Thankful Chain

We did a little family project in November.  As much as I dislike Halloween, I love Thanksgiving.  I love the food, the family, the decor, and the concept of gratitude.  After chatting with some friends on facebook, I came up with the idea of everyone writing down one thing at dinner each night that they were thankful for that day on a strip of paper and making a Thankful Chain.  It turned out GREAT!  The kids were really into it and asked to do it each night.  At the end of the November we took the paper chain and used it to decorate our little Christmas tree in the den!

 

I took a minute to write down what every one was thankful for this year:

Gillian:
My family and friends
Cuddly Bunny Jammies
Momo napping with me today
My favorite friend, Louise
My Barbies
My warm, cozy bed
My pink, fuzzy blanket
Dancing class
My cousin, Sarah
Both Weasel and Momo
GraGra
The Earth
WeeWee
Daddy
My friend, Sarah
Love
Our dinner
Aunts and Uncles
Ham
Friends
Me
Books
Food
My family
Mommy


Colin:
Family
Bacon
A nice, cozy bed
Noodles
Snow
Legos
Bread
Houses
Santa
Real friends
Plants
Bones
Tomatoes
School
Potato chips
Joshua's triplets
Dino Museum
Ham
Friends
Mustard
Trampolines
Carrots
Momo and WeeWee
Turkeys

Mommy:
Daddy, Colin, Gillian.  Momo and WeeWee too.
That Daddy's home
A warm(ish), solid house
A fun afternoon with Gillian
Pretty, new curtains
Fridays
A warm, cozy bed
The milk actually being in the car
Colin and Gillian
Hawaiian Pizza
Daddy's hard work
New paint for the dining room
Yoga class
See Saw and Miss Thelma
Kids doing gymnastics
Kids who play in the snow
Happy Weasels
Family dinners
Friends
Music
A beautiful, sunny day
A fun day with Colin and Gillian
A beautiful red tree on our way to school
A productive weekend

Daddy:
Health
Beef short rib ragu
Daylight Savings Time
Math
NPR
Umami
"GraGra and Papa distracting C&G so I could sleep in"
Strudelknot and Festerdoodle
Veterans
Cat snuggles
Noodles and red sauce
To not be in the Phillipines
Wallpaper removal professionals
Chinese food
Noodles
NSAIDs
Feeling well enough to run
No fear of public speaking
The weekend
Legos
New tires for winter
Lazy Sundays
Being 1/3 done with work this week
Moderation
Family

Finished product!  See we managed to get some curtains up in November too!

TIMBER!!!!

We had a tree taken down in the back yard this fall. It was an ash tree and it had been attacked by ash borer beetles and was very dead. We were afraid it would fall when someone was out in the yard, so down it came. We had a friend who was willing to come get the lumber, so we just had the service chunk up the wood and leave it. That provided a ton of entertainment for C&G!

 
 
 
 

Father's Day 2013

Honestly, I cannot remember what we did on Father's Day. It was a very low key day, as requested by Daddy. I know we grilled some steaks and had homemade pesto pasta. And took some pictures.




I remember Daddy telling me that he had a good Father's Day and had all he asked for. So, let's just call it a win.

Mama Makes a Shape Belt.

Despite a recent obsession with Octonauts, we ended up watching a Team UmiZoomi last week sometime. After watching the show, we were sitting at the dinner table and Colin says, "I want a shape belt. Let's make one." For those unfamiliar, a Shape Belt is a superhero tool (of sorts) that's worn by the character Geo from UmiZoomi. He uses the shapes on it to build whatever it is the team needs to succeed at their mission. So, Colin wanted one.

So we got a belt and taped some foam cutout shapes on it as a prototype. It was pretty sad looking, in my estimate. But I'm not the one that matters!

Colin.loved.it. It was so nice to make him so happy with just such a simple thing. Love making that boy happy.



And the boy is seriously handsome in this picture, right?


He wore the prototype belt to the Farmer's Market to show it off. Fortunately Daddy was able to superglue the shapes on later that night, so it's much sturdier now. Good thing too....Colin wore it biking the next day!

Team UmiZoomi and YOU!

Trumpeting

After our corn adventure we had some LOUD fun, thanks to our friend Mo Willems and Grammy. Colin and Gillian are IN LOVE with the Piggie and Elephant books. Once Colin found out that Daddy had long-ago played the trumpet like Piggie in "Listen to My Trumpet" he had to have a go at it. Grammy was happy to supply Daddy's old trumpet for our pleasure!


Daddy played a little for us, and, amazingly, he could remember several songs and didn't sound half bad....for someone who hadn't played in 15 years. Really.

Then Colin took his turn.



And he was GREAT! He could get those little lips to buzz and he got a lot of sound of that trumpet for a little guy! And he loved it!


He can speak a mean elephant dialect.

(We did give G a chance to try but she couldn't quite get it and was frustrated and walked away. Eventually she did get a SQUAWK out of it!)

Robot Friends

One night last week after dinner, Colin looked at us and said, "Let's make robots." Ok, what? We finally figured out that he wanted to make robot costumes out of paper bags. I'm not sure where he got that idea though, maybe some show he watched? Luckily, C&G were WAY into using scissors last week so those were handy. And we had a couple of Trader Joes bags around. So we made robots.




Pretty cool idea, Colin!

Venus Transit (or Not)

Last Monday, Lea needed to take Gillian to the pediatrician in the afternoon, so I used some of my sweet new "Family Medical Time Off" and came home a couple hours early to stay home with Colin. You may remember that last Tuesday (June 5th) was the Transit of Venus. Given that the kids are pretty space crazy at the moment (they must have watched Team Umizoomi: Door Mouse in Space about 100 times), I thought that maybe we should build a Pinhole Projector to try to watch the transit.

Colin and I set about our task with much enthusiasm. We first tried to build a relatively simple projector consisting of a piece of mat board with a foil aperture. We took this outside, and with Monday being relatively sunny, hoped for the best. It seems, however, that we couldn't really get a dark enough shadow to allow us to see the image from the projector, so we added a black fabric hood (Mark Ia, seen here being snuggled by Weasel):

Even with the fabric hood, this was kind of a bust in that the hood wasn't long enough to all you to get the front of the projector far enough away from the ground to make a decent sized image. Thus, on to Mark II.

After reading a bit more about the throw lengths needed for a given image size, and wanting to get a somewhat darker viewing area, Colin and I set about building a new projector from an old wrapping paper tube. Alas, we only had one spool of wrapping paper that was close enough to empty that we could in good conscience steal the tube, and that only got us about three feet of throw. Being resourceful gents, however, we remembered that there was a freezer pizza box waiting to be taken to the garbage so we grabbed that, and managed to add about two more feet of throw to our projector. Behold the Mark II:

This version has a relatively good length (though it still only produces an image of the sun that about half of an inch in diameter) and has an enclosed bottom so its darker for better viewing (apologies for the blurry camera phone pic):

It's not immune from problems, however. Because the tube is so narrow, it's actually very difficult to find the sun with this projector - you really have to have good aim to get the sun onto the target surface. Also the joints between the sections aren't really very strong, so you have to treat it gently.

Anyway, Colin and I managed to get this put together on Monday afternoon, and I believe that he was pretty excited that we were going to see another planet. Then came Tuesday...

Clouds - thick, heavy clouds - all day long. Not a chance of viewing the transit (there was like thirty seconds at around 6:20 when the sun poked out through the clouds - but I couldn't manage to find the sun with the projector in that amount of time). Thus we were forced to see much more impressive pictures on the iPad, though I don't think it quite lived up to Colin's expectations (though, I'm pretty sure he would have actually been more disappointed with the projector as Venus would have been like a pin prick on the half-inch face of the sun).

At any rate, it was a fun little project in building our own scientific instruments, so hopefully that made an impression... and we can always pretend that it produced images like this.

I Have a Button.

So, as a mostly powerless three year old, Colin is becoming increasingly frustrated with his lot in life. He's been letting us know this with increasing amounts of bargaining and arguing. It's awesome. The other coping strategy that he's developed is his "I have a button" idea. Which, frankly, I find brilliant.

The basic idea is that when Colin finds himself in a situation that he feels is untenable, like rainy weather or bedtime, he just says, "I have a button for that." And he's going to push that button. And the button makes things better. It makes the weather nice. It makes it NOT bedtime. One time he even used it to make it be a "little" bath instead of a "big bath." It never fails to make me laugh. Makes me think of those goofy "easy button" commercials. Imagine how cool it would be if he ACTUALLY HAD A BUTTON. Who knows? Maybe this kid will MAKE a button someday.

He had better share with his Mama.

Life is Like a Box of Raisins.

The other night at dinner, Gillian asked for raisins as her fruit. We usually just have a big container of raisins and I give her a handful. But I had bought boxes of raisins to send to school for a snack at some point, but I never sent them, so I gave her her own box of raisins. She was stunned. She looked at the box. She looked at me. She said, "This whole box is just for me? To eat out of?" Umm, yep. It made her much happier than a simple box of raisins really ever should have.


Hopefully you can find a small pleasure in life this week.

Kex, Eleventeen, and Hemptagons

These things all exist at our house. Do they exist in yours'?

Kex is a letter, OF COURSE. The long elusive 27th letter. Most often thought of as a cross between K and X. No one can quite draw a picture of it though.


Eleventeen is that tricky number after twelve, but can also come four more times before twenty. Perhaps it's like Elevensies to a Hobbit?


Now, a Hemptagon is something like a hexagon and something like an octagon. But not.


When we figure these things out, we'll let you know.

Get Away!

Last weekend Daddy and I took an opportunity to take a little kid-free get away! The timing was great, as we had just celebrated our TENTH wedding anniversary on August 11th. Grammy Lynn was beyond happy to volunteer to run "Camp Grammy" and keep the kiddos for a few days. Perfect, right?

So, last Saturday we packed up and first drove north to deliver the kids to Grammy and Papa Frank. The whole morning, Colin kept telling me that "NO!" he did not want to stay at Grammy's and he didn't want us to go away. Ummm. Ok. I was really, really hoping he wouldn't mind when we left once he was ACTUALLY at Grammy's house! And, thankfully, that is what happened. Once they saw the baby apple trees and their Grammy toys and all their favorite stuff, they could not have cared less that Daddy and I left! Phew.

That meant Daddy and I were free to head MORE north to Erie for our first stop! My best friend from high school was getting married on a lovely spot just off the shore of Lake Erie!

The lovely bride!

That's not a great picture of her dress; it was gorgeous and I loved it!

And a BIG hug!

It was a pretty wedding and nice to spend some grow-up time hanging out with Matt and Rachel, who were also guests! After the wedding we had a nice drive through the local grapevine fields to our hotel. The next morning we were up and at 'em and headed EVEN MORE NORTH!

Our destination? Can you tell?


That's Niagara Falls! The American side looking across to Canada, in fact. I had never been there before and Michael hadn't been there since he was 12 or so. It was a reasonable drive and we thought, WHY NOT? It's supposed to be romantic, right?

On Sunday we drove up to the American side of the falls, through a horrible storm, thinking that it was going to rain cats and dogs all day and we wouldn't be able to do anything! Fortunately, the storms stayed south of the Falls, and besides a few sprinkles, it was just cloudy all day. Phew. I really didn't want to have to spend all day inside the casino! So, we hung out on the American side most of the day. They have a pretty nice state park with multiple "attractions" to explore.

Mostly we just stared at the falls. And I got anxious. I was seriously freaked OUT by all that water and the POWER it had. I just kept imaging people/things being swept OVER. It made my stomach drop. We saw one family that had walked out on a rock jutting out into the river above the falls and were busy taking pictures and their kids (probably 8-10 years old) were hopping about 4 feet from the rushing water. Ack. So much anxiety. I have issues.

But anyway, the views were pretty, the Falls impressive, and I didn't have to hold any youngsters back from the edge, so we enjoyed our day! Some of our Sunday pictures:

River headed towards the Falls:


Bridal Veil Fall and "Cave of the Winds" attraction (that we did NOT do because I don't do caves....more anxiety there):


American Falls and Observation Deck (that we did NOT do because I wasn't paying $$$ for the view):


Happy people!


After a yummy lunch in a, thankfully, non-touristy cafe we decided to head over to the Niagara Aquarium. We saw this handsome guy and a few funny sea lions, but not too much else.

It was a pretty sad aquarium, definitely NOT worth the $10 per person admission! It did make us quite thankful for our lovely PPG Aquarium here in Pittsburgh.

After our thorough exploration of the American Niagara Falls, we headed across the Rainbow Bridge into Canada! We were a bit early to check into the Bed and Breakfast where we were staying and my feet were quite tired, so we took a driving tour of the Canadian side and got our bearings. Finally though, we checked in, took a quick snooze (AHHHHH) and grabbed some dinner! This child-free travel has some perks!

On Monday morning we decided to play dedicated tourist and check out "The Maid of the Mist." Like this:


They give you these:



The views from the boat were just awesome! This is the American Falls again. Those rocks tumbled down in two gigantic slides in the first half of the last century.


Bridal Veil Falls again.


The Canadian Falls:



"The Maid of the Mist" was very much worth the time! Awesome views and you got such a sense of the power in all that water! And, actually, we didn't get wet at all!

After our boat ride we explored the views on the Canadian side. And I will say, half of the fun of exploring the falls was the people watching. I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before, but there was a very, very large international flavor to the tourists. We heard multiple Asian and Indian languages, French, German, and several accented variations of English. It was pretty cool. But anyway, more pictures!



(Sadly, the evening before I took this picture a young Japanese tourist was climbing the railing right next to where I took this picture, she fell in, and was swept over the falls.)

For lunch on Monday we met up with an old friend of ours' from high school, Deb. She and her husband were having their own get away in Niagara to celebrate their 5th anniversary! It was pretty funny to meet up with them in Canada since we live in PA and they live in North Carolina! It was nice to visit with them and catch up, and while we ate lunch together, our kids were playing together back at Camp Grammy! They had fun too!


After lunch we took a nice drive up the river to a little town on Lake Ontario called Niagara-on-the-Lake. It was very historic and quaint. Lots of little shops, inns, and restaurants. It was fun to explore and catch a look at Lake Ontario. We had left the camera in the car though, after Michael stopped to take a picture of this:

That's a hydroelectric dam. I think he would have preferred spending the afternoon touring the power plant!

That evening we had a really nice dinner at a steakhouse inside the Falls View Casino that really did have a (slight) view of the Falls. We had a lovely waitress who, while chatting with us after dinner, had a really cool Canadian accent. She talked hockey and said "eh." It was awesome. After dinner we took one last stroll along the Falls and took some shots of the Falls all lit up (somehow it cracks me up that people shine giant colored lights on this huge, amazing natural wonder, I mean, do they think they can do better than Mother Nature?):



On Tuesday morning we were up and ready for breakfast, as directed, at 8:30. We realize we were the only guests that morning, but still....nothing is ready in the dining room. No set table, no coffee waiting. Nothing. Michael knocked on the kitchen door...nothing. Finally we call the number for the house where the owners live (a block or so away) and the wife says, "He (her husband) should be there!" And she came right down to check it out. Turns out her hubby had tied one on the night before and sound asleep, hung over. Nice. I felt pretty badly for the lady. Michael and I are pretty sure this wasn't a one time occurrence for them. Anyway, she was apologetic and asks us what we wanted to do. She offered to cook up some breakfast, but it would take a while. But, really, I was ready to head home to my kids. So they gave us a discount on our stay and we stopped for famous Canadian doughnuts for breakfast. Sigh. At least it was a memorable send off!

So, home we drove! Well, first we stopped at Camp Grammy to collect our lovely little ones! We were all quite happy to see each other! Then we went home! It was a great getaway! So appreciated and needed! From what I hear, the kiddos had a great time without us, so maybe we'll get to repeat it sometime!

Experiment

Last week I took the kids to the park one morning. We go to the park 3, sometimes 4, mornings a week when it's nice. Most of the time we go to one of the playgrounds, but this time we went for a walk. We walked past the duck pond and gazebo, then over the little foot bridge, and down to this (what I assume is) rock art installation. The kids like to look under the foot bridge and climb up the rocks and jump off. They are really into jumping off of things lately. Then we walked further down the hill and used the swings on one of the little playgrounds.

After much convincing and some screaming on Gillian's part, we headed back to the car. On the way back over the foot bridge, we found some Queen Anne's Lace and I remembered a friend's recent face.book post about dyeing flowers with her daughters. So, we picked some, and Gillian was quite pleased to carry it to the car for us (thankfully, it distracted her from screaming). When we got home, we filled three juice glasses with water. Colin picked red dye, Gillian picked blue, and I picked green. After about 24 hours, we had these:


The colors got much darker and intense over the next two days, but I didn't take any more pictures! The kids enjoyed seeing them turn colors and we talked about how and why that happened. So, all in all, our first science experiment went very well!

An Amusing Day!

Last Friday, which was I swear the hottest day on the earth, ever, we took the kiddos to Idlewild for the first time! It was also Daddy's birthday. We had our trip planned for about a month and Daddy had taken the day off of work, as had GraGra and Papa Greg. So, when the day loomed and it was to be about 95 degrees with 100% humidity, I still felt badly about rescheduling the day, so off we went. To sweat. A lot.

When we arrived at 10:30, the only part of the park that was open was Storybook Forest. Umm, we won't bother with that again. It's a "walk through" attraction from the 1950's (I think), and it looked it. There were all sort of little houses and nursery rhyme objects to walk through and look at, and that was about it. Their little figurines were creeping me out too. The kids seemed indifferent. They liked the little wooden train and the lollipops that Little Red Riding Hood gave them.

Woot woot! (as Colin would say)


Queen of the disgruntled look. She kept wanting to run 20 feet ahead of us and wasn't pleased to have to stay with the adults!




So, by the time we were done with the Storybook Forest, we were soaked in sweat and needing water. It was ridiculous. Onward and upward!

We moved on to the "Jumping Jungle" section of the park. Much more fun! The kids spotting a HUGE ball pit and they were off! Daddy was convinced that Colin would hate it and immediately want OUT. But, no! He loved it! They both did! Gillian kept diving into the balls like they were water and telling us she was swimming!



They also liked to race on this giant slide!


After the Jungle, we pulled out the coolers, found some shade and had our picnic lunch. Grammy was nice enough to make Daddy's favorite funfetti birthday cake too! Although, we didn't sing to him. Bean did enjoy the cake though!

After lunch we headed towards the "kids" section, although the whole park is mostly geared towards younger kids. C&G could ride each and every ride in the "kids" section. And they took good advantage of that! We were so happy that Colin outgrew his dislike of rides! He had so much fun! And Gillian has always loved rides!

First up was the "Grand Prix" style drive!



And some airplanes (they never figured out that the stick makes the plane go up and down, bummer.)


We tried to convince Gillian that this turtle ride was a rollercoaster. We weren't sure she'd be tall enough to ride the BIG coaster. She almost bought what we were selling. But, in the end, it didn't cut it as a "turtle coaster." Smart girl. She did enjoy the turtles though!



While in kiddie land we also (all) road the train around the park and gulped some lemonade, and rode one or two more kid rides. By then the adults were melting and desperate for the "water" portion of Idlewild. Bring on the WET.

With a bit of jostling and waiting, we all changed into swimsuits. All the ladies agreed that it is IMPOSSIBLE to don a bathing suit when your entire body is covered in sweat. It just doesn't work. Although, it was amusing!

Obviously we didn't get the camera out in the water park, but I will assure you: Nothing has ever felt as good as that water did when we FINALLY got in the pool! All the adults just stood under the running water in the kiddie pool with big grins of relief! C&G really enjoyed the water too. They did lap after lap of the 2 foot deep kiddie pool and even ventured a bit under the "waterfall" there. However, the BIG hit in the water park was the wave pool. The park supplies (and requires) life vests for non-swimmers and kids under 48" so the kiddos felt pretty secure, I think. The waves were "turned off" when we got in the pool, but it didn't take long for them to come on. The kids shrieked and giggled and splashed and had the best time! It was great to see them have so much fun!

After a good cool down and some fun in the water, the kids were looking tired and it was after 4:00, so time to head home! As we headed back through the park, we rode the carousel and Papa Frank and Daddy rode the big rollercoaster. Don't tell Gillian. She is STILL insisting that she wants to ride the coaster! Honestly, she was tall enough to ride it, but I wasn't waiting in that line with her! This Mama was hot, tired, and DONE. Next time, Bean. Promise.

Some last pictures of my ragamuffin children. They were both mismatched at this point. As Daddy and I changed them out of their swimsuits and into fresh, clean clothes.....they both peed. Ooops. We forgot to account for the amount of pool water they must have had to drink! So, mismatched clothes for the ride home! Oh well!



The kiddos look pretty tired in the those pictures! We all were! We spent the rest of the weekend recuperating. And the kids came down with fevers and colds! But, it was a fun, fun day. Next summer, we'll pick a cooler day though!