now is the time

The kids have been back to school for three weeks.

But, that's really not what this post is about, even if I am including an obligatory first day of school photo.

Last year, the first weeks of school were filled with anxiety, nervousness and worry...for me.  Sure, the kids did great, but I was a ball of stress as I sat waiting for the phone call from school that someone had just had an allergic reaction or had just fallen and split their head open on the playground.  Of course, as always, I was worrying for no reason.  They were safe and secure and I learned to let go and put my trust in the awesome school we've chosen for them.

As the year went on, though, I started to realize how fast they would be exposed to major issues in the world...issues that I worked diligently to keep from seeping into their brains and sparking the very worry that I had for their safety.  The day they came home talking about the "bad guy" drill they had at school, I wanted to pack up my family and move them to a desert island.  Then I remembered that my kid is allergic to coconuts.  So, I regrouped and started to change my ways.

The morning after they told me how they were told by their teachers to hide in their classroom and practice being as quiet as possible so a "bad guy" wouldn't find them, I stopped turning down the radio in the car when the news report came on.  If questions ever arose from that news report, I tried to answer them honestly, but tried hard not to scare the pants off of them at the same time.

As much as I would like them to be sheltered forever and believe that the world is all rainbows and butterflies, I realized that, now that they were venturing outside of home without us, they were going to have to start to be aware that there are not so nice things in this world that may affect them or someone they love.  It was this summer that they first really learned about why we are so thankful to our soldiers when a young man that I had the privilege of babysitting when he was a smiley little blonde preschooler was killed in Afghanistan.  My emotions were visible as I proudly showed my kids the photos and news reports of the hero welcome that my hometown displayed as Brian's body was brought back to be laid to rest.

This year, as we drove to the first day of school, I couldn't help but think of this time of year ten years ago.  Kris and I had just gotten married and moved and were excited about our new life together.  Then, one month later, the towers fell and my "rainbows and butterflies" perception of the world changed completely.  Yes, I'd dealt with tough times before then...medical issues, teenage angst, and my best friend losing her younger brother when he was hit by a car when we were in high school.  But, I will admit, I was still pretty oblivious to most world issues.  But, that day...well, I'm pretty sure I will always remember where I was and what I was doing as I learned of the news and watched the second plane hit.  And this year, on the tenth anniversary of that tragic day, I think I have decided that it is time to share it with my kids.

I want them to know about those "bad guys", but, more importantly, about the heroes that day.  I want them to know how it affected us and those around us.  I want them to know that someone we went to school with was in those towers and made it out and ran for his life as far as he could.  I want them to know that Mrs. Brook was in the city when it happened and fearfully walked the miles back to Brooklyn, unsure of what was to come.  I want them to know why those soldiers are at war now.  And how patriotism swelled and "I love you" could be heard amongst strangers.  I want them to know that we cried and that it's okay to cry and feel compassion for those we don't know personally.  I want them to know that I prayed for the families of those lost and the safety of those I love.

But, most of all, I want them to know that we were scared.  And that, slowly, but surely, we learned to try to not live in fear.  And I want them to learn that every day is a gift.

Okay, yes, I still have my moments where the anxiety takes over, such as those first few weeks of school last year.  But, I was truly transformed by that awful day ten years ago and the months that followed, as I'm sure many others were, and I feel like it's time to share that with the two that I have been entrusted to love and comfort and teach.

around the yard...

Batman seems to have gotten himself into a bit of a predicament...

Bieber Fever!

Grace recently participated in a dance camp where the theme for the week was Hip Hop Hula Party. My girl rocked it out and LOVED every minute of it! Even though she's decided against dancing this school year, I definitely see her participating in future summer camps with Miss Lindsay.

And there you have it...

...our crazy spring! Now on to summertime...

What we've been up to {Part 8}

We've been dancing! Grace's spring recital was adorable and entertaining. One of the best parts was her costume which will have a follow-up post once we visit my parents in July.

What we've been up to {Part 3}

We've been playing soccer! Again, one of us has...the other three have been watching.

Grace LOVES soccer and, when her practices ended up on the same night as dance class, meaning she'd be busy with extracurriculars for over 2 hours on Monday nights, she didn't care one bit (even if it exhausted Mommy!). She had a fun time playing on the league through school this year. Unfortunately, she has to miss her last game of the season next weekend. And, even more unfortunate, due to Mommy's forgetfulness, she missed her game this weekend. When I told her about it and apologized, she realized she could work this guilt-ridden mommy by asking for a piece of candy...I agreed by giving her loads of candy! When she came downstairs dressed in her soccer uniform later in the evening, I braced myself for a request for a pony!

My girl loves her soccer...looking forward to watching her play for years to come. Hopefully, I can be better at keeping track of her schedule next season, though!

What we've been up to {Part 2}

We have been playing t-ball! Well, one of us has...the other three have been watching! It's been a fun season, even if several games were rained out and scheduling got a little crazy. Sam has one more game left this season and we have see vast improvement for all the Riverbats this season. Sam even got the game ball twice...one for getting an out when he was playing second...he was paying attention enough to get an out!! His coach's goal for the season was for each kid to have fun (which should really be the goal for any sport in this age group, right?), and he achieved that and more.

Go Riverbats!

the dads on the bus...

Like Grace and her PreK class, Sam and his kindergarten class also had a nursery rhyme performance recently. They performed traditional nursery rhymes and songs with a twist. Sam was part of the Wheels on the Bus performance that included non-traditional characters (like rappers!). He was one of the dads, but instead of shhhhing their babies, they gave each other high fives. Grace and I were very entertained! :)

the car ride

I spend countless hours in the car with my kids every week. Off to t-ball, soccer, dance, school, Alaska, Arizona, Texas. Wait, what? Okay, I'm exaggerating, but seriously, we spend quite a bit of time in the car...just me and them. It usually goes something like this...

Me: Is everyone buckled?

Grace: yup!

Sam: (silence)

[I start to back up.]

Sam: WAIT!!!! I'M NOT BUCKLED!!!......Okay, now I am.

[I back out of the driveway...make two turns.]

One kid or the other: Can you turn the radio up?

Sam: Can we have 98.1 the Bull? (local country station)

[I turn the radio up and we drive about 23 seconds before Grace starts singing along (the child knows every word to every song on the radio!). We drive another 1.2 seconds and...]

Sam: (low voice) Grace, please don't sing! [pause...Grace continues to sing] (voice escalating) I want to listen to the music! I don't like you singing! [short pause...Grace continues to sing with an almost-detectable grin on her face] (voice escalates to frantic, almost incomprehendable crying going something like this) I'M GOING TO START FREAKING OUT!!! I JUST WANT TO LISTEN TO THE MUSIC!!! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO SING ALONG!!!!!????? (etc, etc, etc) [Grace continues to sing only pausing briefly to yell back at her brother.]

Grace: I'M ALLOWED TO SING IF I WANT TO!!! SINGING AND DANCING ARE HAPPY THINGS AND ANYONE IS ALLOWED TO DO THEM AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME!!!!

Me: (blood-pressure rising) Enough! Grace, don't taunt him...you are allowed to sing, but don't look at your brother while you're doing it! Sam, if Grace is singing, we can still hear the radio, but if you are yelling, we can't hear anything! Your yelling is much more disturbing to the car ride than Grace's singing.

[All is quiet for a 2–3 minutes while we listen to the radio. Then, Grace starts singing along again. Sam loses it again. Mom very dramatically turns the radio off. Both kids cry. Grace sticks her thumb in her mouth and Sam stares out the window with a scowl on his face.]

And that's how it goes! Anyone want to join us for a road trip? :) This is the reason I brought the iPod along on our trip to Cleveland over Spring Break. I figured Sam could listen to it in peace while Grace sang along with any old song she wanted to that came on the radio. But, of course, Grace wanted the iPod...so there was a fight.

It's a good thing they're so adorable when they're not fighting in the car...

I'll take that as a (blatant) sign

So I was making cookies with Grace yesterday. As I was rolling out the dough, I sprinkled some flour on top of it so it wouldn't stick to the rolling pin. And, as I continued rolling, that flour worked it's way into the tiny cracks that formed as the dough stretched under the rolling pin. That's when Grace excitedly noticed that, "MOMMY! That looks like the backs of your heels on your feet!!!"

Sounds like someone is in dire need of a pedicure if they think they're going to be wearing flip flops in public anytime soon... *sigh*

winter to spring

Goodbye basketball...

Hello t-ball!

Although, the freezing rain has started and we're supposed to accumulate snow tonight. Hopefully we'll see our awesome spring weather again soon!

new routine

Grace and Molly are finally settling into the afternoons with me working at home. For awhile there, I thought I was going to have to send Grace back to aftercare and lock Molly in her kennel all day with the constant whining and barking going on around here. But, they have finally found a few past times to keep them occupied on the days I need to get work finished up during the couple of hours between lunch and Sam pickup. Molly's favorite thing to do is pass out right next to the chair I happen to be sitting in. Here she is in the dining room:

And Grace, amongst other things like art, playing with Barbies, reading or watching Cake Boss, likes to spend an hour "working" on the computer each week. Here she is digitally coloring a picture of strawberries at sproutonline.com at Daddy's desk:

I'm pretty sure that's the same thing Daddy does here, too. :)

holding him back...

Sam's imagination is all over the place...I really think movie writers should be consulting with him. It's just a shame that his horrible parents are hindering his creative aspirations. Like this day, when I gave him a box that just wasn't big enough to serve as the base for the rocket ship he was building so he could jet off to defeat some aliens from some unknown planet with his laser guns that were waiting to be loaded onto the ship:

I'm pretty sure I'll be left out of the acceptance speech for the future Academy Award because of this very day.

toy review -- Legos!

Legos might, quite possibly, be the best toy ever. Can I get an "amen", moms? Some might not believe this statement, but you have to understand that the conditions must be right...the Legos must be contained to a Lego table up and out of the major foot traffic of the house (because those little plastic corners have been known to yield a four-letter word or two in this house as they were jamming up into the bottom of a foot) and, if building a specific set, the kid must be old enough to follow the directions on their own with little help. Because, then, and only then, can a mother retreat to the basement to camp out in front of an HGTV marathon of House Hunters, knowing that several episodes later she will find her 6-year-old still enthralled with the nine separate Lego scenes he's been working on. These days we see a lot of this around the house:

The Lego games don't rank as high on my list...a little complicated when you actually play the game by the directions. But, the boy still gets a ton of imaginary play out of the particular game he requested from Santa, even if we don't actually play the game all that often. He had to build a pyramid with a bunch of mummies and treasures before we could actually play and now I see him playing with it several times a week. And really, how can I knock a game that includes a king that my kids claim is wearing "the french fry crown"?

the next generation

My little artists never cease to amaze me.

Big changes around here over the last few weeks...will elaborate soon!

camera love

New camera from Santa + a few years of Photoshop experience = one happy mama. :)

KONG!

I know, I know...

...where have I been, right? Before my last two posts, my kick off to blogging in 2011 was...well...weak would be a major understatement. I did figure out how to get a really cheap calendar, though: steam through January as an unorganized mess and then order a new calendar for a fraction of the price on February 1st. Yes, I know that I have a calendar program on my computer, but it's just not the same as having one hanging obnoxiously next to my head screaming my appointments and obligations into my ear.

So, anyway, the recap...

Since my post on Christmas, we:

• spent a week in MI visiting family and enjoying the holidays.

• came home and organized the house to donate the old, unused toys and make homes for the new toys that were gifted by Santa, Mommy and Daddy, and a whole slew of family in MI.

• took down the Christmas decorations. I'm totally feeling the absence of our Elf on the Shelf, Astro Lester. Can't wait for him to return in November!

• experienced fairy tale week at dance class.

• went away to a cabin in the Natural Bridge area for one night. This was my Christmas present to Kris and it was our first time getting away from everything by ourselves, without kids, with no agenda or major life event taking place. If only off-season rates applied year-round (and the babysitter for 24 hours didn't cost more than the accommodations!)...we'd totally be there once a month for the quiet and absence of work.

• celebrated Kris' 37th birthday!

• watched Sam start his first ever basketball season. The kid can shoot! Well, he can shoot in practice and make basket after basket...we're still trying to get him to take a shot in a game! Total team player, though...loves to pass that ball around! :)

• noticed that our little girl has moved on from jealous, needing-mama's-attention-at-all-times girl to helpful, I-love-to-help-mama-babysit-the-neighbor-baby girl. Yay! :)

• had a couple of nice, impressive snows for Kentucky.

• learned all about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as interpreted by Sam after talking extensively about him at school. I'm continuously fascinated by the way my boy's mind thinks beyond what he is taught which leads to impressive questions from such a little man.

• went on a hunt for Jessie and Bullseye Toy Story medium-size figure for Owen for his birthday. In case anyone is wondering, that is a near-impossible feat just three weeks after Christmas. We did manage to score a Jessie, but Bullseye had to be replaced with a little green martian, complete with a CLAW! :)

• attended family night mass and activities to kick off Catholic Schools Week.

• had two kids on antibiotics...twice...for strep throat.

• celebrated Sam's 6th birthday (kind of obvious from my last post).

• hosted a small Super Bowl party.

I'm also working on a fun wedding invitation suite right now, which makes me a little homesick since the couple wanted their invitation to resemble a map of Michigan.

So, I think that gets everyone caught up to today. I plan on elaborating on some of those bullets in separate posts, so, fear not. You will not miss out on the photos! :) I also plan on doing a few "toy reviews" so I can show some photos from Christmas and try and mask the fact that it took me over a month to update the blog with them. (And because I need the separate posts to boost my post numbers. My total number of posts for the year right now is down-right embarrassing...and, let's be honest...that "we are alive" post in January shouldn't even count.) That will still work, even though I told you what I'm up to, right?

one day, people...

I'll get to updating this blog! We hit the ground running in 2011! Just wanted to say that we're alive and well! :)

nothing like a good book (or 5 or 6!)