Insurance, penguins, birthdays and school

My first full week with the kids all by myself was a success. Exhausting, but a success. Last week we had many errands to run. I had to get my new insurance in order and let me tell you, that is not as easy as I thought it should be, at least it wasn't for me! The kids and I got to know our State Farm agent pretty well : ). They even started to enjoy going by there because of the candy! Finally I got that all worked out. I also had to change bank. As luck would have it, the person helping me was brand new. I was her very first customer! Needless to say that took a little while but at least these places offer candy and something to color.
Besides all those fun errands, we visited the zoo. The Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia is another fantastic place that I really enjoyed, so do the kids. Their favorite is the penguin exhibit. You can get right up close to them swimming in the water, its like you are in the tank with them! If I didn't pull them away we could have stayed there the whole day! All of the exhibits are fun though. As soon as Paxton found out about my great fear of snakes we had to spend a good amount of time in the reptile house and it was necessary for them to point out every big and especially scary snake. NOT my favorite. The other big part of the week was school. Paxton started the second grade on Thursday and so far hasn't showed much excitement, to me anyway. And let me just say to the educators out there, 7 year olds have way too much homework! He doesn't have the attention span for all that! Neither do I!

Yesterday was the twins 4th birthday, which took them a while to figure out : ). I asked them all day "How old are you?" and sometimes I would get 4 but mostly it was 3. Tomorrow we are having a party at Chuckie Cheese so they believe they aren't 4 until their party. Grandmas and Grandpas from out of town and a few friends will all be there, it will be a nap day, for sure. We must not be cranky for company, any of us. Other wise our days are full of whatever they feel like. We get dressed up, pretend to be monkies, frogs, whatever can jump around, and are so tired by dinner time we can hardly function!

On that note I must end because now that I am up with two 4 year olds everyday at 6:30am, I have a bedtime : D and that time is getting near. Still trying to meet people, any people who aren't under 18 so your prayers in that area would be appreciated. Thanks friends! And feel free to call, comment, email whenever. Especially if you have any ideas about how to semi-painlessly get through homework with a 2nd grader.

Day One

Well, I made it through the first 24 hours, with the helpful training by the summer nanny, Staci. The family will really miss her, she is FABULOUS. We visited the Children's museum in town, Edventure, but the kids call it Big Ed's cause there is a HUMONGOUS boy named Ed inside. You get to go inside of him and see his stomach, heart, and brain! I thought it was pretty cool : ) Hopefully the kids do not get bored with that because I could do that once a month at least! Here is a pic of Paxton (7) and Ivy (3) in the fire truck and below is Ed.


After that we had lunch then visited the state house, where the South Carolina house and senate meet. I'm a dork so of course I loved it. There were beautiful paintings of all sorts of historic people inside and the architecture was just fantastic. As we walked around outside the building in the middle of downtown Columbia I couldn't help but notice how beautiful the grounds were and found myself in disbelief that this is now where I live! I am very excited to explore some more in and around Columbia and can't wait till I can make it down to Charleston! (only about 2 hours away : D )
This picture is all three kids (Paxton, Ivy and Remi) with Staci at the State House.



This is the view downtown from the State House, there are statues all
around.
This week, Paxton starts school. Oh, to be in 2nd grade again : ).