.  I ran a 5K and Kevin and the boys walked a mile.  The best part about that run was running in to the finish line, seeing all three of my guys cheering for me.  It made the run.  Kevin and the boys saw a butterfly while doing the walk, and for those of you who don't know the significance of a butterfly, I will tell you.  When someone in your life passes, there is a sign that they leave you, at least for us there has been.  For my mom it's the numbers 333 and for my Father In law, it's a butterfly.  So whenever we see those numbers or a butterfly, we know that our loved ones are with us.  It's nice to take a moment and think about our loved ones who we miss oh so much.  So, since we were doing the lung run in honor of my Father In Law, it was significant to "see" him or the butterfly.  We feel that it was his way of showing us that he's okay and moreso that he's with us.

Can't believe fall is on us.  We have already seen pumpkin decorations and the boys are talking about Halloween!