Summer Vacation Week(end) #1

We've had a whole lotta fun around here since last Wednesday.  Once I (we) decided not to pursue potty training, I text Nicole to set up a zoo trip.  They weren't busy on Thursday, so off we went.

I have never personally been in the butterfly house, so that was awesome to see:

Other fun:

Hard to see, but they were checking out a turtle.

Poor Nicole and I tried so hard to get a picture with our kids but they were having nothing of it, so this was the best we could get!

Logan loved pushing the stroller, which Ellis was okay with - well until Ellis wanted to push and Logan didn't want to give it up.

Friday, we had a playdate scheduled.  I haven't seen Caryn (and her boys) in forever and although I've seen Sheila and her kiddos somewhat recently, it was good to finally get together and hang out - let the kids play and catch up on things going on with each other.

The boys fell asleep on the 10-ish minute drive home, so I hung out reading in the garage in order to let them sleep a bit.  I totally wish they were the type of kids that would either stay asleep or fall back asleep easily when transferred from the car to their bed.  No such luck though, but they did sleep a good 45 minutes, which I hoped would hold them over since we had plans that night.  After dinner, we took the kids to a festival in Oxford.  There was a carnival going on in one of the parks and at dusk, they were having fireworks.  We got there at a decent time that the kids had time to play at the playground, walk around the carnival in awe of the rides (they especially liked the motorcycle ride and of course the carousel), ride the carousel, and hang out to have a snack before fireworks.  During my packing for the night, I forgot bug spray, so for about 10 minutes before the fireworks, we hung out in the car to prevent too many bug bites.  We actually had a good view from the car, so we just watched them in there (plus being in the car dampened the loudness of the fireworks and all the car alarms going off around us).  Ellis shared lots of "wow"'s and Logan liked identifying all the colors he saw.  All in all, they seemed to enjoy it.  We did a great job wearing them out too because less than 5 minutes after we left, they were both passed out!

"Hey mom, can we ride this one?!?"

Me and Logan

Carousel selfie!

Not quite tall enough for this ride, and my luck they would freak out the second they realized we couldn't ride it with them.  For now, they enjoyed watching it go, though.

Eating a snack, watching the carousel, and listening to some live music.  It doesn't get better than this!!!

Pre-fireworks selfie!

Saturday, I went to my moms and scrapbooked with her and Nicole.  Not gonna lie - although I started out strong, we had a couple good conversations that kept me talking more than scrapbooking (surprise, surprise huh?), but I did get a little bit done.  It was a good start in my pursuit to getting caught up this summer.

On Sunday, after the boys napped, we headed up to our local bowling alley to cash in some coupons for our free summer bowling.  The kids loved it although I think it was a bit confusing for them to see Troy and I bowl normally while they used the ramp to get the ball down the lane.  A couple times Logan wanted to throw it himself which ended up as a loud thump on the lane, which clearly went no more than 10 feet before rolling back to the beginning of the lane.  They seemed to like fact of playing glow-in-the-dark bowling though!

Ellis making sure that we were watching him.

Logan making sure to have his ball ready to go

Logan is more excited to push his ball down the ramp than whether or not any pins fall.  

Today we hung out at home.  We've had some air conditioning issues so we had a guy come out and refill our refrigerant.  Yay for a cooler house - boo for another unexpected expense.  Lots of outside and inside play though - bike rides, sandbox, water table, pool, swing set, trains, cars, puzzles - yup, we stayed busy!  Oh, and then there was the interesting words that Ellis said right as we were about to eat.  Hmm...I wonder what it was?!?  I will keep you hanging on that one - perhaps he will say it again and then I can share.  I don't want to get ahead of myself.

And a few of our indoor activities:

A busy bag activity I've had for a while.  Ellis can obviously match colors easily, but watching him try to use the clothespins was a bit nerve wracking.  I didn't realize how hard it would be to really watch your kid struggle without helping.  He was able to open the clothespin with no problem but trying to keep it open long enough to attach it to a paper plate really drove him nuts.  There were even a few thrown clothespins, but he did do it very well, multiple times without my help.  Good work Ellis!

I've been working with them to draw circles and straight lines (precursor to letter formation) and when Logan was doing that here, he said "mama - an elephant".  And in a weird way, I think I do see a little bit of an elephant in there! 

This week we have a play date scheduled tomorrow with a few days of nothing major planned the rest of the week before a fun weekend ahead.  Happy July everyone!

This is what it's all about

What an awesome, fun-filled weekend!  If this weekend is any preview of what the summer looks like, I can't wait.  Oh, if only we could speed through the next 5 days.  We have 5 more days of wasted time school left and then I will have 8 weeks of freedom!

So, back to this weekend.  Yesterday, we took a trip to Rockford.  It was Mitchell's first birthday party, so we headed out there for the day. Because of all of our hectic schedule's, this was also our first time meeting Mitchell too, so this visit was long overdue.  In the past, we tried to take longer road trips while the boys would be napping in hopes of them sleeping in the car, but that wasn't going to work this time, so we thought we'd plan for a couple stops along the way to keep us all sane.  First stop - donuts at a local donut shop in Flint that Troy hits up every so often.

Then, after 1.5 more hours driving, we stopped at a park in Carson City.  Cute little park that the kids loved playing at and had their picnic lunch.  I was shocked that the park was completely empty - until we left and saw that 1 mile down the street, there was a much larger, newer looking, busier park (with absolutely no shade, in the middle of a field).  I'm happy we stopped at the one we did!

An awesome wooden train to play on

A HUGE slide built into the side of a big hill.

And then finally to Rockford!  What a great time.  Both catching up with Bryan and Erin (and their families), meeting Mitchell and seeing the kids play.  The boys were very well behaved and despite no nap, they had no meltdowns, and had a blast.

Logan actually kept the party hat long enough to get a picture.

It's always fun watching a 1-year old dig into their first birthday cake!

Guess who was super excited when it was cake time?

Ellis surprisingly took 4 bites of Troy's cake!  This was quite the shock since he isn't (or hasn't been) a cake person.

Angie (Erin's sister) reading Ellis one of Mitchell's new books!

Boy they LOVED the playhouse outside!

They both fell asleep within 10 minutes of leaving their house and except for a few where-the-hell-am-I wake-ups where Logan was trying desperately to get comfortable, it was a quiet ride home.

Ellis, not even 5 minutes after leaving.

On to today - just a chill day close to home.  After I woke up, I made Troy breakfast, but since he was up for me, I ordered him upstairs to bed, so he could have breakfast in bed (with 2 crazy kids playing around him)

Troy was originally planning to go fishing today, but because of a lot of paperwork he had to get done for the week (which he couldn't have worked on yesterday since we were gone all day), he spent a bit of his Father's Day unfortunately doing that.  We had a quick lunch/stop-through visit from Grandma and Grandpa as they drove through on their way home from up north and then a laid back afternoon since the boys took a later-than-normal nap.  After dinner though we headed to the park where they got out all of their energy running and climbing around on the playscape.

Now, Troy is just jamming on his guitar on the deck (and yes, our neighbor brought over a tip jar with a dollar in it to ask him to play loud enough to entertain his guests at his house), while I sit here updating the blog.  Oh how I'd love for all days to be like today, weather-wise, too.  Just an awesome night to sit on the deck!  

I'm looking forward to little day trips like yesterday, or anything that resembles fun or relaxing, this summer.  Soon-to-come = our 2014 summer bucket list.  Any can't-wait-for ideas from anyone out there?  I'd love to here other's ideas, especially those that are kid-friendly!

30 Days of Thanks!

What I am thankful for this month (as close to being in order, as possible!):

01: A relatively easy last day of work at UYA.  Mom - thank you for watching the boys today since it was not easy for Troy nor me to take the day off of work.

02: Val - thank you for heading to UPA with me for the morning/afternoon to help me set up my new classroom.  Jen - thank you for coming up to the school to open it up for us to get some work done!

03: having friends and family with kids around the same age as Logan and Ellis.  I love getting together and seeing all the kiddies play together

04: an easy first day back at UPA.  So happy to see my old peeps on the 4th floor (Kelli and Pam) and see some familiar student faces,

05: Starbucks! It's Election Day so we don't have students today.  We were told that breakfast would be served for us, but something happened where it wasn't delivered.  So, in between meetings, Pam and I made a run to Starbucks.  I don't think I sucked down a frappuccino so fast in my life!

06: A work-night with no work to do.  Ever since the beginning of the school year, once the boys have gone to bed, I've always had some sort of work to do.  Tonight, I sat down to watch "The Voice" recordings while enjoying some Cold Stone Creamery - no work to do tonight! 

07: Troy - thankful for him allowing me some "me" time this weekend since he will be hunting next weekend.

08: follow up from #7 - having my Christmas cards made already.  My "me" time consisted of going to mom's house and working on my cards.  Except for putting them in the envelope, they are done!

09: thinking before I spoke. There is a bit of daycare "drama" going on and it all started this weekend.  While I could have responded very matter-of-factly to what I would consider a very rude email, I figured that it would just be best to talk it over in person when I pick the boys up on Monday so that my tone wasn't taken the wrong way.

10: a decent commute. We got our first burst of snow today and all I could think about on my way to work was "dang, how long is it going to take to get home today?"  The first snowfall usually comes with people forgetting to know how to drive in snow.  Luckily the dusting didn't throw anyone off too much and I got home in a decent amount of time.

11: an awesome sunset coming home from work.  So calming to drive through the neighborhood and see such beautiful colors in the sky.  I did take a picture of it while stopped at a stop sign, but the picture sure doesn't do it justice.

12: boys that play well together.  Okay, so it's not all the time, but I loved seeing the boys work together to take their train tracks off its table and make a much bigger track loop on the ground.  No pushing or taking - just good, fun playing and working together.

13: Logan and Ellis improving with their speech.  It seems to be a slow moving process, but Logan has really picked it up a lot this past week or so.  Julie, their speech teacher, has even documented some things during their class today of his improvement.  He is even starting to say some two word phrases.  Ellis isn't saying as much, but is gabbing a heck of a lot more than he was, which is also a good sign.

14: my mother-in-law.  Rosie, thank you for coming out and staying with me and the boys for the next couple days while Troy is up north hunting.  The boys love spending time with you and of course I like the company and help!

15: a girls night out.  I can't remember how long it's been, but some good company from UPA and UYA got together tonight to hang out in Mexicantown for dinner and drinks.  We MUST do this more often!

16: one last decent weather day to clean up the leaves in the yard.  With Troy being up north hunting and me being by myself with the kids today, I took advantage of the time that the boys napped to mow the lawn/pick up the leaves.  It must be the OCD side of me that loved seeing the yard all cleaned up!!

17: keeping our power during the huge storm and wind we had.  A couple flickers, but no major loss.  I always feel bad for Nicole and Mark, who seem to lose power quite often during storms like these, and unfortunately I take it for granted that we have it.

18: watching the boys so engaged in number activities.  With Logan's improvement in speech, he loves saying the numbers 1-10.  Tonight while I was working on some school work, I pulled out a couple number activities and both Logan and Ellis were completely engaged for so much longer than they were over the summer when I tried them.  Happy to see some of the busy bag activities I've had for so long, be put to good use.

19: Professional Development.  After being at UPA only 2 weeks, I was asked to go to a professional development around data.  My favorite!  (yes, I'm a nerd - I'll admit it!) Although the ideas I got are ones that will take a ton of planning to do, I'm excited to use what I learned to hopefully push my students and fill in the gaps that they have from previous years in math.

20: impromptu visits.  Power is still out at the Reaves' house so they came over after Morgan got out of school to hang out, eat dinner, and visit.  Thankfully for them, just before they left, they got word that their power was back on.

21: beer.  I'm not a huge fan of field trips - not that I don't like them, but for some reason they wear me out so much more than normal school days.  So, although I never drink a beer after I get home from a normal day of work, it was just one of those days where I cracked one open to have with dinner.

22: Beer Friday.  I always love having an "excuse" to get together with the Chandlers.

23: family gatherings.  Since the Reaves are going up to Lansing for Thanksgiving this year, our side of the family got together for the afternoon/evening.  We do a Secret Santa exchange with the 6 of us adults, so we pulled names, had some pizza and watched the kids play around.  Yet another thing I wish we did more often!

24: a short work week.  It's always easier to look forward to the week ahead when there are fewer than 5 work days in it!

25: Kelli, thanks for taking my last class today so I could leave early and go check out a new day care with the kids.  Also, thankful that the boys really seemed to like this new day care so that we don't have to keep searching for other possible places to take them.

26: terminating our current day care.  I know it doesn't seem like I should be thankful for such a negative sounding thing, but I was glad to make it official with our provider.  I wasn't looking forward to telling her but I wanted to get it over with since we have to give a 2 week notice.  After hearing her comments once I told her, I am 100% sure it was the right move (nothing negative about the kids, but more her business-side of things).

27: an easy day at work.  Between a lot of students being absent because of Thanksgiving tomorrow, and students having little parties in other class, keeping them out of my class, it was an even easier day today than I thought it would be.  I'll take it!

28: seeing the boys with their grandparents.  I was so happy to have both sets of grandparents here for Thanksgiving.  The boys had a blast and of course they love all the attention they get from all 4 of them.

29: Black Friday sales.  I did head out for a few hours yesterday morning and not too many stores were terribly hectic.  I got a few good deals for gifts but was most excited about my Michael's purchase.  I'm not exactly the most savvy with decorating, but I got a few things to decorate our house a bit more for Christmas.  Let's just see if my vision works out in reality!

30: internet shopping.  oh how I love amazon.com - enough said!

I'm looking forward to tomorrow - time to put the tree up, decorate it, and take out my minimal Christmas decorations.  I'm interested in seeing how the boys react to the tree since they were a little hesitant at first last year with it, but then got much better after a day or two.  I'm looking forward to the holiday season this year with the boys.  I'm know they still don't totally understand the whole Santa/Christmas thing yet, but I LOVED watching their faces tonight as we watched "Elf on the Shelf" that we recorded on TV yesterday.  Ellis was so excited and I don't think Logan even blinked during the entire show.  Perhaps we'll have our first non-screaming visit with Santa this year?  We shall see!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend and stay tuned to updates with our holiday happenings in the days and weeks to come.  Happy December!

(And just a little video of the boys showing their love for each other !  Of course they did it spontaneously just a minute before, but we had to prompt them along so I could get it on video.  I'm sure they will hate every second of this video when they are older!!)

Tired yet?

For many kids, giving a bath is soothing and calming and prepares them for bed.  For Logan and Ellis it does quite the opposite.  Here's a little snippet of our post-bath time tonight:



What else is going on?  Last week was a pretty busy week as I returned back to UPA (YAY!!) and had to get situated there with trying to figure out what my students did and did not know. I usually like to prepare each week the week before so obviously I was a little behind for the first couple of days.  Only a week later and it's just like riding a bike.  It's like I never left.  My days are much more stress-free and the little issues I have are nothing to complain about.  This past weekend I actually had quite a bit of free time and made my Christmas cards.  So glad to have those already done!

The boys have been loving anything and everything vehicle-related.  They love their hot wheels and other cars they have and also love playing with the trains, planes, and helicopter toys they have.  Logan has has been saying more and more words lately, which is awesome - lots of repetition of words that he hears.  He is even putting two words together to make simple sentences - up stairs, open door, etc.  Ellis is making more sounds but not saying as many words. His favorite lately is "mine".  It almost sounds like "ma" so I was excited when he kept saying what I thought was "mom" but then when he grabbed my phone and said "ma", I realized that he really meant "mine" as in my phone.  Crazy boy got a little reality check there!  Ellis is a big fan of making animal noises although some of the noises are a little off, but I get his drift!

Troy's mind has been focused on hunting lately.  Buck fever, is that what they call it?  After work on Thursday, he will be heading up to Cadillac to hunt with a buddy of his.  Lots of luck to him in hopes of him being successful and having some venison to bring home.

Well, thats about it really.  Here are a few pictures from a couple weekends ago when the Reaves and Chandlers came over for the UM/State game:

Ellis getting some lovin' from Aunt Nicole

A whole group shot of the kids

Logan totally cracking up from Morgan tickling him with the Cat in the Hat.

Ellis' turn getting some tickles from Morgan/Cat in the Hat

Talk to you all soon!!

Fall is in the air

Last weekend Troy was up north prepping for hunting next month.  The boys and I hung out and also headed up to Target for a last minute diaper run.  I'm excited to report that they are more interested in arts and crafts activities and have been spending considerable amounts of time coloring and playing with playdoh, among their most recent addiction to playing with cars, trucks, trains ALL.THE.TIME!

Logan was more excited to stack the empty playdoh containers than playing with the playdoh itself.

Last Saturday afternoon, we went to Sheila's for a Halloween playdate, filled with pumpkin painting, games, and yummy food.

Again, I was shocked that Ellis and Logan both willingly painted pumpkins.

Pumpkin bowling (although Ellis really wanted to throw the pumpkin instead of roll it!)

"Throw the beanbag in the candy corn" game

Witch hat ring toss

We all had such a good time that the boys didn't want to leave.  Thanks again, Sheila for hosting such a fun party!

This week, the boys had some fall fun playing in the leaves at day care.  

Today was Trick-or-Treating at the Village.  Logan warmed right up to the fact of picking candy out of a bowl and putting it in his pumpkin.  Luckily he's so cute that when he grabbed more pieces than he was supposed to, they let him!  =)

They even had a petting zoo at the event today.  Logan was quite interested in the animals and even tried throwing hay at the alpacas to feed them.

Logan was VERY interested in the miniature horses - Ellis not so much.

Happy boys - had fun with our little Trick or Treating fun today.  Poor Ellis didn't want to leave and was upset when he realized we were walking back to the car.

As for the rest of the weekend, I scrapbooked at mom's house with Nicole Friday night and Saturday.  We've all been so busy the past few months that we haven't had our monthly crops together, but thankfully we fit one in this month!  I got caught up with Project Life for the pictures I had printed, and realized I had to alter my plans for the album I was going to use to document our summer bucket list activities.  Not a huge adjustment and I even worked on it a bit this morning, so hopefully I can get that done before winter - haha!  

Well, here's to a new week!  I hope everyone is enjoying what seems to be the last day of decent weather before chillier, rainier (did anyone else gasp at the snow flakes in the forecast for Thursday?!?) weather takes over this week.