Evening's Entertainment

On these cold winter nights I say we roll up the runners and start smacking a ball around.

And yes, MG and fellow Salem Academy field hockey jocks, that is my 27 year old Dita she is using!

"You Are Working Here? Now?"

Will is at home with a fever today. I am letting him play Wii while I work. Here is a conversation we had a few minutes ago.

Will: "Mommy, want to play Wii with me?"

Me: "No, Will, I can't right now. I'm at work."

Will: "You are working?"

Me: "Yes."

Will: "Here?"

Me: "Yes."

Will: "Now?"

Me: "Yes."

Will: "How can you be at work here?"

Me: "I can work where ever I have my computer, high speed internet and a telephone, hon."

Will: "That's shrange." (he pronounces strange as shrange.)

Me: "Well it sure is convenient, isn't it?"

Will: "Not if you can't play Wii."

He has a point.

I See You

For the past 3+ years I have been able to monitor Will while at day care via in-room cameras. It has given me some sense of peace to be able to visually check on him throughout the day.

When he started going to daycare at 18 months old it helped me with the guilt. I would keep the video feed in the background on my screen nearly all day. I would watch him nap on his little mat and toddle around playing with his teachers and friends.

These days it is more about making sure he is behaving.

Much to his dismay, I occasionally call him on certain things I have seen during the day. Every time he looks a little confused and then he glances at his teachers, at which point I say, "They did not tell me, I saw you. "Arg," he moans, "I forget about the cameras!"

One time he actually met me at the door of his classroom with tears in his eyes. "I know you saw me and I said I was sorry." Little did he know I had missed the offense to which he was confessing.

I have to admit that I will miss the video feed when he starts Kindergarten in July.

But something tells me that he won't.

The Whiner.

I don't like Winter.

I don't like it when my hands and feet and nose are constantly cold.

I don't like it when a 1/4 inch of ice can keep my kids from going to school for days.

I don't like feeling that all I want to do is hibernate and rarely leave my house.

I don't like that at least one person in my household has a dripping nose and/or cough from Thanksgiving until St. Patrick's day.

I don't like that Winter makes me feel sad and unproductive and unmotivated for no good reason.

And I really don't like that Winter turns me into a big, fat whiner.

Number 9

Eliza Grace is 9! One more year 'til double digits - wow!

The rule in our family is odd birthdays are small affairs and even ones can be a somewhat bigger deal. So in theory this would have been a small, low key celebration. In theory.

This year Eliza Grace had three friends over for a slumber party. The festivities began Friday evening and, after much greeting and giggling and chatting, we started work on the make-your-own pizzas.
From the beginning,Will became fully vested in his role of pesky little brother.

With dinner done, we moved on to presents!
Then it was time for cake and ice cream.

Eliza Grace wanted a Harry Potter theme. We looked around the web for ideas and decided on an open book cake. I called some local bakeries and when I learned that the price for such a cake started at $200, I told her that I thought we could make it ourselves.

The good news is that Eliza Grace wanted to fashion all of the fondant items on the cake and I was happy to let her do it!

Click on the picture below for explanations of this beast which used 3 boxed cake mixes.

It takes a lot of cheek puffing to get nine candles out!

Next, Scott set up Eliza Grace's gift from us which was a theater that we bought on Woot! months ago.

It goes up like a tent and each side of the theater has a different purpose: the front side has curtains that open and close for performances
the left side is a ticket selling booth the right side is the refreshment stand and the back side is the dressing room/stage entrance. Admittedly it is a little big (5 ft tall) so I am sure we will tear it down soon and then put it up again when the urge to perform returns.

As you can imagine, the next order of business was to get into costumes and put on a show!
"I'm a spider-man cowboy pirate."
After much silliness it was time to get into jammies, eat popcorn and watch a movie.
The girls were all abed in Eliza Grace's room by 10:30pm. Unfortunately a copious amount of sugar mixed with lots of excitement necessitated my very final command for silence at 1:30am!

We began the next morning with the birthday girl's request for chocolate chip pancakes after which everyone decorated their own picture frame as a keepsake.
One guest had to leave shortly thereafter but I took the remaining kids to McDonald's for lunch and then ice skating at the Polar Ice House in Cary.

Here is a quick look at the birthday girl at the rink:

Thankfully we got there right when they opened for public skating because within 45 minutes the place was packed and the rink was awfully crowded.

It was a really fun and really exhausting birthday celebration and Eliza Grace said that it was "really, really the best ever!" Can't ask for more than that.

He Who Shall Not Be Named, Etc.

Eliza Grace's big ticket Christmas gift was the Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts kit. I thought Will's motorized AT-AT Walker was a big kit, but Hogwarts had even more pieces and three really thick building books.
Eliza Grace announced that she was going to build the entire kit all by herself and that no one was to help her. Fine by me!

It took her a little over a week, mostly because she worked on it for hours at a time for several days, then got burned out and took a couple days off. Don't blame her one bit.
This thing has some serious detail. Moving stairs. Revolving platforms. Sliding doors. Even a chicken for the table in the dining hall.

Boo Slytherin. Yeah Gryffindor!
Watch out Harry and Filch, there's a Dementor on the roof!

{Spoken in pretentious British school girl accent} "It's in your blood, Harry. See? Your father was a seeker, too!"

This particular kit is especially popular because of the large amount of mini-figures that come with it.
The Hogwarts staff.
Hermione, Harry and Ron.
Wait a minute. Did you notice something strange about Ron?

Oh that's right. One of the biggest complaints about this kit is that it does not include Ron. Never fear, Obi Wan Kenobi's body and Luke Skywalker's head (and some other dude's hair) with red paper taped on top will do the trick!
The kit also does not include that certain white-haired boy that we all love to hate. This time a Star Wars Clone body with Luke Skywalker's hair brings the infamous Draco Malfoy to life.
Look at him just standing there with Filch and, wait, who is that? It's Val...I mean, He who shall not be named!
Eeewww. Does he have green lips?
Watch out Harry! Hop on that Nimbus 2000 and get out of there!
Continuing in the Harry Potter vein, Eliza Grace and I have been working on her Harry Potter-themed cake for her 9th birthday celebration this weekend. If you want to know how to make a golden snitch out of fondant and edible sparkly dust, lemme know!

The Firsts of 2011

Today marks my first day back to work in the new year.

It also marks the first sick kid of the new year.

I asked Will to give me his best "I feel yucky" face. He did not have to work too hard at it as he has been sporting a fever and an icky cough for the past 24 hours.
On the bright side, Eliza Grace only said how horrible her day would be because she hated going back to school about 8 times before we headed out the door.

I think perhaps I will pretend that tomorrow is the first of the firsts of 2011. Things can only go up from here, right? Right?

Dippin' Some Dots

I took the kids to ToysRUs today so they could spend some of their Christmas cash.

I was fairly impressed with the thought and consideration each displayed when choosing how they would spend their money.

I told them they could buy what they wanted however I did make a few strategic comments designed to sway them away from a few toys I knew would drive me crazy :)

That kind of thing works pretty well with Will (he left the store with two items and money still in his pocket) but Eliza Grace is a little more determined in this area (she also left with two items but had to finagle a two-week advance on her allowance to get what she really wanted).

All this is to say that earlier this evening we were doing this:
Eliza Grace chose to buy a Dippin' Dots kit. In her mind, it was the best of two worlds: a craft project that you can eat!

We used the cotton candy flavored packet for the first batch and then moved on to using our own root beer for the second.
After 90 minutes in the freezer, the frozen treats were ready.
Apparently mixing cotton candy and root beer dots is pretty tasty!

"Mommy, Mommy, Come Up Here!"

This morning I was quite heavily and happily asleep when Will started calling me.

"Mommy! Mommy! Come up here!"

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Our bedroom is on the first floor and the kids' rooms are on the second floor. We chose this layout on purpose because we figured if we live here until we are old and feeble, we will have everything we need on one level. However I have to admit that, although long range planning is smart, I have really not enjoyed trudging up the stairs these past nearly 9 years for middle of the night/early morning feedings, diaper changes, nightmares, various and assorted sicknesses and all the other reasons a mother checks in on her kids in bed.
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So I am not really keen on climbing the stairs quite yet when I hear Will bellow again.

"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" That last one came out sounding like "Maw-aw-aw-aw-meeee!

Normally a morning person, today I had to drag myself out of bed while using my loud whisper voice. "Shhhh! What do you need, Will? Everyone is still asleep!"

Given past experience I assumed he wanted me to play Legos or check out some new contraption he had built. He is one of those 'up and at 'em kids,' ready to play pretty much as soon as he opens his eyes.

"Mommy, you need to come up here!" he said.

"Will, just tell me what you need!" I whisper-shouted back. I had made it up the first five steps but was hoping to be spared the rest.

"Just come up here and I will show you!" he nearly shouted back.

"Ok, ok, I'm coming. Sheesh."

My eyes were now half open as I made it to the top of the steps.

"Ok, sweetie, what is so important?" I asked.

And he is standing there under his windows, left arm sweeping to the side like a showroom model. He had pulled back his curtains, opened his blinds and had the biggest, sweetest smile on his face.

"Mommy, look! Isn't that the most beautiful sunrise you've ever seen?"

The sky was all soft and pink and glowy, as the sun was just beginning to rise up over the neighborhood roof tops.

Yes, the sunrise was really beautiful.

But knowing my sweet little man saw beauty in a sunrise and wanted to share it with me? Well, that was worth way more than losing a little sleep walking up a few steps.

The Post-Christmas...Er...Post

A few sights and sounds to wrap up our Christmas holiday.

What a blessing it is for my children to have their Grandmother read them "Twas the night before Christmas" on the night before Christmas!

Sleepy heads eying what is under the tree!

Midday was spent playing Raving Rabbids Wii and
Littlest Pet Shop DS in their new ergonomic game chairs

Here's a little live action of Christmas morning.
Admittedly, this video is fairly Lego AT-AT Walker heavy

Although we did not see any real snow during the daylight hours, overnight provided a big, fluffy blanket to play in on Sunday.

I would say we got somewhere between 6 to 8 inches by midday on Sunday.
And now I begin my annual post-Christmas clean and organize phase. The clutter is already getting to me and no amount of snow will keep me from getting out there to buy more storage tubs!