big art birthday

Another one of Amelia's classmate's had her birthday party in January at a place in Charlotte called small hands big art.  It was ninety minutes of colorful fun.  When everyone arrived, they colored and signed this "card" for Chloe:

Next they spray painted the banner, where the words "Happy Birthday" magically appeared:

 Then they sat down and painted cute little birdies on canvas:

Here is a picture of the whole group.  On the table you can see the picture frames they made as their last project.

Their goodie bags contained all sorts of craft supplies and a little birdhouse to paint.  Needless to say, Amelia had a great time!

so sneaky

Nathan has been playing Zelda on Wii, and both kids like to sit and watch (help?)  I cleaned up the dinner dishes, and nobody had seemed to move, so I told Nathan my plans and snuck upstairs with a book and a large glass of water.  We have a garden tub in our bathroom, and I have only used it once, and was kind of disappointed when I did because I ran out of hot water before I got the water level how I wanted it.  But on this night, I hadn't started the dishwasher yet, so I had enough hot water, and I took an hour-long bath, and then I went on the computer...I went downstairs ninety minutes later and no one had missed me, but my batteries were recharged and I was ready to face the week.  Genius!  (But definitely not Mother of the Year!)

positive discipline

When school started, Seth's school offered a parent book club based on the book Positive Discipline, which the school supposedly embraces (Seth's teacher, not so much).  The first meeting was mid-September.  I joined for three reasons:  1-to see what the school was doing, 2-to meet new people, and 3-because some days, I need as much help with Amelia as I can get.  I don't 100% drink the Kool-Aid on the concepts, but little tweaks in how I talk to Amelia have helped.  One day I did have a big a-ha moment, though.  When friends whine about how three is worse than the terrible twos, my standard response is that it was like the flicking of a switch the day Seth turned four, that he turned into a sweet kid.  For most of this year, I added "but I'm still waiting with Amelia."  One day in November or December, I thought, "her dad left for Charlotte the day before her fourth birthday.  When she finally got him back full-time, we were in a new town.  I haven't been giving her the benefit of the doubt."  Though she is more strong-willed than her brother, the daily battles are getting fewer.  I think age five is going to be Amelia's year to shine.  That insight in itself was worth the money for the book.  What else did I get out of the book club?  I know what the guidance staff and dean of students truly want to be happening in the classrooms.  I know them, and they know me. I have met a handful of moms, who recognize me if I see them on the greenway or at Target.  I have become friends with someone who lives around the block from me, who is able to give me advice about the ins and the outs of the school.  And that is worth setting aside the entire Friday preschool time a couple times a month all fall and reading a parenting book that I couldn't exactly sink my teeth into. 

lunch with daddy--Seth edition

Seth had a teacher workday the day after the MLK holiday.  We dropped off Amelia and drove to uptown and went to Imaginon.  We ended up spending most of our time getting addicted to a tablet game called Bumpy Road.  Seth requested Bojangles for lunch, so we met Nathan and then ate lunch at the condo, watching some old school Looney Tunes.  Seth and I had both had a bout of the winter blues, so it did us both good to have a day in the city.

dress up days

Lots going on at preschool, as always.  The first Friday back, the kids were supposed to bring in a "wonderful Christmas present" (letter of the week=W).  Amelia brought in her dream light, and wore the dress Uncle B bought her in Ghana:



The next Friday the kids went "ice skating" on paper plates in the gym and drank hot chocolate afterwards.  They were supposed to wear hats and mittens:

The following week was "N is for Nocturnal", and on Friday the kids wore their pajamas to school and brought sleeping bags, pillows, and loveys.

(Her hair has extra body because she slept in foam rollers the night before, as practice for another dress up day coming in February!) Last week they learned all about books, and Friday they had a book character parade.  Amelia wanted to be Alice in Wonderland.  I tried to talk her into something easier (on me), but she wasn't having it.  I found the apron at Hobby Lobby for $2.40.  I bought an adult t-shirt for $2.60, and found an online tutorial on how to turn it into a dress.  It took me close to six hours, but it didn't fall apart when she wore it.  I added a bow to a headband and voila, Alice:

January winter storms

This winter has proven how just moving an hour south can change your weather.  During the summer, it was usually about two degrees warmer here than in Clemmons.  This winter it is consistently six or more degrees warmer down here.  I rarely get out a jacket, usually my vest will do (although it's plenty cold for Nathan when he heads to the bus stop in the morning).  On the 18th we had our first winter storm of the year.  Clemmons got a couple inches of snow, and school was closed (and they have to make the day up President's Day).  This is what we woke up to:

At 11pm, everything was white and fluffy, but the ground was too warm for it to stay.  The next Friday, we had the threat of more winter weather.  It was coming early afternoon, and the school system wisely closed two hours early.  The worst of it was over by late afternoon, but I was worried about Nathan's bus ride/drive home.  This is how the road looked at 5pm.  Basketball practice was cancelled, but it warmed up the next morning and Seth was still able to play his game. 

I will also mention that it was in the high 60s at least one day in between these two storms.  The day of the second storm, the high was 28.  By mid-week, we had two 70-degree days. Ah, NC winters...



giving it a twirl

We decided to sign Amelia up for ballet until it warms up and we can play outside more.  She is taking it one afternoon a week at the Y.  She won't let me watch, but I caught a pre-lesson picture through the window.  She loves it, and her teacher is really nice.  Seth goes to his childcare, and I either run on the treadmill or sit in the lobby and read my book.  It chops up our afternoon, because normally Seth likes to do all his homework the minute he gets home, but so far none of us has minded the change in routine.

big wedding

I asked Amelia if she wanted to play a board game.  When I asked her which one, she said, "Barbies."  Darn it.  I spent hours and hours playing Barbies when I was a kid, but I just can't sit still to play with Amelia.  But I tried my hardest, and made it through about an hour until it was time to make lunch.  During that time, Barbie having a date with Liam turned into a triple wedding and all the folks you see below were getting ready to have brunch before the wedding. 

The wedding has been postponed until Aunt Lisa and Uncle Michael can officiate. 

gross

Which leads me to my next story.  That evening, I was talking to my mom while starting to cook dinner.  I opened the drawer to find my spatula has been shaved down.  I naturally accused Amelia of using the grater on it, but she kept denying it.  I heard Nathan pull into the garage and passed the inquisition over to him.  Amelia is still denying it.  And then I find droppings IN THE DRAWER.  We had a mouse!  Yuck.  So I took everything out of the drawers (three of the four had evidence of having a visitor, if you know what I mean).  I shocked everything in Clorox, and it found a new home on the dining room table for the next two weeks.  The next morning I called the exterminator, because this isn't the garage, it was IN MY CABINETS.  The guy who came Thursday found holes between the crawl space and the kitchen.  He told me my options and told me his office manager would call me bright and early Friday morning.  By noon on Friday I could wait no longer, and I called her.  The guy who came Friday filled a hole from the crawl space to the exterior, did whatever exterminators do under the house, set traps, and then inspected the whole house.  By Saturday morning, we had caught the perpetrator.  Nathan took care of it, and then I deep cleaned the whole kitchen.  We set another trap, and never caught anything else, so luckily, it was a solo operation.  I still waited a few days (okay, ten) to put the utensils, silverware, and pans back in their normal places.  YUCK.  I have a new-dislike for mice. 

liar liar

The kids went back to school on the 2nd.  I spent the morning running all those errands I couldn't run during the break, and was rushed getting back to pick up Amelia.  Another mom said, "Amelia told me what happened to her forehead." Huh?  "The stitches?"  "She doesn't have stitches!"  Later in the afternoon, Parry told me how Amelia had pulled her headband across her forehead and lied straight-faced to four moms that she needed stitches from doing a "difficult yoga move".  Great. 

Friday I was at a book club at Seth's school, and I asked guidance counselors how I should be dealing with this...her acting, because that's what it is.  They loaned me a book about not telling whoppers, and it really helped.  Now we say she's pretending to do such-and-such.  In fact, mid-month at her parent-teacher conference at school, the only negative thing they were going to ask was how I wanted them to deal with the fibs at school, but they said she had not done it again since the stitches incident. 

Our community center has lots of summer camp options.  I think Amelia will be doing a week of theater this year.

her yoga

Here are the kids in action playing the Disney Dance Party Wii game I rented over the new year.  Amelia calls it her yoga.  They talked about it so much after we returned the game that we bought it the next weekend.  It's a fun, active thing to do on cold afternoons.  It's not easy, either! 

starting off the new year right...

We were invited to a New Year's lunch at Hannah's house.  Santa brought Hannah a karaoke machine for Christmas.  So while other kids were building forts and driving remote control trucks, dads were watching bowl games, and moms were socializing, Amelia was rocking out to Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen. It was too much fun for me.  I took a nap on the floor of the bonus room when we got home.  Or maybe that was due to the uber-strong dragonfruit martini I had at the party.  Hmmm.

NYE

You may remember last year, the kids stayed up to watch the ball drop. They were determined to do it again this year.  I rented Disney Dance Party wii from the Redbox for them to dance the night away.  After Nathan got home from work, Seth realized we didn't have any decorations, so I found a printable banner online to decorate the family room:

Nathan had no interest in staying up until midnight, so we set up an air mattress for the kids downstairs. 
At 9, they were still going strong on the wii.
At 10, ditto.
At 10:45 I made a video of Amelia singing along to "Call Me Maybe" on one of the New Year's Specials. 
I took this picture at 11:05:

They didn't make it.  I stayed up until midnight and roused them enough that they could see the ball drop.  They think they stayed up until midnight.  Maybe next year.

more preschool fun

Amelia's preschool has a website, where the teachers have a calendar and keep us updated with what is going on each week.  Our teachers take lots of pictures.  Here are some I found on the website:

 

Santa's workshop

"wearing a mask in class"

glass blocks

another party

Once Amelia opened up her heart to her classmates, she made friends faster than you can bat your eyelashes.  All the kids (boys and girls) love Amelia.  All the moms love her.  The teachers even say there is something that sets her apart (probably her vocabulary) from the rest of her class (more on her teachers in another post).  Anyways, the Saturday after Christmas Amelia was invited to her third birthday party for a classmate, this time at Chuck E Cheese.  She and her friends had a blast:

poor fella

Seth ran a fever all through Christmas Day, and there was not an OTC cough medicine that would give him any relief.  I told him I had zero-tolerance for fever on the 26th (day six of antibiotics).  He was fever-free...until 8pm.  So on the morning of the 27th, I went through the rigamarole of calling the triage line, and then the on-call nurse...I was about to just go ahead and take my chances and schedule an appointment, when the on-call nurse called me back and had us an appointment within the hour.  Luckily, we got an appointment with the same doctor who had seen Seth the week before.  He was not happy about the fever and cough, and found a left ear infection to boot.  He suggested an aggressive line of treatment, and we ended up doing four of the five things.  Step one, a CBC.  Seth is old enough now that he needed a venipuncture in the arm for a vial of blood.  I had no time to prep him for it before the technician was in the room to draw it.  It did not go over well.  I had to let her go through all the steps on me (except the stick, which I would have let her do if she wanted to, I'm not needle-phobic).  Then I had to sit on the table with Seth in my lap, my legs wrapped around his and me holding his right arm while trying to calm him down.  I had barely gotten him settled down from that and read him literally two sentences in a book when the nurse walked in to give a shot of antibiotics in the toosh.  He wasn't having it.  It took some tough love and the threat of a trip to the hospital for IV antibiotics to get him to cooperate.  And did I mention Amelia was with us, and she was oh-so curious as to what was going on?  We read a few more pages and the doctor came back in to say Seth's white count was okay, so he thought we were dealing with walking pneumonia and not lobular pneumonia.  We left with a prescription for yet another antibiotic and promised to come back on Monday for a chest x-ray if Seth still had a fever. 

I would love to say the meds kicked in right away and Seth was instantly better, but it was Sunday before he was finally fever-free.  Friday night the doctor called to check on him.  I'm sticking with him.  He and his staff were awesome working with Seth, and didn't blink an eye at my tough love approach with Seth. (I'm such a mean mommy sometimes!)

We did hit the cheap theater Friday afternoon and saw "Frankenweenie" with our neighbors, and then Sunday night Nathan and I saw "Les Mis" when Amelia's teacher's daughter baby-sat for us, but otherwise the kids had a very quiet break. 

More soon!  I'm a month behind!

Pops' pictures

My parents and Bryan spent Christmas day with us.  I didn't take any pictures, but my dad did!  Here I am, opening presents at lightning speed:

 Seth's new telescope:

 Uncle B has lots of "ants" on his face these days:

We Skyped with all the Mayses, the Johnstons, the Sheltons, and the Beerys throughout the course of the day:

 Seth trying out his new bike.  He went up and down the street once and called it a day.

Christmas morn

Every year we are prepared to be woken up early by the kids; every year they surprise us by not getting up with the chickens on Christmas morning.  We waited patiently for the kids to get up.  Seth woke up first, and was alarmed when he found nothing in front of the fireplace.  That's because Santa left everything by the tree this year:

It just struck me that this is the first you've seen of our "fancy room".  I need to recover the piano bench, and then the room will be show-ready. 

My BFF, Stephanie, gave Seth the coolest present.  Her daughter goes to daycare with the author of these books, and not only did he autograph the books for Seth, those watercolors are custom!

 Toy Story Mania for Wii, just like the ride at Hollywood Studios:

As you may recall, Amelia made one of these in her 2's class.  We are probably the only people in the world who have two of these of the same child!  (Did I ever tell y'all that her 2's teacher used to teach at this preschool 14 years ago?)

Father Tim

I just finished In the Company of Others, the most recent Jan Karon book.  I am glad to hear the third book in the Father Tim series is in the works.  I am sad that there is not another one waiting on my bookshelf.  Although this is a work of fiction, Father Tim's wife, Cynthia, said it best of page 340 of this book:  "I'm going to miss all the dead people we're reading about...They seem so very alive." In Winston, I sometimes heard, "He/she's good people." (Yes, bad English, but it describes someone who's good to the core.)  The Mitford characters are good people, and I have laughed at their calamities, been counseled by lessons within, and cried at their passing.  I read so much, I rarely get as emotionally involved as I have in these books (of course, there have been 12 of them...) I impatiently await the publication of the last book, whenever it may be!

the good doctor

I just saw on FB last night that a doctor I used to work with has retired.  I won't say working with him was always sunshine and lollipops, although I didn't have as many run-ins with him as some of my coworkers did. I won his respect by standing up to him when I was right while pregnant with Seth (pregnancy used to be the only time I would have to work to hold my tongue, now it seems like it's a weekly struggle!), and humored him when I didn't let his senior resident try to butter me up to diffuse the situation.  He also has grandchildren about the ages of my kids, and I hear he is a really good man out in the community.  He gave me free medical advice on Seth's belly button, and saved me several copays by just looking at Seth's belly button any time we happened to bump into him.  He was the only doctor this spring to check in on me, when it was obvious this impending move was weighing on me.  A good doctor, who I will forgive of his occasional outbursts.

In a unit that size, people come, and people go...I hope that some small hole needed to be filled after I left.  But there are big shoes to be filled with the good doctor's retirement, and I pray they find a replacement that suits the children's hospital quickly.

McAdenville Lights

For YEARS, like since 1997, Nathan has said he should take me to the lights at McAdenville any time we have driven to Kings Mountain during the month of December.  On the 23rd, he decided it was time to go.  Probably not the best idea to go on the weekend before Christmas.  I think it is about a 35 minute drive from our house, and with a quick stop at McD's for dinner, it took us about five hours.  The kids watched two DVDs in the car just waiting to get to the lights.  But once we got there, Amelia perched right here, and didn't get down until the end:

 A lot of people walk the route, and we will do that next time, but that wasn't an option for us because Seth was too sick.  The businesses and houses along the route even have photo ops along the way.  Next time I will bring my good camera.  These pictures are all from my phone.

Seth stuck his head out of the sunroof long enough to see what all the fuss was about, but he quickly sat back down in his seat.  Amelia greeted all the walkers with a spirited "Merry Christmas" and actually cried when she realized we had reached the end of the route.

Colette loves Amelia.

How do I know?  She tolerates this:

in case you didn't notice...

...Amelia didn't attend Seth's stuff with me.  She told me she didn't want to go, and I decided if she didn't want to be there, I didn't want her there either.  So I dropped her off at Hannah's, and Parry decided to spoil the girls with real manicures on her lunch break.  Amelia had a blast, and Parry kept texting me "Amelia-isms".  The girls had lunch out at Qdoba before returning to Hannah's house.  No wonder she didn't want to hang out with me!

holiday party

Seth's teacher wanted to have centers at the class party.  On my friend pinterest, I found a second grade party that had all the elements she wanted.  So I did what I do best, I copied it, adding my own little touches.  At the Christmas center, they made popsicle stick trees.  At the Hannakuh center, they played the dreidel game.  At the New Years center, they wrote resolutions.  At the food center, they decorated and ate sugar cookies.  At the Kwanzaa center, they played mancala.  The kids already knew how to play the games because they had done them during their Christmas around the world unit.  It was chaotic, maybe a little too chaotic for some parents, but I did the best I could given what I was given to work with.  

A lot of kids left with their parents when the party was over.  A few had to stay an extra hour to wait for their buses.  Seth and I hightailed it out of there after I had cleaned up the classroom.  Hello, break!

Seussical

The second grade performed songs from Seussical on the last day of school.  There were brightly colored paintings on either side of the stage:

I was able to zoom in and get a decent picture of Seth...he was in the second to the back row!

 Can you find him?

 There are *8* second grade classes this year.  Those kids sang their little hearts out!  It was so cute!



Seth was sick

I woke up Wednesday morning and made Seth a doctor appointment.  The flu had been running rampant in areas around us, and I knew we were about out of the Tamiflu window.  On the bright side, I really liked the pediatrician we saw.  I was not impressed with the practice when I took Amelia in October, and was considering switching.  He gave me the 4-1-1 about the local NICUs and was fantastic with Seth.  His official diagnosis was "some sort of viral crud", because Seth was flu negative.  He sent us home with a prescription for Seth's go-to antibiotic if the fever didn't improve.  It didn't.  He spent most of his winter break somewhere between 99.5-102.5.  He did have a 36 hour span post-appointment that he didn't have a fever, so I sent him to school for the last day.  By 8 that night, his fever was back.  He spent most of his break watching movies, playing board games, and listening to me read.  His cough was so bad he couldn't read to me.  Here is a pic Amelia took of him one day:

 

I almost took him to the doctor on Christmas Eve...but then he started feeling better.  Here we are doing a check up before bedtime:

...to be continued...

cookie exchange

I went to my first-ever cookie exchange on the 18th.  Seth was sick, so we couldn't go to his Boy Scout holiday meeting, but it meant we didn't have to shuffle our evening so much.  I was supposed to bring eight dozen cookies to the exchange, as well as three dozen to Seth's school the next day for the teachers.  I made a quadruple batch of gingersnaps, because they are my never-fail recipe, which I baked while Seth chilled out on the couch.  

Later in the week, I made the m&m pretzels, peppermint bark (since Amelia is now an expert), and salted caramel chocolate pretzels (thank you Elise for giving me the recipe to that crack), but that was the extent of my baking this year.  (Except for two pies on Christmas Eve).

A friend of a friend (who in truth is quickly becoming a friend by her own right) hosted the exchange, and was sweet enough to invite me.  I probably wouldn't have been brave enough to go alone, but Jessica went, and she helped me mingle.  It was a lot of fun to spend the evening out with a big group of ladies, and I came home with lots and lots of different goodies!

Amelia's mice

Amelia wanted to make candy cane mice for her classmates and the neighbors again this year.  This year we stuck to red and white, except we had to use yellow for the last two.  We still have a big bag of felt and we already had the eyes, so all we needed were a couple boxes of candy canes!

those with the same last name

We then caravanned the winding back roads to go to the extended family party.  We were a little leery about meeting at a gun club, but it was really just a small reception hall.  At night you'd never know what it really was, were it not for a few trophies lying around:

 Ah, here you can see the deer in all its holiday splendor.  We tried to take a picture of the magnificent seven (I told you Brian didn't take that mask off all night!)

The boys found a magnetic dart board, and entertained themselves in the kitchen while the grown ups socialized:

two in one day!

The night I made the previously mentioned hand warmers, my dad sent me a text asking for a picture of just Nathan and I.  Well, given the way our last year has been, we had not taken any.  So we had Nathan's mom remedy that for us.  Here we are in from of the Johnston's Christmas tree:

And later that night, at the Mayse party...Nathan's mom cropped out most of the deer behind us, but he had on a Santa hat, a big bow around his neck, and what I'm assuming was a bottle of Crown in a red velvet pouch!

Please bear with me as I get caught up on the blog...we bought a new desktop before Christmas, and it is quirky, plus it has Windows 8...I'm slowly learning...