ballerinas

(just in case you couldn't figure out what they are)

Amelia has started drawing people (specifically ballerinas) this week.  We now have two artists in the house!

Easter 2011

The Easter Bunny came again this year, leaving a trail of eggs from the kids' rooms to their baskets on the kitchen table.

 Nathan went on a 42-mile bike ride.  The kids and I went to church.

After church, the middle school youth held an egg hunt for the kids.  Last year, we got a lot of VBS trinkets.  This year?  Chocolate.  Our Halloween pumpkin is full to the brim again.  I think I'm going to have to take it into work.

Otherwise, we just spent a quiet day at home.  We were outside for HOURS that afternoon, and I made a ham that night for dinner.  And of course, carrot cake!!!

all for $6

Beware...photo-heavy post.

Saturday we went to the Lillie's Friends Festival.  Most of our friends went to an egg hunt at a local church, but we headed to the baseball stadium.  The entree fee was $2 each.  Wow!  What a venue upgrade!  (Not that there is anything wrong with our favorite park!)  Here is a little bit of what we did during those two plus hours...

 ....keychains and bookmarks after face painting...

 ...a photo op with the Easter Bunny...

 ...hanging out in the outfield...

 ...playing in the FOUR bounce houses...

 ...a whirl on the merry-go-round...

...and oh, WHAT AN EGG HUNT!  Left field was covered in eggs.  The first group was ages 1-3.  Go Amelia go!

(Next year we'll bring a bigger bucket.)

 A nice volunteer offered to take our picture:

 A view from the stands before the 4-7 year old hunt:

 Seth's loot!:

Seth's turn...

Seth's class didn't have a spring fling Thursday.  They had an Easter party, though we stuck with the bunny and eggs theme.  Kerry read them a story, while I helped the teacher with a last-minute project and the other moms hid eggs.  Then we had an egg race.  Another mom brought about 3 dozen hard-boiled eggs.  They broke very few of them.  Please note my spoiled daughter being carried around by Seth's teacher in the top left corner:

Here they are, walking out of the building with their bunny bags they had made:

Egg hunt in the flower garden!  I was kind of surprised about the location, but nobody came out and yelled at us, so it must have been okay.

Happy kindergarteners with eleven eggs each!

this week in kindergarten

More proof this isn't his momma's kindergarten.  Seth's class does a lot of free writing, where they are encouraged to use "kid writing", writing words they don't know the way they think they sound.  Punctuation and spacing are important, and "popcorn" words must be spelled correctly, but otherwise anything goes.  Last Sunday, I found this little note on a piece of computer paper in the hallway upstairs:

"Amelia hurt my feelings don't go in Seth's room."  (Bonus points for the apostrophe, Seth!)  On Monday he brought home a packet.  He had made a storyboard at school, and his teacher sent home a synopsis of the story.  He had to tell us the story using all the characters, tell us the events, problems, solutions, etc. 

Amelia LOVES that he can read to her now.  She will sit quietly whenever he reads.  Wish she would do that when he's trying to do the rest of his work!

egg hunt #2

Amelia is back in swim lessons this month, same teacher, different kids, and she's being a real pill about getting in the water.  It's annoying because she is the best swimmer in the class.  After Monday's lesson, I didn't let her shower at the Y (because that is fun), didn't paint her nails, and made her take a nap at 10:30.  I didn't take away this egg hunt, mostly because I wanted to see my coworkers.  Melissa hosts an egg hunt each year, and it was a beautiful day. 

See that baby bump?  That is Georgia Blair.  One month until she makes her arrival and hopefully two months until we celebrate her coming home!  That's her big brother, Max, in the tie.

These big boys will all be in kindergarten next year, and will miss out on all the fun...

Amelia and her eggs!  (We let Melissa keep all the eggs...the last thing we need is more plastic eggs around here!)

Happy birthday, Evan!

Today is Evan's 8th birthday.  We celebrated with him and his buddies Saturday night.  There was pizza, pick-up basketball games,

some baseball,

some light sabers,

and of course, cake!

Once again, Amelia was the only girl invited, but she held her own.

Since the cousins had just had a sleepover last week and I had to teach Sunday School in the morning, we skipped the sleepover portion of the party.  I'm sure the last thing Marie and Eric needed was two more kids in the house!  Those boys were still going strong at 8:30 when we left!

neighborhood egg hunt

A nasty storm crossed the state Saturday.  Of course, this was the weekend when there was a lot of stuff going on.  Nathan's first triathlon of the seaon?  Cancelled (actually rescheduled for fall).  March for Babies?  Cancelled.  Healthy Kids Day at the YMCA?  Cancelled the day before.  We got some rain, and a lot of wind.  Our neighborhood egg hunt was supposed to be rain or shine.  I wasn't going to go if it was pouring.  We needed to get out of the house.  It wasn't raining, but the sun definitely wasn't shining. 

I don't think they really were prepared for that many kids.  Seth only found two eggs, but he has nice friends that shared with him.

 
It started pouring the minute we got back in the van.  Most of the really bad weather was east of my parents' house.  Usually May has the worst storms...hopefully Spring is getting it out of its system now!

how ladylike

It is possible we've spent more time outside in the past month than we have since Amelia was born.  Seth is almost ready to take his training wheels off his bike.  Both kids are mastering their scooters.  We have destroyed one of the two frisbees we got in Charleston.  We are almost out of bubbles.  The swingset is used daily.  The weather is inconsistent, but we aren't waiting for perfect conditions to be outside.  Having those four trees out of the backyard has made a huge difference in the amount of light the backyard gets, and how fast it dries up after all these spring storms.  My aunt and I were emailing back and forth about the book I'm reading, and it struck me why it's taking me so long to read it...I'm outside all afternoon!  Yesterday we were outside for a long time (no homework on Fridays!).  Seth photo-bombed this one, but I thought it was funny: 

This is what I was trying to get a picture of, the girlie-girl in her sundress, picking up worms.  She has a phobia of all bugs and spiders, but I guess worms don't bother her.

playdates galore

Last Friday, Amelia had a playdate with a classmate.  Somebody Amelia never talks about, but hey, it was just a trip to the park, right?  The little girl is very shy, and although she would play with Amelia, she never talked.  At one point, Amelia turned to me and said, "See, Mom?  I told you she wouldn't talk the whole time."  Thanks, Amelia.  On a positive note, it was a nice morning and I really liked chatting with the mom.   Meanwhile, Seth and Ella Brooke were plotting another playdate.  We picked her up on our way home from school on Monday.  Love this girl.  She wanted to play Nick Fit, then Guess Who, then Super Mario Brothers, and then outside.  Her mom picked her up at 4:30 because I had to get ready for work.  Next time it needs to be on a day I'm home...ninety minutes of play wasn't enough for these two!

Tuesday afternoon, we went over to Nickolas's house, Wednesday we played at Kaitlyn and Ethan's, and Thursday, well, Thursday, Mommy pretended that everyone else had other plans because it was a work night again, and our afternoons are pretty rushed as it is.  Most of our buddies are closer to Seth's age than Amelia's age.  She holds her own, but I want her to be able to play well with her peers, as well.  I planned a playdate with Carly for today.  Carly's older sister was in Seth's first preschool class.  Carly will be in Amelia's class in the fall, and so will her neighbor, Mia.  The girls had a fantastic time (and so did Kim and I, watching the girls play).  We brought out the cardboard tower, and the girls spent well over an hour painting it with watercolors, which they sometimes pretended were fingerpaints.  We had to draw the line when they tried to paint with their toes. 

Saturday's storm

Saturday night, Nathan and I went with Marie and Eric to see the Avett Brothers in downtown Charlotte.  Nathan's parents watched all five kids for us.  And if that wasn't enough, they watched them through the worst storm we've had all year.  There were tornado warnings, but no sightings, all afternoon.  We were getting ready to leave, and the sky opened up, dropping all sorts of hail bombs:

Here is one Nathan's dad picked up post-storm:

The storm passed, and it looked like things were going to be okay.  We drove to Charlotte in the rain, got drive-thru for dinner, dropped our stuff off at the condo, and headed to the concert.  It was sprinkling then, so the boys dropped us off while they parked the car.  While we were waiting for them, I ran into one of my dear high school friends, who I keep in touch with these days via blogs and FB (hey, Jess!).  We had on-the-floor "seats", and the concert was awesome.  It never occurred to us that there might be anything going on in Kings Mountain.  When we got back to the condo, we checked our phones, no messages, and went to bed.  The next morning when we drove back to Kings Mountain, we saw this in the backyard:

That is one BIG tree that fell down.  And it really couldn't have fallen in a much better spot, except it did take out a really pretty dogwood.  I don't know if I have the timeline right, but here's a shot at it:  kids play, eat dinner (which probably took a while since it seems like everyone had something different).  Around 6-ish, tornado siren at a local school goes off.  Scott and Sarah have to herd the kids to the basement, Seth automatically assumes the tornado drill position he learned at school.  Colette was found hiding under a bed upstairs.  Back upstairs for ice cream, trees blowing around in the wind.  TIMBER!  Big tree down with everyone watching.  Amelia has said two funny things about it.  "At least it didn't squash your squash!"  (They would have preferred that over their dogwood!) She also tells us Grandad will "lift up the tree" to fix it (while imitating a weightlifter lifting over their head).  Then, right around bedtime the power went out.  The little turkeys said they couldn't sleep without a light, and by the time Grandma Sarah had rounded up enough flashlights, all five had fallen asleep!  The power came back on an hour later, and it doesn't sound like they let their grandparents sleep in.  We headed out mid-morning so Grandad and Grandma Sarah could get some rest.  THANK YOU for baby-sitting!

continuing ed

Last year, the hospital made it mandatory for NICU nurses to take PALS.  I postponed taking it as long as I could, but I didn't want to get ding-ed on my evaluation for it this summer.  I have taken the course before, many, many moons ago when I was working in PICU a lot and training for transport and the training was relevent.  But you've seen the headlines, CPR guidelines seem to be changing every year.  It's hard to keep up.  We were the first class using the "new" 2010 guidelines.  Wednesday morning was a video, then stations.  Wednesday afternoon, the same.  Thursday morning, more stations, then a megacode and a written test.  What is a megacode?  A megacode is where the trainer (some people teach these classes for fun?  yuck!) gives you a scenerio, and you have a mannequin, who these days is attached to a monitor and can go into funky rhythms, respond to CPR, be intubated, etc, that you will (hopefully) bring back to life.  In my scenario, I had a 7-year-old who had been playing soccer all day and his parents took him off the field because his energy level wasn't right.  (Do people really take their kids to the ER for that?)  He was supposedly in hypovolemic shock and v-fib, and I fixed him.  I don't like megacodes.  I don't get to call the shots in the real world.  It is hard to tell 4 other strangers what to do with the plastic child.  But I passed.  Then it was time for the test.  It wasn't bad, just 25 questions, but lots and lots of scenerios.  Again I passed.  And now I have all three of my renewals do in the same year.  Blah!

Bridge Run 2011

Spring Break redeemed itself with a weekend trip to Charleston.  We loved the Bridge Run so much last year, we did it again this year!  I didn't advertise well, but I ran for Team Fox, Team Zoe (since I can't participate in Relay for Life with them), and Georgia on my mind (since we missed a benefit pig pickin' for her that day):

The weather was glorious in Charleston.  We must have left the hotel earlier than last year, because we got to watch the start of the wheelchair race, which was pretty darn cool.  Then we went to our corrals.  This year the race started in waves.  Nathan was in group A, which started three minutes after the elites.  Here he is passing my parents at the hotel:

The rest of us had to wait awhile to start the race.  I was in D, Chad was in E, and Bryan was in F (our three corrals were based on when you registered).  I chose to start back with Bryan (you could start farther back, but you couldn't move ahead).  Here we are at mile 1.5, passing the parents and the kids:

The waves helped make the start of our race less crowded, and we went about a minute faster than last year...until we got to the bridge.  We had to run into the wind this year on the bridge, and it made it a lot harder.  And then the race was much more crowded after you got over the bridge...I guess we caught up to the slower people in the other waves.  Nathan was only three seconds slower than last year, and Chad shaved four minutes off his time, but I was three minutes slower than last year.  The Kenyan who won last year was a minute slower this time, so I think that's comparable.  :)  At least it was a pretty day, because Nathan had to wait forever for the rest of us!

 

 This year's runners:

 We bought slushies for our boat ride back...my travel companions were in good spirits, can't you tell?

A view of the bridge from the boat:

Mom, Amelia, and I braved downtown so we could go shopping in the Market.  Actually, Amelia slept the whole time.  I don't think she knows she went shopping.  That night we ate at a really casual restaurant on Shem Creek, which was a lot of fun.  The kids' meals came on frisbees that we got to take home!  We had to head home early Sunday morning, but it was a really nice way to finish our spring break.