these kids amaze me

...last Tuesday, I took Amelia to the library for storytime.  This would have been her first time without her brother, but unfortunately they were doing census stuff at the library so storytime was cancelled.  But when we pulled into the parking lot, Amelia said, "I want big bad wolf."  It's a good thing I was parked, or I might have ran into something.  The last time we went to the library was in OCTOBER, when we went with Seth's class to see the Three Little Pigs puppet show.  Guess I shouldn't shop for her birthday presents when she's with me, this kid has a great memory!

...we bought Seth a workbook in December, simply because it had a color-by-number on the cover that caught our attention in the check-out line at Kmart.  Over the past week, he has almost completed the second half of the book.  The boy can't read or spell yet, but he can find words in word searches and decipher codes.  AMAZING!!!  I did a double take the first time he did one independently!

reason #832 it's good to be the youngest child

I know we could argue birth order until we're blue in the face, but besides some of the obvious (like you get a later curfew and you actually are old enough to remember having your parents all to yourself), I have found a new reason why it's better to be the youngest:  you have see all the childhood pictures of yourself because they weren't in the archives on some ancient form of media.  My dad recently purchased one of those gizmos that converts slides to jpegs.  Here are a couple that have made their way into my inbox:

I will not name the cousin in the above picture, since I didn't tell her I was going to put this on here, but I'm sure the Swedish mafia can figure it out.  (If you can't tell, we're wearing my grandma's wigs.)  I thought I was the only one that had old-school pictures resurfacing, but alas, Bryan has made the slideshow!

Actually, it's been really fun seeing these old pictures.  I hope someday they will make DVDs of the old reels Grandpa Meek used to have (hint hint, Dad)...the sisters getting ready for dances with orange juice cans on their heads, now THOSE are some great pictures!

"P" is for...

...preschool, to start off with.  Because that's what we do every morning.  Friday, Seth took his Curious George pillow in for show-and-tell, and they were having another pajama party:

 

After school, we had a pizza playdate with Austin and Nickolas, and Amelia was so wound up that she wouldn't nap.  On a whim, I decided to take the kids to Discount Friday Night at the Children's Museum.  It was a great idea.  We played, played, played.  This was the last week of the Clifford exhibit, and we hadn't seen it yet.  Seth had fun trying to give Clifford bones:

We ended up in the Clifford room twice, but we checked out all the other rooms, too.  The Krispy Kreme exhibit was probably their second favorite:

Poor Amelia has a virus...it hasn't knocked her down too much, but she has a bad cough that wakes her up at night.  For the last two nights, she has needed popsicles around midnight.

Seth is enjoying his pool time...he is learning how to swim to the bottom of the pool, and last week they did cannonballs into the deep end without swim floats, I about had a heart attack! 

hint of spring

Over the past couple days, the snowball in the backyard finally bit the dust.  Before the sub-40 degree weather comes back, we have had a few nice days of almost 60-degree weather.  Yesterday afternoon, Seth had a playdate with his buddy, Nickolas.  In addition to our group pizza playdates, Evelyn and I have been alternating a weekly drop-off.  Yesterday we got to play outside:

Amelia loves to play with the boys!  And in other news, she has taken a serious interest in potty training.  It'll be a blessing if she does really do it, but I think it's just a sick joke right now, because I bought a Costco-sized box of diapers Friday!

And the factory-refurbished replacement for my hunk-a-junk camera came yesterday.  I am cautiously optimistic that this is a better camera.  I won't put up with any nonsense this second time around!  Focus, camera!!!  (The pictures above were taken on my OLD camera...the replacement was on the front steps when we came in last night!)

I LOVE...

This is Amelia's newest thing, putting a lot of emphasis on the word love.  The sentence usually ends with some sort of food (I LOVE juice).  She also LOVES the YMCA.  I swear she thinks it's school.  She went four times by herself this week, and Saturday morning with her brother.  Last night was the first Parents' Night Out of the year, so we dropped the kids off and headed out to eat.  The theme was pirates and princesses:

Nathan and I went to Sagebrush, and they served me the biggest sweet potato I have ever seen in my entire life.  Seriously, it was as big as a large grapefruit.  It came with butter and cinnamon sugar on it, and I told Nathan it tasted like sweet potato lefse.  I thought I may have come up with a culinary invention, you know South-meets-Scandinavia, but I have googled it, and found a couple recipes online.  One of these days, I'm going to try it!

sparkly band-aids

Last summer I got a letter in the mail, asking if Seth would participate in a developmental research study.  I took the letter to his check-up, and his pediatrician said it was legit and encouraged me to enroll.  The study is sponsored by the CDC, and taking place at six universities (UNC-Chapel Hill being one of them).  The study is trying to find any new autism indicators.  I have filled out half a dozen questionnaires, done two telephone interviews, and Nathan, Seth, and I sent cheek swabs to one of the other research stations.  Wednesday, Seth had an appointment in Chapel Hill.  First he had a developmental exam.  Then he had a physical, but not the ordinary kind.  Yes, they took his height and weight, but they measured his ears, forehead, bridge of his nose, palms, feet...they are collecting all sorts of data because they don't really know what is relevant yet.  And last but not least, we both had labs drawn.  Seth was a champ.  I told him he didn't need that blood and it would help sick kids get better.  We left with matching sparkly band-aids.  I was so proud of him that I drove to the nearest Target and bought him a new Lego truck.  After a nap in the car on the way home, he was ready to build it the minute we got home!  This weekend I have to keep an extensive food diary and then for a week I have to document, for lack of a better term, the byproduct of the food diary, and then we will be done helping with the study.

"N"ew Year

Seth did a wonderful job of programming himself over break, but we were all glad to add preschool back to our routine this week.  He also started swim lessons this week.  He moved up a level in classes and is learning to swim without the swim belt as a safety net.  He has a young surfer-dude swim instructor that doesn't let him wuss out.  Since it's been so cold, the kids haven't played outside in probably two weeks. (We still have one ball of our snowman in the backyard from our Dec 18th snow.  This is North Carolina.  That NEVER happens.)  It is a great way for Seth to burn some energy, he's been sleeping like a champ!

Monday and Tuesday I ran errands, and Wednesday I met Melissa for one last Starbucks session before Gray was born.  Thursday I went to a lecture (more on that at a later date), and Friday we started our pizza playdates until it is warm enough to start going to McD's playground again.  In the midst of all this, I sort of forgot to do laundry all week, so I had a bunch to do Saturday.  Oops!

Saturday we made a family trip to the Y (running side-by-side on treadmills gives me the delusion illusion that I can run as fast as Nathan...).  We went out to lunch, and Amelia was wild.  I then went to the hospital to go meet baby Gray and baby Loryn (another coworker had delivered Friday), and did not have one iota of baby fever.  I also went to see my friend, Pam.  Her father is in the neuro ICU.  I would appreciate it if you would say a prayer for their family.

Today I took the kids to church and then Nathan and I went to see New York I Love You at a/perture.  It's a very good movie, mostly because there are so many well-known actors in it that are not playing their typical roles.  The theater wasn't packed, but it was a good crowd, so I hope they had a great opening weekend.  We sure enjoyed it!

Amelia's first (real) haircut

We couldn't stand it for one more minute.  Amelia HAD to get a haircut this week, and I knew I was not the one that was going to try to do it.  Her hair is very fine, and the cold weather has made it very brittle and static-y.  It hasn't been a good look for her.  Friday morning the schools were on two-hour delay (I guess because it's cold?), so I took Amelia to a new-ish salon near our house after we dropped Seth off.  Here she is, lookin' like she does when she wakes up in the morning:

Amelia followed the stylist right to the chair and sat in the booster seat like a "big girl".  She was PERFECT for the stylist.  Worth the $10 I paid to have someone else do it!  The stylist wet down Amelia's hair, parted it the same way I do (Amelia has three cowlicks, I'm glad I had it right!), cut a little bit of length off the back and softened up the sides and bangs.

I thought I wanted more taken off the back, but the stylist thought it would part down the middle funny until she gets a little more volume to it.  It's not a drastic change, but it's definitely an improvement!  It naturally flips out when it's dry...isn't it cute?

a phone call from church

So....the church secretary just called me...our conversation went like this:

CS:  Did one of your kids lose a slipper?
me:  At church?  I don't think so.  What does it look like?
CS:  It's black, with pawprints all over it.
me:  Yes, that's Amelia's....

And then it dawned on me.  I just returned the Congregational Care box (sending notes to the sick, bereaved, etc.) Tuesday morning.  I haven't looked inside the box in about a week.  I guess I should have.  I knew Amelia had been standing on the box to mess with our alarm clock.  I didn't realize she had been stashing stuff as well...I guess it could have been worse, and from now on, I will inspect all returns one more time!

a/perture

UPDATE:  Matinee date scheduled for Sunday, I'm so excited!

This Friday, friends of ours are opening an independent theater in downtown Winston-Salem.  We have been following their blog throughout the entire process, and were delighted to be invited to their friends and family open house Sunday.  It is so nice!  Each theater has about 80 seats, in one they were showing a slideshow of photos of this journey; in the other, trailers of the first three films (Nathan and I want to see two of them.  I'm not quite sure how that is going to work out).  Good luck, Lawren and Jigar!  If we can find a babysitter this weekend, we're there!

we're hibernating

It is brr-cold here.  I haven't left the house since 2009.  My last day of the year was fantastic.  I took both kids to Walmart, and ended up spending less than $2 after the return I had made.  We then ate lunch for $2.53 at Costco.  When we went to Disney, they were having this promotion that you could get a free child's ticket to The Princess and the Frog for every adult ticket purchased.  Amelia was free, so the matinee cost me $6.50.  The kids were golden; it was the perfect afternoon!  The movie is good and has some fantastic music! 

I had planned to either be asleep or alone when the ball dropped.  Nathan participated in the Running of the Lights at Tanglewood, (and did really well, 29th overall!).  Seth woke up at 11:40 with an upset stomach, so I rang in the new year with my boy, his bucket, and the sounds of the washing machine.  He's much better now.

We have been lazy and productive as we stay inside trying to stay warm.  Nathan and Seth have put in lots of hours playing "flying yoshi" and I am pecking away at Harry Potter.  The kids have played every board game we own, and Amelia has spent HOURS doing playdoh.  All the Christmas stuff is back in the attic, the back room is organized, the laundry seems endless, and Amelia's room and the guest room have been reorganized, closets and all.