busy week, busy little guy

After posting so much last month it was strange for me to go several days without doing so. I've had a crazy busy week. First and foremost, work has been busy. Our students start Saturday and this was crunch week; preparing for their arrival. I've been busy planning activities for students' first week. I've also been busy decorating my classrooms. Because I'm a subject teacher I have not one but three classrooms. As an English teacher I get one bulletin board in each class and I also claim one wall. ;-) Once I complete my finishing touches I'll share a picture.

In addition to work stuff, we have remodeling going on in and outside of our house. I'm taking before and afters of the inside to share later. Outside, they had to pound/dig/redo the entire ground. It's hard to explain but outside the house is an area where we can park cars and/or set up a patio area. Some people even plant grass and trees in this area. Anyway, the ground of this area is covered with tiles. Outside our home, these tiles needed to be redone. You should see it. It looks like an earthquake came our way. The workers start at 6am so we get to wake up to pounding rather than alarms. :-)

In addition to crazy, busy work and loud, pounding, remodeling, I have.....a VERY active three year old boy. It's as if he decided, "Hey, Mama has a lot going on, I think it'd be really cool if I add more to her list". Visuals are a great way of explaining things so here we are....is it just me or is this the wrong way to arrange a sofa?

Btw, being the neat freak that I am, it's not easy posting this messy picture. But I am a mother of a little one and little ones definitely make messes throughout any typical day. The artist in me looked at this mess and saw something unique. ;-)

So I thought keeping little guy busy would do the trick. I bought him some new paints and brushes at the teacher's store (I was there buying things to decorate my classrooms). Yeah...this lasted not as long as I had hoped (even though little guy is quite the artist and does truly love painting), and it ended with paint in many places including some little one face. He also ditched the brushes after awhile and decided that finger painting with this stuff was way more fun.

One thing that has been keeping little guy busy is Clifford the Big Red Dog. Remember him? Gosh, I loved those books when I was little. I even got to dress up as Emily Elizabeth when the author,Norman Bridwell , came to visit our elementary school. So anyhow, little guy has become addicted to this movie Grandma sent him. We have a few of the books too. It offers me a little peace in everyday (yeah, he watches it daily).

After 1 1/2 years of being a picky eater I'm happy to announce that little guy is actually eating better. Sure, the menu of things he likes is not a long one, but I'll take what I can get. When he asked for chicken nuggets and french fries I wasted no time preparing it for him. Here is what his plate looked like after he was finished...

He barely touched his fries but look at those cute little bites in his nuggets? He has this theory that each piece needs to be bitten into only once. In his defense he did polish off a big lunch of chicken, rice, and cucumbers. So I guess I will accept these cute little bites of chicken nuggets for dinner.

Even though things at work are busy, remodeling here at home is somewhat annoying, and little guy is a hand full...it's all worth it. Especially when little guy for no apparent reason will stop whatever he's doing and come give me hugs and kisses. Those moments are priceless.

Oh man, gotta go...little guy just informed me that he wants to drink coffee. I need to convince him that chocolate milk is much more suitable for a person his age. ;-)