All is calm...all is bright???

The morning was a crazy, loud, consistent hum of kids playing and yelling and running around now that we're on break from school. BUT. We had lunch, Lucy took a nap, Adam was sent to clean his room, and I began wrapping presents with Christmas music. Now, the nap is over, the room is clean and the presents are (mostly) wrapped. The big snow from last night certainly put a fresh, clean look in our neighborhood. Adam and Lucy are geared up in snowpants, boots and mittens and the first snowman of the season is officially under construction. As I watch from the window since cookies are baking, it is calm and quiet inside. The picture they make is beautiful and filling my heart with love. I know it's just a matter of minutes until they fight over the "right" way to built Mr. Frosty or someone gets pegged with a snowball, but for now; all is calm, all is bright.

Adam performing sign language

Adam sang with a trio tonight at his 1st grade Holiday Concert, then he and his classmates finished the song using sign language. He took his duties very seriously and never cracked a smile once. He told me that his music teacher said they all had to keep their eyes on her. :) So proud of him!!

Eloise

I'm pretty sure that most of you that read this blog already know that we moved Lucy to a new preschool this year. She absolutely loves her school, and we love that she is learning and thriving and is excited to go there each and every day. She shares with us her stories of her new teachers (Miss Michelle and Miss Julie are her favorites), her classmates (sweet Caeden, Julia, Sawyer and Samantha), what they do (walking trips and painting), where they play("we went on the big playground today!"), and even what they have for snack(cupcakes decorated as turkeys, pigs in a blanket...new favs, different blog). Well, most recently she has started daily stories about Eloise. Lucy and Eloise enjoy painting together. They both love when they have breakfast for dinner, they both help set the tables for their moms, they both have long brown hair and they both have big brothers. I thought this was so cool that she has found a new playmate to be a bestie! I asked her more about Eloise and asked when we could meet her! Maybe we could have a playdate sometime. Her response was that Eloise stays "at the workshop. She as a pink race car like me but she has to stay at the workshop to feed the fish. Eloise has very pretty red shoes and I very like them. I wish I had a pair of red shoes like hers. Eloise works very hard at the workshop and sometimes she even makes the dinner for us."  You see...Eloise is a make-believe friend. I love this about my daughter! Mark has 3 big boys and we have our super cool Adam and never with any 4 of these boys did we ever have the imaginary friend experience. I absolutely love this because it shows the amazing imagination and creativity my sweet girl has. I want to foster this in her so there will be no question about discouraging these stories. Just once in a awhile we ask her "How's Eloise today?" and we are rewarding with great stories, and a little peek into what our daughter thinks about and finds important and how she defines "being big."

Drinking it in...

It's about 4:30 in the afternoon, and we've been enjoying our Saturday in typical fashion. But something about today seems unlike the norm. I can't quite put my finger on it, and I think that's ok, I don't really want to; just want to savor it. Drink it in. We had a coffee cake in the oven and this morning for breakfast. The smell of that bread baking permeated the whole house and literally brought each child out from the bedroom to their seat at the table as if they were in a trance. Hot chocolate and marshmallows were waiting there for each. We ate together and talked about what we needed to do today, about the movie they watched last night, about silly things. Then the day has been spent doing typical Saturday stuff: running errands. But each stop brought my suspicions that the kids would start fighting or being naughty and my husband would start getting crabby about it. This never happened! We took our time picking out ceiling fans, and as the warmth increased as we got kinks in our necks staring up at all the choices, I really expected the kids to get crabby and they just didn't. They went with it, and participated. Onward to other small replacements pieces and fixer-up items we needed. Lucy announced it was lunch time! I expected a melt down since we still had a few additional stops but that never  happened. On to Buffalo Wild Wings where they played together nicely, ate great meals, and Mark and I were able to talk. Really. I not kidding, we were able to talk to each other!! :) Parents, you understand this right? And as the back of our truck continued to fill up and we continued to drive on, the mood continued to be a good one. We all laughed together, were silly and just enjoyed being together. Now at home, Lucy is finally enjoying a well-deserved nap and the rest of us had a few things to do. No complaints, and still plugging along with it holding an attitude of mutual understanding that this was just stuff our family needed to do today, and the playing would happen later. Again, more moments of "drinking it in". Now it is quiet as Lucy naps, as dogs settle in to their spots for light sleeping. A fire is crackling in the fireplace and the smell of that burning wood is quite possibly as delicious as the coffee cake baking this morning. It's dark already and I'm quickly thinking that I would like to just curl up with a book. However, there is a little boy waiting out by the fireplace who would really enjoy playing a game of checkers with his mother. I think that's a much better idea for now, after all, it must be one of those things our family needs to do today. Drinking it in. Being grateful for this day God has given me. Time for checkers!

She's coming home!

It's been forever since I've posted anything new. Mostly, I think it is because life has been moving at a pace that is much too fast. I have found myself in quite a "funk" (see Glee link) and just not wanting to write about my mood. BUT...today....my dear friend who has been teaching in Brazil for 2 years...shared with our small group of BT friends that she is going to come home. She will be home of course for Christmas, and we have already been looking forward to this. But she will be coming HOME home, after finishing this school year. She will miss her new friends terribly. She will even miss the birds calling outside her window before she's ready to wake up, but we are so so happy that she will be back around us. I needed this news like I needed to breathe today. Thank you Megan. Couldn't have been anything better to hear today!!!

Minneapolis Adventures

Over Columbus Day weekend, we took our annual trip away with just the 4 of us. This year we chose to take the kids to Minneapolis after reading about this great city in a magazine and getting some outstanding advice from a friend who lives nearby. The first day we headed to a great zoo, Como Zoo. I compare it to Lincoln Park Zoo for it's wooded areas and exhibits located near each other. One of Adam's favorite animals to visit is the Lion. We headed over to check it out and explored the outside areas where Mom and Dad lions were basking in the sun taking a nap. We follow the path along and see that there are more large cats inside. As we go in, we notice a small crowd gathering around the windows of a lioness cage, thankfully behind glass rather than bars. As you can see from the picture, this lioness was right up against the glass and as we arrive, we notice a few young people slapping their hands on the glass, their parents watching. The lion became quite agitated and was leaping through the air against the wall of glass. She was standing on her hind legs, pawing at the glass, trying everything she could think of to get out at the people that were only separated from her by 1/2 inch of whatever this glass window was really made of. I had visions of that scene in Free Willy when the orca began ramming itself against the underwater viewing and broke through. Lucy became very frightened and I took her outside. Mark and Adam stayed behind for a few more minutes. It was very upsetting to witness an woman come running out of the lion house screaming for a staff member while using *the F word*, I remember thinking "did that lion break out somehow? where are Adam and Mark?" Well, the lion was safely inside it's cage, but this woman was IRATE over the way it was reacting and how the few young men inside were treating it. She had apparently just went OFF on the crowd inside and was now on the rampage for a zoo manager to come arrest them all, she wanted them charged for a crime and was looking like she needed to be sedated herself. I have to say, that even though we left because Lucy was frightened of the lion, she was even more frightened now of this woman. She refused to walk on the ground, or be put down in any way and she kept looking over her shoulder for the crazy person. So we moved on far away from lions.

These little guys helped her mood quite a bit! Loved them! After the zoo, we went back to the hotel to swim and rest. Our next day, brought us to the iconic Sculpture Park across from the art institute. Lovely warm day to run around the park, explore the conservatory and just be outside! Adam the artist had a lot to say about each piece, and Lucy enjoyed playing on and around them too. It was hard to pick a favorite piece!


Here is a view down the aisle of the conservatory in the park...fun ivy structures. Fun plant items were tucked in everywhere! An orchid growing from a wall here, a coconut monkey hiding in the ivy there, lovely vines, beautiful flowers....just gorgeous, wish my mom had been there to see it.










At the end of the walkway we come to an atrium with this awesome glass panel fish sculpture. Amazing! In this room, there were scuptures under glass floor panels as well. Pretty fun!



The day moved on with a trip to Mall of America. When we first talked about visiting, the plan was either to avoid the Mall altogether, or to choose wisely. I think we came closely to a happy medium! We started with our trip to the Underwater Adventure Aquarium. This is very cool to walk through the "tube" while sharks, rays, giant sea turtles and fish of all kids swim over your head! Some sharks were just laying right there ON the tube! Very awesome! The kids were able to touch starfish, sea urchins and such in the touch pools after our walk through. The rest of the aquarium blew us away with the clean, healthy looking critters. After lunch, we went on to explore the Mall. We checked out Disney, Lego and more! Everyone bought some new treasures and we went back to the hotel on our last night with great memories, tired feet and lots of fresh air! This trip will be hard to beat next year!!

Fair Food and People Watching

The Sandwich Fair is an annual event for our family because it's that one last summer kind of thing to do before fall kicks in. Quite honestly, the best part of ANY fair for me is the food and the people. Today, we honestly just grazed our way through the day, sharing all the yummy treats that caught our eyes and returning home for Pepcid to make up for it. The rest of the day was filled with watching and being entertained by the variety of people we saw there. Both of these favorite past times were so great for me today that I thought I would put them together into 2 lists. Enjoy:
Food Opportunities We Saw and/or Ate:
Italian sausage
Italian ice
dippin' dots
chocolate covered deep fried bacon, that's right...bacon
elephant ears
funnel cakes
giant turkey legs
burritos, nachos, and tacos oh my
corn dogs: regular and on a yardstick size
eclairs
cheesecake, bananas, strawberries, chicken, steak and pickles...all offered "on a stick"
lemon shakeups
tempura
deep fried Snickers bars

Strange Sightings:
7 year old with a full-out 4 inch high mohawk
Eddie playing horseshoes
1,500 lb. cow "can be yours with a $1 raffle ticket"
baby kangaroo being pushed around in a baby stroller
5 teenagers standing around each eating a giant turkey leg
chocolate covered bacon
Burma bull and a yak in a petting zoo...really?
free rootbeer refills if you buy a tin cup
sewing machines that you don't really sew with, the computer does the work
carnies WITH their teeth
no garbage cans by the food booths
camper with a door that opens to the bathroom
woman eating a giant burrito yelling at her child not to drink her giant soda because "it's not healthy for you!"


Until next year...