It occurs to me that I forgot to blog about Stephen's first day of school! Sorry - this picture was taken before I took him to school. Normally, he rides the bus in the morning, but my mommy heart just couldn't take NOT walking him to his classroom on his first day of Kindergarten. And I totally didn't cry!
It has been 2 weeks since Stephen started school, and as expected he loves it! He is playing with the other children, and enjoys the addition of P.E., art class, and music class. This is not to say, however, that this has been a smooth transition. For the past 6 months or so, Stephen has been waking up early with increasing frequency. And by early, I mean 5am, and sometimes earlier. For the record, a 5-6 year old should be getting 10-11 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. Stephen is sitting on 9 most days. This started to become a daily issue over the summer, but we were hopeful that all-day kindergarten would wear him out enough to sleep longer, as he is really suffering from being so tired all day. We finally had enough, and took him to the pediatrician about this, and she suggested that we give him melatonin, and try to keep him up later. This is easier said than done - Stephen is ready to go to sleep usually between 7 and 7:30, instead of the 8pm that the doctor suggested, but we are keeping him up as best as we can. Unfortunately, it's not working very well after 1.5 weeks... Sadly, this has affected his behavior at home and school, as well as his school performance, but we are all working proactively to help him as much as we can.
Despite the sleep issues, Stephen's teacher reports that he is really a wonderful boy, and a joy to have around. That's what we love to hear!
The counters are Quartz, for anyone wondering. We kept our existing cabinets, because, well, we didn't want to spend a ton of money. 
(no, you don't get the ring - It's mine!)
The color used to be kind of a taupe-y yellowish color, which wasn't bad, but it looked tired and blah. Since we had the new tile put down for the counters, it really needed a new paint job too. And since I was painting THAT bathroom, I needed to finish up the cabinets in the other bathroom too (just white), where I also replaced the hardware.
Next up, was the hallway (same color as the bathrooms, so no pics - the color is Classic Taupe, by the way), and THEN, the kitchen. We recently had quartz counter tops installed, and I wanted to continue to lighten up the kitchen by painting the walls a lighter color. They used to be a darker sea-foam green color, and now they are "Turtle Dove," which is a very pale mint color.
I made this little bird for my Aunt, who LOVES birds! She had purchased 3 custom bird ornaments earlier this year, and this one was just a little bit different. I realize the photos are a bit blurry - I was about to package them off for shipping when I remembered that I wanted to take a picture!
This is the other side of the ornament. It's hard to tell, but the color is kind of a light blue-granite color.
