Gwen's school "performance"

One morning last week, the preK dressed up in their uniforms and did a couple Halloween songs for the school. Sadly no one could really hear them. But it was cute. Here they are.
Since none of the parents could here them, they got off the stage for pictures and then decided to sing again for us.
Nate decided to go down the "slide".

pre-Halloween treat

We have had a busy day today, busy, busy busy! But I think the kids have had fun, we ended their day going to a local mall and "trick-or-treating" at the different shops. The kids had a great time. I think we might do that again, it was fun! We were warm, the walk wasn't that far and several of the workers dressed up.
This is the scene on the way home! Someone made up their own song...

HYPED UP! from Melanie Ubil on Vimeo.

In case you needed an interpretation "Can I eat from my bag? nah, nah, nah Can I see?" We obviously gave them some candy, but apparently some little kids didn't think it was enough! He wanted to get more candy from his bag! He also wanted to look at himself on the camera, I did let him do that.

2 snippets from yesterday

"Gwen why are you smiling?"
"because this is a predicament"
"yes, it certainly is"

"Nate, do you have something in your mouth?"
"uh-huh"
"what"
"a tongue"

Free time?

Since I have a soundly sleeping boy, a girl not home, a husband at work and well the last 2-2.5 hours of peace and quiet, I thought I would do another blog update. I had a conversation this morning with the kids I thought would be funny to put on here, but now I've forgotten it. It was a rather hectic morning this morning, the kids got up at 5:30, apparently the internal clock was off by an hour. I promptly went back into bed and thought, well maybe we'll be early today. The only problem was Gwen didn't put her shoes back in her closet so we spent 10 minutes searching for them. UGH! I have started reading a new parenting book. As I am starting to get out of the fog of the move and adjusting and making new friends, I've realized that I don't like the way my parenting is going. I know that my stress level has been high, but making friends has helped with that, now is the time to focus on my kids and making sure I am a better parent. I think the kids are responding to the new parenting and I think it works nicely with Gwen's school's discipline routine. We'll see how it goes, I need them to listen and follow directions better and I hope this helps.
Nate is such a smart little pistol, it is a great thing for his future, he needs certain amount of attention though and watch out if he is tired or hungry, that is when the trouble begins. This is the toughest part of our new schedule is that it reeks havoc on Nate's schedule. Nate would really like to nap at 12ish. He falls asleep in the car or gets so over tired and then can't get to sleep. Nightmarish. I still put him down for quiet time. But about the time it is time for me to make dinner, he starts to lose it. Today he fell asleep in the car on the way home from Bible study, I had to run into the grocery store, still out cold, then I brought him home, still asleep now...3 hours later! I have to admit, I love his cuddly ways. He likes to sit on the couch read books or watch TV all cuddled up next to you. Eric has about had it at dinner time, his shirts will never be the same from Nate's wanting to snuggle at dinner time.
Gwen seems to be doing well with school, as I mentioned she has had the play date today. She still struggles with being tired and oh my GOSH the whining. "Don't look at me, don't talk to me!" Of course, she is talking to Nate. The other day it was really terrible she was just crying and crying. I knew I had to do something, so we baked muffins. It worked out really well, whinies gone! I don't think I will be able to do that every time, but it was a quick fix, plus we got some yummy treats out of the deal. Gwen tends to get cuddly when Nate is cuddly with Eric, it is the funniest thing.
Eric seems to be doing well, had his first committee meeting and is working along on an idea for his thesis. He is looking into some funding so he has to start the application for that. He seems to be much happier about the whole process now that he has a concrete plan, well as concrete of a plan as you can have in science!
We are gearing up for a trip from Grandma and Halloween, but don't have much else planned. I had a lot of free time today, so I guess just a little vacuuming and laundry and we are ready for Grandma! Have a great weekend.

Playdate

I am ashamed to admit that I've never really done playdates for my kids. It is not something that has occurred to me to do, set up playdates. But since we have moved here, I have started learning about playdates. I am now learning about the after school playdates for Gwen. Some of the Gwen's friends have shown interest in having Gwen over after school. Conveniently the 2 that have shown interest will pick her up after school and then drop her off at our house. SWEET! But, today was the first day I had one of her friends to her house. I thought we would, well I don't know what I thought, but I didn't plan anything to do. I just thought we could think of stuff on our own. But, Nate I didn't know what would happen with him. This house is small, and most the toys are in their room, so I didn't know what I was going to do for his nap/QT. He fell asleep in the car on the way home, so we ended up having a picnic lunch outside while he slept in the car. Then he woke up so we went in the house. Lana wanted to know if Gwen had any princess dresses, (have I mentioned she's 1 of soon to be 4-3 of which are girls). And then they seemed to not get a long for a little while, Lana was playing with something in the kids' room and Gwen was upset that she didn't want to do what Gwen wanted them to do and said she didn't want to have any more playdates at her house, only at Lana's. I asked her what would make her play date more fun, what did she want to do? So we went out back but I think the girls were tired. We played outside for a little bit, we came back inside they laid down for a little bit, like a minute and then all was right with the world and they wanted nothing to do with Nate. So I kept Nate occupied and they played and then when her Mom came, they didn't want to be separated. I guess I will ask the Mom how it went, and maybe improve our next playdate. Gwen has her second after school playdate tomorrow, I guess I will try to pump Gwen when she gets home to see what I can do to improve her home playdate experience. The only thing I did learn from Gwen's playdate is that her princess dress is itchy, I am wondering if she should get a new one for Christmas, that is less itchy?

This picture is for Daddy

This first picture though is for my Mom! We skype usually but Mom didn't have a chance to see what Eric and the kids did for me a couple weeks ago, I am a little late, sorry! He looks sweet and innocent enough, doesn't he? Well he's not!
Look where I found him, the little man of destruction that he is, as Daddy says, you are getting too tall, combined with his monkey like climbing, he is quite destructive, see!

Don't worry Mom, he'll clean it out before you visit!

Duck Race

E and I found out that we could take the bikes are ride downtown, while we were downtown we found out they were going to have the duck races. E got excited, we should go to the duck races. So, we planned to go, we talked it up to the kids, they got excited. Especially Nate, he kept asking all day, to go to the duck races. But, that was a busy day for us, Eric had to work that day, but we did manage to make it about 5 minutes before the race started. We missed all the fun stuff, family activites but we made it to the bouncy house, so all was not lost, at least in the kids mind. They tried to keep it entertaining for the parents also, they had announcers, from the local tv station, they made lots of duck jokes.

The race was for a good cause, well 3 good causes. You could purchase a duck from one of 3 causes then you could decorate it, there was a decorating contest. The first 3 individual and corporate ducks won prizes. They had people in the "river" helping the ducks finish so that you could claim your ducks. Seemed like a fun time. Maybe next year we will make it for more of the fun during the day.

RAIN!

We have been living under drought conditions for a while. We couldn't remember the last time it had rained, so we were thrilled when it finally rained, during the day, when we could play outside in the rain. Ok, I don't know if we were thrilled, but we took the opportunity to play outside in the rain, with an umbrella, no shoes and a raincoat...it's how we roll.

No Naps

We have started the transition to no afternoon naps for Nate. He totally needs them, and wanders around her from about 3-7p in some kind of crazy 'I need to sleep, but I gotta keep moving or I'll fall asleep' daze. This is pretty terrible for me, he loses all ability to listen and if Gwen looks at him the wrong way he cries...and then she cries too, because she is overtired also. I've decided to go with it because then he goes to sleep really early, and Gwen goes to sleep really early and he doesn't wake her up. It is pure silence around here by 8, 8:30 at the latest, it used to be much later than that...
Gwen sometimes likes to help out with cooking. I have gotten a sesame street cookbook from the library so she could help me cook, but of course she didn't want to help tonight, but we did get everyone to eat dinner, so that's a start.

My kids are pretty affectionate. Gwen goes through these moods where she wants to hold her "baby" Nate often obliges. (I can't help because I'm slaving away over dinner)

Eric has become quite the waffle maker. We seem to be having a lot of waffles on the weekends and occasionally during the week, if it is a special occasion. Gwen takes her syrup pouring very seriously! Nate is apparently taking lessons.

I don't know what is going on here, but it appears Nate wants to cut up one of Eric's old GI Joe's. He actually told me what he was going to do, but needless to say, I took away the scissors.

We also have ghosts in the house, so if you come to visit, PLEASE be watch out!

Sometimes having an intelligent child is a problem, or maybe it is having literal children. Never tell a literal child you want his peas in his belly, cause this is what he does!

I guess if we didn't want these shenanigans at the dinner table, we shouldn't have pulled out the camera.