Birthday Message from Grandpa Clint

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

The kids made special birthday pictures for you, along with a video message. Enjoy your day!

Here are the actual pictures.

From Amanda:
You and Amanda holding hands at the Columbus pool... and on the back, going down the waterslide into the pool


From Eva - The Columbus pool, complete with sunshine and music... and on the back, a rainbow

A Drummer?

Liam is fascinated by the drums. He LOVES to sit on someone's lap and play on the drum kit upstairs.

Sometimes going around the whole circuit, hitting each drum and cymbal in order. He seems to have a knack for it.

I think Daddy would be proud to have a drummer in the family. Guitar would have to come later, after the fine motor skills have improved.

And as I am typing, Eva is practicing piano. Music everywhere!!

Ms. Non-Fiction

Eva is very much into non-fiction books these days. She said this week that she wants to be a scientist when she grows up. Well, that and a "ballerina teacher."

She is turning into a walking encyclopedia with all of the random facts she shares with us. She will sit forever with me as I read each paragraph and every caption to her. Sometimes she sits quietly and absorbs the information, and other times she is filled with all sorts of thoughtful questions.

Amanda was so into princess and fairytales, and while Eva will sit and listen to those types of stories, they are not her first choice. It is always so interesting to see how different they can be.

Here are Eva's three favorite books this week.

Almost Gone: The World's Rarest Animals by Steve Jenkins

Ant Cities by Arthur Dorros

Sea Horse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea by Chris Butterworth

I just did a search on our library's network to see if I can find more books that she would be interested in. I really like the "Let's-Read-And-Find-Out-About Science" series.

Things that made me smile today

1. Dave: Offering to take over with today's morning routine so I could go to the gym at 6:45 am. This meant making breakfast, getting the kids dressed and doing the morning dishes. I didn't even get annoyed that he forget to send lunch money with Amanda.

2. Eva: Practicing her current piano assignment. She often asks if she can practice her songs, rather than me telling her to practice. I can tell she is very proud to be playing like her big sister.

Here she is playing her second song, "Katie Scores."

3. Amanda: Finding this school work from yesterday, dealing more with the number 100.

Translation:
"I would like to have 100 [suhse] sushi because I love [suhse] sushi."
"I would not like to have 100 [selre] celery because it tastes [horabl] horrible."

4. Liam: Watching him play and practice walking. He is at such a fun stage right now! (Be patient while this loads. It's over a minute long.)

5. Having the whole morning to myself while the girls were at school, Liam was napping, and Dave was helping his brother work on his new house. I spent the time wisely - made Pioneer Woman's macaroni and cheese, cleaned the bathroom (even the shower!), dusted all of the ceiling fans (no easy task after probably 6 months worth of dust!), and wrote this blog entry. Not bad for an hour and a half!

6. It is 58* outside! And when I finish teaching tonight at 5:00 pm, it will still be light out!

To Grandma Jo, From Amanda

When Amanda learned this piece at her last lesson, she immediately recognized it and said,"That's the song that Grandma Jo's clock plays!"

For you, Grandma Jo...

Special School Days

Today was Amanda's 100th Day of School. They make a HUGE deal out of it. For the past week, her teacher has sent home assignments that deal with counting 100 household items.

One day we counted 100 Fruit Loops, and had to come up with three clues so her class could try and guess what items were in the secret bag.

Yesterday we had to find four more household items, and count to 100 by 10's. We counted M&M's, chocolate chips, Kix cereal and crayons. Eva helped with the counting, which made it a little bit faster. For her assignment, Amanda had to draw a picture and write a sentence about each item that we counted. That's a lot of homework for a Kindergartner!


Eva's assignment for Preschool today was much easier: Bring your favorite Teddy Bear or lovey. Ah yes, Teddy Bear Day. As Amanda said,"Eva, don't tell me anything about it. I will be jealous."

Eva brought her beloved dog "Sparkly" (aka "Lassie", depending on the day and Eva's mood). Eva even dressed her for the occasion in the little blue skirt Omi had sewed for her, which matches Eva's nightgown.


Mom, you'll notice that Eva is wearing the mismatched tights from you. She LOVES them! As soon as she spots them in the clean laundry pile, she grabs them. Also, you can see her specially designed 'dinosaur dress.' She has decorated her outfits with dinosaur stickers the past two days.


We are all caught up on homework for the time being. Whew!

Valentine's Day

Dave and I celebrated Valentine's Day a few days early, and had our date on Saturday evening. It was absolutely perfect in every way. We had a lot to celebrate: 10 years together, and exactly 9 years since he proposed to me in Napa, CA.

We stopped at Roo Bar in Plymouth first, for a drink and a delicious appetizer: shrimp and asparagus tempura. Then we had a fantastic dinner at East Bay Grille on the water in Plymouth. Dave's filet was done perfectly and my chicken and roasted squash over marscipone-stuffed ravioli was fantastic. Meanwhile, the kids had sausage and ravioli's with Omi and watched the Charlie Brown Valentine's special. Everyone was happy!


For the real Valentine's Day yesterday, the kids picked out their favorite red or pink outfits. (Well, except Liam. Mama chose his outfit.) Amanda and Eva were very excited about the day's upcoming events.


Amanda had a party at school and came home with a handmade basket brimming with Valentines and candy.

Amanda models her Valentine hat.

Eva had a Valentine's Party of her own in the Kids' Activity Center at the gym, while I sweated it out upstairs in my Zumba class.


In the afternoon, we made triple chocolate brownies, complete with 100 M&M's and 100 chocolate chips. (Read about this in an upcoming post.)


Dave and I enjoyed these heavenly brownies with berries and homemade whipped cream. In an attempt to make it look 'fancy' like the restaurants, I drizzled chocolate syrup on the plate. Yum.

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays and this was a great one.

Little Rocker

Last night we were listening to internet radio during dinner time. It was an assortment of rock music featuring amazing guitarists like Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, Stevie Ray Vaughan and so on.

Then came a song written by Rush, one of the best instrumental rock songs ever: La Villa Strangiato.

Almost immediately, Liam went crazy. Because it is so long, around 1o minutes long, I had plenty of time to grab the camera and record Liam's craziness.

I think we have another musician in the family. So far Liam seems to be most interested in the drums. When Dave sits him on his lap at the drum kit, Liam holds a stick in each hand and takes turns hitting all of the different drums and cymbals. Dave says he is quite coordinated.

Eva has been showing more and more interest in starting piano lessons. Her fingers are much stronger than they were a month ago. She is now learning her second song and is quite proud of herself.

Amanda is only two songs away from finishing her second level of piano books. She learned "The Bells of Scotland" this week, which was fun because it's the tune that plays on Grandma Jo's clock. I think she had it memorized by the third time through it.

We're going to have our own little Partridge family here!

A Fun Friday

It has been a very hectic week, filled with an assortment of appointments and other obligations. I am very thankful that it is Friday.

This morning I helped out with Amanda's Kindergarten class. I wasn't really sure what volunteering would entail, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.

When I arrived, they were talking about different ways to show people that we love them. After the story and song, the children made special hats for Monday's Valentine's Day party. My job was to scope out the three tables of kids and help wherever needed, which mostly meant cutting and pasting. (One little girl had a cast on her writing arm/hand so I spent a lot of time with her.)

At another table, some boys wanted to know how to spell "Happy Valentine's Day", so I worked with them on that. They both seemed fascinated at being able to write a long word like "Valentine's", and I got the impression that neither of them spends much time writing.

I also helped the kids choose their snacks and then listened to one boy read during "Book in a Bag" time. Before I knew it, they kids were lining up to go to Art class. The hour flew by so quickly! I could easily have spent the whole day there. I will be volunteering four more times and I am already looking forward to the next time.

All of the Valentine's Day talk inspired me to make a special lunch for the kids when I got home.


On the menu:
Turkey/cheese sandwiches, shaped like hearts
Apple slices, somewhat shaped like hearts
Pear yogurt with pink sprinkles
Raspberry milk, which they didn't like at all!

Liam provided the lunchtime entertainment.

As you can see, he loves to make his sisters laugh.

Dave and I are celebrating Valentine's Day tomorrow evening. I decided to plan the date for a change and made dinner reservations at Plymouth's East Bay Grille, located at the Town Wharf. We've never been there before so I hope it's good! I've heard good things about it and if nothing else, a change of scenery will be nice.

Progress!!

Today for the first time ever, Liam walked behind one of his trucks!

Up until today, he only ever stood behind it, kind of rocking it back and forth as if he was testing his balance.

We couldn't believe it when he started moving his feet and actually walked while pushing it!!

I immediately grabbed the camera and captured the evidence.

Hooray for Liam!

You can watch it on YouTube, where it might be faster...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGVm-2N7O6g

Or here.

Goodbye, Snow!

I hate to rub it in if you live in a place that is suffering from the cold, but our temperature hit a whopping 45* today! And we thought 40* was warm over the weekend. Today simply felt like spring! It was so great to send the girls out to play and say,"Nah, you don't need a scarf today."

Here are some pictures that were taken after our last storm (Tuesday and Wednesday of last week.)

Since it had warmed up a bit by Wednesday, we bundled Liam up and took him out to play. He tolerated the sled ride, laying down and being hauled like a wounded soldier.

The girls continued work on their snow fort and were so proud when the walls got as high as they did.

Liam's patience quickly wore out, as you can see here.

Today, the snow fort is a distant memory, much to their dismay, because Daddy never got around to putting the tarp on for a roof.

I'm done with winter and am counting down the days until we can all go to the beach and build sand castles instead of snow forts.

Photos from Liam's 1st Birthday

I am trying to catch up on odds and ends this weekend, after falling terribly behind. One of the things on my long list is to post some recent photos. I can't believe it's been nearly two weeks since Liam's birthday and I am just getting arouns to doing it.

***
We had a great time at the Cape Cod Children's Museum in Sandwich, MA. The girls always love it there, but this was Liam's first time.

I think his favorite part of the museum was the music room. We spent more time there than anywhere else.

Little drummer boy

Inside the submarine

The girls' favorite part of the museum was the dress-up area. Eva was absolutely delighted when she found gear that made her look like Edmund from "The Chronicles of Narnia" movie.

So then Amanda had to dress up as Susan.


And Liam was... well, I'm not sure. A Junior knight, maybe?

They all played so well together at the train table. The very same table we have at home, minus the train tracks which are in storage due to lack of use.

After the museum, we went out for tacos and enchiladas at a Mexican restaurant in Kingston. We saved room for birthday cake: an Oreo ice cream cake.


It was Liam's first taste of ice cream, and he gave it a solid "two thumbs up."

He was most fascinated by the rainbow candles, which the girls helped him blow out.

Sucking all of the ice cream and frosting off the candle

Happy 1st Birthday, Little Buddy!

Nightmares

Ever since we returned home from last week's big RSV scare, Liam has been waking up at night. This is nothing new, but what's different now is that it's a different type of cry.

It's not an "I'm hungry" cry, or an "I want to cuddle" cry. It's more like a scream of terror, like he is frightened out of his mind. Dave and I both think he's having recurring nightmares dreams about the hospital.

And to be honest, I can't blame him.

I, too, have been having problems falling asleep for the past few nights. As I described it to Dave last night, every time I close my eyes, I see the whole hospital saga replayed before my very eyes with still images in slideshow form. I constantly have flashbacks and the whole process gets played over and over in my head.

If this is what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is like, I can only imagine what people who have witnessed real tragedy must go through!

A part of me may be scared that it will happen again, since all of this started at the crack of dawn, and now I have associated 4 am with impending doom. I believe that a bigger part of it is the fact that we spent time in the Intensive Care Unit. Boston's Children's Hospital has a 24 bed ICU, and to think that we were one of those 24 patients is a scary thing.

It is a very sad place to be. After the first day, I learned to keep my eyes straight ahead and not look into any of the rooms. It was too depressing. Even sadder is the fact that I never saw any parents or families in any of the rooms. How can kids can better without the love and support of their families? During the three days we were there, Liam was only without family for about 15 minutes total. I have no doubt that feeling someone close to him helped him to recovery more quickly.

I feel like our lives have definitely changed after having gone through such an experience. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about RSV, ICU's and hospitals in general.

I hope we never have to go back.  I am forever changed after the experience.

Perfect for a Snow Day!

Our schools dismissed today after only 3 hours of being in session, and we will most definitely have school canceled for tomorrow, when we get hit with Round 2 of this storm.

We played "school" this afternoon and learned about harbor seals. While I read to the girls about seals, they colored some printouts. Then we talked about the true story of Andre the seal, who made the trip from the New England Aquarium in Boston to Maine each spring. They are watching the movie now.

What type of lesson could we do tomorrow? Something weather related? I have to think of something to help pass the time! All of these Snow Days are getting old!

This is just one of the ways we will be spending the day. This month's Barnes and Noble free online storytime book is a favorite here in our house: Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann.

You can listen to the story here:

Pinkalicious