Our New Play Structure

Scottie's done it again. He's built something amazing for our family. This time I think he's outdone himself. The first week in April was his Spring Break. He spent the entire vacation building the kids a new play structure. He did an amazing job. The first day was spent clearing the spot in our woods which was no small feat considering how dense the underbrush, shrubbery and vines were. The next step was to dig huge holes, plant the first posts and pour in the cement to anchor the posts. Once again, Tom helped Scott with a lot of the building, Diane helped out with childcare. Thanks so much Dendi and Bapa! Eli got in on the fun a little too, he helped with the mixing and pouring of the cement.



The first exciting day for the kids was the slide day. Once Daddy had built the platform and made the ladder he attached the slide quickly so that the kids could get a little taste of their new play area. Both Scottie and I didn't want Eli to outgrow the play structure too quickly. With that in mind, he made the slide as steep as he could. He did a good job, too -- it is FAST! You can see just how fast the slide is by our expressions at the bottom of the slide. Pure joy.





Besides installing a super steep slide to keep the kids' interest, Scottie also put in a vertical climbing wall for a challenge. Eli can already climb it, but he has to work at it, and he prefers having a spotter.


Finally, on Sunday April 24th (this post has been a LONG time in the making!) Scottie built a roof for the play structure and added small rocks under the play structure and the little picnic table. Incidentally, the little picnic table is one of Eli's favorite features. He can bring a snack or an activity (yahtzee, a puzzle, coloring or a maze), sit at the little table and stay close to Keira and I while I push her in the swing. My favorite part about the table is that it keeps Eli close to the action and he usually ends up playing on the structure rather than working on his sedentary task. Here's a photo of our beautiful, completed play structure.

Fire Station Field Trip

Last Wednesday, Keira and I accompanied Eli to his final field trip of the year to the fire station. On Tuesday night, I said to Scott, "I'm taking two children to the fire station tomorrow who are terrified of fire trucks and fire fighters. What am I doing?!?" Fortunately, we survived. In fact, Eli did exceptionally well. Despite being somewhat timid when we first arrived, once he settled in with "his person" Mandy, he was good to go. One of my favorite things about his preschool is the ratio, with all the highschool helpers, it's nearly one on one. On field trips, specifically, it is one on one. Each high schooler signs up for one of the preschoolers. It's amazing, and particularly helpful in a situation like the fire station. Here's Eli with his "person" Mandy at the beginning of the tour.



Thank goodness for Mandy! Keira was miserable the entire time at the fire station, which left me very little time to make sure Eli was okay. When we first arrived, she was overwhelmed with the amount of people (probably around fifty) in a small room. Then, once the fire fighter started to speak she was done. I tried stepping outside a few times, but with Eli being in a place he's always been terrified of, I felt like I couldn't abandon him. The best I could do for Keira was to try to stay a few paces away from the huge group, keep her safely tucked into the sling and try to soothe her the best that I could. Once again, I'm so grateful for the sling! After about twenty minutes she was so exhausted she fell fast asleep in the sling and slept for the duration of the tour.

As I said before, I was extremely impressed with Eli. He stayed with Mandy the whole tour, but didn't talk about being scared at all. Yet, he wasn't enthusiastic about the tour either. After the fire station, the kids were heading to Jump To It. Eli was VERY eager to leave, and move on to the enjoyable part of the field trip. Here are a few pictures of my brave boy at the fire station.

Story Time!

Keira's favorite time of the week, by far, is story time! She starts talking about it at the beginning of the week, and on Thursday morning I motivate her to leave Eli's preschool by telling her it's Story Time. When she talks about Story Time she says, "sing songs", "blow bubbles", "read books", and she's just added one more to her favorite list -- "typing."

When we first arrive at the library for Story Time, it's playtime. The librarian has scattered toys around the room and it's time for the kids to play and the parents to referee and chat. When we first started frequenting Story Time regularly at the beginning of the year, she was nearly glued to my lap. Now, she's brave and often plays for long chunks of time across the room from me. Sometimes she does pick up a toy and bring it back to the comfort of my lap. On March 17th, Grammie accompanied us to Story Time which meant she could take loads of pictures while I participated. Thanks Grammie!


After playtime, the librarian comes in the room, puts out the tub to collect the toys and starts singing a little "Clean Up" tune. The kids who are familiar with the routine, including Keira, rush to put their toys in the tub and run around to collect the rest of the toys, too. They know that they will be rewarded for their cleaning up with bubbles. So smart! The bubbles usually distract the kids enough so that no one is crying over the toy they had to part with.

After bubbles, the librarian hands out books to the kids, and most of the kids come back to their parent's laps to read. Of course, since these kids are LITTLE there are always a few who are aimlessly wandering around the room or climbing on the furniture instead of listening to the stories. Keira, and Eli for that matter, have always been good about following the routine. In fact, both of my kids have always been such avid "readers" that we usually finish our book and look around for someone to swap books with.


After reading, the librarian walks around the room and collects the books while we sing "You Are My Sunshine." Sometimes, Keira is so eager to give her book to the librarian that she'll leap out of my lap and run towards her with her book in her outstretched hand. After "You Are My Sunshine", we sing "Twinkle Twinkle". In this picture you can see Keira making a diamond out of her fingers just like the librarian does.


After singing several songs while seated including "The Wheels on the Bus", "Old McDonald", "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Where is Thumpkin?" and "Hickory Dickory Dock" as well as listening to a few stories we stand up and sing some songs.


The standing songs include "If You're Happy and You Know It" as well as "I'm a Little Teapot." I love my little tipping teapot!


After tipping like a teapot, she boogies to the "Hokey Pokey."



Finally, the librarian sings a good bye song and ends it by saying good bye to each one of the kids with a little tummy tickle. All the kids wait patiently, yet eagerly for her to come to them.



Keira always giggles and smiles wildly during and after her goodbye tickle.



Just recently, Keira added a new favorite activity to her Story Time repertoire, it's what she calls "typing". She sits at one of the little computer desks outside of the Story Time room once Story Time has finished. She's always loved sitting in any little chair that is her size. Once seated, she does her best interpretation of one of us on the computer. Her fingers whiz over the keys...



Then, she interrupts her typing with occasional clicks of the mouse.



Sometimes I'm not sure who enjoys Story Time more, Keira or I. Obviously she loves participating, but I love watching her. It's so special to have a certain time each week to watch my baby girl do what she loves to do best -- sing songs. :)

Sunday School and Angel Choir

A couple months ago, I wrote that at the Christmas Eve service we watched the Angel Choir sing. After watching them sing, Eli was interested in joining. Since then, he's gone most Sunday evenings from 4:15-5:00 to the Angel Choir practice. Scott drives him and says that Eli seems pretty quiet during the practices, but I'll catch him singing the songs all around the house. He must be listening during the practices. Eli was immediately enamored with the Angel Choir leader Ms. Jean. When he found out Ms. Jean leads the four-year old Sunday School class he got interested in going to that, too. Therefore, for many weeks, Grammie has brought him to Sunday School in the morning and Scottie has driven him to Angel Choir in the evening. He's becoming quite a church regular. This morning I overheard Eli talking to Keira about God. Keira has a board book called "Thank You God." Eli told her the title of the book and repeated it a few times until she repeated it back to him. Then he said, "Keiwa, God is always with us. That's why I go to Sunday School and Angel Choir." I guess it's all sinking in.

Here's a picture of Eli eating his snack at Sunday School on February 27th.

Zoo Atlanta

Thanks to a generous Christmas gift from Brian and Kathryn, we have a family membership to the zoo for the year. It's awesome, we've been a few times now and I'm sure we'll go many more, especially now that the weather is beautiful. :) At first, taking two kids to the zoo took a little getting used to, but now it seems like we've established something of a rhythm. We start out all together, and usually hit the playground first. It's especially important to get to the playground early, as it gets crowded and a little crazy as the day wears on. Since Eli is now a few years older he tried all of the play equipment, even some of the tricky climbing stuff. While Keira spent a lot of time walking around, getting her bearings and watching the older kids.



Next, we usually head to the carousel, where Scottie snapped a few of the kids with their matching mouse hats. He joked that we could easily say that we took these photos at Disney. I thought Eli's zoo sticker might give it away. Incidentally, Eli was a gracious big brother and that allowed us to get these photos. He was happily situated on one of the animals that goes up and down, but when Keira sat on the large bench instead, Eli came over to sit near his baby sister. :)



After the carousel, we all head to the train. Then after a few rotations of train, carousel, train, carousel we usually split up. The girls head for some animal time, while the boys continue a rotation of the playground, train and carousel with a little of the mole tunnels thrown in for good measure. During one of our split up times, Eli took the camera and snapped this serious self portrait on the train.



After which, Scottie grabbed the camera and took this silly one.

Dinner with Grammie and Babo

I am still LOVING our new house. As the days get warmer and more and more beautiful we are now enjoying our new yard, too. On one of the first warm days this winter, we invited Grammie and Babo over for dinner. Entertaining at our new house is infinitely easier and more relaxing. Grammie got some great pictures of the kids, which is a good thing since I've been falling down on my photographer duties a bit lately.

First, here's Keira showing off her driving skills on the golf cart and her excitement in her new backyard. Interestingly, the girl is obsessed with driving. She asks for my keys when I'm strapping her into her carseat. After playing with them, she says seriously, "Keira drive!"



As for Eli, Grammie caught him with a fairly serious expression at the computer. The boy seems to be always into printing something off the computer. Lately, it's been cryptograms and if you look on the desk next to him in this picture, crossword puzzles. Scottie created a crossword puzzle for Eli with picture clues that he can do mostly unassisted.



After dinner, Grammie snapped a joyful boy sorting and eating his M&Ms. Nothing can bring on an Eli smile quite like chocolate!

Grammie's Birthday Dinner

I've been away from the blog for a long time... I've been getting my Zumba on during my free time, but mostly the earthquake, tsunami and ensuing nuclear crisis in Japan threw me for a loop. I have a friend from Junior High, Mika, who lives in Tokyo. I offered to have her come stay with us in Georgia until things settled down. But, she decided to stay put. With all of my nervous energy I decided to go through old pictures. It let me reminisce about safer, happier times with Mika. Thankfully, the situation in Japan seems to slowly be getting better, and all my old pictures posted on facebook were a hit with a lot of my old friends. Now, I think I'm ready to get back to the blog...

On February 4th, we celebrated Grammie's birthday at Outback. Unfortunately, because of her back flaring up, Seana was unable to come. But, we did get to spend the evening with Grammie, Babo, Uncle Brian and Ms. Kathryn.





We also got a great picture of the four of us.


All told, we spent over two hours at Outback, and Eli's behavior stunk. To try to keep him occupied and out of any further trouble, Grammie loaned Eli her camera. He took quite a few pictures, these are a couple of my favorites -- a self portrait and one with Kathryn. Eli loves Kathryn, we saw her the other night, and he calls her the best hider in Hide and Seek.