Windsor Castle Park

Favorite place, favorite people.

I read a great suggestion in preparations for our move: take something to remember where you're moving from.  I thought it was a great tip, especially considering this is the only place the kids have known as home.  But, as I thought about a memento from Virginia, I couldn't think of anything I'd want to move from place to place throughout the years.  Ham? No.  Seashells?  We've got a giant jar full.

We decided instead to take some pictures at the place we've spent the most time at.

Usually, Ben and I look like this:

But I insisted on some non-workout clothes pictures.  Ideally, I thought we'd wear all cutesy outfits, but instead it ended up being a more, "stop cleaning and go for a family walk" picture.  We all wore what we were wearing for a Sunday afternoon and I'm okay with it.  This is us, in real life, right now.

"Okay, now the boys.  Show us your muscles."

Colin thinking, "Umpf!  Eli is not stronger than me!"

Colin: "I'll show you my muscles!"

And then they started wrestling...such is the life with 2 little boys.

It was a gorgeous day and like always, it was SO refreshing to be out on the trail.  The boys love running ahead and I love that they have a safe place to do that.

After pictures, Ben took the kids off the trail to explore.  This was my favorite part of the day. 

I love, love, love that Ben does this with the kids and they are the luckiest kids in the world to have him as a dad.

So many favorite pictures from the trail, but this one takes the cake.   I look forward to exploring new trails with Ben, but this place will hold a special place in my heart.

Gymnastics Show

Alison had a gymnastics show on Saturday.  The idea of it was to show parents what their kids were learning and to prepare the advance girls for what it's like to have an audience at competitions.  We are not much for recitals or shows, but when Alison heard the word 'trophy' she had to be involved.  

Colin fell asleep on the way and was not too excited to be there.

Once he perked up, he kept complaining about something in his sock.  We finally took it off to find a nickle and a mini lightbulb in his sock!  A LIGHTBULB!  Only Colin...

The "teams" went around the stations of the gym and took turns doing their skills.

 

on the bars

floor routine, in a handstand

 And the highlight of her life, receiving a trophy:

She did great, but was disappointed that the award said "participation".  She's too smart to buy their mock competition.  At dinner, she was talking and talking about how she wants to become one of the team girls (the ones in the matching leotards) and be a famous gymnasts.  She might have changed her mind slightly when we told her what the coach said that meant; 30 hours a week in the gym!  I can't believe children really spend that much time exercising.

Puddle Jumping

Monday we got some snow and Tuesday warmed up and it turned into lots and lots of rain.  It stopped raining in the afternoon and I told the kids go run around the driveway to get some pent up energy out.

Then I heard Alison say, "Hey Momma!  I found a river in our yard!"

They all put on their rain boots and jumped in this muddy puddle.

They were giggling and having so much fun that I decided to forget about the big ole mess coming.  Plus, I highly doubt there will be puddles to jump in in Arizona.

Alison also decided it was a grand time to collect slugs and name them.  She LOVES names!

It was all fun and games until Colin's boot got stuck at the bottom of the puddle and he fell into the middle of it.  He cried like someone had cut off his leg and I'm sure the neighbors all thought I was crazy.

Valentine's Day

Ben picked special gifts that would really make each kid feel loved.  Alison got a new "American Girl"  named Arizona with a York Peppermint patty.  Colin got a Spiderman accessory kit and M&M's. And   Eli got Minecraft Legos and skittles.

This picture is blurry because Alison would not stop jumping up and down, she was so excited.

 

Alison put a lot of time and effort into making each one of us a Valentine.  Ben's had lift up flaps:

 

She made the boys one with their favorite character on it and wrote them a sweet note.  They didn't appreciate it as much as they should, but they said "thank you" and it all melted my heart.

 

My Valentine from Alison came with a flower and some scratch-n-sniff stickers and Ben got me 3 different kinds of chocolate, so I was a happy girl.

 Alison has renamed her doll to Lillian, but is excited to show her real life Arizona :)

This and That

We found Monoply Jr in the attic, which like every thing else up there, we wondered how and why it got there.

Colin kept trying to steal Alison's desk this week during school. 

 

One morning, I told the boys they needed to take a bath and clean up their rooms before school.  Eli was a rock star and helped wash Colin, picked up his entire room and was sitting at his desk by 8:30.  Colin, on the other hand, sat in the bath and then crawled back into bed as a protest of cleaning his room.  He slept the whole morning!  So sad for him, I still made him clean when he woke up.

 

The lump is Colin hiding in bed

 We have been going to the Y as a family Tuesday evenings for a long time.  It makes for a late dinner, but we try to have something quick for dinner those nights.  This week I made pumpkin waffles, bacon and apples.  Eli ate more that night than I've ever seem him!  3 servings...he sat at dinner until 7:45pm, asking for more and more food.

Alison asked if she could text daddy at work.  She sent this picture with a bunch of emoji's I didn't even know existed.

 

Life with a Charlie-boo

Ben calls Colin "Charlie-boo", most of the time just being silly with him, but Colin loves it.  It fits him though, because life with Colin is...well, full of boo boos.

 The last few days are full of examples.

Thursday, we were rushing out the door to get to gymnastics.  Alison and Eli were already sitting in the car, ready to go and Colin was taking his sweet time gathering up all of his "friends" (aka an arm load of stuffed animals).  All of his "friends" added with car slippers, equaled him falling down the stairs.  I scooped him up and a giant goose egg formed on his forehead.  

This was the first time this week I questioned whether to go to the ER.

Friday, I noticed something blue on Colin's face, but didn't think too much about it because A.) it's Colin and B.) he had just been playing by the easel and I assumed it was chalk.  Well, you know what they say about assuming...an hours or so later, Alison mentioned that the blue on his face looked like he had drunk something.  Not having any blue drinks or food in the house I began to panic.  Turns out he discovered the kids mouthwash and wanted to see how yummy it tasted.  And this was the second time in 2 days I questioned whether we should rush to the ER.  I'm pretty sure he just tasted it and realized it was gross, but I still threw the whole bottle in the outside trashcan.

Saturday I thought it would be good to have some one-on-one time with my stinker and took him to the commissary with me.  Literally 2 minutes down the road:

I parked at the store and he was completely out.

I carried him into the store:

Yes, yes, he's weaseled his thumb back into his life.  I guess a week full of mishaps is exhausting.  Shopping was quiet, but I definitely got some funny looks.

He finally perked up when we got home and helped me do some move-out cleaning.  He is always quick to tell you, "I'm a good cleaner" or "I'm a great cooker" or whatever you are doing, he'll let you know that he is better...he's got quite the confidence.

Mr. Charlie-boo is a daddy's boy and he only wants Ben at bedtime.

And every night Ben sings to him and he'll try to join.  I love it...

School right now

It was just too nice to stay inside yesterday, so we took school outside.  Besides being distracted by the neighbor kids playing (public school was out for the day), the kids did remarkably well on school...maybe we should do school outside more often.

 

I've been working on making each of the kids a notebook for school, so everything is all together when we're traveling and ready to work on when we have time.  I'm also doing it for this:

Every night Alison asks Ben to ask her school questions and then I try to fill him in really quick on what she learned that day.  Now, she can just hand him her notebook and he can see what questions to ask her.  I'm also hoping this is a useful tool for reviewing and mastering things she's learned throughout the year.

This week, I learned the power of a map.

We have a world map and a US map hanging in our schoolroom.  We've only done a few lessons on geography when we drove to Michigan, but use the map a lot to talk about where we've been or where our family lives.  This week, we put stickies on the map where Alison has been and the states we'll drive through to move to Arizona.  I plan on making a geography unit study for our move, but was shocked yesterday when I realized how much the kids already know just from looking at this map.  They are sponges!  A friend gave us this puzzle a few days ago and both Alison and Eli put it together all by themselves.  Then, Ben asked Alison if she knew some state capitals, and she actually did!

Visual aids have more impact than I realized.  Now I'm wondering what else I should hang up in our school room.

Just because

I love these pictures.

Sunday, we got everything down from the storage space in the attic.  Packers won't go up there so we have to get it down and truthfully, about 90% of it needed to be purged.  Our rule for this move is; if we haven't touched it since we moved into this house (about 3 years), then out it goes.  But that's basically what attic stuff is, right...stuff you keep for some strange reason, but don't actually use it.  We've taken 2 car loads of stuff to the dump and half of the garage is being picked up today for donation.  I still wonder how in the world we accumulate so much junk.

Ben smoked ribs for dinner (aka trying to use our propane tanks before we move) and cleaned the cars, the boys played with old baby toys I found and Alison camped out in the yard, looking through old pictures.  It was a beautiful day and it was nice to be able to spend it outside together.

We were being silly yesterday and I was chasing around the boys and Alison said, "I will save you!" and this picture happened.  Our kids in a nutshell, right here: