Keeping in Teutsch

What day is it? Seriously...not kidding...it's been CRAZY busy around here and I blinked and now it's November. What happened to October? October, though, is always the month that flies by because it never fails to be one of the busiest months we have. This year, I have a feeling October thru December is going to end up being a blur.

Since I haven't been blogging much, I'll just make this post even longer and give a little recap of what we've been up to. For the most part for the past few months, Matt has had his nose stuck in a book and we've grown accustomed to him being holed up in the bedroom, but the light at the end of the tunnel FINALLY appeared and he is done taking his comps (short for comprehensive exams)! Yay! Now we're praying that he passed them so he can move on to the final step in this four-year gig. (Even Juliette is praying that "Daddy passes his tests" at every meal time and bed time!) Matt will find out in a week or two if he passed.

I'm in the middle of a busy work season. Last weekend I worked the UL Press booth at the Louisiana Book Festival and tomorrow I'm headed to New Orleans until late Saturday to make sales calls and work our table at the New Orleans Book Fair. I'm looking forward to having my weekends back!

Now, on to the main attraction: Halloween! First up, Juliette's Pumpkin Patch field trip. Comically, Matt and I actually fought over who was going to chaperone it. He wanted to; I wanted to; and I have issues and thought it would look "overbearing" for both of us to go. In the end, I won out. One of the kids' in Juliette's class had both of their parents there, and it didn't seem awkward or weird (or like they were hovering over their child), so I suppose next time we can both go.


On Monday, for Halloween, students were allowed to dress up as something they wanted to be when they grow up. Juliette has not one, but FIVE, future professions she would like to have: mommy, teacher, checker-out (her words; i.e. cashier), food-er (i.e. waitress), and doctor. I saw this doctor's vest in the dollar section at Target, and so that is what she went as. Easy, peasy to put together, since doctors usually just wear khakis and whatever top!

And then, of course, on Halloween night, we took her trick-or-treating. The Housing Department at UL provided candy to the students in the student apartments who wanted to "host" the kids from the family housing apartments for trick-or-treating, so we went over there and literally racked up. Not a lot of the kids from family housing went over there, so they were giving Juliette huge handfuls (or two) of candy and it was all the really good stuff. Her bag got so heavy that we had to carry it home for her. She decided, though, that it just wasn't going to be "right" if we didn't go to some actual houses, so we took her over to our old neighborhood and went to a few houses over there.

We've now made the rounds when it comes to the Toy Story characters, however, Juliette says she wants to be Bullseye next year. Since those aren't sold in stores, I think it's safe to say that won't happen. It was good run, though! :)

With Juliette starting kindergarten, the problem/question of what to pack for her school lunch on the days when the cafeteria is serving food she doesn't eat has been on my mind a lot. I'm all about being organized. I love lists, charts, planners, any organizational tools. So I was over-the-top excited when I ran across these printable charts on Martha Stewart's website to put together a magnetic lunch chart.
First, though, I had to brainstorm some ideas on what to pack (especially since Juliette doesn't really eat sandwiches) and I used Martha's chart to guide me by making a list based off the symbols she used: sandwiches (or in our case, main dish); fruits; side items; and desserts.

In case you are looking for ideas, here's what we'll be packing this year:
--The Orange Row (main dishes): cheese quesadillas, mac & cheese in her new Hello Kitty thermos, turkey roll-ups (turkey rolled up), diced ham, grilled cheese sandwich, grilled chicken (she would eat that cold/lukewarm), yogurt, and diced cheese to go with the cold meats
--The Green Row (fruit): apple slices, strawberries, grapes, applesauce squeezer, raisins, peaches, mandarin oranges, banana
--The Blue Row (side items): pretzels, chips, granola bar, cereal bar, goldfish, crackers
--The Red Row (dessert/snack item): cookie, chocolate chips, yogurt covered raisins, granola bar (if not eating as side item), muffin

I also made magnets to use when she is going to buy her lunch at school. If you want to use these print outs, just go to the link above, print out the chart, and then open the page with the colored squares, type right on the squares, and print them out. Then buy some magnetic paper or magnetic strips, cut out your squares, and affix them to the sticky side of the magnets. I made ours smaller so that we could fit multiple things on one day. (For instance, Juliette doesn't like any raw vegetables, but if you child does, you could put those on the fruit row as well, so you'd need to cut your squares smaller so you could have room for both a fruit and a veggie in that square.) We taped our chart to the front of our fridge and are storing our extra magnets on the side. If you have a stainless steel refrigerator and don't have access to the sides of it, then I suggest making a magnetic board (or buying one) to hang in your kitchen (or inside your pantry or a cabinet door). You can Google how to make those.
Hope this little organizational chart helps take the headache out of fixing school lunches! Too bad it can't help me teach Juliette to eat faster...she only had time to eat her cheese quesadilla today and ate the rest of her lunch when she got home. I'm sure she'll learn!

Matt was up super early and at church by 6:45 am, while Juliette and I slept in until 9:30 am. (It was nice!) We made it to church just in time, and after church, we came home and ate hot dogs for lunch. While we were eating lunch, I multitasked and worked on finishing up our weekend project. (See Monday's blog post.) Around mid-afternoon, I went and picked up the school-themed cookie cake I had ordered and when I got back, Juliette helped me out by dusting everything while I did some laundry. Around time to fix dinner (and set up for our back to school dinner), I sent Matt and Juliette away, so it would be a surprise when Juliette came back and saw the table decorated (and so I could mop and not have them walking around the apartment). They went to Wal-mart to look around and I decorated. (Details of what I did are below each picture.)
The circle garland was made out of card stock. Circles were hand cut (as they were a last minute addition and Matt had to reprogram our computer over the weekend, so my Silhouette software wasn't available at the time). I sewed the circles together on my sewing machine. We got "The Night before Kindergarten" and the 1st day of kindergarten card at Target. The "individually yours" cookie cake came from The Great American Cookie Company.

Each person had a "placemat" that was made out of cardstock and paper that I had on hand, using my Silhouette to cut on the letters, numbers, and apple. The pencil art and the notebook art came from a teacher's bulletin board pack that I bought at Target for around $3.

For the centerpiece, I used fabric I had on hand, wrapped three books in brown paper, tied with a ribbon I had on hand, and used apples that Juliette will be taking to lunch later this week. The mini-Composition notebook was something I had on hand as well and will serve as the place where we write down what Juliette (and any future kids) are looking forward to that year at school.
For dinner, I fixed Juliette's favorite: tacos and refried beans. If you look closely, you will see that I made little straw decorations also out of paper I had on hand, using the Silhouette to cut them out. Then I used white scrapbook stickers that I had in my stash to put our first initials on them. Total cost to do all this (not including dinner, since I would have cooked regardless): approximately $25. And the placemats and garland will be reused each year for our new annual tradition.

While we ate dinner, we talked about school and then I read "The Night before Kindergarten" while we ate cookie cake. Juliette told me I was the "best" no less than six times this weekend!

The fun had to end after dinner, though, as the end of our weekend was quickly approaching and I still had lots to do. I was hoping to get the kitchen and bathroom completely cleaned as well, but it didn't happen and I ended up only having time to completely finish the laundry, wash only the larger dirty dishes, and iron a shirt for Matt. I then called my mom back and talked with her for a little bit and then headed to bed, not looking forward to my 6 am alarm!

We've had a good week and I hope you enjoyed the play-by-play. Maybe I'll do this ever once in a while.

We slept in until 7:30 (since Juliette didn't have to be at school until 9:30 and I had taken the morning off). Juliette got up when I did and the first thing she said was, "Zero days until I go to kindergarten!" She wanted to get dressed right away, so I let her and then we ate breakfast together. She watched some cartoons while I got ready and we had just enough time left to snap the very-important first day of school pictures.

When we arrived at school, the first thing we had to do was go to the cafeteria where the art program was explained (she'll be rotating between the seven different areas every 3 weeks, visiting most of them twice within the year). While there we had to pay her art fee as well. Juliette was very anxious to get to her classroom and kept asking, "When is this going to be over" and saying, "I'm ready to go!" When we got to her classroom (the theme in it is nautical), we unpacked her school supplies and put them in their proper locations around the classroom. The teacher (who is new this year; she taught for 8 years in Mississippi) explained about the folder that will be coming home daily and we had to pay our classroom fee, as well as write down how our child was getting home today. As soon as we got the school supplies put up, Juliette sat down in her seat and asked me, "Am I going to learn to read today?" Have I mentioned how excited she is to be going to kindergarten and learning to read?

I had no problems leaving her and she was fine with me leaving as well, which was good. I knew we wouldn't have a problem because of her going to preschool and daycare and being so independent. (By the way, she wouldn't let me hold her hand as we were walking to the cafeteria or her classroom. She didn't say anything...just kept dropping my hand when I took hers, so I "got the hint" sadly.)

I came home and went to work, but I'll admit I had a little trouble concentrating or being productive today because I couldn't wait to hear how Juliette's day went. Matt couldn't go with me this morning as he had a meeting, so he was anxious to pick her up and hear about her day as well. Her school is on a different schedule then the rest of the public elementary schools here (8:30-3:30 is her school hours), so Matt left around 2:45 to get in the car pick-up line (and to check out how crowded it was so he can figure out when to go next week). He called me at 3:00 to say that it was already packed and he was the last person next to the road in the line. He took a book and read while he waited the 30 minutes for school to let out, and he called me at about 3:45 when he finally got her, so I foresee LONG car pick-up lines and wait times in Matt's future! He tells me that next week he's not going to get there until 3:30 since the line moved pretty quickly once it got going.

Pretty much the only thing Matt got out of Juliette about her day was this (that he posted to Facebook): "I asked Juliette if she made any friends today. She said she made one. She did not know the girl's name, though. However, she said, 'She's my new best friend. She had a ponytail and a brown face. I don't care if she had a brown face.' That's my girl."

After work, I came home to hear about Juliette's day and it was like pulling teeth! She said it was a good day, but I had to ask A LOT of questions in order to get anything out of her. She told me that she ate her beef tips and rice and gravy and strawberries for lunch and drank strawberry milk. (She said, "I like lima beans, but they looked yucky so I didn't try them, and I licked my roll but I didn't like the way it tasted." I had given her the choice of taking her lunch or eating what was being served and she told me she would try the food there.) She told me that there were no snacks today because the parents have to bring them, that the teacher made them go to the bathroom twice today and that the door was stuck one time and she couldn't get it open so another girl crawled under the stall and helped her, that she took a nap (and "I CAN bring a blanket, Mommy, the teacher doesn't care!"), and that she needs $10 for a t-shirt (but I didn't find that information anywhere in the folder she brought home!). And, just now, as I'm sitting here typing this, Juliette just told me (without my asking) what they did today after I left: "After you left, we had to stand up and push our chairs under the table and stand behind them and wait for our table's name to be called (mine is #2), then we had story time, then we went to the bathroom, then we went to lunch, then we played outside, came back and had story time again, then we went to the bathroom again and went to the 'exercise room' where we played soccer. After that, we came back and took a nap." (Today was orientation day for the girls, so there was no actual teaching time...that will start next week.)

After I got as many details from Juliette as I could (which now that she told me that last part I feel pretty informed), we had dinner (whatever-you-want night). I usually have my women's Bible study on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month, but I was tired and so I decided to just stay home tonight. While I was eating a sandwich, Juliette got out her sight word flash cards (she had already eaten) and so we worked on separating them into the ones that were on the list we were given and the ones that weren't. (I made her find them on the list and check them off while I was eating and make the two separate piles.) After that, Juliette and I worked on a little project that I'm going to blog about later next week, as I think it deserves it's own post. Then, at 7:30, Juliette decided she was ready for bed and went and got ready without me even telling her. (Since she doesn't have school tomorrow, she can just take a bath in the morning.) She wanted to watch some more of the movie she was watching the other night, so I put her to bed and I WAS all by myself in the living room (Matt was taking a bath), but now it's after 9 and everybody is back in here. It started storming, so Juliette came running.

And that was our night...just a lazy one at home. Since it's storming, though, I'm going to head to bed now...I love sleeping while it's raining! :)

I made it to work today on time (only because I put my hair in a ponytail and didn't blow dry it). Wednesdays are really busy shipping days for me, as majority of our distributors place their reorders on Tuesdays and I try to get their orders out by the time UPS runs at 10 am on Wednesday mornings. So I spent half the morning in the mail area. Before lunch, I also looked through and gave my thoughts on the images for an art book we are doing on New Orleans, and I copy edited the introduction to another book. While all that was going on, Juliette attended Graduate School Orientation (for new graduate students) with Matt, as he had to give a presentation since he is the English department's representative for one of the graduate organizations (or something like that). Matt also took Juliette along with him to the lunch they had for everybody, and I'm a tad jealous because Juliette told me she had jambalaya and it was "yummy." (I love the jambalaya here!)

This afternoon after the mail run, I worked some more on the middle school librarian list (halfway done now!) while Juliette joined me in my office for about an hour. (Matt had a study group.) After Juliette and I walked home from work, we packed her school supplies in her backpack (or repacked them...she had already crammed it full that afternoon after Matt and she had picked her backpack and lunchbox up from the embroidery place).

After we did that, I coaxed Juliette into trying on a few variations of her school uniforms so I could post pictures tonight. (I promised her an M&M McFlurry after dinner!)

You can click on any of these pictures to see them larger. There are actually probably 7 more combinations we could do (I figured it up walking to work the other day), but I did good to get her to try this many. Something we learned in this process: the buttons on some of these bottoms are hard for Juliette to snap! I made her sit down with one of the skorts and practice after we got through taking pictures, but I just don't think her hands are strong enough. (It's the skorts that are giving her problems.) Thankfully, those skorts have the adjustable waist, so we'll just wear them loose so she can pull them up and down without having to unbutton and button them. She did get the hang of tucking her shirt in on the first try (and even got all the back in as well) This would be so much easier if she just had elastic waistbands and didn't have to tuck in her shirt, but I know she needs to grow up and learn these things! (Oh, and she fastened her belt with no problem as well.) My favorite outfit out of all of these is the white shirt and khaki pants, but she will not be wearing this often! (I just bought one white shirt, mainly for if there is a school program and they ask for them to wear white shirts.) Oh, and I think we have all the color combinations covered in our bow supply too:

Right after we finished taking pictures, Matt came home from his study group and heavily hinted at wanting pizza for dinner. I wasn't going to cook and it was just going to be a "whatever you can find to eat" night, but I caved and let Matt go get Papa John's. (Right now, if you've read my posts over the last few days, you're thinking 1) I never cook and 2) We eat out all the time, especially since we ate out all weekend, but this isn't the norm. I might not cook every night, but we usually don't eat out this often. We typically eat out once a week and may pick up pizza or fast food one other time during the week...although I realize that is probably more than most people eat out. We just enjoy eating out, so I always budget it in and ever since these Daily Deal websites have started, it's easy to find deals here in Lafayette for half off at a restaurant!)

Anyway, after we ate, Juliette and I went and got snack size McFlurries from McDonalds (like I had promised) and now I'm typing this and she is cleaning up her room. Matt already has headed to bed and when he told Juliette goodnight, she said, "Daddy, I'm so proud of you." He said, "Why?" She said, "Because you are going to bed early!" (He has been going to bed really, really late all summer and is trying to get back into routine this week since classes start back next week.)

And now, I'm going to get off here and finish up our bedtime routine, complete with a reading of another chapter or two of The Boxcar Children. Juliette doesn't have to be at school tomorrow until 9:30 am, but I went ahead and took the whole morning off (again), so we don't have to worry about getting up too early! I can't even tell you how excited this girl is about going to school! Maybe I can get her on video in the morning!