the heimann family

LATELY

amandaheimann — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:30:31 +0000

I really have a valid excuse for not blogging lately. Seriously. It has something to do with having a kid in elementary school. Between homework, Scouts, Awanas and soccer most of our afternoons are filled with an activity or planning for an activity. My days are spent entertaining Lance, cleaning up the never ending mess and trying to do my work. I go to bed wondering where my day went and what exactly did I accomplish?

This is our first year with multiple after school activities. Garrett is enjoying all of them. Lance isn’t. Poor boy is too young for the soccer program and Scouts (Tiger Cubs) doesn’t start until first grade. So he goes along for the ride and often gets bored. Being four is very hard- for Lance and definitely for his parents. I am still waiting for that magical transformation that occurs sometime when they are 5. Where they become more independent, agreeable, helpful and nice. I am very over this stage.

Every now and then there is something that makes the day special. A trip to Petsmart, the promise of a slush from Sonic or a backhoe tearing up our yard.

This bought me about an hour of quiet time. The photo on the right is Lance using “The Force” to stop the backhoe from tearing down our house. The water company was fixing a leak and had to dig up part of our yard to find it. Then a week later they replaced the fire hydrant across the street. That one was a huge mess with a huge hole and they didn’t finish until 9:45 at night.

And here is our soccer star. Check out the expressions he makes.

And here is what you can see most afternoons we are home:

But that is a whole other post. Right now I need to go clean up the spilled milk I just discovered.

PRE-K & MORE

amandaheimann — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:17:03 +0000

My baby is in Pre-K.

He loves it! Of course his favorite time of the day is recess. And I hear that he has to be separated from his best bud because they talk too much. Lance? Talk to much?

And here area a few from our weekend.

The boys and the pup watching Nascar Saturday night.

Garrett enjoying the pool. I have a feeling there will only be a few more pool days. The water is getting cold and the days are getting shorter.

Here is Katie the bird dog. We sneak up to the door and slowly open it. She knows to wait until the door is open and then she tears off running after the birds in the backyard.

THE PLAYROOM

amandaheimann — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:42:48 +0000

The entire summer we struggled with the toys. Too many toys, not enough space to play and not enough space to store them. It was a battle everyday to get the room clean and most days it stayed a mess. We hit a breaking point one day and closed the door. No more playroom until we figured out what to do. I browsed IKEA and got a few ideas and priced some storage options. The boys and I spend and entire day going through all the toys, videos and books. We separated the stuff into piles to keep and piles to take to family members and emptied the room. We went to IKEA on a Friday night so Billy wouldn’t have to deal with the crowds. ;) The next day Billy put the furniture together and I spent the next few days setting the room up. The boys love it! Garrett even told me “thank you for a cool room” without being prompted. There is a place for everything and plenty of room to play. And not once has there been a mess.

I was a little sad to see some of the toys go. No more cute little boy toys or primary colors. It is all BOY now. Big boy. You can see what the playroom looked liked when we first switched rooms 3 years ago: old playroom. Of course there were more toys, the tv and a couple bookcases added last year but that is basically what it looked like.

And here is the new playroom:

In the fabric bins are Hot Wheels, Monster Trucks, Star Wars, Legos, Power Scouts, Transformers, Dress Up and Sports stuff. The boxes hold little items and DVDs. The big box on the floor has the Hot Wheel Tracks in it. The cabinet in the closet has art supplies, puzzles and play-doh. All of the larger items (GeoTrax and racetracks) are in containers in the closet. The smaller shelf holds almost all their books, smaller toys, DVD player and DVDs. The games were moved to the hallway closet.

Garrett requested the maps on the wall. Above the maps is a wire with clips for them to hang art projects. The wall of curtains are not curtains but duvet covers that are pretending to be curtains. I loved the print and could not find curtains that were fun and lightweight. The curtains are hung on a similar wire and clip system. The paper lamp shade is green and is Garrett’s favorite part. Lance likes the movie chairs.

The bookcases are Expedit from IKEA. They have 13×13 openings and the bins I found there fit perfectly. Also from IKEA is the wire and clip systems, the “curtains”, the pillows, the storage boxes and the lamp shade. The chairs are from Target and the maps from a teacher supply store.

We still need to hang Lance’s name up, cover the tv cords, replace the blinds and get rid of the old lady fan. But we love it!