Knocking out all my "easy" posts - in a semi-backwards fashion. Now onto some posts where I actually have to edit some pictures! But before I do, just some ballpark pics I'm playing with:

I'd LOVE to do a session at a ballpark one day! That would be TOO fun. But a smaller ballpark, not one that has like 4 decks. I loved this Orioles stadium - small enough to be intimate, but large enough to feel grand.

Please Touch Museum - Philadelphia

I took Michael to the Please Touch Museum (Children's Museum - just for clarification) - in Philly one day.

It is very far away and incredibly challenging for an Asian person like me to navigate. Let's just say once you get downtown, there are 1.5 lanes that Philly-pians think are 2 lanes and they drive like they're in freakin' Korea - all at the same time while stuck behind a tram and trying to drive while your tires are in the tram track grooves.

Nope, not my speciality.

BUT - it was SO worth it! Michael LOVED LOVED the museum.

In the craft/play room:

On the indoor carousel:
On the Big Piano - by the same maker as the one in Big/FAO Schwartz - except this one is a bit broken:
That blur is Michael in the huge water section:
And probably the most popular was this crane that dug up a balloon ball pit:


He had a fantastic time! So much to do - indoor food shopping/etc. He went CRAZY in the children's super market. All my pictures of him there were super blurry there because he was so fast. You would have thought he was on the Price Is Right or something. He cracked me up though because he went to the "fish case" and cleaned it out. I think he had about 20 kilo of trout in his cart.

Glad we went - but with gas at $4.14 a gallon, it's gonna be a splurge/treat kind of day! I want to get a membership pretty badly because it's pretty steep just to go for one visit ($41 for both of us after parking/carousel tickets/admission!). It's only $125 a year for membership up to 4 people. However, since it is so far away - I'm taking pause.

First Tee-Ball Game

On April 9th, Michael had his first t-ball game and Brian was of course, coach:

Thankfully, another boy in Michael's preschool class is on the team too and his dad is assistant coach - although he's so good he might as well be head coach! Brian's just glad for the help!

Michael definitely enjoyed it, however, I do not think it is as natural to him as soccer!

Here's Michael's first at bat:

Running towards 2nd base:
Hopping on it:
And on 3rd base next to dad:
It was really funny because all the outfielders just wanted to get the ball. Which led to a lot of this:

That would be a lot of outfielders all at the ball. I think we had one person on base at this time. And the other coach kept saying, "Hey guys, we are all on the same team!"

Brian said our t-ball team has a real hunger for the ball. While our soccer team was pretty content just standing around. So it would have been nice to have had our t-ball team for soccer and our soccer team for t-ball. That would have worked out perfectly!

Michael had fun, which was all that mattered! Our last game was in the cold and rain and pretty miserable. But our team actually scored a bonafide out! Yea! Progress!

Ticks

Michael got his first tick. Despite our best efforts, the tick's head is still embedded in his skin. Off to call the dr tomorrow to see what to do next. Gonna pray that tick was not carrying Lyme disease and hasn't been embedded in there for more than 1-2 days. We didn't give Michael a bath yesterday (or the night before) so we haven't done any tick checks! We haven't been outside much at all except for today so I am really seriously hoping that the tick found its way there today!

Way to go on Easter!
P

Le Printemps est arrive!

Dans mon jardin:

My favorite image from the DC trip.

Percy's Piglets

This picture cracks me up every time. He's shovin' his face full of Percy's Piglets, pig shaped fruit snacks from England.

Michael loves loves gummy candy.

MOPS Easter Egg Hunt

Last Monday, April 11, Michael went hunting for eggs in a field out by our MOPS church.

Here's Michael's before picture - with an empty Easter basket and a field full of chocolate/sticker filled plastic:

My friend's daughter really wanted to be in the picture.

They said, "Ready, set, go" and the kids were already on the field by "set":

Michael had an awesome time.

As judged by his loot:

This picture might be better:
Afterwards, we had a picnic at a nearby park and played outside since the weather was beautiful. Fun Monday. Also the Monday where I couldn't get my car inspected because I had no idea where my registration was or what it looked like.

Turns out it was a rectangular piece of paper that looks like a check that had been laying on my island for 2-3 weeks getting grease stains and water spilled on it.

Yup, that would be my registration.

Also, did you know a cracked windshield fails inspection? Somehow in the Besancon household, we have had to pay for 2 windshields to be replaced in the last 2 months. YEA US!

Michael's Dr Visit

Everything looks good so far for Michael! He is a healthy boy!

He is about 38.5 lbs and is 53% for that. He has gained 3.5-4 lbs since last year.

He is about 3 feet 8 inches tall and is 79% for that. He grew 4 inches this last year.

Glad he's got Brian's height and not mine.

He has 20-30 vision. I took the test next to him to see what my vision was. I think I'll still be going to my grown up vision screen too though. :)

He hid from the doctor underneath the exam bench and popped out eventually when he got tired of crouching.

And he got a chicken pox booster shot. He said he wanted to sit in the chair by himself instead of in my lap. Right before the nurse got the shot in, he tore his hand out and ran away - but she caught him like a slippery fish and gave him the shot. He looked at me with big weepy eyes and said, "Mommy that hurt me!"

After about 10 minutes of feeling like he could not use that arm, he was fine. I think the promise of 20 gummy bears when we got home helped!

Check!

Sister Visit = Fully stocked Kitchen

My sister arrived last Thursday and we bought food the entire time she was here. Good thing she left on Sunday!! :)

I seriously looked at my kitchen Sunday and thought - "I need to have a party."

I love having a fellow foodie in my sister. We have a great time eating and buying food. Definitely got that from our parents!

Although - her purchase of a Costco size container of cheezey puffs "for Michael" would allude to the fact that we are, in fact, not terribly discerning.

So Suzanne arrived on Thursday and we went shopping for her to get some new clothes. Because this is what sisters do. And she took me to Sephora to teach me what makeup and a skincare regimen is and how I really should be using it. If it were not for my sister, I would have no idea what to put on my face.

On Friday, she came with me to MOPS and homegroup and was a tremendous help. In between, we attacked Trader Joe's and Old Navy. Then everyone in the house fell asleep by 10:30pm except me.

Saturday, we stood in the cold and rain at Michael's t-ball game and then sat inside to warm up and dry off. Somehow, we found the will to go to Marshalls Home Goods.

There is a reason I never go to Marshalls Home Goods. And it is reserved for special visits from my parents or sister. It falls into the same category as Costco. There's tons of great stuff that I kind of need and love for pretty good prices.

Kind of need. But not REALLY need right?

Anyways, I went to town in there. In the middle of our shopping trip, a BAD storm rolled in and the lights in Marshalls went completely out. I'm standing in the dark with my cart full of stuff. Hoping the lights come back on so I can buy my stuff.

THAT is a shopaholic!

But it was a super successful Marshalls shopping trip - I got some great wall art to base my master bedroom design scheme/color scheme off of - replaced a non-stick pan that is starting to chip and the handle is wobbly - bought a small bath mat for the guest room because there is not one when you first step out of the bath tub - got some sippy cups with a straw in it (Michael's favorite) - found some Easter cupcake decorations (perfect for the island display this weekend) - almost picked up a lamp.

This is why I don't go to Marshalls on a regular basis.

Then we met Brian at the Chipotle in Newark where I got a parking ticket because my meter expired. I deserved it since my sister was urging me the whole time to feed the meter and we kept thinking - WHAT parking police office is going to be out in that monsoon?!?!

Apparently there was one. And he got me after my meter was expired for only 5 minutes.

Then, Michael said we should go bowling! So we did! And we had such fun!! He has such great suggestions lately for things to do. And it makes my heart happy because he must have learned that we need to "do things" together as a family and to "explore" our world.

Sunday morning, we went to church while Suzanne packed and then we took her to DC and sat in some pretty horrendous traffic, which made us an hour late. Pretty embarrased about that.

THEN, it was our Annapolis, MD entry below.

Annapolis, MD

This Sunday, we dropped my sister off in Washington DC to meet her friend (more on my sister's visit later!) and left tout-de-suite.

Why you ask?

Because it was gorgeous weather and The Mall was a madhouse. Parking was non-existent as there was some kind of race plus DC challenge event going on plus standard milling on the mall because it is a pretty day.

On a whim, we saw a sign for Annapolis, and we went for it.

We have decided we are very spontaneous. By which we mean - doing things unprepared. Thank God for the invention of smartphones. I'd still be lost deep in PA somewhere without it.

!

So we went to Annapolis and it was beautiful:

We stopped at the Visitor's Center to get our bearings and started walking around. Here's B and Michael with the State building in the back (I think):

There was a festivus for the rest of us going on. Here's a picture of me - next to a guy with a Nikon D700 on his shoulder. I wanted to reach out and touch it, but thought better of it when I saw him:
That's the closest I'm coming to that camera for a while. *sniff*

A more appropriate picture of me without the Nikon D700 in it.
Can you tell what I am obsessed with lately?

At a festival, there must be a booth with animals apparently. Here's this cute cuddly owl:
And a red snake that Michael really liked:
We walked along Main Street and along the festival street and that's about all we had time for. Here's a back alley view of the State House:
We did not get to see our nation's Naval academy, but we did get to ride a water taxi at Michael's request:
He loved it! We rode it to a restaurant called The Boatyard - which had surprisingly little seafood. However, we ordered one out of the 2 fish dishes and it was seriously amazing. Best fish I've had in a while!

We walked back across the drawbridge and caught the sun setting on the Chesapeake Bay:
Got in the car, and drove the 1.67 hours back to PA.

It was a really nice detour and a fun adventure for us. We really love to travel so it was really fun to explore a new place!

This was easy to post about because 1) I took the pics with my iphone so I don't really feel the need to edit them. 2) the post is short. 3) I just downloaded my pictures from my phone.

More posts later! All out of order. I'm sure.

Better late than never!

Off to bed. My eyes are tired after making birth announcements for a client for 2.5 hours and then doing this.

Love,

P

Will I ever blog again?

I don't know!

Just really quickly - because I don't want to forget.

Michael and I were at Trader Joe's with my sister last Friday. We were in a pretty narrow aisle and I was waiting for this really huge woman to pick out what she wanted from the shelf.

It is worth saying I had to wait because she took up the width of the display I was looking at and half the width of the aisle so we were all trying to maneuver around her.

I was pretty proud of myself to be patient and not make a big stink about having to wait. I was really thinking and hoping to myself that this lady was trying to eat healthier food by coming to Trader Joe's and really was familiarizing herself with the products.

So I didn't make a fuss.

But that's not the point to this story.

She goes on her way and moves to the next display over. And right as she passes, Michael says to me in a very loud voice:

"MOMMY! Did you see that REALLY fat woman right there?"

Well, that really fat woman was just about 4 steps in front of my cart and I was mortified.

All I could say was, "Michael, that really was not a nice thing to say about someone."

And I looked back and wished I had made it more of a teaching moment. To talk to him about how God made everyone different and He loves us all. And to call someone "fat" is not a nice thing to say about one of God's creations.

Sigh. New lessons learned on parenting. All the time. In the beginning, it was just making sure they didn't hurt themselves and feed them. Now - onto the hard character building stuff.

As you can see, my list of blog posts I need to do is growing longer. I will be back soon. I just need to finish another set of birth announcements for another client!

Love,

P

Five Free Scholastic Books

Hey everyone!

Money saving mom alerted us to an opportunity to get 5 free scholastic books. Just click on this link:

http://www.scholastic.com/kumon/learnandearn/

You have to do workbook stuff! Neat!

P

Proofing

Yes - I still need to blog about the Please Touch Museum. Yes - I still need to blog about our visit with the parents in DC/PA. Now, I also need to blog about our fun weekend with the Bowmans in Baltimore.

I am proofing the pictures from DC. One a day I think. Which should put me into May when I'll actually have it done.

A part of me is joking, a part of me is not!

But I just took this photoshop mentoring class and I'm trying to use some new techniques, try some new looks - just to see if it fits!

Here's a before and after processing that I just want to post.

BEFORE

AFTER

Can anyone tell the difference but me? Which one do you like better? The Before or After? The Before picture is a bit duller in color. The After picture is a bit more contrasty.

More later. Until then, I'm working on like a million things. And I need to blog about how I had a very "MONDAY" kind of "monday."

Retreat

So last weekend, I left the boys at home for extended 'MAN TIME' and drove off with my friend to a Ladies Retreat for the church where I attend bible study/homegroup/etc.

We drove deep into Amish country to faraway Lancaster! All of an hour away.

It was a great weekend! The weather was gorgeous! And I had a fantastic time recharging as a woman, mother, wife, and friend.

What was the point of this retreat? What did we do? Well, I was trying to explaining it to a friend and came up with:

1. The retreat was a chance to have real and full conversations with friends, meet new people, and get to know anyone you wanted to know a little better.
2. Worship - however that involved a lot of singing with contemporary Christian music. And apart from Breakaway music from A&M one year, I really prefer traditional hymns. No surprise I am Catholic huh? :)
3. Listening to the featured speaker speak on biblical verses and their applications to our lives as women, mothers, friends, and wives.
4. Eat.
5. Talk.
6. Listen.
7. Play Games.
8. Relax.
9. Repeat.

We.Talked.All.Weekend.LONG. Yup, that's a ladies' retreat! :)

I met a lot of my neighbors!! Ok - maybe 4 of my nearby neighbors go to this church and 3 were at the retreat. Two of my other neighbors go to my Catholic church. What a blessing to be surrounded by so many Christian families, all less than a quarter mile away! It makes me feel less alone out here in the wilderness that is my home.

One talk I really liked centered on worshiping false idols, which sometimes serve as blinders to what is really the issue at the heart of some arguments:

• Idol of comfort
• Idol of success
• Idol of appreciation
• Idol of respect
• Sadly, I can't remember the 5th.

But to embellish briefly:

• Idol of comfort - wanting to do what WE want when WE want instead of helping others when they need help. For example - like when I do not want to get Michael his snack because I'm comfortably sitting on the couch doing nothing. Yea - like that! :)
• Idol of success - pretty self explanatory. Especially in our culture.
• Idol of appreciation - Wanting to be openly appreciated for our actions instead of giving of ourselves without expectation of recognition.
• Idol of respect - she gave a great example of kids giving attitude and our first reaction is to send them to their discipline for being disrespectful instead of seeing what is the root cause of the disrespect in the first place. Since we are dealing with this now a bit - this was a real eye opener for me.

This all probably makes no sense as I wrote it, but I swear the speaker was much more effective at conveying all this than I am! It just helped me to see how I can better give of myself and see God's model for all of that.

All this with meals thrown in that I didn't have to cook or clean up for. And uninterrupted grownup conversation. And a quick pop over to the outlet malls in Lancaster (why do the Amish get this?!?!). WOW - what a luxury the whole weekend was!

I had a wonderful time.

Brian and Michael went ice skating on Saturday and then to see Hop. Michael fell asleep in the car on the way home at 5:45pm and then continued sleeping on until 7am the next day. LUCKY BRIAN!!! :) He must have worn him out ice skating!

On Sunday, they worked on the yard and it looked beautiful when I got dropped off!

I am a blessed woman. Really and truly am.

Proud

I'm so proud of an old friend of mine from Paris, who published a very interesting article on some differences between France and America. Check it out:

http://www.incultureparent.com/2011/03/behind-the-times/

She was one of the first moms I met in Paris. I met her at our local park, she was speaking English to her son, and I screamed out in sheer desperation, "YOU SPEAK ENGLISH!"

And thus we became friends. And this is not far from how I still make friends, even in America. I kid.

Seriously: she's a great writer, insightful person, and the editor of the magazine for the Anglophone mom's group in Paris. I can't wait to see her writing career as it develops.

Cross-Eyed

On the days I have to proof pictures, I nearly go blind staring at the computer.

But at the end of the day, I just wanted to play a bit - so I played with my fav picture from DC:

I'm not sure this is the best edit, but I just wanted to fiddle.

I know that picture above is far from anyone else's favorite, but it's what I like to take. And photography is subjective so if you don't like it, I'm going to be ok with that. Because I might not like something you like! :)

And honestly, there was a picture I was REALLY trying to take, but it just didn't happen. Maybe another year. I wanted a picture of him in the middle of THIS:

THAT was the money shot I was trying to take. The angle just leads you into the picture and it would have been great if Michael was standing right there in the middle of that. I've been working on pulling out more on my composition. I usually crop in tight, but I want to push myself to do different things.

My Michael has been extra funny the last couple of days.

I showed him a picture of Brian holding his old dog from Arlington, a black poodle named BoBo Palace (at least to Brian). And I asked Michael, "What's Daddy holding?" And Michael said, "A blanket!"

And tonight, while we were driving home from McDonalds for his school fundraiser, Brian asked Michael in French, "Do you want to go home?" And Michael said, "CHECK!" Then, we arrived home, he said, "Game Over!"

What is going on in that head of his?

Apparently it is opening day in baseball. Brian watched 2 pitches, took care of Michael, and fell asleep in his bed next to him.

It is interesting how as Michael grows up, I still see little glimpses of the baby I once knew. Lately, he's been waking up about 45 minutes into his nap and wants to be held for the rest of his nap. And I am a sucker so I do it. But he used to do this as a baby, and I look down now and can't believe that in place of the little 5-6 month old baby, I'm holding a 4.5 year old boy. And I'm happy to do it because before I know it, he'll be gone and grown.

On the Record

So it goes down:

I've got to blog about our trip to the Philadelphia Please Touch Museum, which is a children's museum that is awesome but far away.

And

Our visit with Brian's parents in DC and PA. The cherry blossoms were out and I can't wait to post process those pictures!! Fun!

Money Saving Mom Strikes AGAIN!

She has an excellent link on her website right now for preschool packs. They are GREAT!

She has all sorts of different themes and different exercises to go with them. Some of them are a little easy for Michael, but some are really fun and cover a bit of science. For example, the gardening one has a page that covers the parts of a flower (root, stem, petals, etc).

So check it out! I have been printing out a TON and Michael stands at the printer waiting for them to come out!

This is her preschool packet home page:

http://homeschoolcreations.com/preschoolpacks.html

We are currently doing her gardening preschool pack since Michael and Brian are sowing seeds for the garden:

http://homeschoolcreations.com/gardenpreschoolpack.html

I asked Michael one time what he thought was something special just Mommy and Michael do - special Mommy/Michael time and he told me, "DO WORKBOOKS!"

CHECK!

And go eat at Suki-hana. It's amazing.

Love,

P

Great weekend!

We had a great weekend with the Bowmans in town! I have no pictures because my camera has a dirt speck on the sensor. This results in a little black speck on all my pictures. NOT GOOD.

Luckily, Amy took pictures! So here's a quick recap of us doing a lot of nothin' !

Charlie LOVED the piano. Here's Michael pouting because he did not get to play first. Even though he rarely ever gets on the piano:

Saturday morning - Charlie and Michael started the day like this:
Too cute. Brian drafted his Fantasy Baseball team extraordinaire. Here's to hoping for a good year!

In the afternoon, we ran over to the Longwood Gardens:
The kids loved the Children's indoor water garden:

After this, B decided we needed to grill steaks for dinner, which was great! Here are Andy and B manning the grill:
They are REALLY happy to have a picture taken of them.

We got our butts reamed by Andy in Carcassonne that evening. He beat us by nearly 100 points. It was his 2nd time playing the game. It's not something competitive people like Brian and I sit on very well. :)

Sunday morning, we went to church. The gals (Amy, SJ, and I) had naps in the afternoon while the boys explored in the woods. They played in the creek, made fire, made smores, and cut down wood. It was a manly day!

Michael and Charlie are definitely friends - but very interesting friends. They fight with each and trash talk with one another but they get along when left in the wilderness.

Here's one fight they had in the car:

Michael: Charlie, quit kicking the back of my dad's seat.

Charlie: Don't tell me what to do. You just worry about yourself.

Michael: I don't need to worry about myself. I'm just fine. Stop kicking the back of my dad's seat.

BRIAN: Charlie, please stop kicking the back of my seat.

Charlie: See, I only listen to adults. I don't have to listen to other kids.

Another morning, they had a back and forth about who was going to beat who on baseball. Both went over their respective strategies and about how one was going to beat the other.

But when you ask them about their weekend:

P: Michael, is Charlie your friend? Do you like him?

Michael: Yes!

P: What was your favorite part about this weekend?

Michael: Charlie's piano concert.

Charlie gave us a mini piano concert. It was SO cute. The video is on Amy Bowman's facebook page.

Charlie told Andy that he liked Michael too and that they were friends.

But they fight like cats and dogs when they are here. It is so funny! Well, when they are confined and have to behave.

When they were in the woods - they had a great time together! And during lunch on Saturday, they played outside and dug in the dirt together while we ate. No fights or anything. It was great!

Us grownups had a fun time catching up, trading stories, and going to bed at early hours.

One thing our house is good for is R&R. Don't come here expecting a jam-packed vacation full of sights and sounds. Come here to play in nature, rest, sleep, and do a whole lotta nothing.

So glad to see our Texas friends on the East Coast. Really sad that they are moving back in June - and us Besancons are back to being alone on this side of the world.