Week In Review: March 1 - March 7 2009

Here is this weeks Week In Review for March 1 - March 7, 2009

Sunday: I was very lazy today. I washed dishes and cleaned up the kitchen a little, but nothing else. Didn't even do my laundry. Probably because I knew there was going to be a snow day on Monday. We did tell our landlord that we are moving. He had a puzzled look on his face when we told him. Kind of like he was trying to figure out if we can up and go. We never signed the lease he gave us in January though so all we have to do is give him 30 days notice which we did.

Monday: As predicted we had a snow day. Woke up to probably half a foot of snow and it was still snowing. I did not feel well so I spent the morning on the couch. Joe had called out of work due to the weather. By afternoon I was feeling better so I started my laundry. Got that done. I had to reschedule stuff because of the weather today. I was supposed to have a WIC appointment today, but I wasn't going out in the heavy snow. So that's rescheduled for next week. And because there was no school the meeting I had planned with my PTA officers needed to be rescheduled. So we are doing that tomorrow instead. I am hoping that we can also reschedule the PTA meeting we were supposed to have tonight as I really would like to announce my leaving and hopefully get someone to step up and help the rest of my officers.

Tuesday: Woke up this morning to what sounded like a little mouse on the computer. Sure enough, Natalie was on the computer. Without permission and without supervision. She was checking for delays. We were about the only school in the entire state without a delay. Got the girls to school on time. The roads still had some snow on them, but all in all it wasn't bad. Natalie starts CMT's (Connecticut Mastery Testing) today. She's nervous about the math, but I don't know why. I keep telling her she'll do great. I came home and fed CJ. Then I prepared to meet with my PTA officers. After much whining and fussing from CJ because he has become way more interested in everything he shouldn't be touching instead of what he can be touching I put him down for a nap. I watched the rest of my Cha Cha Search University videos. I met with my officers and they took the news of our moving as well as could be expected. I went over the rest of the year with them to try and see if there was anything I could do to make it a little easier. Then I went to the PTA mailbox to pick up the fundraisers and spoke to the principal about moving our PTA meeting to Thursday and booking the juggling act for the end of March. He was receptive to both. I came home and had something to eat and then went back out to pick up the girls from school and then to the grocery store. I spoke to the girl's teachers about our move. Natalie's teacher said she's not allowed to go and she can stay with him until June. He won't talk to me about it. He was joking of course and is going to work with me to make it a smooth transition. Kaitlyn's teacher is meeting with me on Thursday to discuss her progress and how she'll do in her new school. After grocery shopping I came home and started working on the fundraisers. Got through them and found minimal mistakes which is always nice.

Wednesday: Playgroup day with a twist. Today was RIF (Reading Is Fundamental). This is a wonderful program that is done every few months where there is a special theme and all the children go home with a brand new free book. This time the theme was Hawaii. CJ wasn't too sure about things at first, but he did warm up and begin playing. Even did a little dancing. He picked out a book called All Change Animals. Okay, truth be told I steered him in that direction. He already has a similar book to it about trucks so I thought it would be nice to add to the collection. I am really going to miss RIF when we move. Once that was over I went up to the office to get some teacher names of students and phone numbers for the fundraisers that were lacking that. And there were a whole bunch more orders waiting in my mailbox for me. So I scooped those up and came home. I put CJ down for a nap and promptly began working on the fundraisers. After picking the girls up from school today I got them going with homework and then cleaned up a little before Joe came home from work. I gave the kids an early dinner of bagel bites. Then I started cooking mine and Joe's special anniversary dinner of chicken alfredo. The children went to bed early so Joe and I could celebrate our anniversary. We had a nice dinner and a boring movie that we both fell asleep watching. It was a nice evening overall though.

Thursday: After bringing the kids to school we had to go to the bank to get a letter stating that we had closed a bank account for our DSS meeting. Then it was off to the DSS where we still didn't have all the information they need. Very frustrating. We were there for an hour, but didn't get accomplished what we wanted to accomplish. So we left there and went to lunch. After lunch we came home and got Joe's car to bring to the car wash. We are trying to sell it. We got it washed, came home, took pictures of it, and posted it on Craig's List. Then we went to pick the girls up from school. I talked to Kaitlyn's teacher about how she thinks she'll do at her new school in TN. There were a few things that she isn't going to know, but her teacher really thinks she'll be just fine. After that we returned our movie and then came home. I prepared for my PTA meeting. I went to my meeting which went well. No parents were there though which was too bad, but I feel like things will fall into place. I came home to a huge mess and a very agitated husband. Since he had told Kaitlyn she could do her homework after dinner I told him then he has to sign it and check it over when she's done. Assuming he had done that I told Kaitlyn to put her homework away and get ready for bed. Kids all went to bed and I finally had something to eat. I worked some more on fundraisers and then went to bed myself.

Friday: Got up and got the kids ready for school. I had to feed CJ early because I wasn't coming right home after school. So I fed him and started dressing him when I found out Joe did not do the one thing I had asked him to do the night before. He did not go over Kaitlyn's homework and sign it. So I had to do that and she had mistakes. So after getting her to correct that I finished dressing CJ and we ran out of the house later than I had planned on. The girls made it on time though. My PTA vice president and I went shopping for the prizes for Bingo night next Friday night. I think we did pretty good. We brought the prizes back to school and put them in the closet. We had to clean out the closet a little to fit the prizes in. After doing that we came home and I put CJ down for a nap. Then I cleaned up the living room and got ready for CJ's therapist to come over. She came and raved about how well CJ is doing. We scheduled our final meeting with her for March 26th. Hard to believe he won't need Birth to Three anymore. He's all caught up. I picked the girls up from school and did some more fundraiser stuff. After dinner I brought what I have finished of the fundraiser to the Avon lady for her to start working her magic on it. Then I stopped at Walmart for diapers and came home.

Saturday: CJ was up early again. What's with him and getting up early on Saturdays? Even earlier than he gets up the rest of the week. Oh well, tomorrow he'll sleep late since we have the time change. Once everyone was up and Joe was off to work I tackled the girls closets and their room. Well, I left their room to them and I worked on the bags and bags of clothes in their closets. Can you believe I still have size four stuff from Kaitlyn? What am I hanging onto that for? So I organized all of that and now have a total of four bags of clothes saved for the girls. The size 4-6x stuff that no longer fits Kaitlyn is going to my good friend who's daughter just turned 4 back in December. Then I freecycled a bunch of CJ's stuff and some of the girls stuff and even some of my stuff. That should make moving easier. Joe had someone come by tonight to look at his car. He sold it. So assuming all goes as planned by mid next week we will be a one car family again. Just another step closer to our big move.

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Week In Review: February 22 - February 28

Here is this weeks Week In Review for February 22 through February 28, 2009.

Sunday: Everyone slept in except me. So I had almost two hours of peace and quiet. We still had to unpack the car, but because of the sleet Joe didn't want to go out there. I got tired of waiting and wanted my slippers though so I finally went out there to get the stuff and Joe followed. We brought everything up and I began unpacking and sorting all of the laundry. Got a load going and discovered I was going to need more fabric softener. So we went to Walmart to pick that up. Then we went to Walgreens to get some prints of our vacation pictures for the girls to show at school. Then back home for dinner and so I could continue working on that laundry. The kids showered and went to bed and Joe and I watched some of our DVR recordings for the week. I also chose the winner for my 200th post giveaway so if you haven't seen that yet and are wondering if it's you click here.

Monday: First day back to school. The girls were not into it this morning. I think they had a good day though. They shared about our trip last week. I cleaned up and finally finished all of the vacation laundry. CJ's therapist came over. She was very impressed with seeing him walk. She was choked up about the news of us moving to TN. She's happy for us, but I think is going to miss us. After I picked the girls up from school I made copies of the reminder sheet to get those Avon fundraisers in. Got everything in the mailboxes and hopefully they will be sent home this week.

Tuesday: Girls were up late this morning. So I had to get after them. They made it to school on time though. I counted Box Tops. Then I wrote up a little reminder to send in those Box Tops by Friday. We already have 1500 Box Tops for the month of February! I put CJ down for a nap and then took a nice leisurely shower. All day I felt like I was forgetting something. I guess not though. It was one of those rare days I actually didn't have something on my calendar. I picked the girls up from school and I had a great note from Kaitlyn's reading teacher. She read a Level 7 book today with 100% accuracy! She was so proud of herself. I'm proud of her too. They did homework, I made dinner, they got ready for bed, and I got to relax the rest of the night.

Wednesday: Playgroup day. We got a late start again though. I hope we get back into the swing of things soon. CJ took a few steps at playgroup. I started telling people about our upcoming move. So far everyone has been very supportive. I just hope they really mean what they say. It's been a hard choice to flake out on these commitments that I've made. I picked the girls up from school. As I was pulling out of the parking spot someone came and double parked. Grrr, I hate when they do that. I got the kids home and doing their homework.

Thursday: Today I met with the principal of the school to ask him about the testing of Kaitlyn. The speech therapist has tested Kaitlyn. She did find some phonemic awareness trouble with her, but nothing that would require her to see her on a regular basis. It doesn't seem that the testing of her memory has been done yet. I also informed him of us moving in a month. He's happy for us and thinks the girls will do great in TN. He's going to miss us and all we do for the school, but he understands. I also discussed some PTA stuff with him. Then I came home and practiced making some balloon animals. I picked the girls up from school. After they did their homework I started getting ready to Clown Around. The girls and I (as Sparkles) went to a carnival at the school for the after school program. Afterwords I went to get some Subway for dinner for me and Joe. It's always interesting to see people's reactions when you walk into a business dressed as a clown.

Friday: We took the hour long drive to Cranial Tech for the very last time today. CJ graduated from his Doc Band! We are so excited to no longer need to make that trip. After picking the girls up from school I counted Box Tops. I have to get them mailed out. Natalie's class won this months competition! She's so excited. Kaitlyn brought home her spelling test. I posted it on my blog because there's something very interesting about it. See if you can find it. Kaitlyn was complaining of a tummy ache again. We thought maybe she was just hungry and we wanted to go out to celebrate CJ's "graduation". So we chanced it. First we had to stop at Staples to fax something for Joe's brother. Darn thing cost $3 to fax, but at least it stopped the harassment. We never hear from his brother, but when he needs something he's calling five times a day, no joke. He even resorted to calling MY cell phone. Then we went to Friendly's where we got terrible service. It took over half an hour to get our food. Kaitlyn did end up getting sick while we were there too. So we took our ice cream to go once we tracked down our waitress. I had some issues with the bill of course too. I was going to go to Walmart, but Kaitlyn was miserable so we came home. Just going to have to get that box for the Box Tops Saturday instead. I hope Kaitlyn isn't coming down with something.

Saturday: CJ was up way too early. Not sure what was up with that. So it was an early start to the day. I went to Walmart before the girls even got up and got my box for Box Tops. Then I stopped at Dunkin Donuts for some munchkins. Brought those home and the girls ate them. CJ went down for a nap and Joe and I tried to do the same, but the girls wouldn't allow it and CJ only slept for an hour. So we gave him lunch and then went out to mail my Box Tops and the prize to my 200th post winner. I sent in over 3000 box tops. Another $300 plus for our school which makes over $1300 earned for the year! We stocked up on CJ's pediasure while at the store. Also picked up a few other things and then went to Walmart to find Kaitlyn a jewelery box because hers broke. We had to go to a few different stores for that. We ended up eating out at Applebees because things took longer than expected. We had a nice dinner there. CJ keeps playing with his head. We think looking for his helmet that he doesn't have to wear anymore. That's the highlights of our week though.

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Fundraising Plug

Okay, in this economy I have to do this. Shameless plugging on my blog of my children's school fundraiser. Get over it! It's my blog and I'll do what I want. I am desperate to make sure that we make our usual $1500 this year for our Spring Fundraiser like I've managed to do the past two years. I don't have a whole lot of confidence that this is going to be accomplished through just the school alone so I'm throwing this out there. Please Please Please support O'Connell School Fundraising. Yes, even if you don't live anywhere near me or have never met me before for that matter you can still buy from my fundraiser. Here's what you have to do:

AVON SPRING FUNDRAISER

Sale runs from Wednesday, February 11th – Monday, March 2nd.

AVON HAS A 100% CUSTOMER SATISFACTION GUARANTEE!



Have out of state family members who would like to help support this fundraiser????

They can do that by placing their fundraiser order online and having it shipped directly to their door. All they have to do is visit the following website (no other website will qualify for this fundraiser):

O'Connell School Avon Fundraiser

and click on the SHOP tab at the top of the page. Then they register for a FREE account and start shopping. They can pay by credit card at the time of their order and 15% of their order will be donated to O’Connell Elementary school. Shipping charges will be applied however, and will range between $3 and $5.95 for standard shipping. If there are any FREE SHIPPING Promotions going on during the fundraiser through AVON, I will provide the CODE to enter on my website under the heading :

ATTENTION O’CONNELL SCHOOL FUNDRAISER CUSTOMERS!!!

ALL online orders will only receive the 15% earnings.

Phyllis Parmelee
Avon Independent Sales Representative
Fundraising Specialist

So that's it! Shop online at the website listed above between now and March 2nd and help my children's school raise money! I will so greatly appreciate it. If you do live in the state of CT please e-mail me to find out how to order directly through me. I will meet with you when the fundraiser comes in April to deliver your items. Thank you for all your help.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programing...

Don't forget about my giveaway.