Lonely

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Tessa

I’m sitting at the doctors office, all by myself. It’s quiet and the waiting room is full of grown-ups doing grown-up things. It’s lonely.

There was a lot I expected, even looked forward to, when Eve started kindergarten. A little peace and quiet, the ability to get in and out of a store quickly, free time to exercise and do projects, etc. Two things I didn’t fully expect were how quickly my time would fill up and yet, even still, how lonely it would be. I think about this a lot.

This morning I went grocery shopping and was lonely. Yes, I got in and out a bit quicker, though sometimes I get spaced out without kids to keep me moving, but I really missed having friends around to chat with. The kids, yes, are my friends. We play games and ride the shopping cart and share observations. They are silly and chatty and need to be reminded a dozen times about basic things, but they are my buddies and are generally great company.

I miss them when they aren’t around.

Sometimes I even miss them when they are around! They are so big now and always have their games together and they frequently want to be in a room away from me. Sigh. Yet another part of parenting they don’t tell you about, and even if they did I don’t think you can fully understand until you’re there.

PS. This isn’t meant to be a complaining post, more just observation and documentation.

Day 2: Just Hanging Out

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Tessa

Day 1: First Flight

After a busy day of travelling on Thursday and with a full schedule for the rest of the week, we decided to just lay low on Friday. With new friends, a houseful of toys and books, a pool, what more could you ask for?!

Breakfast

We did a few little things. Joe had school in the morning. Alan took Eve for a quick trip to Target. I thought all four of us could go (“C’mon kids, it’s Target!!”) but Lex chose to spend much of the morning like this:

I think he read every book in Joe’s room.

When he was done reading he came out to join us and we all ended up hanging out by the pool. It was only 66° in the water, and about the same in the air around, but that didn’t stop the kids from jumping in!

Lex discovered the bubble machine first thing. What a fun toy!

Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere!

Lex getting his feet.

Lex finding out just how chilly 66° really is!

We tortured Lucas for awhile by letting Lex swim and not him. He’s only two and can’t swim alone and none of the grownups wanted to swim in the chilly water! The poor baby cried and cried outside of the fence while Lex swam.

More Lex. Eve was still at the store at this point.

Brrr….

When Eve came home she almost burst into tears upon seeing Lex swimming. She asked me, through sniffles, if we had brought her bathing suit too. Silly girl!

She had chosen and packed her own bathing suit! The cold water warning didn’t stop her either.

I love how they smile for the camera!

He’s such a ham!

After swimming and lunch it was time for rest. Eve was sooo tired! She played on the tablet until I took it away…

… and replaced it with a daddy. Then it was lights out for both of them!

After all four kids and all four grownups had some rest time we decided to go to Ikea and out to dinner. Ikea, you ask? Why would anyone do that on vacation?! The answer, I will tell you, is to humor me! I’ve heard so much about the “Ikea experience” and really wanted to go. The closest one to where we live is hours away. People I know actually rent U-Hauls and drive down to Ikea for a day or weekend trip. That’s how cool it’s supposed to be. When Andrea told me there was one right near by I couldn’t resist! Fortunately everyone was nice enough to humor my excitement. :)

Lex was excited to touch a palm tree. They are pretty cool, and quite different from the pines and maples we have here.

Darn sun, ruining a lovely group picture! :)

The shrubs are shaped to spell IKEA. Crazy.

Trying out the furniture at Ikea. It’s nice to see that Joe is as well practiced at posing for the camera as my two are. :)

Did you know they sell Eves at Ikea?

Dinner at BJ’s Brew House or something like that.

Can you believe I just posted 21 pictures of our down day?!? That’s not even all the pictures I took that day! No wonder we came home with over 800 pics! Sheesh.

Day 3: Disney Fun
Day 4: Lego Land
Day 5: Kennedy Space Center
Day 6: The Zoo
Day 7: A Drive Along the Coast
Day 8: Heading Home

Day 1: First Flight

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Tessa

The big day finally arrived! I had packed and repacked several times in my head (do you do that?) and then packed for real. Upon advice from lots of random people over the past few weeks, we decided to NOT check any luggage, just stick to carry-on. We each had a backpack, Alan and I each carried a small suitcase, and the kids each carried their little booster seats. Two bags each.

Tiny travellers, all packed and ready to go.

With plenty of time to spare we arrived at our quiet little airport. Security was a breeze (I was well prepared!) and we enjoyed watching the activity on the ground below while waiting to board.

At the airport, seeing all there is to see.

The doggies came along for the trip. Alex wanted to have a good view.

If you know anything about flying Southwest you know that you have to check-in online 24hrs before your flight. At check-in they assigned you a boarding group (A, B, or C) and a number (1-60). At the airport they board A1-60, then family boarding (kids 4 and under!), then B1-60, and C1-60. There is no assigned seating, so the better boarding position you get the more likely you are to get a better seat. I really wanted A group (me and everyone else flying Southwest!) because we had a very short layover and I was worried that if we were in the back of the plane we wouldn’t get off quick enough and would therefore miss our connecting flight! I checked-in just one minute into the 24hr window and we ended up in the tail end of the B group. Not ideal, but it all worked out ok. The flight was full but we were able to get seats in groups of two and not too far back. Thankfully! The travelling gods were in our favor and we departed on time, landed in Chicago early, and came in at a gate very near the next flight’s departure gate.

Happy boys, ready to fly!

Eve wanted to sit with mommy.

It’s hard to see in this picture, but we saw a ton of soilders in camo getting off a bus and onto a plane. Each carrying a white box the size of maybe two shoe boxes together. We were curious.

It was good to find the airlines still serve snacks. :)

Eve, pretending to be scared. Really she had a great time and kept yelling things to Lex, who was a few rows back and could not hear her! “Lex, we’re in the air now!” “Lex, look at those clouds!” “Lex, that loud noise was just the engines turning on!” It was super cute.

Chicago was slightly less fun. We stopped to grab lunch, hoping we’d have time to eat it in the gate area. Instead they boarded A group quickly and lined up B group. Then we waited FOREVER while the family boarding took place. Turns out a flight to Orlando is PACKED with families with young kids. I was getting nervous that we’d never find seats together and no one would have any sympathy since everyone else had kids too! Despite being hungry and just a tiny bit cranky, we made it on to the plane and found seats near the back where we could sit in twos again.

We grabbed a quick lunch at the Chicago Airport.

Beautiful clouds in rows.

A winding river

Eve is tough to entertain on a plane. :)

In Orlando we made our way to the car rental place and eventually picked up our rental. Everyone was tired and the kids were uber silly at this point! It was only about 4:30pm, but it felt like a very long day already.

Hanging out at the car rental place. They were a little wild, but it was hard to tell them to be still and quiet after spending a full day on airplanes.

Once we were in the car the kids made me very nervous in their little booster seats. They were flopping around and wrapping the center belt around their heads and just being silly. It was raining and there was traffic and I was really wishing they were in their big car seats with the 5pt harness!

Big kids in big kid carseats. As the week progressed they settled down and I was less nervous about these seats.

We made it to Mike and Andrea’s house and I apparently have no more photos of the day. We got Panera for dinner and just hung out there. When we pulled up to the house Mike and Joe were waiting out front. Eve jumped out of the car and was the first to the porch. Joe said, “Hi, I’m five years old.” (he just had a birthday). Eve said, “Oh, me too.” And off they went to play. Like old friends. :)

Day 2: Just Hanging Out
Day 3: Disney Fun
Day 4: Lego Land
Day 5: Kennedy Space Center
Day 6: The Zoo
Day 7: A Drive Along the Coast
Day 8: Heading Home

Home again, home again

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Tessa

We are home again. Back in the snowy north. I want to complain, but really can’t as the weather is warm (ish – 38°) and sunny today. Everything in Florida was green and there were lots of fountains. I liked that. The cars were all shiny and not covered in salt. Sigh. Anyway, we are back now.

I’m taking the pictures off the camera now. Turns out we took 893 photos!! Yesterday Eve and I were guessing at how many photos there were. I guessed 400 and she guessed a million. We were both off by a lot! I’m going to post vacation updates one day at a time. Trying to do the whole week in one blog post would take forever to read and even longer to write!

I think the kids have been suffering from craft withdrawl during vacation. They’ve spent all day today with the paper and scissors and tape everywhere. Rummaging through the recycling bins, lots of glue and string. Crafty kids getting caught up on crafty things.

Crafty kids hard at work.

Lex also had many inspirations for train layouts while on vacation. On the plane ride home he drew up diagrams and first thing this morning he was at work building train tracks and stations. Busy, busy.

The cardboard box is Sea Side Sheds with tracks going up to the top. From the top the trains have the option of going on the trampoline (closer track, near the blue box) or the water slide (further track).

More train tracks. I’ll have to ask him about the black boxes by the couch.

Happy Friday. More to come later!

Legorific

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Tessa

I <3 Vacation

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Tessa

Happy Friday!

Flying high

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Tessa

The traveling gods were good to us today. We had a half hour layover and I was SURE we would miss the connection, but our first flight ended up getting in half hour early so we ended up with nearly an hour for the layover, which just gave us enough time to hit the bathrooms and grab lunch to eat on the plane. We never would have made the connection!

Turns out the kids are excellent travellers. Oh wait, that’s no surprise!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Tessa

We have been celebrating love each day, two hearts at a time (one from me and one from Alan). The kids eagerly look for the new ones in the morning.

Love notes to little ones

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you all have a lovely one. We will be flying high!

A reading breakthrough!

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Tessa

Eve has had a reading breakthrough recently! I am so excited! Her exact skill level has been up for debate (between Alan and I, anyway) but was un-testable because she was pretty uninterested in reading. She read sometimes, mostly for Alan, but not with any regularity. Lately however, she has been reading with gusto!!

They started reading groups in school two weeks ago and she is very excited about that. She comes home and tells me all about who is in her group and what they read. Today she told me that in her book at school was the words “very” and then another one “kind of slanted” (italics). I started to explain what that meant, but she stopped me and told me how she read it in class. I don’t really know how to write it here, but she read it as “very, very” very (regular), very (emphasized)! She said her teacher was surprised that she knew what that meant and stopped to explain to the other kids.

Each day she brings home a picture and a sentence that she wrote from reading group. This one says “Bears eat fish and berr.” I asked her what “berr” was and she said she forgot to write the rest of berries. :)

“Bella and Rosie brot sunglasses to the beach.”

Along with the reading has come a big step in writing. She is much more apt to write now, and sound out her words. Sometimes the spelling is correct, sometimes not, but she’s trying! Which is huge!

On our snowless-snow day last week I wrote a message on the Doodle Pro saying, “Snow, snow, where did you go?” On the very snowy next day, Eve wrote this: “Happy Sadrday. There is snno every where.” With a picture of a house and a sun and a rainbow and snow balls.

She reads to me at bedtime quite often now, and she reads very well! She reads books I didn’t know she could read. One night we were reading Truckery Rhymes (a silly poetry book) and she started off saying she would read every other poem, but then she got excited and insisted on reading every poem! She read an entire “Little Bear” book to Alan the other night. Tonight I was reading her a chapter book and several times I stopped and asked her where I was and she always pointed to the exact word I ended on. She’s reading right along!

These are Lex’s spelling words. He is supposed to write each one three times, but he never does. Each Monday we go through the list and he spells them all correctly so he doesn’t bother with the practice. With Eve’s new burst in reading she is getting in on the spelling game too. Now on Mondays after school she reads him his spelling words (with my help when she needs it) and he spells them. I LOVE IT!

I’m super excited by this. Reading is kind of a big deal in our house, in case you haven’t noticed. We do a lot of it! :)

Valentine’s Day Treats

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Tessa

We will be jettin’ out of here on Valentine’s Day, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate anyway. The kids finished their class Valentine’s Day cards today. We are going to bring them in on Wednesday and their teachers have promised to distribute them. My guys are eager to return to a bunch of Valentine’s Day cards waiting for them after vacation. :)

This afternoon we made cookies.

Someone’s had enough chocolate already!

They were giving each other silly kisses. I tried to get a picture, but instead got this weird shot. :)

Fun with sugar. Eve had the job of rolling the dough balls in sugar. It took much longer than necessary, but she enjoyed the sensory experience.

While Eve played in the sugar, Lex got the first shot at putting the hearts on the cookies. These are definitely fun to make! (that table in the background sums up my life! Messy, colorful, healthy, sweets, kids!)

Cookies!

Eve got a turn at the hearts too. I could NOT get a picture of her with a non-talking mouth! :)

I have been wanting to make these cookies for awhile now. Holding off until it’s actually close to the sweet holiday. They are peanut butter blossoms (with the unholiest of deliciousness – Jif peanut butter!) with Dove and Hershey hearts instead of the usual Kisses. So YUMMY! We will be delivering these to various friends over the next few days, while saving a few for ourselves, of course!