Lauren's First Slumber Party

Lauren went to her first birthday slumber on Saturday. My little girl is growning up before my eyes and I can't stop her. They put on make-up, did up their hair, dressed up in sparkly outfits and karoked to Hannah Montana on a makeshift stage. I have no idea how late they stayed up, but she made it through the night and was disappointed when it came time to leave in the morning. For now I'm thankful that it's slumber parties and make-up with the girls because before long I will lose any and all access to my phone and she'll want to go on a date with the boy down the street.

Disappointment

Last night was very disappointing for me. I know this is silly to some, but the New Kids On The Block Reunion concert set to play in Portland was canceled. A couple girlfriends and I had tickets to go and I was going to be reliving one of the greatest concert experiences from my teenage years. Sadly not enough people thought seeing NKOTB would be worth the ticket price and low ticket sales forced the cancelation. Maybe some other time.

My child's second playground fight

I couldn't believe it last week when I was writing about my son, Tyler's, first playground fight experience. Now, here I am a week later writing about his second one and this time it involved him! Tyler was helping another student in line when a second student got frustrated and smacked Tyler in the face. I've met this student and I can tell that he has autism so I understand this frustration on many levels, sometimes more than I wish I did. Poor Tyler was more surprised than hurt, but what an experience in kindergarten. I should also mention the poor teacher; we love our teacher. She is the most amazing teacher I've ever met and I was so disappointed when my daughter finished kindergarten and we didn't have her anymore. So to have Carol as Tyler's teacher is a real treat for us. She had to contact me and explain what happened after school and I know she had to contact the other student's parents too. Yesterday I just felt bad in general about the whole thing. My son got hurt, his wonderful teacher had to deal with it, a set of parents had to be told their son hit another student and the poor student started to cry after hitting Tyler because his frustration was out of his control. Sometimes things really suck.

House For Rent Or Sale

Our OC house is going back on the market soon. My aunt found a house to buy in Salem and is moving next month. Chuck and I are planning our attack. The market for selling is really poor so even at a reduce rate of 200K it probably won't sell now. We're going to start by tearing out the potty room and redoing it. Then we will move onto the floors and the kitchen. Of course, we'll also be painting inside and if the weather stays nice, maybe the outside this year. I'd like to at least get a renter in there before the end of the year. If you know anyone needing a place, let me know! This kind of cramps our loan payoff budget though. We'd been shoving extra $$ left and right at our credit cards to get rid of them. Now we'll have to slow down until we get the extra income back.

Tyler Soccer 6 Goals This Weekend

My little guy had the greatest soccer game ever on Saturday. He worked really well with his teammates and managed to knock in 6 out of our 7 goals. Ok, it's micro league and we aren't really keeping score, but for that little guy, the numbers mattered. I was so happy for him, he has never scored a goal before (he's played one other game) so he was so pumped.

Lauren's no longer grounded - ask me about that later. So it was nice to be able to give her toys back to her and let her be a kid again. Although it was nice and quiet while she was in her room!

Who We Are

It dawned on me today that I never set up a blog about who the Canby Karliks are! My family consist of myself, Melanie age 32 (OMG - I hate admitting that let alone writing it out), my husband, Chuck, age 38 (later this month), Lauren, age 8 and Tyler, age 5. We also have Chuck's parents living with us; Glenda and Richard. Plus, let us not forget 3 year old Princess, the mini daschund and two wonderful cats, Sam and Frisky.

Chuck and I married 3 years ago. Lauren and Tyler are from a previous relationship and Chuck is the greatest stepdad ever. We decided to move from Oregon City to Canby because of the schools. Lauren is in 2nd grade and Tyler is a kinder. Their school is amazing and the teachers are unbelievable. I'm the treasurer for the PTA, the quickest way to submerse yourself in a new school is to join the PTA. We also do soccer and ballet. So our lives are fairly busy.

That's us in a nutshell. We love where we live, spend a lot of time working to make our house our forever home; we raft and visit the coast often. We have a close extended family that is fantastic and I feel like the luckiest woman alive, because no one could have it better than I do.

My child's first playground fight

Tyler wasn't actually involved in the fight, but last night he asked if he could talk to me.

"Mom, Lucas got beat up at recess."

"What do you mean?", I ask.

"A blonde boy from Mrs. Thompson's class punched him and stuff" Tyler says.

"Did a teacher see this? Did you tell anyone? Is Lucas okay?" So many questions come pouring out of my mouth.

"Lucas just ran away, he didn't even cry. He said to the kid "I'm going to get you", Tyler says as he raises a clenched fist over his head to imitate Lucas.

So what's a mom to do? They're in kindergarten for crying out loud! I did what any good mom should do; I tattled to the teacher via email. Is this the start of something that I should prepare myself to see/hear more of as my son advances through school? I don't remember this happening when I was little, but my memories are sugar-coated happy ones of puppies and flowers. Why can't my little ones just have puppies and flowers?