Clowning Around

One day last week, Rocky and I broke out the clown costumes and spent the day just clowning around with the kids!  Rocky even joined in the fun and showed Billy a clown trick or two.  Billy's best routine involves tucking his extra-long handkerchief in his pants, sneezing, looking for a place to wipe his nose, pulling out his handkerchief, which keeps coming and coming.  Billy and Alexa have also created the Mr. Blue-Mr. Purple act, which is a must see event.  We've discovered we have two little showmen for sure!

Mary Had A Little Lamb

While the Easter egg hunt came to a fitful halt for reasons unknown, Alexa absolutely enjoyed the petting zoo.  She knows about a dozen or two songs by heart, but her current favorite is Mary Had a Little Lamb.  Needless to say, she was ecstatic about seeing the lamb and she even graced the crowd with several verses (her Daddy is by far her biggest musical fan)!

Make New Friends, But Keep The Old

The last time we spent the day with Blake and Marly was bittersweet.  I know it was the moment the reality of moving sunk in for both Billy and I, and we both ended up crying when they left.  Even though we are only forty minutes away and go back to Townsend twice a week, it is tough not to see them all of the time.  Alexa asks for Blake and Marly every day!

 

Since moving to Manhattan, however, Billy has had a busier social life than all of us!  He's played with his new friend Christian almost every day.  They are like to peas in a pod.  And Alexa and Carsen are destined for everlasting love, I am sure.  She wants me to pick up Carsen, too, whenever we go anywhere.  They all play basketball together, go to museums, and play endless hours of superheroes.  The other night the grown-ups all had game night and six little kiddos ran around the house, having what Billy is famous for saying "THE BEST NIGHT EVER!"

Little Bunny FuFu

The best laid plans often go awry, right?!  Isn't that what parenting is all about?  I've come to expect that all plans will change if a child is involved.  And that is what makes kids great-at least once you come to grips that absolutely nothing is certain. 

Take something as simple as Easter Bunny slippers.  Billy and Alexa know Easter is approaching, and I thought these would be a fun, quiet way to kick off a couple of weeks of Easter crafts.  As soon as the little cottontails began hopping down the bunny trail, round after round of Little Bunny FuFu was sung and bop after bop after bop after bop on the head was given.  As always, not so quiet, or Easter related, after all.

Things We Love

Valentine's Day was a good time for both little ones to remember the things they love:

Laughing at the puppies next door.

Swinging.

Slides.

One another.

And of course, Jeremy.  And Nunsense, which Billy took me to for our Valentine's date.

GO STEELERS!

I love to get the kids excited about anything.  If you give them license to cheer for something, they will and with gusto.  So it didn't take much to get them ready to spend Super Bowl Sunday with Daddy at Uncle Steve's house (really, despite the picture and her lingering month-long illness, Alexa really was excited).

GO STEELERS!

On The Move

So, apparently moving takes a lot of time: a month to pack and a month to unpack!  Luckily, the kids have been as busy as I have.  Of course, searching for the home was the difficult part.  With Rocky away at the academy and myself preoccupied with the speech and drama state tournament, I just let the kids decide:

This one ultimately won out because of the secret passageway between these doors.

 This one, however small, did come in a close second due to its potential as a spinning room.

With six bedrooms, a playroom, two living rooms, and a small continent for a yard, we are FINALLY getting settled in and will have time to share some of the super-fun adventures we've had in the last two months in our new town!

99111

Let's pretend for a moment my cell phone is actually in a place where my kids could find it in case of an emergency (ok-with that said I'm now going to go make a place for my cell phone to always be in case of an emergency), we might be in a tad bit of trouble it if is left up to Billy to call for help.  He stubbornly believes that 99111 IS the emergency number.

However, after a week of fire safety (during which I accidentally ignited spaghetti noodles, momentarily transforming my stove top into a ball of flames), all of the kids can stop, drop, and roll and know all about poisonous smoke and fire dogs.

I took them on a field trip to our volunteer fire station, where they played with lights, sirens, hoses, and masks.  True to their unpredictable nature, they rushed right through the tour of the big red engine so they could look in the chief's command vehicle:

Smash! Crash! Mash!

 Last week Billy asked how a light bulb worked, and I gave him a simple answer about electricity.  Of course, that was too simple for him, and to mask my ignorance I told him we'd make that a science experiment for another day.

Yesterday I changed a light bulb.  Who throws away a seemingly worthless light bulb with a budding scientist around?  Not I!

After some simple safety warnings, I gave Billy the light bulb and a diagram.

BORING!

Why not put the bulb in a ziplock and add a hammer?

Now that's more like it!

There's no better way to explore a light bulb than to see it in person!

Hello 2011

While they certainly didn't stay up until midnight, Billy and Alexa rang in the new year with a bedroom campout with their new sleeping bags from Grandma and Papa. 

Made With Love

Remember how much Billy loves his grandparents?  For Christmas he made Grandma and Papa grandparent mugs and a coaster.  The coaster is made out of clay, and in a stroke of organizing genius I threw away the box to save space.  The directions for drying were on the box.  We tried letting it air dry.  No.  We tried putting it in front of the heater to dry it out.  It melted.  We tried freezing it.  It got cold.  So, Billy gave the gift with the warning that it needed something under it so it would not stain the counter top.

Here is a guest blog entry from Grandma Susanne:

Billy was so cute today...

I caught him out of the corner of my eye, ever so carefully carrying my grandma coffee mug through the dining room.  I knew it had coffee left in it from this morning, so I didn't say anything, so as to not startle him.  After he set it down on the counter, I walked in to see what he was up to.  He had carefully placed it on the blue coaster he had made me for Christmas.  He was ever so proud, and went on to tell me I could use it for my cup, or put candy in it, and something else I can't remember. Oh, and I really shouldn't put it on a plate (which is where it was). So sweet and sincere.  What a love.

Cookie Jar Grandma

I'm wondering if our family could strike it rich being a subject for a Nature Vs. Nurture study.  Really.  Between Billy, Rocky, Alexa and me, and our biological and social relationships with one another, our family is pretty interesting.  Alexa is a mini-me.  At least we know the high-pitched screaming was proudly passed down the bloodlines.  And Billy, well, he inherited my inability to remember somebody's name no matter how many times he's heard it.  Wait?  How could that happen?

Billy remembers everyone through association.  He has Puppy Grandma (a name borrowed from his cousin Tiff), Callie's dad with the farm, Rocky's Dad Grandpa, and Cookie Jar Grandma (there is also a Cookie Museum-apparently cookies have a considerable impact on him.)

Cookie Jar Grandma is my Grandma Lois.  The kids love to go out to her house and visit, see the horses, look at the pumpkin patch, and, of course, eat cookies out of the "Get Your Hand Out of My Cookie Jar" cookie jar.  Hence, Cookie Jar Grandma.