September 7 = Liam's Birthday Party

For Liam's birthday we had lunch at Chili's with Grandma and Dops!

Grandma made Liam a cake- we had a PJ Masks theme- Alexandra had brought this shirt last weekend so it was the perfect one for him to wear on his special day!

Since Zachary was out of town I wanted to make his day extra special so I posted on Facebook asking for people to send me short videos of them saying happy birthday to Liam.  People did not disappoint!  I'm not going to post the video because some people reallyyyyyyyyy went out of their comfort zone taking videos of themselves but here is the slideshow of pictures from his last year:

September 5 = Liam's Birthday

These are the only pictures I have from today.  It was quite a day- we're celebrating Liam's birthday with family on Saturday- we did an ice cream party after dinner but between school and ABA he was exhausted so this is what his birthday night looked like:

September 4 = Kayleigh & Mommy Day

Yesterday was a bit overwhelming between figuring out the bus situation- Liam's bus comes right to our door and I have the phone number of his driver and it's the same driver as last year so she called me and told me what time she'd be coming and it was easy.  Malia's situation was a bit different.  Because of Liam riding the special education bus I didn't know the normal process- they post all the bus routes online and you find which one has a stop close to your stop.  The only information you're given is when the first stop is and you just have to guess when the bus will get there.  So since Liam's comes up 6:50, I just headed to Malia's bus stop right after- better to be 30 minutes early to be 2 minutes late.  Well as I put her on the bus, the bus driver asks if I have my yellow card.  Liam had a yellow card last year- the number on your card has to match his for them to let him off the bus but I didn't get one in the mail for Malia.  Wellllllll they gave them out at the open house that I did not attend.  I had a broken ankle, three kids and no stroller and they were saying you'd have to park about half a mile from the school so I wasn't about that life.  So after I got Malia on the bus I had a MOPS playdate to go to and then went straight to the school to get my card... and it really seemed as soon as I got home I had to watch for the bus- because again, I didn't know when Malia's was coming.  So today we had a bit more time so we headed to Chickfila to have breakfast together :) I'm looking forward to Miss Kayleigh getting some individual attention.  I think she might be too.

September 3 = First Day of School

My babies are growing up!  These kids are used to waking up around 8 and this morning they had to wake up at 6.

But they were pretty cheerful!  I've done letter boards in the past but someone in my MOPS group posted a link to these printable signs so I went that route- took much less time :)

Kayleigh's feelings on her siblings being gone all day:

September 1 = Alexandra & Tyler Day

Alexandra and her boyfriend, Tyler, came to visit today.  It was the first time I've met Tyler so it was a special day for sure.  He really wanted to go to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and the kids are decent in the car so it seemed like a good way to keep them occupied- and it was!  They liked the tunnels and seeing the ocean surround us.

Also- this is true and I have no words for how excited I am.

The one bad thing about me doing the most recent posts first is that I have to give background info that I'll repeat in subsequent posts.  But.  This is Zachary's first underway in a while so Grandma graciously offered to come up and help BEFORE I broke my ankle.  So it was even MORE appreciated with the broken ankle.  Well she watched the kids this morning so I could run all over Chesapeake to find these little containers to make packing lunch easier.  Guys I am 100% into doing a million hours of prep work if it makes the task itself go smoothly when it's go time.  So we have a system for packing lunches.  I read that if kids pack their own lunches, they're more likely to eat it.  Last year we just had Liam buy his lunch at school because the boy will eat anything but Malia... no way.  And if I'm packing her a lunch, I might as well pack Liam's lunch too.  So here we go- they'll grab a snack container containing veggie straws, pretzels or cheez-its... every Sunday I'll refill the 10 containers and be ready to go for the next week... grab an applesauce pouch, juice box for Liam, yoohoo for Malia, a granola bar and a fruit snack pouch.

Then they grab a veggie container- either carrots, cucumbers or celery this week- we may add bell peppers in the future but between those three I had plenty to fill these 10 containers which, again, will be refilled on Sunday and ready to go!  Oh and there are cheese sticks in the drawer that they'll grab.  I'm thinking of making a checklist they can use to make sure they've got everything... but anyways!  I'm super excited!

Also- here are some pictures from Grandma's visit!

There are cards that go with this equipiment and the guy in them has no shirt so Liam decided it would only be appropriate for him to also be shirtless.