Truth

The last five minutes of trying to get Adelie and Briggs out the door for school each morning is my least favorite five minutes of the day.  

#itshouldntbethishard

Interview with a 10 Year Old

Favorite color:  Teal

Favorite food:  Cheeseburgers

Least favorite food:  Peas

Favorite restaurant:  I don't know.  We don't go to restaurants anymore.  #covid #truth

Favorite dessert:  Ice cream from Uncle Bob's

Favorite toy:  American Girl dolls

Favorite stuffed animal:  Teddy

Favorite animal:  Elephants and monkeys and sloths

Favorite game:  Clue

Favorite movie:  The Lindsay Lohan 'Parent Trap'

Favorite sport:  Basketball and volleyball

Favorite activity:  Stage Kids

Favorite thing to do at home:  Read

Favorite thing about school:  News Team

Favorite place to go locally:  the pool

Favorite place to go on vacation:  Disney World

Favorite thing to do with Adelie:  Do plays

Favorite thing to do with Briggs:  Play pinching monster

Favorite thing to do with Mommy:  Snuggle

Favorite thing to do with Daddy:  Play Axis and Allies

Favorite book:  I have so many!  Probably 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' and the first 2 Land of Stories books

Favorite princess:  Jasmine

Favorite outfit:  My Hamilton shirt and black leggings

Favorite pajamas:  My cat onesie

Favorite play you have been in:  Either Frozen or Showstoppers

Favorite play you have seen:  The parts of Hamilton that I have seen on Disney plus

What are you most excited about doing when you are 10? Going to middle school

What are you scared of?  Shots

What is the best thing about you?  That I'm awesome!

What are you good at?  Memorizing things, singing, acting

Who is your best friend?  Lilian and Josie

What do you want to be when you grow up?  An actress

My big 10 year old!!

Happy Birthday, Staley!

10 years!  How is it possible that my first baby is officially double digits?  Ten years old.  A tween-ager.  It doesn't seem that long ago that we were driving to the hospital, so nervous and excited.  It seems like just yesterday we were a new family of 3, finding our way.  I remember all those firsts...for Staley and for us.  Staley introduced us to parenthood and helped us pave the way.  She made it easy! 

Ten years later, Staley is still making it easy.  Where once we were figuring out naptimes and toddler tears, now we are entering the unchartered territories of tween-age boundaries and rules, changes and growth, responsibilities and independence.  Staley accepts that she is still helping us pave the way, and she does it with grace and respect.  I loved my new baby 10 years ago and I love the amazing girl she is growing up to be.

Happy birthday to my first-born!!

I couldn't love you more!!

Winter Wonderland

We started off our 2021 with an ice storm and snow.  Although it is remarkably beautiful with the ice and snow covered trees, it has also wreaked havoc in our area with falling tree branches and limbs.  

  

Diana and I enjoyed a lovely run in the woods...until we got spooked by the creaks and cracks and falling limbs in the woods where we were running.

The landscape was beautiful and the fear of being crushed by a falling branch motivated us to run just a little bit faster.

We took advantage of the snow-covered ground to introduce our kids to sledding on the big hills at the golf course.

They loved the sledding part.  Walking back up the big hills?  Not so much.

Unfortunately, all that beauty and fun also resulted in the loss of some big branches in both our front yard and our back yard.

2021 blessed us with a winter wonderland.  In the spirit of starting this year off positively, I'm not going to dwell on the downed limbs and mess that we'll have to clean up when this has all melted away.  I'll just say...it sure is pretty!

Christmas: The End

We celebrated Christmas and New Years, but the celebration wasn't quite over.  Before heading back to school, we finished up our Christmas celebrations with Zach's family this past week-end.

The kids were so excited to end their Christmas celebrations with a day full of play time with cousins.

The kids got lots of fun gifts, but I love how the cousins make/buy gifts for each other.  Adelie loved this miniature squishmallow from Olivia.

The kids also got gifts from aunts and grandparents, so they came home with American Girl (and Boy) dolls, accessories, play sets, and outfits.  They also got squishmallows, games, Matchbox cars, art supplies, Legos, and clothes.  So many fun things to do with their last few days of Christmas break.

After lunch and gifts, the kids had the best time working on a movie trailer and making a movie together with some apps on Olivia's new phone.

Our Christmas break was wonderfully relaxing, but finishing it off with one last Christmas celebration was the icing on the cake.

Creativity

We started screen-free summer in the summer of 2017.  At that time, with our kids aged 6, 4, and 2, we came to realize that our kids had no problem finding many other things to keep them entertained.  They didn't seem to miss the daily TV or tablet time that they had previously enjoyed.  Since that summer, we have never looked back.  I won't lie: there are many times where I know our house would be much quieter and neater and less stressful if my kids were distracted by a television show or a tablet or a video game.  There are definite moments where I can see the short-term benefits that could be afforded by screen time in our home.  However, as our kids get older, I get to see first-hand the creativity, imagination, and exploration that comes from learning to entertain yourself without screens.

Right now, as I type this, Briggs and Adelie are together in the playroom, listening to 'The Pond' on CD. Briggs has taken apart and is putting together his big airplane Lego set that he got for Christmas.  He has been working on it for over 2 hours, following the directions and experiencing the sense of pride that comes from doing something he wasn't sure he could do on his own.  Adelie is in the playroom with Briggs, creating books and pictures from her new craft supplies.  Staley is upstairs, reading in her room.  They are all quiet and focused.

My kids have all found many ways to fill their free time at home.  They love to build.  They love to play imaginary games.  They love to sing and dance and dress up and perform.  They love to read.  They love to write.  They love to draw.  They love to create.  And I love to watch their creativity and imagination come to life.

Lately Staley and Adelie have started making their own board games.  They create the game boards and pieces out of cardboard and boxes from the recycling, and then they type up the rules of the game.  Their first game was called 'Mermaid Lagoon Dash'.  Adelie and Briggs made the game board while Staley wrote out the rules and the directions.  The description for the game is as follows:  

Escape the octopus side, stay away from lava pits, slow down your biggest rival, and win the race!

The rules for the game were 3 pages long and were very detailed.  One excerpt of the rules included here are for the description of what the octopus does for each roll of the dice (which is different than what the mermaid does for each roll of the dice.)

1-   1-   Add a lava pit at a fork.
2-   Put a two-turn sleeping potion at a fork.
3-   Move into mermaid territory or move 3 spaces in mermaid territory.
4-   Move 2 spaces in mermaid territory or add a dead end at a fork.
5-   Create a dead end in front of a mermaid of your choice.
6-   Move a mermaid back 6 spaces and you move up 6 spaces.

This is Mermaid Lagoon Dash.  Zach actually attempted to play it with the kids.  His assessment:  Very long, convoluted, and hard to follow but a good first attempt.  Since then, Adelie has made another game called 'Spy' and Staley is working on a new game called 'Robbers in Magic Land.'

Adelie and Briggs use their creativity often when building with Magna Tiles and blocks while creating homes and lands for their figurines and cars.  There are often houses, buildings, castles, and towns made of Magnatiles and blocks.  Uma recently gave the kids some small strings of 'fairy lights' that have adorned their creations.

This is one of my recent favorites.  This is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Macy's is the building in the back (with clear 'windows' and displays inside the building).  Then there are the giant balloons, a float, and a crowd of princess figurines and trucks watching the parade.

My kids love to create with paper, markers, tape, scissors, and things they find in the recycling.  We often tease Adelie that she can make just about anything out of paper and tape.  I truly believe that we could put the recycling bin, a few balloons, some paper, and some tape in an empty room and my kids would be happy for hours.

Over Christmas break, Briggs and Adelie made these gingerbread houses for the gingerbread man and woman that they made.  They decorated their houses and even made little books, pictures on the walls, and other accessories out of paper to go in their houses.

This was a recent undersea panoramic picture that Adelie made.

One of my favorite creative activities that all 3 of my kids love is writing books.  We have SO many homemade books in our home that the kids have made.  Some of them are just illustrations.  Many of them are handwritten and illustrated.  Some are typed and include pictures that they took with a camera.  Recently all 3 kids have gotten interested in typing their books and working on writing longer books.  Over the summer, Staley began working on a chapter book series about the Schuyler sisters from Hamilton.  Over the past months, she has worked tirelessly on the first of these books titled 'The Angelica Book.'  This was the story of 3 siblings who inadvertently travel back in time with a magic dress and meet Angelica Schuyler.  In the end, Staley's book was 10 chapters long and around 12,000 words.  It was very well-written and creative.  Staley uses great descriptive language and has a good flow to the story.  The end of the book cleverly tied back in to the beginning, and I was very impressed with how hard she worked on her story and how well it came together.  Staley worked so hard on her book that Zach found a place on-line where we could inexpensively 'self-publish' her first 50 page novel.  She was so excited!!

Staley and her first novel

There are so many creative ways that my kids find to fill their time.  Our home is always filled with building and reading and writing and drawing and creating and singing and dancing and imagining.  It is often loud.  It is often messy.  Our home is filled with the results of hours of creating.  I may not always love the clutter and the mess and the noise, but I always love seeing my kids' minds and creativity at work.

Happy New Year!

The first day of a new year is always a time to reflect on the year we've had and then to look ahead to the year to come.  And although this past year was not the year anyone could have predicted, I can be grateful for the blessings that this year provided.  In a year where health and safety were at the forefront of the world's concerns, I am so grateful that our family has stayed healthy.  In a year where shut-downs and lay-offs have wreaked havoc on the financial certainty for so many, I am grateful for stable jobs.  My heart hurts for all those who have experienced loss in 2020, whether loss of health, loss of loved ones, loss of jobs, loss of businesses, loss of human connection, loss of important life events, loss of hope.  As I hurt for others, however, I can be grateful that 2020 has given me so much more than it has taken.

In 2019, I had moments where I felt overwhelmed and conflicted about how busy our family was getting and questioned the number of activities we were involved in.  2020 allowed us to strip all those away, determine our priorities, and enjoy much more time at home as a family.  This year gave me so many opportunities to revel at my children...at their positivity, their joy in the everyday, their acceptance of change, their ability to cope with disappointment, their resiliency, their understanding, their creativity, their friendship with one another.  Although this year introduced me to a struggle with anxiety, it also allowed me to gain a deeper empathy for those who struggle on a regular basis.  It gave me a stronger reliance on God's grace and peace.  It taught me to better let go of things that I cannot control.  Limited time spent with those outside our home has given me a stronger appreciation for those opportunities when we can be together.  We have strengthened our relationship with neighbors, been more deliberate about reaching out to those who are isolated or alone, and relished those times that we have been able to be with family and friends.  This year has given us the opportunity to slow down and focus on what is important.  I can truly say this year has given us way more than it has taken away, and I am grateful for the time, the lessons, and the perspective gained from 2020.

As I look ahead to the year to come, my goal is to keep in mind these lessons I've learned this past year.  I come into this year with a perspective of hope.  Hope that the vaccines put a stop to the spread of COVID.  Hope that businesses and entertainment and schools and travel can begin to resume some level of normalcy.  Hope that kids can play sports, athletes can compete in the Olympics, entertainers can return to stage, business owners can keep their doors open, people can gather again.  Hope that our nation can come out of this pandemic with a feeling of community and appreciation rather than division.  And a hope that I can remember what this year has taught me.  I hope that I remember that it's okay to say no, to keep the calendar empty, to relish opportunities to be with others, to be deliberate about reaching out to the lonely, to slow down and try new things, to understand that health and safety are not promised, to be grateful for my job and my family, and to understand that the big moments are not what makes a year.  This year of little moments has been full of blessings.  I hope I can remember that.

Here's to the hope of a new year!