First Day of Preschool...

This past week Noah started at "Little Cougar Preschool", and no they aren't teaching him to date younger people.  The advanced child development class at my high school is doing a 10 week preschool for $75, which is a pretty good deal.  It's 3 days a week (Wednesday-Friday) for two hours.  Theresa said she wouldn't mind dropping Noah off and picking him up, so Ryan and I signed him up.

Noah started on Wednesday, and Ryan took the day off so he could take him for his first day.  They made pancakes for breakfast and Noah ate four of them.  Then Noah began to pick out his outfit.  He wanted to wear something "special" for his first day.  Ryan had to talk him out of his Winnie the Pooh halloween costume.  He settled on a Halloween turtleneck and sweatpants.  Ryan got to walk him all the way to his classroom and then he stayed for 10 minutes to make sure Noah was doing fine and then he went home until it was time to pick him back up.

When I got home from school, I was immediately bombarded by Noah with shouts of, "Look what I made at school!"  He had a good time.  He even brought home part of his snack to share with his sister.  His favorite part of school is when they do arts and crafts.

I have several of the advanced child development students in my anatomy classes this year, and they tell me that Noah is one of the best behaved kids and that he listens to directions really well.  One of Noah's favorite "teachers" this week was one of my students named, Candace (I think one of the reasons he likes her is because he can remember her name since it's the same as his Auntie Candise's).  During game time, Candace had to sit in the middle of the circle and Noah didn't want her to be alone so he got up out of the circle and sat next to her.  My little boy is growing up!

My Husband The Bargain Shopper...

When I was pregnant with Juliana we never anticipated her medical issues.  Who would?  When it was time to move her from the uber-concentrated formula (concentrated to make it higher in calories) to whole milk, we were told that we wouldn't be transitioning her to whole milk.  Instead, we would be transitioning her to a high calorie drink.  Going along with a high calorie drink is a high price as well.  Insurance won't cover it because it's not her primary food source, so since Juliana doesn't have an N-G tube or a G-tube they won't cover any of the cost for her drink.  To order it through a pharmacy like Walgreens or Target, it would cost us around $65 + $18 for shipping for a case of 27 juice box size 8 ounce drinks.  On a good day, Juliana will drink 2.5 of them, sometimes 3 (if it's the first week of her appetite stimulant).  Needless to say, this has been costly, and last year we had not budgted for this.  This year we did.

Anyone who knows our family, knows that I lovingly refer to Ryan as "Hitler of the Wallet".  Ryan holds us to a tight budget, and it is good that he does, especially when things like high calorie drinks fall into our laps unexpectedly.  Ryan had the idea of searching for Juliana's beverage on eBay, and fortunately we have been able to find it there and buy it cheaper than through a pharmacy.  In fact, Ryan won one of the recent auctions for $20!  I can't tell you how much that excited the two of us, especially since we are trying to find money to send Noah to preschool in the fall.  Most auctions don't end that cheaply, but we can usually get a case for $40.  I'm sure some of you are probably thinking that we are nuts for paying that much for a kid's drink, but what else are we supposed to do to get pounds on Juliana?  We will do what we have to do and we know that God will provide. 

Morning Dance Routine...

Noah is not a morning child.  During the summer time this isn't a big deal, but during the school year when I am trying to get all of us out of the house on time it becomes an issue.  Lately every morning has been a fight to get Noah out of bed, dressed and out the door.  Last week I started thinking of ways to get him moving and out the door.  Noah and Juliana like to dance, so now before we leave the house, I turn on Noah's "Pump It Up" song (Tobymac's song, "Tonight") nice and loud, and Juliana and Noah get their dance on before we leave the house.  Here's what it looked like today (before the blizzard- that's why they are wearing boots).  Enjoy!