Nominated for Biggest Slacker

Okay, so I've been one of the biggest slackers imaginable these last few, ummm...... months. In my defense........ I guess I don't really have one other than being busy.

Yes, I still watch twins during the day and yes, that keeps us incredibly busy especially with Ethan now in school. School has been a wonderful growing experience for Ethan. He has been reading simple stories to us and is able to complete addition problems into the teens. And, according to his teacher at parent/teacher conferences, Ethan now has a girlfriend named Estella. When you ask him about it, he just grins and turns away unwilling to divulge information. Apparently he meant to keep that a secret.

Maya is growing very quickly as well and is at that point where her vocabulary is exploding, but she doesn't always pronounce things correctly. Lately, she tries to say darn it, though that's not what it sounds like. Lol, I guess people will just think we cuss a lot for a while. She also loves to talk about her Punkle Paul. Amazingly, she is started to pronounce Kyla and MaKendree accurately.

We had Paul, Kyla and MaKendree at our place the week of Thanksgiving. It was a blast to have family out here with us. It had been so long since I'd gone to most museums that I was not as good a tour guide as usual. Sorry guys.

I will try to post more often, but no guarantees.

Mad Rush Preparations for School

My baby boy has reached the ripe age of 5. (Sniff, smile, sigh, sniff, sniff.) This means that he starts school this fall. We knew it was coming up, and had even tried to get him into some magnet programs. But we were rejected, oh sorry, not selected for a position in the program. No biggie right? So time to register him for Kindergarten.

We did all the appointments, shots, tests, filled out all the forms, jumped through 5 hoops and raced to the red door. Okay, so I'm exagerating, but that's how it felt. We finally got everything turned in only to discover that our boundry school is on a modified school calendar. So Ethan is supposed to start school at the very beginning of August. ?????????? Really? That fast?

You prepare yourself for them to grow up and are used to the idea and then the time line gets yanked right out from under your feet. One month. My baby? Going to school in one month? WOW!!!!

So round 2 of the mad rush starts. We get every item on his list. Apply permanent marker labels to all items and have it stashed aside ready for school.

We've fully adjusted to the idea, start looking at where the bus will come for him. We even drive by the school a few times so that Ethan can see it and get used to the idea. Life is going along at a nice crazy, super busy pace again. Ahhhhhh.

Then Monday, we get a letter from the School District. Oh, this must be the name of his teacher and the finalized bus schedules I'm thinking. "This is to inform you that Ethan has been selected from the waiting list for admission to .......". Wait, what? Yay!!!! What really? Ethan got into the magnet program!!!! Yay!!!!

Oh, I am so elatedly confused. It was so not the document I was expecting, but now we're really excited. What does it all mean? We're not entirely sure yet. But, it looks like round 3 of the mad rush is just beginning.

The Arrival of Twins

We have embarked on an all new adventure. Twins!!! Disclaimer: They are only ours M-F 7:00am-4:30pm. Ethan and Maya have loved to have the two new little ones around. Not that I'm complaining of the extra snuggle time either.

The first day they came, Audrey smiled at Ethan and he was hooked. He instantly declared them friends and has wanted to hold her nearly every day since. Near the end of the day he was very upset that we had to give the twins back. He was under the impression that we got to keep them all the time.

Maya has adjusted remarkably well. I'm sure it helps that she is enthralled with babies in general. But she always has been a very girly girl. Loves shoes, jewelry, purses, babies and chocolate and easily gets emotional. Yep, all girl. Since Audrey is usually taken by Ethan, Maya goes to Charles to tickle his toes and gab at him, which he seems to love.

The real adventure comes when we all go out. I didn't realize it would take half an hour to load 4 kids in the van, but it does. Then there's the logisitcs of carts. Who's walking, riding, sitting in a backpack or staying in a carseat? All depends on the location. But the funniest things are the reactions of all the people in the community. (You know, people don't whisper as quietly as they think they do.) I don't have time in my day to explain to every stranger that they're not all mine.

For now, we are enjoying our adventure. And I'm pretty sure the twins are enjoying all the attention and affection.

Easter Egg Roller Coaster

We have had many ups and downs in trying to attend the White House Easter Egg Roll again. When the tickets went exclusively online I thought, "that beats camping over night on the ellipse." And then we actually tried to get the tickets. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

The joke was on us, and half the other people around here. The internet site was bogged down so quickly that the tickets were gone too fast. We had three adults on high speed connections trying to get tickets, but the site kept crashing from the high traffic. After a while we gave up on that method.

Then Todd decided to try the old fashioned way, ask people he knew. We didn't count on getting tickets, just hoped and waited. Then, at the end of last week, we got great news. One lady had enough tickets for our little family. Hooray!!!!!!

We again got excited and started planning out our trip. I could hardly contain my excitement, for although past years had been a little stressful, it was always so much fun. They had always had sponsors that handed out fresh fruit, small drinks and trinket toys even before you got into the actual egg roll. Then you got a little candy, egg decorating kits, collectors egg, poster, coloring books upon entering and hardly had to walk around to find entertainers roaming the lawn, small stages set off to the side, and just in general had a lot of fun.

The big day finally came and we all went down, happy and ready for a great time. We walked from Todd's office as we ate our meager ham sandwiches. On the way we even got to see a large motorcade go through, which was kinda cool. Finally we reached the ellipse and got our first shock of the day. No activities on the ellipse. What?????? Only rows of ropes like cattle chutes. So we stood there in line for an hour, trying to entertain the kids.

Finally we got to move through security only to stand in another line for an hour. The "entertainment" was a middle aged man, trying to be a DJ, while dancing around in a strange orange outfit. Eventually they brought a magician on stage, but very few people wanted to leave their place in line to go watch.

Finally, we go inside. Yay!!!! Oh, wait.............you can only enter half of the activities if your child is 6 years or older. A little strange considering to even get tickets you have to have a child 10 or younger. So we bipassed those activites from which we were excluded and went for the egg roll, chose the short line and got through quickly, only to discover that there was not the traditional piece of candy at the end. So we're trying to console a competitive 5 year old, without sugar as a distraction, while trying to figure out what is left that we're allowed to do, all while attempting to talk loud enough to be heard over the pounding hiphop music from the stage. Yeah, again, music and entertainment geared toward older teenagers at a young child event? Have these event planners ever seen a young child?

We trudged down to the egg hunt, hoping for something better. With some cute smiles they sift through the straw to find the eggs and place them in the provided baskets. The kids get through only to have everything prised from their hands, yet again, with no real compensation. (Why would a toddler be happy about a poster?) I glanced at the egg dying station which would only give 1 egg per family, yeah like that would work with 2 kids and vinegar, and they had eliminated the egg decorating kit which was traditionally given to each family when leaving the area.

With our heads throbbing, our children exhausted and bored, and little to show for our efforts, we left to get our collectors egg. We were hoping that Ethan and Maya could each get their favorite colors, blue and purple, but no. Another let down. All eggs given out were a horrid lime green. Seriously????

I'm sure that this would have been an absolutely spectacular event, if we hadn't gone the last couple of years and had such wonderful experiences. We've yet to decide if we'll go again next year. All complaining aside, we did have some fun and the kids did enjoy parts of the day. It was also nice to be together as a family.

Monkey Business

Well, our spunky little monkey had some interesting experiences this last week. She is constantly growing like a weed. My little, not yet two year old is taller than some of her 3 year old friends. Yikes!!!

But she also likes putting things where they don't belong. She loves to put things into our intake duct for the furnace. I'm going to have to take off the vent cover and take an inventory of what's been in there. We know she's put in papers, crayons, probably puzzle pieces and maybe even some string cheese. (Apparently she takes after me in this, as I have a large scar from doing the same thing with my finger when I was about her age.)

Then she tried to shove a popsicle stick into the computer cooling vents. Yeah, not the best thing. I hope there's not much else in there.

And then there is her newest found hiding spot, her nose. Maya began her typical "owie, stuck" routine, which usually means her arm is wedged in the chair slats. So I go to release her to find her messing with her nose. I look and find that something tan in color is lodged in her nostril. For some reason, she pushed an unpopped pop corn kernel into her nose.

So, with Ethan's help to hold her still, I extracted her latest antagonist. But I do have to wonder, what will be next?

Renaming Our Roads

Biased as I know I am, I love watching my kids grow and develop, discovering new things and understanding concepts. Ethan gave us another moment of giggles as we drove the other day. We were turning right, but this particular intersection had a cut-out for the turn and included a yield sign.

After we made the turn, Ethan promptly informed us that we just went through a "yieldersection". We found that to be very appropriate, inventive and adorable. So, from now on I think that's what our family will call those little cut-outs. Hehe!!

Gone Fishing

Ethan has been fixated on getting a fishing pole and having daddy take him fishing. We decided to make that the theme for his birthday party.

So of course we needed bait. The kids started by making some creepy crawler bugs.

What's fishing without worms? The kids obediently dug their gummy worms out of the cups of chocolate pudding and oreo cookies. A few of them even liked it.

The kids fished in our pond, to gather some fish stickers. Somehow we missed pictures of that.

We ate our catch. Okay, so it was chocolate cake covered in cream cheese icing. Obviously, I'm no professional, but it worked out pretty good.

And we ended the day with some present opening chaos.

I think he was pretty happy with the events of the day.

Christmas Joys

It didn't take much convincing to get the kids up on Christmas morning. And despite the look on Ethan's face, they really were excited.

Through our trip to Disneyworld and riding the carousel, Maya cemented her love of horses. This made her Christmas morning all the more joyous when she saw her rocking horse, which has galloping and horse noises and some animation of the head and tail. She has spent several hours riding her horse since. She has also loved her various dolls (her babies).

Ethan loved getting his toy tools and a new air plane addition to his train set. We had the livingroom covered with a huge setup. Luckily, we have enough trains and remotes for everyone to play because Maya refused to be left out of the fun.

Of course, a miniature city means that somebody's going to play monster and knock it down.

By mid-day, the kids had more fun than they could handle.

Todd got some gear and accessories for his new hobby. Todd managed to keep a surprise and obtained a string of pearls for Maya and I, thanks to a colleague who had traveled to China. I also got some books to complete "The Great and Terrible" series. So I've spent the last two weeks fussing over food storage, water and emergency supplies after reading about potential events in the last days.