Amelia photography

 

Amelia has wanted to take pictures lately.  Here are some from my parents' deck.

 
 This one makes me laugh!

And a few from my phone from last Saturday (she actually took over 130 pictures, many of which were deleted later that day...)

 

 

partying with Pops

We went to Cary on the quatro de mayo to take Pops out to a Japanese steakhouse for his birthday.  The kids have been planning this since we went to one at Myrtle Beach back in August.  We had a tattooed, Caucasian cook who flirted shamelessly with Amelia.  Seth had a perma-grin on his face the entire meal and started scavenging off Pops's plate after he ate all the good stuff off his own.  Bryan ordered a ginormous bottle of Japanese beer and I had a girlie drink in a Buddha glass that Bryan took home.  It was fun.  Back at the house, we enjoyed Gram and Pops's new deck furniture while Pops opened his presents.  Thanks to pinterest, I found this fun idea of taping dollar bills end to end and rolling them up in a tissue box.  (A big thanks to my friend, Kim, for helping me one afternoon while our girls were playing.)  We personalized the gift by using a CARS 2 tissue box.  Now Pops has some spare cash for all the technology purchases he's so fond of.  :)

for no reason

Here are my first "for no reason" flowers...don't tell the kids, but I like Nathan's taste in flowers a lot better than theirs!

what the duck?

The last Saturday morning of April, we were getting ready to go to some community events when Nathan noticed we had some unusual ground feeders under our bird feeder:

The ducks hung around for most of the day and were unperturbed by Colette's attempts to run them off.  (She even ruffled the mallard's tail feathers once and they still came back.)  Sunday morning the boys were outside playing when the ducks came waddling up the outside of the fence, through the open gate, and down to the feeders to scavenge again.  Sunday night they came up under the deck at the smell of the grill.  I had posted a picture of them on FB, and found out that they had been making their way up the street.  And then we didn't see them for a few days, so we thought the gypsy-ducks had moved on.  One really hot afternoon mid-week, I let the kids put on bathing suits and play with water squirters after school.  Look who came back for a visit!

The mallard was content to take a siesta in the backyard, but the female kept coming onto the driveway.  She even came over and investigated their bucket!  Colette made one attempt to chase them off, then went to the top of the deck and stared at the ducks in disgust the rest of the afternoon.  I saw them one more time in the front yard, but we haven't seen them again in over a week.

spring pictures

We're back in action, folks!  Mid-April I took the kids to get an updated picture of the two of them.  The kids were very cooperative, but our photographer wasn't very good, so I didn't buy a lot of pictures because of shadows, overexposure, etc.  In fact, I only bought these two poses, Amelia in her pretty dress from her Aunt Marie and a good one of the kids together.

The very next day, Seth's school had spring pictures.  They superimposed his picture on several backgrounds.  I wasn't planning to buy any, but with a smile like that, how could I resist?

pardon the interruption...

I was creating a post on Sunday, and it told me I have used up all my free photo storage (after five-plus years, I guess I can't complain).  Sure, I could delete photos, but I feel they tell part of the story.  So then it was a matter of remembering to bring a credit card to the computer, and we've had a busy start to the week.  Now I have quintupled my storage space, but apparently it may take up to 24 hours for it to become effective.  Stay tuned...

one sick little girl

Amelia and I came across this picture taken April 13, 1980 the last time we were at my parents' house.  This is me.  I was in the PICU very sick with epiglottitis.  The story goes that this was not how I looked when they left the hospital the night before, but I pulled the breathing tube out more than once and ended up with Pringles cans and a sandbag as makeshift restraits, as well as the most ridiculous taping of a breathing tube that I have ever seen.  Thank goodness I was too young to remember this.  Torture!  Evidently they didn't believe in Versed or any of the other sleepy drugs thirty years ago!

go big

Last month, a friend of mine posted this video about this book on FB.  I must say that at first I wrinkled my nose at it, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought maybe I needed to read this book.  NICU nurses often run into parents whose reaction to their situation is not what we think it should be.  Doesn't mean it's not real for that parent at that moment.  And I must say the first few chapters were hard for me to read, but it was amazing to see this mother's growth over the course of a year.  But perhaps I was meant to read this book for another reason.  A direct quote from page 45:  "...we learned, early on, that pouring yourself into activities to make life special for your kids is worth all the sweat and tears and helps chisel grooves into personalities that will later find beauty in "living big" too."  Yes.  That is how we live here.  Which is why the kids will always have the little homemade extras at their parties for as long as they want them.  And why my to-do list this week includes painting Angry Bird faces on playground balls and turning coffee cans into green pigs for the first-grade party next month.  And why we're headed to Target after school today to buy a present for a certain dog who turns 12 tomorrow.  Go big, people.  You won't regret the extra effort, the rewards you get will be way worth the personal time you missed, I promise.

hat parade

Spring gets filled with special stuff at the kids' schools.  I dropped Amelia off Friday, went to Pilates, ran home for the world's fastest shower, and got back to her school in time for the annual hat parade.  She was the caboose for her class, which is why she doesn't match the boys behind her in the picture.

Post-parade with some of her best buds:

berry good!

Due to the mild spring, the berry patch opened over two weeks ago.  We have tried more days than not to go pick strawberries after school, but the patch was either closed due to cold and/or wet weather or over-picking.  After the nasty weather we had Thursday morning, around 1pm the sun came out and the hotline said the patch would reopen at 2pm.  The neighborhood crowd rallied and we met up at the strawberry patch a little after 3, and we basically had the run of the place.  And the strawberries were GORGEOUS. 

Worth the wait!

Field Day

Last year Seth's school's field day was in early June, and it had to be stopped early due to extremely hot temperatures.  The principal made field day earlier this year, so it wouldn't distract from end-of-grade testing.  Yesterday morning it was in the mid-50s, with a 30% chance of rain.  I arrived an hour into field day and it looked like the kids were having a blast.  I watched three stations, and then Seth's class was at the "pit stop", where they had a water break and played pictionary with the art teacher.  I looked up and saw some ominous clouds, and the next thing I know, the PE teacher is cancelling field day due to thunder in the area.  We barely got the class inside before the clouds opened up.  The kids had popsicles in the classroom, but then it was back to learning at usual for Seth, although I hear some classes played games in their room the rest of the time.  Seth was pretty bummed, because the next station for him would have been the bounce houses.  Lucky for him, both the Y and the village of Clemmons are hosting events tomorrow that have bounce houses!

diaper motorcycle

                                       
My latest craft project (not original idea, there is a tutorial online on how to make them)...a diaper motorcycle for a motorcycle-loving, very pregnant coworker.

Coulrophobia

At Seth's school, the "specials" rotate every six school days (don't get me started), and he has art the last day of the rotation.  So most art projects take many weeks to reach completion.  He has been talking about his clown for months now.  As I walked down the hall last week, at least three of the first grade classes had their clowns posted in the hallway, and they were sooooo cute.  I was so excited when I found out that Seth had brought his home.  I opened up his backpack, and found this:

Looking at this picture, I don't think it does it justice.  I'm pretty sure Seth's clown is the creepiest one in the first grade.  Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns.  I'm not afraid of clowns, but this guy creeps me out when I walk past him.

sing it, Amelia!

Amelia's school invited the parents to attend music class so we could hear them sing in a more casual setting.  The kids sat on their carpet squares in a horseshoe shape around the room.  Amelia gave me a quick grin,

and proceeded to have a fit of shyness.  She participated, but she sang looking straight into her lap.  Very un-Amelia-like.  Until the butterflies came out.  Then she perked up a little bit, flying the butterfly up and down:

And here she is learning a new poem about the life cycle of a butterfly:

After the program, she jumped in my lap and turned back into my normal wild woman.  We went back to the classroom where she showed me their four butterflies nestled snugly in their chrysalises.  And on the way home she sang at the top of her lungs.  Go figure.

Boosterthon

Seth's school just did the most amazing fundraiser.  It was a fun run organized by Boosterthon.  Two guys have been at the school for the past two weeks talking up the program and teaching the kids character traits and the importance of daily activity.  Since the kids only get PE once every six school days, I like this idea.  Plus, the program does all the work, so teachers/PTA parents aren't tied up.  The kids could get flat or per lap pledges.  We were told the most laps they could run was 35.  The parents were encouraged to attend.  Yesterday was the big day.  The kindergarten and first grades ran at the same time, on two different tracks.  Here is the first grade doing their pace lap:

On the move!

Seth did awesome.  Our mantra is "slow and steady wins the race", but he was a whole lot of steady and not at all slow.  And he kept going, and going, and going, unlike a lot of the kids that pooped out partway through.  The teachers stood at the starting line and marked each student's shirt as they passed to keep track of laps.  At one point the guys said that 32 laps was two miles.  Seth did 44 laps!  He's almost ready for a 5k!

Forget selling cookie dough!  I think schools should do this twice a year!  They said that if all the pledges are turned in, the school will have raised $20,000!  That is amazing!!!

On Tuesday Kim and Carley came over for several hours.  It was a nice day, so the girls spent most of the early afternoon playing with water squirters and bubbles in the driveway.  Kim had brought a shoe box-sized plastic bin of glitter glue that Carley wanted to play with.  The girls were drawing away when Carley folded hers in half and discovered the wonders of symmetry.  Amelia started to do it to, and I kid you not, every single one of Amelia's looked like an insect!

he'll grow into it...

About two years ago we bought Seth a new dresser at Target. It was fairly apparent from the get-go that it was a hunk of junk, and literally the week we put the house on the market, the front of the bottom drawer started falling off.  Nathan was able to fix it a couple times, but not this weekend.  So Sunday's mission was to find Seth a new dresser.  I went early to Kmart, no luck.  After lunch I took both kids on the hunt.  We went first to Big Lots.  The only dresser that matched his bed was ginormous.  Seth loved it.  I wasn't convinced, so we headed to Walmart and Target.  No luck, plus the entire time Seth insisted that he REALLY liked the one at Big Lots.  We went to the Dollar Tree and found some party favors that we couldn't walk away from, and then I drove back to Big Lots. The dresser was a closeout so we got a really good deal.  It was made it Denmark, and it is super duper sturdy.  (And it took almost 3 hours for Nathan and I to assemble.) To give you an idea of how big this thing is, it is almost as long as I am tall.  If I put all Seth's clothes together, he would probably only use two and a half drawers.  As it is, he has clothes in the top four, and the bottom two are used for toys!

Brilliant!  I sold his toy bin this spring, with the plan that I'd buy him a more age-appropriate one for the new house.  So, in the long run this has saved us some money, provided it can fit in his new room!

Pooh Corner

Saturday we went to see The House at Pooh Corner.  It was the last (and our first) play of the children's theater season, which uses the same stage that Nathan and I saw Welcome to Mitford on in February.  Since Nathan and I like live theater so much, we like to take the kids to plays so they will grow up enjoying them, too.  We are so excited, the director announced that Skippyj on Jones is coming next season!!!!!!

And the rest of the weekend was spent doing, you guessed it, yard work.  And the three-hour assembly of Seth's massive new dresser.  Nathan and I spent all day yesterday whining via text about how tired we were!

Easter 2012

Amelia didn't want the Easter Bunny to come upstairs.  Seth was under the impression that the Easter Bunny left a trail using every plastic egg in the house.  The Easter Bunny improvised a little bit and left a wacky trail from the bottom of the stairs to the kids' goodies:

After egg clean up:

In their Easter finery:

 

 And one together:

After church, we did yard work.  Lots of yard work.  But it was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed it outside together, and finished up in time to throw a small ham in the oven for dinner.

on the market

Our house has been on the market for a little over a month now.  We are still waiting for the right family to come by and love it.  In the meantime, we've been working hard the past two weekends making the outside look the best it has since the first year we lived here.  Anyways, we would love some prayers/good vibes/crossed fingers sent our way.  As you can imagine, it's darn hard to keep this place clean with two kids and a shedding dog, and of course nobody wants to see it when it's clean, they want to see it at bedtime on a day I've worked and there are plastic eggs all over the house!  

And yes, there are plans for after the house has sold.  I'm just not ready to share yet.  Give me a couple months!

ImaginOn

Thursday we walked to ImaginOn.  It is a children's library, and the building also houses the children's theater productions.  We hadn't heard more about it than that, but we decided to check it out.  There was a computer station right as you walked in.  The kids had been going through technology withdrawal, and jumped right in playing a Dora game.

Then we went to storytime.  There were over 50 kids there, and the leader finished the 45-minute session with bubbles.  A big hit!

ImaginOn has lots and lots of books, but it also has lots and lots of nooks and crannies full of places for the kids to use their imaginations.

 This is the Horton used in the performance of "Seussical the Musical":

We then went to a music hour (which had over 75 kids in attendance) and then walked to a bagel place for lunch!  Fun, free entertainment, and I could tell their little brains were really craving the stimulation!

we went to the zoo, zoo, zoo

Wednesday we met our neighbors at the zoo.  We got there first, and the kids couldn't wait to start exploring.  Taking a first grader to the zoo is really fun.  Seth was in charge of the map and read a majority of the information boards, at least early in the day.

After seeing the marsh, the alligators, and the seals, we headed to the playground to wait for our friends.

Found them!  We actually lost about half our group right after the playground, but we spent all day with Nickolas, Megan, and their mommies.

A brand-spankin'-new automated dinosaur exhibit had opened just days before.  The kids really enjoyed it.  A couple of the dinosaurs even spit on the kids!

 This pose was all Seth's idea:

I'm not going to post a bunch of animal pictures, but check out the chillaxin' gorilla:

By lunchtime, someone else took over map duties, and she was really good at it!

It took an extra 40 minutes each way to get to the zoo from Charlotte, on two-lane highway, but the weather was beautiful and the kids watched movies and we got back just in time to eat dinner with Nathan.

remind you of anyone?

Found in the Sunday funnies this past week.

spring break staycation

We got the heck out of dodge this past Sunday and hung out at the Charlotte condo until Thursday night (Thanks Granddad and Grandma Sarah for letting us come stay).  Sunday afternoon, the Johnstons met us for lunch and we went with them to Ray's Splash Planet.  The kids had a blast, especially the three biggest boys, who we had to drag out of the vortex when it was time to go.  No pictures, but it was fun!

Monday we hit Concord Mills.  To say it was a successful shopping trip is putting it mildly:

For dinner Monday night, we checked out Pike's Old-Fashioned Soda Shop.  The restaurant's claim-to-fame is that the milkshake scene from the movie Shallow Hal was filmed there.  It is now on our list of fun places to eat.  The kids loved getting their meal on retro school lunch trays, and the waiter decided whether they had eaten enough to get their free ice cream.

 

Tuesday we checked out a playground in suburbia, and in the afternoon we went to the fanciest Walmart I have ever seen, not that that changed the clientele or anything.  We went out to dinner again, this time for Mexican at Loco Lime.  It's not Spring Break without a margarita, right?  The special was $1 tacos, and Seth was actually assertive enough to ask the waitress for a second taco.  Another new restaurant we like!

early egg hunts

Last Saturday we attended two egg hunts.  The first was hosted by Lillie's Friends at the Dash stadium.  Amelia aged up this year and was in Seth's age group.  It was fun to watch them.  Amelia would grab an egg, run a few feet, and grab another one.  Seth would pick them up four a time.

 


We were home long enough to eat lunch and then it was time to head back out for our neighborhood egg hunt.  At this event, the kids were split up, and Seth ran so far away that Nathan didn't get any good pictures on the big kid side.  

I can't believe the number of plastic eggs I got out of the attic this afternoon.  I need to get seriously crafty next year...or be in charge of the preschool egg hunt or something!

rounding out March

So the kids finally got well, and we were able to enjoy playdates at McD's Wednesday (for 25-cent strawberry lemonades) and Chik-fil-a on Thursday (for school spirit night).  Both days were not without incident, though.  As we were eating dinner on Wednesday night, Colette came hobbling in.  I'm not sure what she did, but she limped for a few days and is back to her old self.  At Chik-fil-a Thursday, a woman slammed the bathroom entrance door over my foot, and I required first aid.  Luckily, another mom from Seth's school is a nurse.  My parents came that night, and my mom rigged a bandage so I could wear a shoe to work the next morning.  I've worn flip flops ever since, and yesterday was the first day is showed signs of healing.  So hopefully we have left all our sickness and injury (as well as pollen and allergies) in March!

a little testosterone

Last Thursday, Stephanie, my BFF for 29 years now, gave birth to a handsome little boy, Gill.  I now have another (honorary) nephew!  I'm not sure if big sister, Maddie, knows quite what to do with him...and probably the adults as well.  Stephanie has a very small, tight-knit group of women on her mom's side.  This is the first little boy that hasn't married in on that side.  I can't wait to watch my other mom learn how to spoil a boy!