I have an assistant!

After receiving 35+ calls from the ad I placed in the Pontiac paper for an assistant, I finally settled on someone. Lori Boatman started working for me on Monday and boy has she been a big help, especially since I'm not suppose to be picking the children up! She comes every day from 9:00-1:00 - quiet time is from 1:00-3:00 and there's just no reason for her to sit here for 2 hours doing nothing. Maybe in the future there will be a need for her to stay longer. She also belongs to St. Mary's Church and has a daughter in 6th grade - the fact that she's older is very reassuring to me because she's much more reliable than most young people these days. She has also volunteered the past six school years at St. Mary's so she has plenty of experience with large groups of children. I'll admit that I didn't interview everyone that called me. I decided that it would have taken me WEEKS to get through everyone and I already had one family in my care that was in desperate need of help transporting to/from preschool. Lori and I clicked right away during her interview and her experience with children and the comforting feeling I got from her made me realize that she would be a perfect fit. Not to mention the fact that she wanted this job as something to fill her time while her daughter was in school AND the fact that she didn't have little ones that she would have to bring with her was a big plus too! (Most of the others I interviewed had babies or toddlers of their own that would have been a part of the daycare which means they would have taken up spots that I could have used for paying families!)

In other family news, school is going ok for Lexi & Kiegan. They both struggle at times - Lexi always has and Kiegan we think is just lazy and doesn't put forth much effort. I think their lack of interest in reading books has something to do with their lack of interest in school. This is VERY frustrating for someone like myself who LOVES to read and who took school very seriously and graduated in the top 10 of my class! How in the world did I end up with two kids that don't like to read and that don't take school seriously?! SO - one idea I came up with was for us to hit the library on Friday nights. I found a book list of recommended books for 3rd and 5th graders that I think they'll both enjoy and this is what we're going to do at bedtime instead of 1 hour of TV. It's a starting point, right? We're also considering enrolling them in The Achieve Center tutoring program again - extra tutoring never hurt anyone.

Lexi has suddenly had a huge interest in science which I think is just awesome (the fact that she shows an interest in anything is awesome!). So I signed her up for an all-day program that ISU puts on at State Farm called Millenium Girls. It's on October 4th and is for girls in grades 5th thru 8th. They do such things as create 3-D models, extract DNA, design new animation and learn how to make good money choices (which Lexi desperately needs - just ask Travis!). They also provide the girls breakfast and lunch. She is really looking forward to it!

Kiegan has been talking about playing basketball this fall at the Boys & Girls Club. We really hope he still wants to when sign-up comes around. The kid's been packing on the pounds due to his lack of movement and his ability to sit on the couch for hours and do absolutely nothing. The exercise would definitely be good for him!

In some sad news, Patrick's grandpa on his mom's side passed away suddenly last weekend from a heart attack. Kids seem to handle tragedy so much better than adults do, but we know he'll miss his grandpa terribly.

Not a whole lot is going on this coming weekend. Travis & I have our make-up Catholic class thingy that we were suppose to take BEFORE we got married and get this - the name of the class is Christian Sexuality. So imagine the looks we'll get when we walk in and everybody notices that I'm obviously pregnant! Oh well, maybe we can give a few pointers or something. :o) On Sunday, Travis is heading up north to go muddin' with the guys. We decided that it probably wasn't a very good idea for me to go this year so instead my mom, Kiegan & I are going to go to Jones' Country Garden so I can get my pumpkins. I love decorating for Fall! Lexi will be at her dad's unless she calls and decides she wants to join the fun!

That's all for now - all of my daycare kids will be waking up shortly so I better get ready!