e celebrated Nora’s 4th birthday today. She is growing so quickly! She really wanted a “princess party” and absolutely loves pink, so we had pink balloons and Disney princess decorations everywhere and a few friends and family over to celebrate. She loved it. :o) Here is the big moment captured for your viewing pleasure.
uch as I wish it were different, Noah doesn’t especially love school. He likes certain parts about school, like lunch and friends, but mostly it gets in the way of his “play-time”. I knew going into first grade that it was more serious than kindergarten; homework being the major difference. They gave the kids time to settle in the first week and then today Noah came home with a new folder labeled homework. I thought maybe a sheet for the week of words or basic math, but not both. Well, we get both. There is a daily list of homework and it is all due Friday. Now, I am all about homework. I have lived and breathed it for the past two years, but homework is a new concept to Noah. Big kids get Homework! He has been pretending to do homework since Pre-K and now it is actually here.
We sat down to read the pile of papers sent home and it really wasn’t that bad. Today he had to read a short story and answer a couple of questions about it. He has spelling words (and tests on Fridays) that he needs to learn how to spell as well as new vocabulary words. I’m loving it! He is in awe. “Mom, I have HOMEWORK!” I know this won’t last, the newness will wear off and there will be homework fights in our future, but for now, we are diggin’ it.
We have a no games until the weekend rule at our house and only if your room is clean stipulation. We’ve been playing the Wii and then the PS3 almost daily since they got home. This transition is a bit difficult. It’s amazing how “bored” he says he is without the video games to suck him in! Boredom is good, find something to do. After a few chores I thought it would be nice to try out his bike again, especially because the temp has been low 90’s lately. He was all for it! We get out to the road and I notice that he’s grown a couple of inches and is a little more coordinated than he was at the beginning of the summer. He has had his bike now for about 4 years and the training wheels are off. After a few tries he was completely on his own and riding farther than he ever has down our dead end street. I was happy to walk and clap and smile and encourage. I’m so proud of him; not because he’s officially a bike rider, but because he didn’t give up. There have been tantrums in the past and cries to put the training wheels back on, but this time he just kept practicing. By the time we made it back to the house he was confident enough to correct himself if he started to sway and even wanted to risk the rocks in the driveway. What a good day. :o)
ost likely it has to do with the fact that a monster inside me takes over when I’m hungry or the fact that children are manipulative sociopaths for most of the day with expressions of love reserved for when I’ve given them something they wanted (whether it is deserved or not). I also think that children at a certain age need more to do than simple activities to keep them occupied or entertained. These are the reasons that I do not especially love staying home with my children. I can do it. I’m perfectly capable of filling a day with projects and cleaning and outings and what not, taking the little nuggets of knowledge I learn along the way all the while my brain is screaming “feed me!”. I don’t think a good nonfiction book once in a while will cut it. I still need and want to be in school. Things might possibly change when the kids go back to school in a couple of weeks and when the baby arrives in February all those great mommy hormones will take over and I’ll be blinded by lack of sleep and loving the little one, but eventually, I know, I will want to be back in school learning and once that is complete applying that knowledge.
I appreciate those moms who find such blessing in staying home everyday with their children. I appreciate those moms reading Radical Homemakers and yearning to live on a farm and work the land all day long. I plan to live vicariously through those moms because I KNOW that ain’t the plan for me and my life. I think I get to have my cake and eat it too, because I have a husband who will bust his butt to allow me to stay home for a short while and supports my growth at school as well. I only hope I am returning the favor.
These days both sexes have a lot of choices that they didn’t have 50 or 60 years ago. I don’t think any one choice is the right choice. I think what works best in the home is what works best for the entire family. Not any one person’s “job” is more important than the other.
Right now my job is to grow a baby, take care of the kids and try to do as much as I can at home (which, sadly, isn’t very much and varies daily). It has been a rainy week, so I decided to take the kids to Funtasia this afternoon. They absolutely loved it. I looked around at the plethora of moms and kids and remembered what it was like to bring Noah here when he was just walking. Nora will turn 4 years old in about a month, so the memories of holding and caring for an infant or even a toddler are very fuzzy. It was nice to see all these little babies at various stages and try to remember what it was like. I know I enjoyed it very much staying home with my babies. It was very hard to go back to work too soon after they were born. I’m grateful that Jason and I agree about raising the kids and that most likely I’ll get to stay home for a while with the baby. I guess that’s all I can take away from these seasons; gratefulness for our time together and our time apart.
retty much the only time I have actual energy is in the mornings/early afternoons. From about 3-4pm on I just want to lay there moaning and groaning. It took about a week of the kids being home to figure this out, so I try to plan to do something with the kids outside early in the day, so we aren’t stuck in the house all day. Although, we do stay in some days too. We do lots of coloring, painting and Play-doh on those days.
I had planned to take multiple trips to the many parks in Lakeland never getting sick of a specific one. We’ve been to three so far; Common Ground, Peterson and today we brought Nora’s bike and Noah’s scooter to Dobbins Park. Before that, we got a few school supplies at Target and some bread for… you guessed it! Feeding the ducks! Okay, so maybe you didn’t guess, but that’s what we did. :o) We went to good ol’ Lake Morton and fed the critters. We haven’t done that in a long time.
We had such a variety of birds come looking for a handout! I tried to explain to the kids that bread for birds was like cookies for us.
There was a beautiful Snowy Egret:
He was very gentle and polite, not like the Ibis that crowded around. This one in particular only had one foot! Freaked me out a little, but he seemed to do fine.
We found a nice spot with a bench and some shade and let the birds come to us. Noah came back to Florida complaining about how much he hated it and how Colorado was soo much better (I wonder where he got that from). I really like Florida. It took me a long time to learn to appreciate it. Yes it is hot most of the year, but we do get somewhat of a winter and it is oh so much sweeter because we have to wait for it that much longer. I especially love downtown. We get a small slice of city life while also being able to enjoy living out in the boonies. Our favorite part is jumping in the pool on a hot day. :o)
icking blueberries Saturday morning sounded like fun, so we grabbed Grandma and headed out to Plant City to attend the Keel and Curley 3rd Annual Blueberry Festival. They had three huge slides and bounce houses, overpriced food and lots of blueberries. We had a good time and were ready to go by mid-day with the sun baking us in 90 degree weather.
We picked about a pound and a half and then went to stand in line with 100 of our closest friends (or would be by the time we got to the counter to pay).
The bushes were just large enough to provide shade for the kids while they perused and perfect height for Jason to peer down and spot the ripe ones. I found a few myself. I guess we’re making blueberry pancakes tomorrow morning!
eing home more often is great. It is also a little bit difficult. I get up, go to school, come home and pick up Noah from school. We are home from 3pm on. Now this may not seem like a big deal, but that’s three extra hours. I’m used to picking the kids up at 530pm making dinner and doing the bedtime routine. Now it’s just Noah and I left to our own devices.
Noah actually will entertain himself really well. He loves to explore the woods by our house and pester the chickens. He likes to draw and color and paint. The problem is the dreaded TV. He usually has a snack when he gets home and we’ll automatically turn on the TV for a few minutes. Luckily he goes straight for the history channel; he did not get that from me. One day last week that’s all he did. He watched TV while I was doing homework or blogging or something. ;o) I turned it off and he flipped. This is why we do not watch TV.
It’s not because I’m a crazy mom thinking that TV will rot your brain, it’s because it turns the kids (and myself) into brats. Sluggish, whiny brats. I believe that we are put on this earth to be productive. We should be using our brains to make things or learn things or to maintain our household. When the kids have watched TV, they go through immediate withdrawals. It’s not pretty and it’s very loud. Same with the Wii, which is why Noah only gets to play the Wii on the weekends and we are usually gone for most it. Boundaries. :o)
I struggle myself. I wouldn’t say I’m bored because I have lots to do, but the lure of TV is so strong! There’s all of these fabulous shows about landscaping and renovating! I even like that silly Mtv show 16 and pregnant! lol Today as I was eating lunch at 4pm, I turned it on and got sucked in and had to consciously turn it off. I walked away and started another load of laundry and vacuumed and cleaned the bathroom. I feel so much better. After watching TV, I feel like crap. Tonight I told the kids NO. No TV, no movies, find something else to do. They’ve heard this before, so they only whined a little. It’s the watching and then not watching that provokes them, but if they don’t watch anything, they are so content. Tonight they played outside with bubbles, they played play-doh and with art supplies. It was great.
These are the days I look back on and am glad that I get the opportunity to be home more.
e have been extremely busy with preparations for the wedding, so we haven’t spent much time doing things as a family, so today we headed down to Lake Hollingsworth for the annual Crop Walk. We meet people from our church at First Presbyterian and there is normally a huge crowd there with music and lots of Crop Walk stickers and signs.
It was a beautiful day albeit extremely cold and windy! This year was spent walking with some of the Sizemore family and my mom came along too. Here are pictures from the hour-long trek:
Jason decided to scoop me up in front of everyone, which was scary enough, but then someone from our group had the bright idea to put Nora up there with me! I think we look a bit like a totem pole!
The kids, my mom, Jason and I thought it would be a great idea to go and grab ice cream afterward, so we headed to the beloved Baskin Robbins. Banana Royale anyone? Yum! I snapped a quick pic of the three musketeers before we headed home.
Noah, Grandma and Nora
It was nice to hang out with friends and family and get some exercise. We might try to do this more often, especially since Jason and I will be walking our booty’s off in NYC!
It’s MLK day, you know… I think Nora could have gone to school, but Noah didn’t, so I just kept them both out. We decided to go to the park, which we always seem to do on school holidays. We thought we’d go to the Butterfly park, but OMG. There were too many people there. I could just imagine elbowing some kid to get a swing! I couldn’t even park in the overflow parking!
We went to Peterson instead. I love Peterson Park. It’s the one behind the YMCA, with the trail by the lake? We’ve had Birthdays there, so Nora was calling it her “birthday park”. We played a while with strangers and their dogs. Noah was gathering pine cones and asked if we could make bird feeders, “in only three special steps”. lol
Sure! Why not? We took a few home and I stopped at Lynn’s Fish and Pets and bought 85 cents worth of bird seed and we came home and made peanut butter pine cone bird feeders! It was pretty neat.
Scoop of PB on a spoon
Small pine cone
Bowl of bird seed
String or ornament hook-Spread the PB on the pine cone, roll it around in the bird seed
-We tied yarn around ours, but I think an ornament hook would work best.
-Hang in your favorite tree. :o)
It was a quiet day today and it’s back to the grind tomorrow. Happy MLK day!
We were out of town for my mom’s actually birthday day, but as soon as we got back we had her party. Complete with chocolate, chocolate fudge cupcakes! Can you say chocolate coma? *seizes*
lol, mmkay wipe the drool off the keyboard.
I just love this pic of her with the candles ablazing as we sing Happy Birthday to her. Yes, before you ask we make EVERYONE wear the “birthday hat” at their party. lol
This one is fun too, the kids barely resisted helping grandma blow out the candles!
And then the lights come on and there is chaos!
Jason couldn’t resist this pic of Nora eating her’s.
Thanks mom for having a birthday, so we could eat cake!
In all seriousness my mom is fabulous. She took care of our kitties while we were gone and even dropped off chicken and yellow rice for us to eat when we got home Sunday evening. Thanks mom, we love you mom!
Due to financial issues we left a little later than we intended for our destinations over the holiday break. We set out Monday evening for NC and spent two days hanging with some of the Grebs. Sheena, Jason and I went to the lovely Franklin Sonic and had a corndog and some tots, Chili onion rings, and a chocolate shake. lol
Thursday we ventured North to Pennsylvania to visit my Great Aunt and Uncle whom I haven’t seen in almost three years. It was so good to see them! Jason got to see my “old stomping grounds” and meet some of my extended-extended family. It was also very neat to experience serious snow with him for the first time. We only stayed a day, but it was a great day! Here are some random pics from our trip.
Jason decided not to shave the entire trip and his beard was the longest I have ever seen! When we kissed it tickled my nose! I was glad to see him shave it off this morning, although he threatens that when he is in his 70’s he’s gonna let it grow long and not care. :o) I doubt I will either. Care that is…
I also was knitting every chance I got and finished up a hat for Sheena and started on a wrap for me.
I thoroughly enjoyed our trip and was happy-ish to get up at 330am Saturday morning to drive two hours to pick up the kids. We stopped in NC that evening for some much needed rest and continued home on Sunday. Our poor car was covered in dirt and salt and took a beating (literally) on the highway. We had to stop short at one point in GA and the cute little Kia behind us did not. We were not hurt and neither was the Jeep. Praise the Lord! Barely a scratch!
So our Christmas and New Year’s was not spent in typical style, but it was fun. We didn’t care as long as we were together. Next year the kids will be with us for Christmas, so it should go much smoother. Hope yours was happy.
