Lex has been studying Mexico in class. They learned about the language, culture, holidays, schools, etc. The project expended to music, art, and library. The unit culminated tonight with a play of the book, Musicians Of The Sun. It was so cute!
They have been practicing for weeks now and Lex has been walking around singing songs in Spanish. He even taught Eve the final dance and they were dancing in the kitchen one day.
Tonight was the big night. He was SO excited! The best part was that he wasn’t even nervous. After last year’s Three Piggy Opera and all the nervous drama that went with it, this year’s performance was a non-issue. He didn’t even mention it until the practices were well under way and I don’t think he was the least bit nervous!
Today I am thankful for a wonderful family from around the country who took a few minutes out of a stressful weekend to celebrate my birthday. I am also thankful that time spent with said family makes me happy, not anxious. I am a lucky girl with an awesome family!
I asked Lex to be the photographer this evening, so most of the photos are his.
Me and Eve
Self portrait
Someone couldn’t wait for the birthday cake!
Eve has been talking for weeks about getting me the most perfect, most beautiful present EVER! Today my parents ended up taking her to a store, “somewhere that sells beautiful glass things,” per her request. She spent her allowance money and got me this little fairy. Do you see how happy she is in the corner of the picture. :)
Lex took pictures of all of the cards. This is a talking card full of cheese jokes. Thanks Greg and Kathy!
I’m looking forward to beautiful rainbows on sunny days! Thanks Mema!
He also took pictures of all of the envelopes. :)
This duck marionette was a favorite of mine when I was a kid!
We had a busy weekend. Saturday started with a trip to the flu shot clinic. Lex was, once again, traumatized. He spent part of the time under the doctor’s desk with his legs wrapped in a death grip around the chair. We managed to get him calmed down enough to get the shot, though he was not happy about it. Then, funny boy, he decided it wasn’t actually so bad after all. He insists his past flu shots have hurt for two days, but this time it only hurt for 15 minutes. He likes to be precise. :)
[ no pictures of this fun event ]
After that we drove over to Woodstock for some banking issues. At the bank the kids got Halloween candy (after the lollipops from the doctor’s office) and freebies. A calculator, a football, and a basketball. All bank branded, of course. They were THRILLED. Then we stopped at Quechee Gorge on the way home. We hiked down and marveled at the water levels. I don’t think the kids have ever seen the rocks completely covered! Then we went out to lunch. Home for some chiling out, family games, Eve and Alan went for a run, etc. Overall a fantastic day!
It was a beautiful day!
Happy kids – properly protected from the flu! :)
The river was flowing fast!
Where are the rocks?!
The boys
The girls
Eve just discovered that the log moves!
Sunday was another active day, the CHaD HERO Half Marathon & Ripcord 5K. Alan ran the half marathon (13.1 miles!!) and the kids and I walked the 5K (3.1 miles). This is the first year they have offered a 5K so we were excited to participate. In the past they had the half marathon, a relay option, and the one mile fun-run called “Cam’s Course.” Lex was pretty interested in that and said next year he might like to do that. We’ll see.
We participated with a team of friends and friends of friends in memory of a little guy who died this spring of an aggressive brain tumor. He spent a lot of time at the Children’s Hospital in his final days and it was exciting to be able to participate with the group.
We went looking for costumes the night before and came up a bit short. Eve was excited to find a Spiderman costume and insisted she was comfortable in it, despite the fact that it’s a 4T. She didn’t last long before asking to take it off. :)
More heros!
Do you see the start line? Waaaay up there under the white banner. This year they did a 5K and allowed walkers, which helped swell the participation numbers. There were over 2800 people signed up, plus all the families, volunteers, vendors, etc. It was crowded!
Waiting for daddy to cross the finish line.
There he is! Our hero!
There was a ton of stuff for the kids to do there. A bouncy house, climbing wall, a side walk chalk tent, hula hoops, etc. Lots to keep them busy.
This was Lex’s favorite area.
After Alan was done and got some free food we headed home for a shower and to repack for the next event – a party at the team leader’s house! I think Eve was feeling bad at this point. She was really tired by the end of the 5K and spent the rest of the time there feeling tired and asking if she could have quiet time. On the way home she said she was going to take a nap as soon as we got home. Guess what? She did! Alan headed for the shower and Eve headed for bed. She slept for almost an hour before I woke her up to go partying. Fortunately she rallied and we all had a great time. We got to catch up with old friends, meet new ones, and had a really nice night. Right when I was about to round everyone up to head home, a woman pulled out face paints and Eve was asking for a butterfly. So we stayed for awhile longer.
A beautiful butterfly after a very long weekend.
Then she and I cuddled in a chair while she ate a cookie and told me how much she wished she was home in bed. :) I wisked her away and put her to bed. Unfortunately the beautiful butterfly lasted only about an hour. Fortunately she woke up this morning feeling much better!
It’s a good thing I’m not superstitious! There is a black cat in the neighborhood that regularly crosses my path while I’m out running or driving. Maybe not the smartest cat. And the other day I let the kids do this. :)
Sorry for the sideways video again. Someday I’ll figure out how to rotate video!
We survived our busy week! Pancakes for dinner and an empty weekend ahead. Yay!
This week Lex worked on side breathing with his crawl stroke. He also learned the breast stroke. They both practiced diving off the side and Lex learned something along the lines of race diving. Kind of diving in at an angle. It’s cool.
On the last day of swim lessons the kids get a chance to jump off the diving board if they want to. Lex has yet to try, but Eve gave it a shot this past spring and she decided to do it again this time. Lex chose not to again. I signed them both up for lessons again next spring, at the same level. When they came up with their report cards though Lex surprised me by moving up a level! He was super excited! I’m so happy for them both.
There’s a long line at the diving board. Most of them are lined up for the low board, not the high board!
Last year Lex’s teacher ended his lesson when the kids lined up for the diving board, but this year’s teacher kept in the pool until the end. I appreciated that. He kept swimming and they played a silly game while the other kids went off the diving board. He was almost the last kid out of the pool.
This one is for you, Mema! This is why I was giggling through our phone call.
The video is long and boring and of course I turned it off two seconds too soon. Moments after I turned it off Eve hopped her way directly into the wall! I fell over laughing so, of course, she did it again! Funny girl. Funny kids!!
We had a slow, but productive on my part, day today.
Chillin’ together in the office. They spent a lot of time hanging out together today. It was sweet.
New school supplies! I love these bento boxes. I bought them years ago when the kids were going to daycare. Lex has used his for lunches the past two years. This year they each got new boxes (so I could have the old ones for spares/backups!) and Eve got a carrier. Lex has a good one still from last year. They were SUPER excited when the mail lady arrived today!
Texting with daddy. She sent a message to him for me and then decided to send her own as well. Mine was a grocery list, hers was “I love you. Love Eve.”
Eve and I painted some clay objects we made earlier in the week. She has a butterfly and a bear cave, I have a flower. Lex spent much of the afternoon working on a secret message on the tablet. I have another blog post coming someday about his tablet messages. (they are blog worthy because they are all love notes to me!)
Here’s what I did with most of the day. Eve was very helpful in the beginning, while Lex worked on his paper Transformer, then they both went off and played together while I finished up. We made two loaves of bread, Pineapple Sunshine muffins, oatmeal raisin cookies with dark chocolate covered raisins, and chicken parm (no cheese) for Alan.
Blanket blobs creeping (not so) quietly through the kitchen while I was on the phone.
I’m tired and Alan is waiting patiently for me to go to bed, so I’m going to leave you with this for now. I’ll tell you more about Alpha Rex another day.
I Can’t Wait I can’t wait to start following the schedule I made.
I can’t wait for the fireworks (there is no parade).
I couldn’t wait to start writing this poem,
and now that I’m done, my family I’ll show’em.
by Lex, 7/4/2012
Here’s Lex reading the poem to Eve. I had to grab the camera quickly so I missed the first little bit. It’s cute anyway.
We had a lovely day today. A very nice start to the summer, as Lex and I were discussing. Since Friday was the last day of school, Saturday and Sunday aren’t technically school days anyway, today was really the first day of summer vacation.
We did have to get out the door in the morning, but our departure time was 9:15am instead of the usual 7:50am. Our morning started at dance camp. Our first attempt at the summer camp scene. Eve and her friend from preschool signed up together. Eve put on her favorite dancing dress and we put bows in her hair and away we went. She was a bit nervous in the beginning, but I think she had fun.
Bows and mini buns, a perfect hairdo for dance camp. (a little lopsided, but she said it was perfect anyway!)
Lex and I hung around for about 10 minutes, but the campers were just sitting on the floor singing songs. Lex wanted to see some dancing! :) On Friday they will put on a short performance, so I promised him we would at least seem some dancing then. When we left Eve’s friend had sat down next to her and both girls were happily singing a good morning song with the teacher.
While Eve was at camp, Lex and I went grocery shopping. It was different. Usually we drop him off in the morning and Eve and I run errands, but this morning we dropped her off and Lex and I ran errands. Grocery shopping with him is easy peasy though, because he brings a book and sits in the cart. We were in and out in no time! We even had enough time to pick up our CSA share AND go home and put the groceries away before we had to pick up Eve again. I was psyched!
When we picked up Eve she was TIRED and hungry. We made it home, had lunch and stories, said farewell to my parents, and then crashed for the rest of the day. Lex zoned out into his Mindstorm set, Eve laid on her bed listening to an audiobook, and I got lost in the computer for awhile. Eventually Eve came downstairs for snack and we all migrated into the dining room, still listening to the audiobook. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen prepping the fruits and veggies from our morning outing, Eve sat at the table and colored while listening to the audio book (“A Wrinkle in Time” and she really got into it this time around!) and Lex was in and out showing off his Mindstorm creations.
Raspberry fingers! Classic. She munched on raspberries and strawberries all afternoon. :)
Here is Lex’s Mindstorm robot. If it detects an object within 40cm it fires little wooden balls at the object. You can hear it saying “object” when it detects something and “alarm” if it determines that something to be within 40cm. Lex did all of the programing on his own. At one point he said, “I could turn the sounds off and use it to guard my room!” That cracked me up! I can imagine myself walking in to his room one day and having a Mindstorm robot suddenly start shooting little balls at me. Ha!
After healthy dinners all around we finished the evening with little frozen yogurt (from the CSA pickup) sundaes. Ahh… summer vacation!
There are only three little dishes because poor Alan was not home to join us for this yummy dessert. :(
