Thanksgiving 2016

Last year we spent Thanksgiving in both New Jersey and Virginia, and then we did the same at Christmas.  This year we reluctantly acknowledged that this was crazy and decided to split them up.  New Jersey took Thanksgiving because Kevin's brother and his family was going to be there from Michigan.  One might think that descending upon Kevin's Mom's house with two families of 4, including 4 girls under the age of 6 would be crazy town.  I suppose it was, but it was actually far more manageable than I had anticipated it would be.  The older girls (about 18 months apart in age) played pleasantly independently allowing the four parents to only have to really keep and eye on the two littles (5 months apart in age) and those two mostly tagged along with the bigs.  All in all they were mostly cooperative with each other.  Bedtime was becoming increasingly difficult with the room sharing, but we all made it work.  It makes me sad they don't live closer, because if they get along so well in close quarters for days on end, I think we would have fantastic single afternoon playdates. 

Kevin's mom hosted and cooked a fantastic Thanksgiving, and it was an entirely lovely visit. 

There is a playground that is walking distance from Granny's house.  It made for a nice afternoon break every day. 

PIGGYS!  and the Dora picture on the fridge was a cousin cooperative art piece. 

The girls with Grams, Kevin's grandmother (Stephanie's namesake).  She is 92 now, and as sweet as ever.

Seriously, look at these four.  They really did like each other!

Oh, and the lace table cloths turned into capes.  More popular than any of us would have anticipated or probably cared for, but they had a lot of lace cape joy.

And the series of pictures below... How do you choose just one?  I couldn't, so here is a selection.

Happily anticipating next year with these sweet cousins!

Our Veteran's Day Tradition

Last year, unintentionally, we went to the Natural Science Museum and History Museum in Raleigh on Veterans Day.  When we cruised into Raleigh, I realized that the federal holiday meant abundant (and free) parking, no school groups and a quiet museum experience.  It was awesome.  So when a day off of school on Veterans Day came this year, I knew just where I wanted to go.  And we went. 

To touch some hissing cockroaches and snakes...

...and hide behind some "plants"...

...and do some science (and seriously, this experimental station setup over multiple labs was so cool that I really wished I could have just spent the whole day there with Stephanie, but our little Gwen was a bit too little)...

...and see some native NC wood samples...

...and marble samples...

...and then to the History Museum...

...and then back to the Natural Science Museum for a 3-D movie...

...and then back to the History museum, because now Gwen was awake for the fun NC photo postcard...

The End.

A whole day.  And it was so FUN!  Kindergarten is amazing and great and all of that, but it is really eating into the fun adventures we had with no fixed schedule.  But we are packing in the fun when we can!

October: The Grand Finale

October has managed to come and go, but I do have some fun pictures to show for it. 

Towards the end of the month, Stephanie had a fall party at school and I really wanted to go.  Unfortunately, I have Gwen and I felt like I shouldn't subject the classroom to her.  BUT, the day of the party, they were still one volunteer short, so I offered to come in with Gwen and everyone was very agreeable.  Gwen was fantastically well behaved, especially considering it was naptime.  She wouldn't let the official face painters work on her, but she let me.  In case you are wondering, that is a pumpkin and a bat... I had the exciting job of running the Bingo Table, and I was glad to finally put a face to all the names I have heard.   

Stephanie also had a day off of school.  We took it easy around the house, and managed to do some pumpkin decorating.  Honestly, I was a bit behind the curve on Halloween this year.  It was on a Monday, so I was not super excited about the day and there was no exciting costume preparations this year.  We did take the time to decorate some inside, as the kids really love to do it.  

And then there was the actual Halloween.  Stephanie really wanted to be Darth Vader.  Since we already had the costume, which I bought back in April when she tore holes in every pair of black pants she owned dressing up as Darth Vader every day, I was good with her choice.  That left the rest of us either putting together some sort of Star Wars theme family costume or all going solo.  Time won the battle, and we all fell back on the costume box.  You may recognize Gwen's, as Stephanie wore it at age 2 and 3.  That is one well loved Jack-O-Lantern costume!
We had a neighbor offer to coordinate getting pizza and hosting the kids at her house, which was to start at 5:00.  The kids were so crazy excited, I did everything I could think of to keep them from rushing to her house at 4:00, and that netted me a bunch of photos.  At one point, Gwen assembled pieces of several costumes, and Stephanie declared, "Gwen is going as one of everything!"

Also, Stephanie had her very first school field trip at the end of October, and got to pick a pumpkin.  She is pretty proud of it, and wanted to show it off in some of the pictures.

Our neighbor's Dad brought her piles and piles of corn for her kids to play in, and as one might predict, it was super popular with all the kids at the party!  I have found corn in several unexpected places since, and I can only imagine where she is finding it in her house. 

And Kevin finally made it home from work in time to put on some dragon wings to Sherpa his little Jack-O-Lantern around the neighborhood on his shoulders. 

We were one of three families that made it around our full neighborhood loop.  It is just short of a mile, but with many of the houses sitting either uphill or downhill, it was quite a trek (and I didn't have a little pumpkin on my shoulders the whole time!).  Other than one unfortunate collision between Darth Vader and a mailbox in the dark, Stephanie was a bouncy, running, trick or treating machine.  The neighbors were enthusiastic participants, and gave out generous handfuls of candy.  We had 13 kids in our group, and I think we were the vast majority of the trick-or-treaters on the block.  I feel so lucky to live in this place with this sweet little herd of children and their families.  We may not be the biggest neighborhood in town, but we must certainly be the best! 

Saturday Zoo!

Since Stephanie started school, I have been missing the flexibility and fun of our old schedule.  So when Kevin said that he had to work on Saturday, and the weather was looking premium, I decided that maybe we should go to the zoo (I actually offered that Stephanie could skip a day next week to go, but she wouldn't go for that).

So it was off to the zoo, on what turned out to be Batology day, which meant bat crafts and, most importantly, bat themed face painting.  The line for the facepainting was a bit long, but didn't phase Stephanie, and they did some quality work. 

Gwen was not into the face painting, but was all about getting a bat on her arm.

My very very favorite souvenir... Penny Press!  Stephanie has half a book of them, and Gwen just started her collection of two last month at the aquarium.  Cheapest and most fun souvenirs ever!

The zebras and giraffes were so close!  It is hard to see the giraffes in my pictures, but they were right there too!  Gwen suggested that she go touch one.  We stopped her.

Not real!  But it looked real enough that Stephanie asked before suggesting a picture.

The NC zoo is just huge, with a crazy amount of walking between areas, so we didn't see as much this time as past visits.  We did, however, take the bus across the zoo a couple of times, which I think was Gwen's very favorite thing about the zoo.  She kept loudly announcing, "I love this bus!", to everyone's amusement, except she pronounces "V" like "B", so it was more like " I lobe this bus!" The bus mostly made me feel motion sick, as it moves quick around the curvy zoo roads, but it totally renewed her spirits. 

All in all, a good day at the zoo.  I hope Kevin gets to join us in the spring, as I finally feel like I know enough about the zoo to be a good tour guide.