When I Grow Up...

 

I missed linking up yesterday with Momfessionals for her bi-weekly Show and Tell Tuesday but thought I'd still answer the question. 

"Tell us about what you wanted to be 'When I Grow Up'"

As a kid I was all over the place with my to-be profession.  At the same time I wanted to be a teacher, a painter and work at Sypherts (a clothing company) like my mom (who did bookkeeping for them).

My mom stayed home with me and my sister until I was in Kindergarten.  One afternoon when I was 4 I was supposed to be taking a nap in my room.  Instead I had lined up all of mine and my sister's stuffed animals and was 'teaching' them.  I found a penny in my room, popped it in my mouth and started chewing it on like it was gum.  I specifically remember telling the 'students' that it was gum - I felt so cool!  All until I swallowed that darn penny and went into panic mode!! Ha ha!  After awhile I finally told my mom what I had done. She told me it would come out in my poop.  I watched for that penny for weeks after that!  :-)  Sorry, silly but gross story.

Anyway, that was my first attempt at teaching.  I have never had the patience for teaching, and honestly, don't really love being around other's kids too much, which means teaching was never for me.  But if I did have the patience and love for it I would have taught 3rd grade - I wanted to teach cursive and multiplication so bad!!!  I loved the paperwork, organization and fun office supplies that went along with teaching (in my head), probably the main reason I wanted to be a teacher.

As for the painter, I have no idea.  I guess I felt artistic for awhile.  Ha! 

The Sypherts gig, that might have actually been the closest thing to what I should have done than all the others.  I still consider going back to school for accounting.  If I could have gotten my 17 year old self to stop and think I would have realized that going to a University and majoring in Accounting was the right path for me, not Cosmetology.  Don't get me wrong, I loved doing hair, but I really REALLY loved Accounting in high school and still love bookkeeping and balancing the check book and filing and keeping things organized and in order. 

For years, every time I'd go to Fareway (a grocery store chain here in Iowa) with my mom I wanted to be a cashier there.  They had the coolest cash registers where you flipped these plastic sheets that were attached to the register to get to the right one for bananas, or oranges, or whatever other fruit or veggie you had to weigh to get the weight for the price.  It looked so fun!!!  I still want to do that but guess what, a few years ago they updated and got rid of those. And just this year they updated again and have even newer, more sophisticated registers that are no where NEAR as fun looking to run.  Womp womp, they crushed my dream.  :-(

In the end, I went to Cosmetology school and ran my own business at the age of 19.  I rented a chair in 2 different salons and really loved being in the salon.  I didn't love the stress of worrying about gaining and building my clientele.  I didn't love the stress of not making enough money to help support me and my new husband.  I didn't love the stress of always feeling like I wasn't that good at what I was doing and wondering how long till someone called me on it.  That part sucked.  I really wanted to be good at it but I was too young to know how to get there on my own.  If I could do it over again I would work in a professional salon first where they offer lots of education and where I could get tons and tons of experience because right away you walk into a salon with a full clientele and you don't have to build one on your own.  Hindsight, it kind of sucks.  I just want to know what I'm going to eventually learn right away, instead of having to go through the process of going through the crud and anguish.  But life doesn't work that way, right? 

Tell me, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Here are the upcoming 'Show and Tell Tuesdays' if you want to join in on the fun!

Life Lately

I love 'Life Lately' posts, you can talk about all kinds of random things all in the same post!  Let's get started!

It is baseball season at our house (and millions across the nation!)!!  This year Aiden is in the minors 10U league, which means we are travelling!  And there are different rules, the kids do the pitching and the catching, and it's really fun and exciting to watch!  I have never been a baseball fan until my boys started playing Pee Wee ball.  I love watching their games and have even turned on a ball game on TV recently, which has never happened before!

Aiden has 2 games per week for 6 weeks, then a week of tournaments.  Currently their record is 3-1.  Not bad!  They got their first loss last week in the middle of it raining.  They were doing so great until that rain started, then I think they got a little frazzled and things went south after that.  But Aiden took it in stride! He was just so excited that he scored 3 runs and got to slide into home (and did it well without hurting his foot this time!).  Love that boy for having such a positive attitude and great sportsmanship!

Tate had himself a gay ol' time playing in a rain puddle the other night.  Honestly, if this had been one of the older boys a few years ago I would have freaked out and never let them do it.  But I have relaxed quite a bit and Tate gets away with quite a bit more now. #luckyboy!

Oh my goodness, this boy was soaked!  All the way down through his diaper! But look at that smile!  He had so much fun!

This past weekend we got the window wells filled back in and my brother in law used the tiller on his tractor to fluff up the dirt in the yard so it would settle and then we could seed it this fall.  Going to be a long summer of looking at that dirt but I'm so happy it's closer to being back to normal!  One step closer to having the basement finished!

This spring I planted some baby cucumbers in my garden and some ornamental gourds for the fall. The baby cucumbers will be turned into baby pickles, which I cannot wait to have!  So they would be easier to harvest I went to the farm store yesterday and bought 2 wire hog panels and 4 posts and built arches for the cuc's and gourds to grow on.  I've seen lots of other gardeners do this so am confident it will work great for me, too!

While I was out taking the last 2 pictures I found this little lady.  Isn't she pretty? 

Happy Tuesday!

Oh Baby, AGAIN!

Yes, you read that right!  We are expecting another baby!!!  Baby McG is due November 21st, we'll have a little turkey in time for Thanksgiving this year!

Today I am 15w2d.  I feel EXACTLY like I did with all the other pregnancies, which means it's another boy, ha ha!  And that I'm a very lucky lady, because, save a few things here and there, I have very easy pregnancies. 

Baby really popped out over the last few days!  I love having that little bump to rub and talk to.  I am still wearing non-maternity clothes but there are days I think I should pull out the maternity stuff since really, I SWEAR!, this will be the last time I am ever pregnant!  (How many times did I say that while pregnant with Tate? Ha ha!  But really, THIS IS THE LAST TIME!!!)  I am pregnant during a whole different set of season's than with the boys, which means I'll need to be finding some new clothes this time around.  Of course some things from before will work but there is quite a bit that won't.  I do have a sweet friend who is loaning me some of her stuff, so that will be nice.

So, where do things stand so far?  I have had the first part of my integrated screening done, which is a blood draw and Ultrasound.  The US looked great, the neuchal fold was nice and thin like it's supposed to be.  If it's over 3 some thing's (what ever they use to measure that, mm sounds too big but can't remember off the top of my head) that can signal a chromosomal defect, like Down's Syndrome.  Mine (or, actually, the baby's) was a 1 so that's great!  And everything else looked perfect!  This week I will go to our local hospital and have my blood drawn for the second time and then they will compare certain markers in the samples and we'll know if we need further testing or if Baby is a-ok and we can breath a huge sigh of relief.  Finger's X'd!

A funny story -- right after I found out I was pregnant I was making our bed.  Everything was fine, nothing wrong and then I realized it was a Wednesday and I started to cry.  I like Wednesday's just fine but for some reason knowing it was Wednesday made me cry.  Ha ha!  I love pregnancy hormones!

My monthly check ups have been just fine, uneventful.  We had one this past week, at 14 weeks, which is the appointment where I found out I'd miscarried our last baby.  I was so relieved and excited to hear that baby's heartbeat!!! 

We feel so blessed to be on this journey again!  I'm excited to share it all with you! 

Basement Renovation

Since my last update in March we have had a lot happen with our basement reno. It's nice to look back and say "a lot has been done" because it's been a long, sloooow process.  We've done a lot of 'hurry up and wait'.  Luckily now all that waiting is *mostly* done. 
 
In April our energy company came and moved our gas meter and re-routed our electrical service, both of which needed moved because they went right through where the to-be window wells were going.

Andy broke out some of the concrete in the bathroom floor and the plumber came and roughed in our shower drain.  Then he poured the new cement in the hole, smoothed that and it's all ready for us to install the shower.

Andy started framing up the walls for the bedrooms and the bathroom.  He did as much as he could until the window holes were cut.  He left an area of Bren's wall and the bathroom wall open so we could get the shower in. That had to be brought in through the window opening because it was too wide for the basement stairs.  We also brought the drywall down through the opening instead of lugging it down all the steps.  That was a fun day (said sarcastically). 

The window well holes were dug and we now have a nice, messy yard and big pile of dirt waiting to be put back down in the holes to fill in around the window wells. 

The company came that we hired to cut the 3 window holes.  I was surprised by how not noisy that process was.  Tate slept through part of it even!  It took about 30-45 minutes per window.  They held their big, heavy saw without a jig to saw through the 8" of cement wall.  My arms would have been burning by the end of that!

After the window holes were cut Andy framed in the windows and the two of us installed them.  We weather-proofed the heck out of those windows!  The day after we finished it rained about an inch, so glad we got them done in time!  What a relief.

After the windows went in Andy started working on framing again.  And that is where we are at now. 

It sounds like a lot got done but it still feels like we have so far to go.  The good thing is, except for the electrician and plumber, we don't have anyone to wait on anymore so we can just go and get things done.  Unfortunately, we are busy busy!  Fingers crossed it doesn't take much longer than the month of June to get our part finished.  XXX

And now, some pictures.

One more, because it's cute!

School's Out For the Summer!

Hey everyone!  Can you believe today at 11:00 my kids start their summer vacation?!?  Kindergarten and 3rd grade, done in a flash!  This year was another fast one.  It doesn’t *feel* like summer, doesn’t *feel* like the end of the school year.  My heart tells me there are still months and months left in this school year but my head says “look at the calendar, dummy!” 

Let’s take a look back at the ‘First Day of School’ picture from this year.

Here is the ‘Last Day of School’ picture I took this morning.

I can see a difference in Brennan, he lost more of his baby look. Sniff! And I notice that Aiden is wearing the same shorts in both pics, :) .

The boys had wonderful teachers this year.  Aiden’s teacher, Miss Hermann, was a first time teacher, freshly graduated last year.  He took to her right away.  I really liked her, too.  She was great to communicate with, one of the most important things in my book for the parent/teacher relationship.  Brennan’s teacher, Mrs. McClenahan, was just as awesome with Brennan as she was with Aiden.  He adored her and is very sad to say goodbye to her.  I adore her and am very say to say goodbye to her.

Our school is having major budget issues (who’s isn’t?) so they have cut teaching positions which means we’ll be having much larger class sizes next year.  It also means we aren’t sure who the boys’ teachers will be – they have made it clear that just because a teacher taught a certain grade this year they aren’t guaranteed that same grade next year.  So, come August we will see. 

Speaking of August, the boys’ first day of 4th and 1st grade will be August 26th.  Wow, that’s less than 3 months away already.  Summer, slow down!!!  What are our plans this summer?  #1, have fun!  #2, we’re taking it one day at a time.  I haven’t signed the boys up for as many day camps this summer, partly because I was being lazy.  They each have a 4 day basketball camp which is next week.  They will both be participating in the county fair in July.  Aiden and Andy are doing a Father/Son basketball camp that the Iowa Men’s basketball team puts on every summer. That’s a Friday/Saturday deal middle of June (we are beyond excited about this one!).  Swim lessons. Fun swimming and lazy afternoons at the pool.  A trip to a zoo *somewhere* this summer (the somewhere is still up in the air).  Bren wants to go golfing and stay the night at Papa and Grandma Jean’s all by himself sometime.  Aiden just wants to get together with his friends whenever he can.  Tate and I are just planning on holding on for dear life and hoping we make it to the end of the summer in one piece. I do know that Tate will love having his big brothers around so much for the next 3 months.

Cheers to a great summer!

Missed you all,