Getaway

Five

Couple weeks of celebration

Our sweet girl turned nine this month. With Stephen on a business trip for her actual birthDAY, I decided to make it a little extra special for her.
In December the elementary school had a winter wonderland fundraiser and Avery begged me to "win" her a lunch date with the school's service dog Charlie in the silent auction.
$40 later we "won"!
I arranged her lunch date with Charlie to be on her birthday, which she loved.
After school a friend came over and myself and four kids headed out to dinner (birthday girl's choice, Moe's Southwest Grill). A stop at Sweet Frog's for dessert and then an evening of swimming at the local community center.

Our girl is deep, but our girl is simple. Stephen pointed out to me that she is so hard to buy gifts for because of her love of the simple life. So we gave her a choice, a birthday party or a date with mommy at the Baltimore aquarium for a sleepover with the dolphins. Her choice was quick and simple, dolphins, definitely dolphins.

Amazing experience that my girl and I will remember for a very long time. Touring the aquarium after  hours with a tour guide that has worked or volunteered at the facility since opening day over 35 years ago (after visiting this aquarium so many times we really thought we knew the place...boy were we wrong!). Behind the scenes information and rooms that are kind of mind blowing. 

Making new friends. 

Watching a really special girl do her thing with her animal friends.

Using some of her birthday money, little miss bought a bat at the aquarium gift shop. When she heard the guides mention dolphins love to play, she held her bat up to the window to see if they would come over.

Not only did the youngest dolphin come up to play, Bailey did a flip, and then began blowing bubble rings followed by catching them with her teeth. It was amazing and I didn't really capture the moment well because it was such a beautiful sight to experience in person.

We had a really special moment of time together. What a blessing to share this time with an amazing "little" girl that I have the honor of raising and calling my daughter. 

Happy 7th

January 2nd is a tough day to have a birthday, especially as a child. Not only does it follow closely on the heels of Christmas and New Year's celebrations, it also happens to be the day our county sends everyone back to school.
While we celebrated as a family on C-Note's birthday by going out to eat at his favorite pizza restaurant and dessert at Sweet Frog's, we held off on having his party until this weekend, when things settled down a bit. Glad we did, we had temperatures in the 60's so windows were open and pinata activities were held outside.
So much fun to host a Star Wars party for eight, seven-year-olds. We found all of our ideas on the internet, they were all so easy to recreate.

I ordered personalized Lego Star Wars iron-ons from a woman on etsy. Stephen cut all the white t-shirts to make capes. So easy and the boys loved them!

A green and blue light saber battle for his cake. I wish he was smiling in this photo, he lost his second top tooth the night before the party!

Green and blue chocolate dipped pretzal rods for snack. We also had Cantina corndogs, R2D2 Ruffles, Anakin apple slices, Padawan (cheese) puffs, droid candy and Yoda soda.

Our family (extended included) collected all kinds of recyclable items. The boys were able to create their own recycled droids. Some boys worked together, some worked on their own. I thought it was so cute when one of the boys asked to take all three of his droids home! I am sure his parents were thrilled that our recycling then became their property!

We rounded out the party with pin the light saber on Yoda, a Darth Vader pinata, watching a bit of the Lego Star Wars series as well as playing Lego Star Wars on Wii. We were hoping for a silly strong battle in the back yard, but we ran out of time. So we sent that home in the goodie bags along with a small lego x-wing fighter and a star wars pez.

Happy Birthday C-Note, we love you!

The fight

Too much sugar? A full moon? Spring like temperatures...perhaps a combination, but all three kids were misbehaving the other night.

One child whining, we can handle. Another child talking back, we got this. But when all three pick the same time to act out with multiple misbehaviors, it isn't fun or pretty.

While one child was doing push-ups for talking back to us, another was sent upstairs to shower. 

10 minute shower rule. 

About 15 minutes later Stephen had to go up and tell the oldest it was time to get out.

When middle was finished doing his push-ups, he was sent upstairs to shower. 5 minutes later we hear running around upstairs, middle is acting silly, while oldest is still in the shower. 

I told oldest her time was up and scooted middle into the shower. 

10 minutes later we hear laughing, Stephen runs up and finds middle in the shower with oldest BACK in the shower with a towel wrapped around herself, both spitting and throwing water at one another.

5 minutes later I go to tell middle to get out, to put youngest in, and find oldest still there! 

As I tried to maintain composure, I loudly encouraged her to get to her room before she got in more trouble.

About 20 minutes later, with everyone showered and ready to read bedtime stories, Stephen has the boys on the couch and I go looking for Avery. I find this note on her door.

In her sensory processing disorderly way, she figuratively slammed her door in our faces (because actual slamming would be too loud for her), acting very pre-teenish. 

And it was so darn cute!! 

After I stopped giggling and wiped the smile off of my face, I asked her if I could talk with her. Her swollen red eyes and lip tremble made me wish I had cake in my hand. We talked about the events leading up to her getting in trouble. She apologized for not listening and I apologized for raising my voice. 

Then we snuggled and read a really dreary book (Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket...not for the faint of heart or those who are sensitive) and decided we would read happier books after just one chapter. Especially after a night like that night. 

her first piano recital

After playing "twinkle, twinkle little star" by ear at a very young age on her six key xylophone, we kind of knew oldest had an ear for music. When we lived in Baltimore, our music teaching neighbor recommended oldest take piano lessons after watching her hand positions and the ability to play songs without reading music.

So we enrolled her in lessons last year and she is enjoying it tremendously. A few weeks ago she participated in her first recital. She played two songs solo and then a third with a friend. It was really great to see her perform and hear how much she has learned in a year. One of these days I'll get the video I have of the recital on here:)

With her piano teacher Mrs. Reynolds.

Practicing her duet.

Two ninjas and a dragon

The kids enjoyed trick or treating this year. We went two full blocks more than we have ventured before.

They came home with a lot of candy and after they picked a few to eat (and mom and dad picked a few to eat!), they donated the rest to  our service men and women overseas.

Back to our regularly (altered) schedule

Oh look! It's November and there hasn't been a new post since July.
Learning to navigate the waters of working full time outside the home while trying to keep life "normal" as we have always known it, has been challenging, interesting, hair pulling and a bit exhausting. With some tweaks in expectations, throwing more independence at the kids and Stephen partnering with me on this new journey we have a new normal and it seems to be working.

I'll try to recap a few of our highlights from the past several months in future posts. Piano recitals, pumpkin picking, running races, Brownies, it's been fun and busy!

As Stephen makes his annual visit to Miami this weekend to watch the last Nascar race, we decided to take the underwater camera the oldest received for her birthday last February - out of the box (insert blush that we are just getting around to using it!) - and head over to the community center for some fun.