Cricket in Times Square Dinner

Today we had our Family Book Club Dinner for The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden.  First we made crickets, the kids had a lot of fun with this.

Carter Cricket and Dawson cricket

Boy, were we spoiled with treats!  We had Italian deserts in honor of the Bellini's:  pizelles, biscotti and gelato.  The kids liked all the deserts!

For our meal we had Strawberry soda pop (dye free, of course)  roast beef sandwiches (what trapped Chester the cricket) and some Chinese dishes: pork dumplings and veggie fried rice.  A weird mishmash of a meal, but tasty nonetheless.  The kids enjoyed the roast beef sandwiches and deserts the most.   

We had such a good discussion, and it became very clear that Ava really enjoyed and paid close attention to this book.  She was answering all the questions, which she made sure to point out to her brothers.  We also watched a you tube video of a boy buying tickets for the subway, riding the subway and going to Times Square.  This was helpful, because the kids really had no idea about these types of experiences.  Another fun afternoon with my favorite kiddos!!

Fun with Family

Wow, life has gotten busy with homework, chores, packing lunches, playing tag, football, scouts, gymnastics......and the list goes on and on.  But we've had two great weekends with our families so I have some pictures to share.  Last weekend we went to Sidney to visit Meme and Bob Bob.  

A morning trip to the farmers market and the kids got to watch a little parade of old cars.

Carter wore his boy scout uniform all weekend long.  He was so excited for his first meeting, and although it was pretty uneventful his excitement is still pretty high.

Ava and Riley enjoyed each other's company as usual.  Picnic was a pretty popular game this weekend.  It was so nice to see everyone, and poor little Ava ended the weekend with her usual sobbing.  She really does love our families so much, and her poor sensitive heart hates to be away from them!  

Ah!  What a cute picture, and I can't figure out how to flip it!  This weekend we had a visit from Grandma and Bo and the kids loved every second playing puppies, bad guys and three legged races, it looks like!  Daddy finished his second half marathon and we are so proud to report that he took almost 12 minutes off his first race!  Carter showed off his football skills at his game for Grandma and Bo.  Bo completed all my Honey-Do list including finishing off the bed in the front of the house, getting the rocket off the roof and fixing Carter's bike.  It was so nice getting to see everyone!

Funny Stories

I love these little notes that I get around the house from Carter. Here is the translated version:  Dear Mom and Dad can i have a pet dog and a swing set and make a paracord when ever you have time.  from:  Carter

Although he sleeps in the yellow room, Carter's domain is the blue room.  He decided it needed a little decor and a camo flag was in order.

And also a bag with permission slips to take before you are allowed to enter.

My favorite part:  the sign on the door says please come in my room.  It was then crossed out and above it it says Do not come in without permission.

This particular morning it was zucchini bread with a sweet little egg head boy.  Plus optimus prime, bumblebee and chase.

Not a particularly great picture of my sweet girl at the football game.

So far this little girl has been handling kindergarten with ease.  Our biggest problem is that she gets off the bus with an insatiable hunger.  Many days she is in tears because she is starving.  But, she's not eating her lunch.  Most days she will eat a bite or two of sandwich and her fruit, but that is it!  Today I was talking to her about it, and I told her that she has to stop talking to her friends and eat her lunch!  Her response?  Mom, we can only talk one time a day.  That's it Mom!  I can't eat my lunch.  I was just laughing so hard I didn't know what to say! So right now my game plan is to have a hearty snack ready for her every day when she gets off the bus so that she can chat it up!  

Need a laugh?

Well, then enjoy a laugh from our three.  Crazy, I really have no idea where this came from!!  Apparently while playing at a friend's house Carter came up with this silly little song.  The kids enjoy chanting it over and over and over again.

Jackson Youth Football Night

We had an exciting, fun night at the High School Football Game.  It was Youth Football Night, so each team was announced before the game, and all the kids were allowed to run through the polar bear.

Look for Number 8!

There he is!  This was a pretty big thrill for Carter.  He was so excited and they also put each team photo in the program, right alongside the high school pictures.

Ava loved to watch the majorettes and she met up with a preschool friend.  Dawson enjoyed dancing to the drum cadence and causing mayhem, like putting pretzel salt in my hair and spilling pretzel cheese all over the bleacher seat.  I have to say it was so fun to watch their eyes get wide with excitement and wonder at the spectacle of a football game.

Two thumbs up!!

Carter and Wingfoot One.  Doesn't the Goodyear blimp show up for all High School Football Games?

A fun Family Night! 

The one about my buddy - Dawson

My little buddy and I have been settling into a new rhythm.  Can I just say that I'm really enjoying spending time with just one child.  I forgot how easy having one child is!!  Of course, I miss Carter and Ava desperately and I wish they were home with me too.  But I know I'm always going to look back at this time with just my little buddy as a really special time.

We are playing legos, but he has also been really interested in board games.  We usually spend most of the morning playing The Ladybug Game, Scooby Doo Pop a matic (like sorry), and his very favorite Hi Ho Cherry-O.  I laugh because although he is interested in playing we rarely play by the complete set of rules!  I am also proud to report that he is almost able to write his name!  He just needs help with the W, S and N.  Usually he will trace them.

Although he loves preschool, he is still crying at drop off time.  It seems like this transition at three years old to being apart from Mom for awhile is tough.  All three kids have struggled with it.  Today was his first gymnastics class and there was about three minutes of tears, but he quickly recovered.  In the picture we checked out a local donut shop as a treat for not crying at preschool.  He enjoyed it!

My budding Chef!

This kid loves to cook.  One morning out of the blue he asked to make tomato soup for his preschool teachers.  So we did and he was so proud to bring his tomato soup in for his teachers.  What a kind heart!  Love my little buddy!

The one about Carter (mainly for Meme)

 So what has been going on with Carter?  Well, he is just an awesome seven year old.  He seems to be developing a personality just like his Daddy.  He has started to look forward to the weekend so he can sleep in and have no school.  He usually asks me starting on Tuesday "Can we have the weekend now?"   Mike has said jokingly that any day now he is going to be telling us that he just wants to be happy. 

He is on the verge of tying his shoes, and we just signed him up for Boy Scouts.  He was really looking forward to shooting arrows and rock climbing, but apparently these things aren't done on the first meeting (misleading boy scout flyer, ha ha).  He is enjoying football, and so proud of his jersey.  His teacher called from school to tell us what a good kid he is and how she wished she could have a classroom of 25 Carters.  "You must be doing something right raising that boy!" said his teacher, but I think we just got lucky with such an awesome kid.

Meme, here are some pictures from Carter opening his birthday presents:

A camo grabber, it put a huge smile on his face.

As soon as Mike got home he told him "I got a grabber now too, and its better than yours!"

So many awesome camo things:  spiderman camo shirt, camo notebook, camo shoelaces and a camo wallet.  This was also a big hit.  He was so excited to have some quarters (there is a vending machine at school that sells erasers and pencils and it only takes quarters.)  Thank you Meme for the awesome birthday presents!

The one about Ava

 What an eventful week with this little cutie!

Thank you Grandma for the new shirt and scarf.  I was the best looking little girl in kindergarten!  (We are saving the leggings for the fall, still a little too hot!)

Dawson and I surprised her with lunch and she was so happy.  She ran toward me and gave me a big hug.  It was so nice to spend time with her and then she started telling me stories about each of her friends.  At lunch I noticed her eye seemed a little red, but I decided to just watch it.  By the time she got off the bus that afternoon it was goopy and red.  So, off to the doctor we went! It was funny because she told me "Yeah, my friend had a red eye too and went to the doctor too."   After missing a day and half of school, she was back and better than ever. 

Can you believe she caught a butterfly in our backyard?  She has really been enjoying insects lately.  Currently we have a woolly bear in a bug house in their bedroom.

Love you our sweet little Roover girl.  What a fun journey this year will be!

Dawson's Tall Tales

Boy, Dawson was on a roll today!  He was telling all kinds of stories, that were obviously tall tales, but they had Mike and I rolling on the floor all day.  

• Dawson was telling us about the time that he petted a shark.  Not its teeth though, only its back.  "Don't you remember when I petted a shark when I was a baby?"  No Dawson I don't remember that!
• Dawson has very intelligible speech for a three year old, but today he started calling a graham cracker a "graham crapper."  Not a tall tale, but it had us laughing pretty hard.
• He built our old house and our new house.  Plus, when he was a baby he lifted our old house up over his head.

Thank you Dawson, for being a crazy three year old!  We are loving every minute of it!

Labor Day Weekend

We had the BEST Labor Day weekend.  We were visited by our friends, and the kids had a great time.  We swam for the majority of the day, then in the evening more friends visited with a bounce house.  They jumped themselves silly, ran to the woods, made s'mores and launched rockets.  The kids were so exhausted and passed out around 10.  The kids were so exhausted the next day.

Just look at Carter's face!  We had our Matilda Book Club and it was very low key.  We did make Boris Bogtrotter's chocolate cake, colored the flag of Great Britain and looked at some of the countries on a map of Europe.  Ava wanted to play a joke on Daddy and put a newt in his water, just like what happened to the Trunchbull.  Well, since we couldn't find a pretend newt we used gummy worms instead.  They thought they were so funny!

Then we relaxed, watched the movie Matilda and ate some of Boris Bogtrotter's chocolate cake. 

Funny story:  I was out running errands and Mike was home doing some yard work.  Ava and Dawson came out saying that some bad guys or maybe the dogs next door had entered the house and taken some of the chocolate cake.  Sure enough, Daddy went on an investigation and found missing cake plus crumbs all over the floor.  We just had to laugh at the chocolate cake all over their faces, crumbs on the fingers, and Ava even had some on her elbow!