Countdown to School Part 2: August 29th

This year, sending Michael to school was a really bittersweet moment for me.  Preschool is not the same as Kindergarten.  Kindergarten is real school, and my little Michael was starting real school.

I really wanted to do something special so I decided to take him to Dutch Wonderland the day before school starts.

Dutch Wonderland is an amazing amusement park that caters specifically to little ones from age about 18 months - 10 years old.

Many of the rides are geared towards smaller kids with I think ages 4-6 being the best age for it!  Although there is PLENTY to do for 2-3 yrs of age!

Michael LOVES it there.  We've been taking him since he was 4.  Here he is on the self-propelled train:

I remember when he used to have trouble with those and we had to push him along with the long stick. Now, he does it so quickly on his own.

Before we rode the bumper cars, Michael had me go on the worst roller coaster in the park about 5 times.  It wasn't bad, but it was REALLY jerky.  So I could only handle so much.  It was hilarious though - Michael loved dragging me through it!  And he loved screaming with me all during it.

We also went down the giant slide and enjoyed the Sky Park thingy where you ride over the entire park!  We rode another ride that reminded me of Bamboo Shoot at Astroworld!  You get splashed on it.

After all this, Michael waited very patiently for the bumper cars.  He LOVED those:

After this, processed food lunch time!

 What park visit would be complete without a little Whac a Mole?

Michael was pretty thrilled about this slide.  Here he is tumbling out of it:

 Another fun one - it has a gun on it:

We also went to the splash park in the background there of the picture above.  However, Michael wasn't really into it!  Shocking!  So we got dried off and continued on in the park.  

Michael also had me going on Turtle Whirl, which is like Tilt a Whirl.  If you wanna get sick, that's the ride to ride.  It is AWFUL.  It whirls you around in a circle in your little car, and at the same time your car itself is going in a circle up and down.

Michael told me, "Mom, it's not as bad if you hold the outer bars as the inner bars."

And you know what?  He was right.  So i didn't lose my lunch.

Afterwards, we played putt putt too.  

Then, we were hungry and decided to use the Applebees coupon that's on the back of the Dutch Wonderland ticket.  We topped our dinner off with a strawberry cheesecake bite:

It was surprisingly DELICIOUS.

Then, an hour drive home and off to school the next day.  He only had a mini day - I think it was a couple of hours.

It was just so fun saying "YES!" all day.  I love saying yes.  I hate the everyday that always gets in the way of saying yes.  

I hope we can do it again next year because we had so much fun and Michael just loved it.  He apparently told Mrs. DeColli on his first day of school and she said to me, "Michael told me all about Dutch Wonderland yesterday and it warmed my heart because I used to do the same with my kids.  But I would take them on the last day of school to welcome summer.  So it made me happy to hear someone else does it too."

And yet - I am STILL scared of her!  :)

Countdown to School! - Part 1 - August 22/27

Before school started, Michael and I hung out doing Mommy and Michael things!

On this hot summer day (8/22/12), we went raspberry picking!  Michael loved it for about 10 minutes.

FYI - Picking raspberries for 10 minutes will yield you about 30 raspberries, which only fills up like one corner of this box:

So I went for as long as possible to fill the rest of the box with Michael complaining the whole time.

Next up, on August 27th, we went to Chuck E. Cheese!  Michael was pretty excited about his ticket haul:

We got a lot of "stuff" for that amount of tickets!  I have no idea where any of the stuff is now!

Next up - Countdown to School Part 2 - DUTCH WONDERLAND!

January 4 - 5, 2013: Washington D.C.

This is going to be a little out of order because I still need to blog about:

• December 7-9 - Washington DC visit with Team ABC and Ice Skating 
• Christmas cookie painting
• Christmas!
• Sledding and post Christmas snowfall

However, I wanted to get this written down before I forget.  AND - the pictures are ready.  I don't have to edit or download them or anything.  January 2013 is caught up for now!  :)

Friday, January 4th, we made a mad dash after Brian's work to watch the game in D.C. with Team ABC and their friends, Austin/Kate.

We made it right after the Aggies scored their first touchdown.  Pretty excited to see the Aggies play and win the cotton bowl, romping all over OU.  I only heard about it in the background since I had to be a mom and play Munchkin and then put Michael to bed.

Do you hear that sad violin playing for me in the background? :)

Saturday, Michael chose me to wake up at 7:30am!  :)  He was so sweet though so it's hard to ever be really upset.  

We hung out for a while and Brian started to stir.  So I convinced Brian to watch Michael so I could pop over to Whole Foods to get eggs, fruit, and a baguette to go with the bacon we brought.

It is so refreshing for me to be back in the city.  I am a city girl at heart.   I loved being awake and walking to the grocery store.  Part of me needs to remember though that I'm a "grass is greener on the other side."  When I was lugging my groceries home to my apt in Paris, I was cursing it the entire way!

Bringing home OJ, a dozen eggs, berries, and a baguette wasn't difficult at all!  I was just sad that I didn't think I could have brought Starbucks too!

We made breakfast and relaxed.  The night before, we all looked at each other and were all, "What are we gonna do tomorrow?"

Better than have an answer, we decided to go to sleep.

I think Brian had the genius idea to hike Great Falls:

AWESOME.

I love hiking.  Especially when the trail is all paved like it is!  :)

AND I love hiking when there's actually something to look at it.  When we hike around here, we are rewarded with a view of a field.  Or maybe a covered bridge.  Not terribly exciting.  If you're lucky, you might get a Lyme infested tick on you during your hike.

Waterfalls, I love.

Michael did too!  Don't be wooed by that railing there.  It was as rickety as they come:

 Carson has a mini obsession with running water so the falls were especially fascinating:

He ended up smiling but then covered his mom's face:

No matter, his dad more than makes up for anything:

 Happy to have a family picture:

 The end of the trail began with a big rock:

Michael was pretty excited about it.

Family pictures followed:

This is probably not my finest hour as a children's photographer.  :)

A little better.  I am going to say it's because I'm shooting with the sun right in my subjects' faces:

Family picture!  

Brother picture!

Sister-in-law picture!

We saw some crazy kayakers:

They ended up getting out and walking.  They weren't as crazy as we thought.

After this, we drove over to eat Vietnamese food at Four Sisters - delicious! :)  And fancy!  

We couldn't believe all the AWESOME shopping that is by Team ABC's old place.  Anthropologie and up!  We then went to Target to pick up things like deodorant and headed back to Arlington, VA.  

We rested a bit and then headed back to PA.  Team ABC assured us we could have stayed, and we would have liked to.  However, I felt that we have been on vacation too long and I just had no idea what was going on at home for the month of January.  Brian had work to do as well. So we decided to leave town to take care of home and let both families have a day of rest.  

I'm sure we'll be back.  

I have had some water leaking from what I thought was under my heater/furnace.  Any time water leaks from UNDER any of our home systems, I see $$$$ in my future.  We had the heating guy come out today and luckily it was just a leaky vinyl tube so he isolated the leak and fixed it.

He also reminded me that my particular make and model of furnace was poorly designed and has killed 2 of Lennox's CEO's due to cracks in the heat exchanger leaking CO.  

He was really nice though and checked the CO levels coming from my flue.  He said that the levels were just fine and were nothing that indicated that the heat exchanger was compromised.  He verified that our current CO monitoring system would be adequate in alerting us to any possible problems.

WHEW - Now I can seriously go about socking away money for a future furnace.  Or go and purchase that American Home Shield already!  And then do my maintenace so it's on the record for them!

Grown up stuff.  AAK.

January 9, 2013: Trio Castle Building

Over Christmas, I gave Michael a medieval castle that he had to build himself.  It's kind of like legos, but bigger.  It came with a catapult and these funny knights that remind me very much of the Knights Who Say Nee!

Over the last 2 days, Michael's been working on it after school.  As with anything, he gets frustrated and immediately runs over to me, "Mommy, I can't do this. Will you help me?"

At first, I did help him.

But after many interruptions, I was tired of it!  AND - I had read that Japanese students will work longer at a problem than American students and did better because of their sense of delayed gratification and hard work.

So, I told Michael:

"Michael, I would LOVE to help you.  And I CAN put what I am working on right now down and help you.  However, I think you can do it all on your own and you are entirely capable.  So go work on it until you get it."

And he DID do it on his own and he was so excited about it.  Just to hit the point home, I said to him, "Mommy wanted not to help you because..."

And he said back, "Because I can do it."

Today, his religion book came home.  We go over his Religion homework every Thursday night.  This week's lesson is about how God made us and how we are precious to Him.  He gave us all special talents, and we should acknowledge those in seeing how special we were made.

We read this paragraph:
"Children learn by doing.  Refrain from helping your child before it is needed.  This shows you have trust in your child's abilities and encourages his or her independence and development.  Caregivers who rush in to do for their children what they can do for themselves or for others take away a golden opportunity for their children to learn independence as well as the value of contributing to the well-being of the family."

When we read it, I looked at Michael and said, "Can you think of an example of this?"  And he pointed to his castle and smiled!  Love it when what is being taught at home is being reinforced at school!

Something else that I want to write down so I remember from his Religion book:
"Let family members make their own decisions whenever possible.  Caregivers may worry about what decisions their child will make in the future.  But if you give your child the gift of making small and relevant decisions now, your child will have the benefit of learning through consequences on small matters, such as what clothes to wear.  As your child grows, the importance of the decisions will grow, and so will his or her ability to make wise choices."

Some days, I get tired of offering the choices and negotiating.  I just want my word to be law and done!  But I need to remind myself too that while this is hard work for me now, hopefully the rewards of this interaction will be beneficial in the long run.

That is what I feel changes in parenting as you transition from parenting a toddler towards parenting a school-aged child.  The discipline and actions for toddlers usually take place in the here and now with immediate tangible results.  You throw a toy, you get time out, and you don't do it again.

With school aged children, I feel like there are long range effects of how we speak, of what we issue for discipline, and how we live our lives.  It seems like we are planting seeds of ideas inside his mind and am hoping that we provide a good example for him.  Will we know if it is working?  I'll see in 30+ years and let you know.  ;)

And now you know

And now you know why I haven't blogged.  It's because we've been living our life in the present surrounded by family and friends.

I'm ok with that being the reason I'm not all caught up!

STILL more to come!  Only a little over halfway through!

December 14, 2012: School Christmas Show

On December 14, Michael had his school show.

I was an awful photographer because I don't like showing up with my huge camera with a huge flash on top.  I'm going to get over that because all I got was this:

Michael's back of his angel costume and his head:

Not much better, but a good side view and I'm sure this woman would love this picture of her on the web:

Michael sang his little heart out:

Not much was expected of Kindergarten, which was such a disappointment compared to his shows the 2 previous years at his preschool.

He has done hand bells, little decorative sac shows, and was a nervous wiseman in last year's play.  I do understand this play was for all grades, Pre-K3 - 8, so I know Kindergarten isn't going to have a great role.

But I do miss it.  :)

Afterwards, picking up Michael's gingerbread house from school:

They showed up to school with PJ tops on for a viewing of The Polar Express with their prayer buddies:

We have no idea where Michael got this plaid robe.  And he said he took it from Darren.  And when you look at Darren's picture, he didn't have any PJ's on.  So he took the robe from the kid who didn't have PJ's ON?  WHAT?

Then, he showed us his little advent calendar he does at school:

So cute!  Childhood is so fun to watch!

December 2, 2012: Picking out our Tree

One of our family traditions is picking out our Christmas tree at the Christmas tree farm and sawing it down ourselves.

I'm hoping nobody ends up getting allergic to pine...

Michael is always excited, as is Brian:

First stop - NOT a winner:

This guy is not so hot either:

But eventually, we do find a winner:

 Discussions begin on how we should go about doing things:

 Michael gets to it:

Our little guy:

 Oh yes, back to sawing:

They wrapped up our tree and we threw it in my SUV.  I love having an SUV.  We've carted mattresses to Christmas trees in it!

For the record, we went to a farm not 3 minutes from our house on Strickersville Rd called the Old Stone Farm (I think...I'll have to double check).  ALL trees were $40 and a steal!  We certainly did not get the biggest one.  But I'm thinking we got a pretty full one.

Once home, the trimming commences:

Don't know what was so funny there, but it was!  :)  Michael LOVES putting the ornaments on, but he wants to put them ALL on.  I like a less busy tree, but Brian and Michael were having none of that!

Tree picking is one of my favorite traditions, even with the watering and sweeping that entails.  I find it a PERSONAL challenge to keep that tree alive until Christmas!

Bring it!

Nov 30 - Dec 2: Gina and Zef Visit!

 Six years ago, two friends found themselves with 2 brand new babies!

Six years later, our babies grew up!

And we took them to Mi Cocina for dinner and then the Longwood Gardens on Friday night Nov 30th to see the Christmas lights and fountain shows:

Here's a video:

Michael is definitely the sillier of the two - can't get this kid to take a normal picture to save his life sometimes!

 We ducked inside the Conservatory and were delighted there as well with lights galore:

 Love how the tree glows there!

REALLY wish this image wasn't blurry, but oh well:

The boys loved playing at the indoor Children's garden:

They got along great and it was so cute to see them running around together.

 The next day, Zef woke up at his normal 5 or 6 am.  AAK.  Gina graciously watched the two kids while I slept because I had no idea anyone was awake!  Had I known, I would have woken up!

Gina wanted to spend her whole Saturday in her pajamas and I was happy to oblige!  They went for a walk in our woods and saw our stream in the morning:

While I stayed inside to get lunch set out:

In the afternoon, Brian volunteered himself as Target practice:

If you blow that image up, you can see Brian wondering if that was such a good idea!  :)  Gina and I were working on putting together my white plant stand from Ikea.  :)

When Zef and Michael were first born, they did this to spend time together:

Six years later, they do this together!

What were us adults doing?  Playing games of course!

Then, we told the kids to turn off the Wii and play games with us!  MONOPOLY!!

We had pizza for dinner and put the boys to bed.  They were tired!  Long day when you wake up at 6am!!  ON A SATURDAY! :)

We curled up in my bed and read stories together:

Gina and I stayed up talking and watching The Proposal - a total girl night!  So fun!

On Sunday, Gina and Zef woke up at a more reasonable hour of 7am, and I was able to spend time with my friend before she left.

Michael and Zef went to the basement to hang out with our wall track from Aunt Christina:

 It was a great relaxing time with a great old friend.  I was so happy to be able to provide her a break from her life homeschooling 2 of her 4 children!  It's a bit quieter at my house. :)

And if you are thinking I need something over my mantel, you are correct!  Next on the list is a reclaimed wood project!