Beach Snow Day

I know there are a lot of people who aren't so thrilled with all the snow that we've been having lately... but... we do live in Michigan and it IS winter time.  I actually find it a bit refreshing just because last year we didn't have a lot of snow and the whole global warming thing is starting to really show through.  This week was another 'winter' storm... we had a few inches fall over night which caused a lot of schools and such to be closed.  It was nice that Gaetan didn't have to go into school the next day... but even if he did, a few miles down the road isn't such a bad commute.

Anyway... while it's snowing out the kids are pretty much cooped up inside.  Which, can make things a little crazy for us.  They do so much better when they can get out and do things and burn off all that never ending energy they seem to have... so its days like this that Momma and Papa have to get creative to keep them entertained inside so they don't get naughty from boredom.  Dude had such a good time with my Dad and their 'beach' day during the weekend he asked if we could go to the beach again.   I couldn't find any reason not to so we got out the beach toys, got the bathing suits on, got out some towels and their outdoor chair and pretended that it wasn't blizzarding outside and had a fun beach day. The kids put on their hats too and had a designated sand area and a place where the 'water' was.  Dude was much more into the beach idea and played it the entire morning!

Shoveling imaginary sand into her bucket

This was the water area... obviously, since that's where the floaty toy it!

Dude got a lot of his pals in there with him... the stairs were a 'waterfall'

What was really going on outside...

It was really cute and they seemed to have a lot of fun with it.  I'm glad that something so simple made them so happy and kept them busy all morning!  Can't beat that!

JVG

Don and Dude

I love watching my parents crawl around on the floor and play silly games with my kids.  Its one of those great moments that all you can do is sit back, and watch the joy across both their faces.  Even though my Dad is most likely dead beat tired after coming home from work he gets right in there with the kids and plays chase and whatever other weird game they've come up with.  :)

Today's adventure was with Dude.  Lucy had already shown us that she wanted to go to bed as quickly as possible, after dinner was done, so Dude got some quality one on one with Grandpa.  Of course, Tristan loves the alphabet and my parents have a couple different sets of letters for him to play with.  They loaded certain words onto the train and had imaginary places they had to drop them off.  My Dad being a reasonable human being, when it comes to the house temperature at least, so graciously turned on the fire place so the rest of us could thaw out.  Dude LOVED the heat.  He said that it was warm and sunny like the beach.  So, then Dad and Dude started building words that pertained to the beach and anything else that came into his little head.  We did go to the beach with my Dad this past summer and Dude LOVED it.  He talks about it a lot...

Again, it was one of those moments that you didn't even want to interrupt.  It was hard telling Dude he had to go to bed (after he had been up WAY past his bed time) because they were having so much fun. But, he was so good about it and went straight to bed without any fuss... which makes me more inclined to let him stay up later next time :)  It was just so sweet watching how much Dad paid attention and how interested in what Tristan had to say.  Watching anybody invest such quality time with your child is priceless.  It's also really nice to know that my Dad won't say anything to crazy... yes, he has a lot of Don-isms but they aren't detrimental, mostly silly.  Thank you Dad for being such a great Dad and Grandpa.  These things don't go unnoticed.

Well, this picture of Mom and Goose was so precious I couldn't not put it in.

JVG

Dude our precocious little man

As I have just done a bit of a recap on our little Miss who is full of personality and expression, here is my shout out to Dude.  He is such a sweet big brother first and foremost.  He loves his sister so much, even when she intentionally bullies him.  She knows that he likes things a particular way, and if she goes and messes with it just a bit she knows that it will push his buttons... and he is working on not flipping out every time it happens.  But, I guess that is what brothers and sisters do.

As a 3 year old he could potentially start Preschool in the fall... which we aren't doing.  We are still going ahead with our plan to homeschool, so we have been doing that all along.  Right now we are doing Spanish songs to learn days of the week, months, numbers, alphabet and other fun songs in Spanish.  HE LOVES IT.  And its really adorable to hear him sing along with it too.  Lucy is reaping the benefit of him learning it so early as she is learning and hearing it as well... little kid voice speaking in a foreign language is amazingly heart meltingly cute.

A gem that Gaetan taught him while they were in the tub is the idea of decanting and what a meniscus is.  Now, I'm not sure about you but most 3 year olds don't say things like, "Look Momma!  I'm decanting!"  Let the pigeon holing commence!  haha.  Along with other science things we've been doing is the idea of conservation, how temperature affects different substances (such as water, can be a solid, liquid or gas) and gravity.  He is so curious and asks a lot of questions and its so nice to be able to explain things to him.  :)  And he seems like he's getting it too!

Showing us how he decants

With math, he is starting to really like numbers almost as much as he likes letters.  He is getting really good at his addition, and we are working on subtraction.  He sandbags though... we can ask him questions and he'll tell us he doesn't know but then the other day he said, "Pop!  What's 5+4?"  as he is holding up 9 fingers...

With English of course there is the never ending spelling that goes on... but he is really getting the idea of words that rhythm and alliterations.  He can read all the books that we get from the library and we often hear him reading to his pals and to Lucy.  He loves showing her how things work... like puzzles or other things that involve dexterity.  He loves helping her color and pick out just the right colors :)

He loves being my little helper too.  As I mentioned before our dryer had broken so when we finally got it fixed I had a lot of laundry to do.  And, I admit that I didn't fold each load as they came out of the dryer, so I waited until I had this huge mound on our bedroom floor to get started on sorting, folding and all that and he was already in our room and had picked out the majority of his clothes and they were folded, and was starting on folding Lucy's!  It was pretty amazing really.  He also really likes to help me cook/bake which I love.  :)  There are a few things that he still needs help with, but overall I can tell him that I need him to fill a certain measurement up and I know that he can do it.  :)  He likes to help me clean in any way possible... mostly putting chairs back after vacuuming and helping me get the vacuum cleaner out and put away.

Onto folding his sisters clothes

Helping Momma with some soup!

He is quite the remarkable little man.  And, honestly, nothing gets past him.  He remembers things that I didn't even know kids that age could remember!  He has such a big heart for his family it makes this Momma's heart happy.  I hope that he always continues on his convictions and doesn't care what others think about him or what makes him happy.  I love you little man.  You make me very proud.

He's in a boat with all his pals

Come on now... that's just cute

He went up and down the entire length of the stairs just on the little lip!

Styling in Mommas boots...

My sweet boy with his favorite pal in the world

Love him.

JVG

Lucy and the stairs

You know when you hear those certain sounds and you know that you can't get there fast enough?  This happened to be one of those instances.  Especially when it comes to kids you know the sounds they make when they're playing and having fun... and then you know the sounds that aren't natural.  Lucy was going upstairs to give Dude a treat and normally she is a champ on them.  I haven't had to worry about her going up the stairs (or down them for that matter) for quite some time.  But there was just something about today that wasn't jiving well.  I heard this all noise, followed by a very upset Goose.  I think mostly it scared her because, well, it's a scary sensation not having control over whats going on and falling!  She did however get her chin pretty good on the outside and she got the inside of her lip too.  She didn't bite through or anything so it was all purple, but she did rug burn her chin good enough that she was bleeding a bit.  She looked so dazed because she was just going upstairs to give Big Brother a treat.  She did get over it rather quickly, but it was a scary moment for me too!

You can almost see the extent of the damage on the inside here...

Her chin... it was actually looking really good considering she did it just the day before.

Sadfully, at my parents house she fell down the stairs again... not so far, but enough to rug burn her left cheek and part of her forehead.  Poor girly.  I'm thinking she was just getting tired, but still!  She hasn't done it since then, but still not happy for anybody.  And it's terrible because if anybody asks and you say, "She fell down the stairs..." sounds like an abuse cover up story! haha... ya know? But, we are glad that she is bouncing back so well, and hasn't fallen since.

JVG

Mall fun and Chipotle

After my lengthy Dr's appointment I was HUNGRY.  I had just had a discussion with my friend about the difference because Chipotle vs. Qdoba.  And since I knew there was one relatively close by I thought we'd give it a try.  She said her favorite thing about Chipotle was the rice... and honestly, at this particular location I wouldn't have even known it was lime-rice if it hadn't been described as so!  Looking back I think that overall Chipotle was fresher and spicier, but to me I don't think I would drive any farther to get it vs. Qdoba.  Being the scientist I am, I had to of course, try Qdoba the next day to compare.  ;)  The kids wanted 'Brocomoly' (guacamole) and chips and they seemed to really enjoy that.

She was charming up all the customers in there

She was also very interested in the light fixtures too

Yum yum!

After that we had some time to kill and they had been cooped up at my Dr's appointment all day so Gaetan thought it would be a good idea to let them run around.  We were close to the mall and in GR they have the play structures so we thought that we'd let them go there for a little while.  The one at Woodland may not have as much to do but at least I know the kids aren't going to sneak out of some weird exit that isn't supposed to be there and the kids are generally nicer at this structure.  Well, Gaetan was right.  I couldn't believe our kids!  They literally ran around in circles for the next 1.5 hours.  They didn't slow down at all.  It was really impressive.  I sat at one of the exits and then Gaetan watched the other one.  They had a blast... and it was good too because they needed to burn some energy!  We ended up having to leave because Lucy had to go to the bathroom and it was getting time to go because I had KPhil rehearsal... so it was perfect timing.

This was seriously the only picture we got because they were just constantly running!

It was really nice to see the kids having so much fun with something so simple!  :)

JVG

Sleds and snowball fights

Last weekend the kids really wanted to go out and play.. and the weather wasn't terrible so we thought, sure why not!  I was surprised that they only wanted to go sledding a handful of times, but after that they seemed done.  And, I don't know about you, but after all the work of getting them dressed (and myself for that matter!) in snow gear I was going to make it last a little longer.  Dude found the little carts that they liked to play with in the summer and tried to take that down the hill a few times... not very successful.  He told us it was because they didn't have their snowchains on the wheels... haha.  Then, while we were putting them back Gaetan thought it would be funny to start a snowball fight.  Well, in the end he definitely got his!  Lucy knocked him over while Dude took a huge chunk of snow and just plopped it right on his face. haha.  We stayed out there for quite some time having a lot of fun.  Lucy's mittens don't have thumbs on them so she would just walk right up to you and gently place snowballs on you.... where Dude on the other hand would come running at you full force and just wing one at you!  Lucky for Norah everybody was very considerate about making sure they didn't hit her... which meant, Momma's bunda got the brunt of most of the attacks!  And I was happy that I was able to finally go outside with them and play and do something other than be pathetic and watch from indoors.  And, I know that the fresh air did everybody good!  We had lots of fun until Lucy got a face full and then wasn't so excited about being out doors anymore... so, of course, all good snow outtings must end in hot chocolate... :)

Papa and Goose warming up by the fire

I thought it was very sweet... she would hold her hands out too and then rub them together haha

My awesome impromptu snow pants... not just anybody can pull that off!  haha

JVG

Lucy our silly Goose

This post is pretty much all the misc pictures I have taken of Lucy because I think she's adorable and does funny things.  There really isn't a rhythm or reason to them, other than I think that everybody should be able to share in her cuteness and quarks.  :)

Her sense of style

Getting her hair done after bath time

Princess Lucy... she wanted to be wrapped up in her blanket

LOVE THIS SMILE

Hanging out with Papa during bathrime

She was 'cooking' me eggs and wanted to try some herself

We always have a jolly good time together

She got a hold of Gaetan's coffee from tutoring... don't worry, there wasn't anything in it

She thought whatever was in there had to have been yummy! Getting them hooked early

Playing some Final Fantasy with Papa haha

She was having a snack and sharing it with Baby

Bending over backwards

She clearly wanted to watch a show as she climbed up to get the remote

Another Lucy fashion statement... all in big brother's clothes

She loved the english muffin toast and jam... Why so serious?  haha

They were doing the sit n spin together and she had the play knife...

This pictures makes me think that she is such a little girl and not a baby anymore....

Their car ride to 'Narnia' and she was taking her pals

Lucy the scientist 

Lucy the chef

Having some breakfast before Narnia

Wearing the chef hat

She looks way cuter in my hat 

I love this little smile

Just another typical day... riding a donkey...

She wanted to be carried around like this.... and the most impressive part was she used her ab of steel (that's right, singular ab) to sit all the way back up!

Chillin' at Barnes and Noble

She was getting an airplane ride from Papa and LOVED it

She was celebrating and saying EEE YEAH! as she fist pumps the air

My parents house is cold but I wouldn't go THIS far of needing a blanket on the potty...

JVG