Last week=the bug

Last week was going pretty normal...

we were pluggin' along on letter M and I taught a few classes at the Y.

Colin falls asleep everyday on the way home from the Y

And this is my favorite part of the day; 

carrying in my sleepy babe.

He doesn't sit still long enough to snuggle, so this is my only chance.

I love it.

Sadly, shortly after I took this picture, I began to feel sick.

A bad case of strep hit me and ended up getting Ben too, although his case was light.

I spent the rest of the week on the couch, letting the kids do whatever they wanted.

Seriously.  I had bought a bag of marshmallows to use for a counting activity on Thursday and I let the kids eat the whole bag.  I let them ride their bikes through the house and fed them ice cream for dinner.  There was about 24 hours that I could barely talk and the kids kept asking "are you better yet, mommy?". 

I am thankful for antibiotics and we are almost all the way back to normal.


One morning, Colin started trying to say a few new words.  Everything is dada...and then a sign to mean something else.  But it sounded like he was trying to say 'love you' and 'stinky' and 'diaper' (if he poops he'll come to me, pull at his diaper and say stinky).

This week...

~Cutting really clicked with Eli.  

I could see it in his eyes, the instant his confidence grew...and I'm so thankful I got to be there to see the click!

~Alison came home with an awesome report card so we celebrated with some ice cream.

I spoke with Alison's teacher this week and she told me that Alison is advanced for 1st grade.  She's reading at a 3rd grade level and aced all of the testing she just finished.  She said that if we worked with her on a few things we could get her tested for the gifted program...but I'm not sure we'll pursue that.  I know, it sounds crazy.  But I think for 1st grade, it's okay to build her confidence and just let her be good at what she's learning.

~I was trying to enjoy a good book, but Eli just couldn't sleep...so he jumped in daddy's spot and picked out all of the 'L's off the pages I was reading.

~We finally got Colin's swing up and running!  It only took 4 months...

~Here's Alison in her gymnastics class:

A clean yard

 I took some toys to our old neighbor and just sat and looked at our old backyard.

It still feels like home when I sit there, but I do not miss cleaning up that yard.

Today, I'm thankful for a clean yard that does not look like this!

We named Colin the purple Minion today.  If you haven't seen Despicable Me 2, go watch it...

He loves getting into things and destroying them.

I handed him a snack and he crawled under a chair to smash them in the ground.

While cooking dinner, he climbed in this cabinet and starts pulling out all of the cleaned up preschool toys.  He even tried eating the sink plug and dish scrubber.

There's never a dull moment in our house.

Veterans Day

Alison and Ben were home today and kicked off our holiday with homemade cinnamon rolls.  I wish I could say that I baked them, but I can only say that they were AMAZING.

We all headed to the Y and then picked up Madelyn to spend the afternoon with us.  We picked up free frosties for the girls, using the last freebie for the queen.  The girls play so well together, it's actually really nice having an extra kid in the house.  They played princesses and made their first attempt at make-up (aka. stamps and chalk all over Alison's face).

We played outside on our last warm day...it's supposed to flurry tomorrow, which around here means they'll probably shut down all the roads.

We had Indian food for dinner; coconut curry chicken, chana masala and naan.  It's become Ben and I's new favorite and tonight Alison and Colin joined our fan club.  Eli just ate the naan, but he doesn't eat much of anything these days.

Do you see Colin's hand in the background trying to snatch Alison's drink?

See.  I told you he's mischievous.

Best part of the day was Alison giving Ben this card:

Preschool-letter 'K'

They decorated kites and ate kiwi and kit-kats...yum!

 

 

They played a relay race and jumped like a kangaroo.

Kissing the Kind King eating Kiwi in the Kitchen

Made cookies to take to the Kids at the bus stop.

lined up the cookies and pretended they were a train's load.

Queen of Freebies

It is not uncommon for Alison to wake up, looking like this:

 I have no idea what she does in her sleep, but

she goes to bed squeaky clean and gets up looking like a tornado hit her.

After we tamed the beast of Alison's hair, we headed out for our long Saturday run.

We ran 5 miles again his weekend and Ben wasn't even sore today...lucky.

I took Alison to ballet and then we had a girls date a McDonalds.

Alison got a free hamburger for being 'Citizen of the week'!

Ben and I planned on spending the afternoon baking and cleaning while the kids watched a movie, but we ended up getting sucked into the movie and it turned into family movie day.

Worse things have happened :)

We rented The Lorax from the library, for our upcoming 'L' week.  I loved this movie and was rolling on the floor laughing.

Ben made pizza and we continued on watching Pixar Short Clips.

For some reason, we've found it really refreshing to sit and watch movies with the kids.  Usually we would use that time to get something done, but I'm finding the value of sitting with them and laughing and snuggling with them.

Dishes can wait, childhood cannot.

Colin woke up early from his nap today and just wanted his daddy.

The only word Colin says is "daddy".

 

When Eli woke up, we headed to the park.

 

They recently added on to the park by the Y and Alison's been dying to go.

 

We played tag out in the field, searched for pretty leaves and dug for bugs.

Then we headed to Pizza Hut for Alison's free pizza for BookIt.  

Free lunch, free dinner, great weekend and more free food coming tomorrow!

Friday

My boys.  

They are obsessed with their blankies and juice...it's getting a little out of control.

 

Yes, I know Colin should still be rear facing.  I switched him around as an experiment to see if he would stop screaming bloody-murder every time I put him the car.

Colin has to be doing everything Alison and Eliot are doing, which has posed some problems during school.  My goal is to make him his own toddler activities, so today I made a "sensory box", full of rice, scoops and some plastic bugs.  I whipped it out this evening while we cooked dinner and was surprised to find all the kids loved playing it!

*note to self: put a table cloth underneath the box!

Ben had the day off work.  He got Alison on the bus and took the boys all morning while I taught and ran a few errands.  I got this picture during class :)

Sure is the cutest doctor I know.

When I got home, Ben went to have lunch with Alison at school.
This is them together at school the night before for a movie viewing of a book they read.

Preschool-letter 'J'

 

Decorating Jack-O-Lantern muffins. 

We did a lot of jumping this week and learned how to jump rope.

The best sound ever

Sorry Ben, I had to post this...but I know everyone can look past your silliness and see how great of a dad you are.

Eli's giggle is the sweetest sound to my ear.  Any stress just melts away when I hear it and I am so, so thankful for his laughter.

Wonderful Weekend

 I broke in my new trail shoes on our Saturday run.  It was such a beautiful morning that we felt like we could have run all day.  

*This was our first long run together.  5 miles in the books! 

 I think I may have Ben hooked on distance :) 

Really wish I would have stood in prettier leaves :/

We made a family Target run and actually only came home with the essentials on our list...I know, I'm proud of us too.

Ben scoured Redboxes all over the area for 2 days and we finally snatched up 'Monsters University' for our family movie night.  Ben made margarita pizza and the kids and I made caramel popcorn.

Colin doesn't care a lick about TV and just wanted to run around the room destroying everyone's popcorn, so he got sent to bed extra early so we could really enjoy the movie...and I did!  We all snuggled on the floor and munched on popcorn and I loved every minute.

We agreed that we would make it more a priority to watch more movies with our kids and have planned a caramel corn cook-off...my mom's vs. his mom's recipe...stay tuned.

Ben and I have been dreading Sunday for months.  Seriously.   Someday I will like Daylight Savings.  Someday when my children actually sleep past 7 am, I will like it.

We took naps Sunday afternoon and then I took the kids to the park while Ben cooked a BIG batch of Indian lentils.  Have you noticed Ben does most of the cooking on the weekends?

It was a little chilly, but we had a really fun time.  I love that Colin is big enough to just throw in the wagon.

P.S. I am more sore from pulling this wagon to the park, than I am from the 5 mile run!

 

Hot chocolate was a must when we got home.

 

All the kids were asleep by 7 pm last night and were up at 4:45am!  

Here's hoping for more sleep tonight.

My workout buddy

Friday mornings are just flat out crazy in our house.

I teach a class that starts at 8:15...the exact time that Alison's bus comes to pick her up.

So I've arranged for her to go to a neighbor's house early to go the bus stop, but that means that our early morning consists of breakfast and dressing sleepy kids and rushing off to the neighbors.

This Friday was crazier than normal.

It was character day at school, which meant I had to invent a red fairy costume in the wee hours of the morning and then arrange flowers down the side of Alison's hair.

Next time I'm making her pick Cinderella!

I got the kids set and scooped Colin out of his crib and threw him in the car, pj's and all.

After dropping Alison off, we rushed to the Y and got there the moment my class should be starting.

Here's the kicker...the child watch was dark.  No one was there to work!

The sweetest man in the world, who works at the front desk took Colin out of my arms and said he would watch him.  The poor kid was still in his pj's and wet diaper and hadn't had breakfast!

5 minutes after my class should have been going, I walked in with a weepy Eli, who just wanted to go play.  Not knowing what to do, I plopped in front of my equipment, handed him a couple of balls and the iPad and started class.  He sat there quietly for awhile, kind of in shock of what was going on.  Then Irma brought him a couple of candy bars and he perked up.

He actually did fabulous...only asking a few times if we could buy a new game.  Several of the participants asked if he was always this good.  Yes, he's usually quiet and pretty calm, but he did very well for a last minute "sit here and do nothing for an hour" situation.

Colin survived too and child watch workers arrived just as I was finishing class-well over an hour late!

We got in the car and Eli asked, "Do all mommy's teach?"

It was funny to watch it sink in when I tell him I have to teach.

Thankfully we had friends come play for the day so he was able to get all his energy out and have a special treat just for him.

Halloween '13

We had the best Halloween ever...which says a lot because we are not Halloween people.

We tried to convince the kids this year to think of something they wanted to be and then we would all help make the costume.  Then we remembered that we are not crafty...creative maybe, but not crafty.
Thankfully the kids weren't too sold on the idea of being cotton candy or a pumpkin anyway.

So all of our costumes were hand-me-downs;
Alison-Cinderella
Eliot-Superman
Colin-Dinosaur

We met several families at a friends house and had a kid friendly dinner before trick-or-treating in their neighborhood.

A couple of our friends took Colin, Alison ran around with one of her good friends and we were left to soak up the awesomeness of Superman.

It was seriously one of the best evenings of my life.

I was dreading trick-or-treating because I didn't think we would ever get Eli to talk or look at the people handing out the candy.

But our shy, quiet little Eli came out of his shell like I've never seen him.

He was flying through yards, yelling, "Superman to the rescue!" and would leap up the steps saying, "Trick-or-treat please!" several times.  He would even look at them and say thank you.

I'm not often a tear-up mommy, but I definitely choked up a few times that night.

I think he got double the candy just for his extra cuteness.

This was the lot the kids came home with.

Ben and I felt like we were kids again and I begged him to sort it with me.

Lucky for me, Eli doesn't like chocolate anymore, so I'll just have to help him with those pieces.

Words of encouragement

 

 

Today is not about perfection, but about peace, hope, life, vision and love. 

Today, in the midst of all the mess, 

smile, laugh, sing and dance to the rhythms of God's signing.

~Sally Clarkson