Preschool

(I tried to post this yesterday, but I had trouble w/Blogger.)

I finally had the chance to spend some time with Danielle at preschool today. She had a New Life party this morning. She is so mild and well behaved...at school. I was so proud of her. Of course, the wiggly 4 year old boys can make just about anyone look well behaved. Here are a few pictures. The little girl is her friend from church (who is also on her soccer team).

We found a baby bunny by our air conditioner again last night. It is even tinier than the ones we found last year. I couldn't find any others when I looked last night and today, though, so I don't know if maybe this one was abandoned. Hopefully the others are just better at hiding. We don't have a garden, so we don't mind having them in our yard. Our dogs, however, seem to have a problem with it.

Bedtime Adventures

Danielle was mad about something when we were putting her to bed tonight. She stormed across the room, hands on her hips, and threatened, "Don't make me yell at you. My throat hurts." Sounds like she might have heard that before.

I have really enjoyed (I'm not sure that's the most accurate word) Danielle's prayers lately. We usually alternate between reciting a memorized prayer - Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep - and just praying about whatever's on our minds. When she says the prayer herself, she always starts with, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord now go to sleep!" Makes me smile every time. Her prayers are just so honest and innocent, and I'm sure they must make God smile. After my grandma died, I overheard her pray that "Great Grandma won't be sick anymore" and would be happy in heaven. It's nice to hear her pray for Ron's safety while he's traveling (and that "Daddy will be good while he's gone"). And of course it's funny to hear her take on the day ("Please help me and Tyler be good tomorrow.") As I mentioned last night, we've all been a little under the weather. Tyler has the stomach flu & strep. Ron has a sinus infection and bronchitis. You get the idea. The main problem, though, is that we're leaving for Disney in just 3 days! Tonight Danielle prayed for all of us and then added, "And God, please help Mommy not to throw up, too!"

Amen...again.

Just Stuff

Danielle came home from preschool with a song in her heart. It would have been more enjoyable if everyone else wasn't sick and craving peace and quiet...but it was still cute. She wanted Grandma C to hear it, too, so here it is. (She thought it might make you happy, Grandma.)


Tyler has the stomach flu and strep and has missed a couple days of school (and will miss a couple more). His friend brought his homework & grade card home today. Tyler's grade card couldn't have been more perfect this time. It's too bad he didn't feel well enough to thoroughly enjoy our praise!

One page of the grade card has a list of upper & lower case letters, numbers, and 30 sight words. For each item, the teacher indicates if he can both identify and write them (and produce each letter's sound). All the columns are now completed except for 6 words they haven't studied in class yet. As Ron and I were congratulating Tyler for all his "yeses", he asked if he could see the paper. He grabbed it and looked at the 6 remaining words. He said, "These are the words I can't read yet: 'for', 'me', 'one', 'little', 'are', 'here'." Ron and I cracked up, but Tyler totally missed the humor and repeated himself. When he was done, I replied, "Hmmm. It's too bad you can't read those yet."

Danielle's First Soccer Game

Although the temperature dropped from a balmy 76 yesterday to a blustery 36 this morning, Danielle was excited to play her first game! I bundled her up (probably over did it a bit) and we joined all the other crazy parents braving the chilly weather at 8am on a Saturday. It was so worth it!

Danielle had the best time! I was a little apprehensive after practice on Thursday, but I shouldn't have worried. She understood what she was supposed to do, and she really tried. Tyler was still sick so Ron and I took turns sitting with him in the van because neither of us wanted to miss her first game. I didn't see it, but I understand she scored a goal (or almost scored a goal, I'm getting different versions of the story). She looked so happy to be playing.




I tried to take a couple videos, but most of them featured the ground and me yelling "Go Danielle, go! Yeah!!" (I kind of got caught up in the moment.) It really was a lot of fun, and we're looking forward to next week's game. (Danielle goes to church with these 2 kids.)

Bike Riding, Soccer Practice, & Delayed Flights

Tyler is working hard on learning to ride his bike without training wheels. Last weekend we moved his training wheels up to the highest setting so he could practice balancing without actually falling over. Over the past few days he has perfected that, so he asked me to take the training wheels off today. I suggested we just remove one for now and see how that goes. That was probably a good idea. He fell over the first couple times he tried, then he caught on. I don't know how well you can tell in the videos because they're pretty grainy, but he was actually riding on 2 wheels most of the time. I should be posting video of him riding without training wheels in the very near future! He's very proud of himself.






Danielle had her second soccer practice today. She had a bit of a melt down half way through practice because she feared she just wasn't good enough, but we worked through it and she finished strong. Actually, she isn't bad! She can run pretty fast. I think she has the potential to be really good. Of course, all that really matters is that she has fun. Her first game is this Saturday.







Ron was scheduled to fly home from San Diego on American today. Unbelievably, his flight was not cancelled, although many were. But his luck was not perfect. He sat on the tarmac for over an hour before taking off from San Diego, causing him to miss his connecting flight. Somehow they were able to squeeze him onto a later flight, but that flight was delayed an hour and then sat on the tarmac for another hour waiting to be refueled. He has yet to make it home, and when he does, I bet it's without his luggage!

That About Sums It Up

Ron is gone this week.
Danielle has a boo-boo that has caused her to lose the function of her left arm. (I'm just being dramatic, like her.)
Tyler was disappointed because his friend didn't call to invite him over (like they discussed) and was generally grumpy because he had to go to school on a nice, sunny day.
Danielle smooshed silly putty onto the WiiMote (to see the pattern) and it stuck to the controller like bubble gum.
I made them go to bed because I couldn't stand the fighting, and I just can't seem to get caught up on the housework after being gone so much the past 2 weeks.

That kind of sums up what's gone on around here today. I think Danielle captured it best in her prayer tonight, though:

"Jesus, please help me and Tyler be good tomorrow. And please help Mommy not to yell so much."

Amen.

More Soccer

Here are a couple videos from Danielle's practice last night.

Soccer Practice

Danielle had her first soccer practice today. I didn't get to go, but Ron said she did really well. She was able to run and kick the ball! Ron took a couple videos, too, but YouTube isn't working right now. I'll upload those later but wanted to get a couple pictures up. Ron said she had a lot of fun.

Monster Truck Rally

Last Saturday Ron made good on his promise to counteract the princess ice show with a monster truck rally. Tyler's friend from next door, his dad, Ron, and Tyler enjoyed all the trucks and noise. Tyler can still remember the name of almost every truck. He had a really good time. Here are some pictures from their trip.

Happy Easter!

What a wonderful day we had! After Easter baskets and a great church service this morning, we went to my dad's house for Easter lunch & an egg hunt. The weather was just perfect and our children were healthy (quite an accomplishment for us around Easter time!). The kids had a lot of fun playing with their cousins, looking for eggs, and just being rowdy. My stepmom starts gearing up for the Easter egg hunt months in advance, and she really outdid herself this year. It was a really nice, fun day.

Coloring Eggs

The kids enjoyed coloring Easter eggs today. Tyler was much more thoughtful about it this year. He spent a lot of time using the white wax pencil to mark designs on the eggs and a lot of time considering what colors he wanted to use. Danielle is still pretty much in the drop & plop phase.


We made the Easter story cookies before bed tonight. I think a lot of the symbolism is still beyond them, but it was still a good opportunity to talk about the real reason we celebrate Easter.



I worried so much around Christmas about telling the kids the truth about Santa. I thought I was out of the woods for another year once Christmas was past. But, Danielle was so upset tonight because she thought a giant, smiling, furry rabbit (like the one she saw at the mall) was going to come into our house while we were sleeping tonight that I finally pulled her aside and tried to explain that we are really the Easter bunny (but it's our secret). Ron was a little disappointed because he's afraid the kids will figure out the truth about Santa if they know about the Easter bunny. Tyler only guessed what I told Danielle but declared it was simply untrue. After all, "how would we get all that stuff then?" I'm not sure Danielle really understood either. After I told her, she got an excited look on her face, headed to Ron's closet, and said "Where's your bunny suit?"

Paper Mache Eggs, Part II

Although Danielle enjoyed sticking her hands in the paper mache paste the first day, I couldn't convince her to do it again. The eggs just weren't hard enough with one layer of paper, though, so Ron was kind enough to help me put a second layer of paper on the eggs. The situation was pretty funny: I was trying to create a fun, creative activity for the kids yet there sat Ron and I at 9:30 one evening, up to our elbows in flour/water goop! I think we'll save any future paper mache crafts for school art classes.

Anyway, yesterday we put a base coat of paint on the eggs and today we decorated them. The kids enjoyed painting them (and Tyler thought it was really cool when we popped the balloons and pulled them out). Danielle and I also decorated the sliding glass doors with some Easter/spring pictures this afternoon.

Tyler's 1/2 Birthday

Tyler's 1/2 birthday is really this coming Friday, but we decided to celebrate today for a couple reasons. First, Danielle went to a friend's house to play after school, so that gave Tyler & I some time alone. Second, I didn't really want all that cake right before Easter because we're making Easter cookies and are sure to have lots of Easter goodies from the bunny and at my dad's.

We had a really good day! Tyler and I rarely have more than a couple hours a week alone together. (He is on spring break this week.) After we dropped Danielle off at school, we enjoyed breakfast at McDonalds. Then we went to the toy store where he got to pick out a toy (using his saved Christmas money). By the time we got out of the toy store, the rain had stopped and we decided to visit the zoo. We hurried home to pack our lunches and then headed over to the zoo. Since the forecast called for 100% chance of rain all day, there was no one else at the zoo! Other than employees, we only saw maybe 6-8 other people. It was very private and very nice. The old man running the carousel took great joy in giving us an extra long ride probably because we were the only "customers" he'd had all day! Tyler had a lot of freedom to really study everything and even be silly without getting in anyone else's way.



Tonight after dinner we enjoyed Tyler's cake. We still only sang half the birthday song and gave him 6 1/2 candles, but I did make a whole cake. Tyler requested a whole cake, reasoning a half cake just wasn't enough. It's hard to argue with logic like that, especially when the request is for chocolate!