Fall Fun

Um, they didn't list the amount of yard work needed in the fall as part of the real estate listing for this place.  Apparently there is an advantage to not having a yard like all of our neighbors but we wouldn't know about that.  The amount of leaves in our side yard is insane and Matt has the callouses on his hands from the leaf blower to prove it.  To be fair, he's raked a time or two as well.  And the worst part of all this?  Our town is supposed to come by and pick up all the leaf piles pushed to the edge of the street and they haven't so our neighbor conveniently parks his lovely minivan in front of our yard instead of his own which already has leaf piles.  You better believe we'll get a jump start on raking next year so we can make sure to have the first piles and therefore less parking in front of our yard.  So there!  But the leaves are fun.  That is if you don't mind bugs and slugs!

 

The Look

We didn't think our little sassy girl had enough sass so we've been teaching her the look.  The look is a eyebrows furrowed and pouty lips.  Watch out boys! This little girl has the eyebrows down but the pouty lips turns into a cute little smirk.  Here she is practicing at the mall with her pink ice cream with rainbow sprinkles:

Here's the same look from about a year ago...and I think she did it a little better then:

And not a great pic but here is one from today:

Halloween 2012

Candy, candy, candy!  Ay, yi, yi.  Truth = a cute face in a costume is still cute while grabbing handfuls of candy.  I think that I could probably save 50% of the candy collected this year to hand out next year and L and A wouldn't even notice.  I have to say, I have the cutest black cat and grey mouse out there.  After we did a nice little block tour, we came back to the house to hand out candy - which the kids loved doing.  I could tell that there was a little concern on Luke's face about the quickly disappearing candy from the bowl so I kept reminding him he had an entire army's worth of candy in his bag.

Some highlights from this Halloween:

• Adrienne dragging her heavy candy bag but refusing to let anyone help her
• Adrienne's obsession with having every color of glow stick in her hands
• Luke's crying because Adrienne had all of the glow sticks
• Luke's makeup artistry of drawing dripping blood from my vampire teeth

Pumpkin Patch 2012

We've been going to a pumpkin patch of some kind religiously since October 2007 and this year was no different.  It's amazing that each year, this pilgrimage doesn't get old.  Who knew kids loved pumpkins so much?  Ok, so I'm not that dense,  I've realized it isn't the orange globes full of gooey gunk that attract them like flies but rather the petting zoos, the bouncing pillows, the corn mazes, the teepees, the popcorn, the apples  and the hayrides that keep us coming back for more.  And for Adrienne, one of this year's attractions was the mud.  Well, the mud was just a bonus, what she really loved were the stinky animals.  Donkeys and llamas and goats and sheep - she loved em' all.  She wanted to feed them her popcorn but they had strict rules against that.

Now, Luke on the other hand liked the teepees with the carved jack-o-lanterns and the hayride.  Of course, the pumpkin patch squeaked more money out of us for the hayride but how do you say no to the kid who loves anything with wheels.  He was happy as a clam sitting on the hay bales on the wagon with Uncle Nick.  

Now for the orange things - Luke could have cared less about the actual pumpkins while Ade was busy piling the wagon with "the baby ones."  We now have an unusually lopsided display of small and medium sized pumpkins.  The good news is that at least Luke is excited about using his tools on the pumpkins - hoping it doesn't look like a murder scene when we are done carving.  

Kindergarten

Well folks, it’s come and gone already, the milestone of sending the first born off to Kindergarten.  And we survived it.  We did more than survive it, we rocked it.  I was almost creating a pshychosomatic response to the event based on the horrors that I’ve heard but when it came down to it, we’ve already been thru the “new experience” phase with Luke so many times that no drama was needed.  I think the reason it went so smoothly was because Luke was so excited to go to school and he’s been in school for 2 years already, this was just a new school.  Now maybe if he hadn’t already done 2 years of pre-school and a full summer of off-site day camp (complete with bus riding) things might have been different but Luke is used to this sort of thing.  I’m used to this sort of thing.    We’ve exposed our little offspring to multiple life experiences and changes in their young lives and I really do think it improves their adapting skills.  A new bus?  New friends?  A new classroom with new books, toys, art supplies?  A new playground?  These are exciting things to a 5 year old. 

It also helped that the school and Ms. Tantillo, his teacher did a nice job of distracting both parents and children alike from thinking that they were about to be separated.  Luke and I walked into his classroom and were given a handout with 6 tasks that needed to be completed – each one taking at least 10 minutes and by the time we completed them, it already felt like we knew the classroom.  He was happily playing with 2 other boys and the teacher building something out of blocks when I was exiting the room.  He was happy to give me a kiss and a hug and send me on my way so he could discover all that his classroom had to offer.  So far, he loves school.  And the cutest thing – he came home with an art project based of the Kissing Hand book for us and his teacher had given him a Hershey kiss  - she clearly knows the way to a Kindergartener’s heart!

Two nights ago I was putting Luke to down to sleep for the night and we were talking about school and he asked when he gets to go to college. Let’s get thru Kindergarten first pal, this momma will never be ready for you to go to college.  I’ll have to reread this entry again in 13 years when the event comes to see if I still feel the same way…hehe J  And another quick thought about this – yes, people get emotional about sending their child off to Kindergarten because it does “bookmark” and highlight the fact that they are getting older and farther away from babyhood and also that you are getting older. But you know what – I have this feeling every.single.day of my life.  Every time he learns something new, every time he wants to do something on his own that I used to do for him, and the list goes on.  So maybe I’m different, I torture myself and carpe diem every day, not just the day he goes to Kindergarten. 

So here he is – the big man on campus!

Ade - Birthday #2

We had a great time celebrating Ade's 2nd birthday - a party at our new house on Memorial Day weekend.  To be honest, Ade split the honor as co-host with Luke since we did a combined birthday party along with a housewarming party.  Luckily we had a nice day and could accommodate everyone outside.  The party started at 2:00 pm and the last guests left at 10:00 pm.  At 2 years old, Ade is in the 94th percentile for height and in the 77th percentile for weight.  She's feisty and affectionate all at the same time following her brother's example of adding a bit of flare to life.  She receive many great gifts and some very fashionable clothing but her favorite presents (no shocker here) seemed to be her bangle bracelets and bead necklaces.  A girl after my own heart!  I see some very expensive birthdays in the future :)

Canandaigua Montessori School Graduation - 5.31.2012

Success!  Luke made it through 2 years of preschool and we couldn't have asked for a better experience for him.  CMS was good to Luke, his skills improved dramatically from when he started until the end.  I'm just astounded that Luke is walking out of preschool with reading skills under his belt.   Now Graduation was an experience.  The only way to describe it was that Luke was totally "Luke."  His class sang 3 songs on stage.  During the first song, Luke had to go to the bathroom and was thus escorted off and back on stage.  During the second song, Luke swayed side to side and held up his shirt for the audience to see his belly.  He may have been doing some lip syncing in there at some point.  During the 3rd song, Luke was supposed to give to title of the song to the audience via microphone.  Well, he decided he didn't really want to do that.  Next, was the crossing over the bridge ceremony.  Luke was the first one in his class to go.  He hesitated, then finally ran across the bridge and dove into the arms of his teacher for a goodbye hug.  What can I say, at least he adds some flare.

We are sad to be leaving Canandaigua Montessori school behind but it is Luke's time for his rite of passage.  Of the 9 children in Luke's class, all but one are heading off to Kindergarten next year.  It's a scary thought but Luke is more than ready for the next step - Council Rock Primary School!

Struggle, I mean Stroll for Strong Kids

On June 2, 2012, we participated in a fund raiser for Strong Memorial Hospital's Children's Center.  We "walked" for a co-worker of Matt's who lost his five year old daughter to Leukemia about a year ago.  While our team was walking in memoriam, there were so many teams there walking for successful miracle stories as well.  I noticed a lot of families walking for preemies and their t-shirts had pictures of their babies with all the NICU gear on and then a saying such as "Proud NICU Graduate."  While most of those families had their itty bitty babies in strollers, our own NICU graduate was racing through the crowds on his scooter, cutting off people left and right.  If only those parents of the itty bitties knew...

And so our "stroll," turned out to be more of a "struggle."  Matt and I took turns reminding Luke to put his helmet on and yelling "slow down, watch out, stop!"  In the mean time, big girl was relentlessly attempting to evade the grasp of the stroller, pretending to be tortured.  Ok, so we let little miss out to walk and she goes about 10 yards and then, stops.  Allowing the rest of the crowd to just miss running her over.  Repeat 10 more times.  You get the idea.  On and off, Luke would ride the scooter, ride the skateboard attachment to the stroller or walk.  At one point we thought we had both minions happy and even grabbed them each an apple to snack on.  And thus, our next challenge presented itself.  No more than one chomp into the apple, Luke loses his first tooth.  Impeccable timing.  You can imagine the drama than ensued. "Am I bleeding?"  "Can I see the tooth?"  "Let me try to get another one out."  Ok, so we settle the tooth drama and then the stars aligned (j.o.k.i.n.g) and both kids started alternating melt downs.  We had to "pull over" at least six times.  At this point, I start questioning wether I should have ever attempted parenthood as my blood pressure spikes through the roof of my head.  And then I remembered.  That there were parents there who would give their own lives to have their child there throwing a fit.  And so we finished the "stroll," if you will, and headed to the car, bypassing all the bounce houses, face painters and balloons.  Maybe next year, we'll have a different experience but at least we got to experience it with our NICU grad and his crazy baby sister.

On another note, I'm happy to report that the tooth fairy came through for Luke.  He pocketed $2 and the best part is, the money gave him a taste for wanting to earn more.  He's started offering to make our bed for payment.  We'll just ignore those child labor laws.

Lukey Turns 5

As Luke's birthdays go, this one was full of activities and special treats as usual!  A day of fun riding his new scooter with the neighborhood kids, sports in the yard, Friendly's dinner AND huge sundae, bowling with cousins, Kids Night at the Y and presents!  The big mile stone was certainly celebrated with enthusiasm by all.  Kindergarten, here we come!