4 Cute Kids

Yikes!

Amanda — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:39:06 +0000

Lately I’ve been trying to catch up on years of scrapbooking. I’m very behind but that’s okay. I’d like catch up on Hannah’s birthdays 6-8 this weekend if I can. Like I said I’m very behind. Anyway I needed some supplies and went to Michaels to get some. I did that came home and instead of scrapbooking I cleaned the laundry room. Usually the top of our Dryer gathers everything that we doesn’t have a home, or we are too lazy to put away at the moment. It was beginning to pile up so high that there was strategy involved in putting stuff on the top. Anyway the laundry room is tidy now. Of course it’s not my dream laundry room, but at least it’s tidy, stuff has a home and we can walk through it without tripping over something.

Hubby took to finishing up his chore of cleaning the window wells today. Over the past few years he’s been in school. So between that and family and relaxing time we just put off some of the unimportant maintenance of the home. Actually I guess it’s all important. Anyway…cleaning the window wells was just one of those things that never got done. We also bought some rock to put at the bottoms of them so the dirt doesn’t fly up onto the windows and get the so dirty so quickly.

Trying something new

Amanda — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:50:30 +0000

I’ve decided to try something new. I’ve been on blogspot.com for a few months and thought I’d try my blogging hand at wordpress. I’m not sure why and we’ll see how it goes.

Learning letters

Amanda — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:41:00 +0000

So my latest undertaking is to prepare our 5 year old for Kindergarten. He is smart as a whip and comes up with deep and creative thoughts. He is very outgoing and social and has no problem making friends. He has a wonderfully creative imagination and can entertain himself for hours. As far as the academic stuff goes (you know – reading, writing, arithmetic) he has it in him just waiting to come out. It’s in there. We know it is. We just need to find the “on switch.” That thing that makes it all click. We know that he will get it and kindergarten is the place for that. Kindergarten has changed so much since I was a kid. I remember learning about sharing, playing in the sand table, coloring at the tables and doing paper mache’.

We went to the kindergarten information meeting and they would like kids to know how to write their name before they come to school. That’s fine. Kenan is progressing and learning. But the fact that I’m mom, and he is very independant makes for a struggle at times. Then since it’s no going how I envision, I worry and think to myself, maybe we are making the wrong decision. But slowly I am reminded that he is only 5 and it’s kindergarten for crying out loud! It’s not the SATs. I am also reminded that his big brother was in the same spot academically before he entered Kindergarten as well and by the end of the school year he was reading and writing more than his name! Kenan will get there, I just need to rest in that and not fret about everything else.

My prayer for today is that God would give me patience and gentleness, and that I would see the progress Kenan is making rather than what he hasn’t attained. After all it is only kindergarten, not the SATs.

By the way, today we are reviewing Kk, Ee, and learning Aa.

Strawberry picking

Amanda — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:52:00 +0000

Yesterday our family went Strawberry Picking. It was a lot of fun. I used to go as a kid and thought it would be a great thing to do while hubby had a couple days off. We went to Lorence’s Berry Farm. We spent about an hour there and we picked about 17 lbs of berries. Kenan picked 1lb, Timmy picked 2 lbs, Hannah 3 3/4 lbs, Jeff 3 1/2 lbs, and I picked 7 lbs. Lucy and Micah spent their time wandering around and helping put berries in the buckets. Lucy and Kenan chowed on berries as well. We came home and began washing, slicing and eating fresh picked strawberries. I tried making a pie crust. It took me 4 times to finally get it right. Jeff and Hannah made two runs to the store to buy ready made pie crusts. I made 2 pies and they turned out delicious. The home made crust was from my Betty Crocker cookbook and the pie filling recipe was from a website I found. I gave that pie to my in-laws along with a bag of strawberries. The 2nd pie we kept and we still have 1/2 of it. It’s so yummy! As a kid picking strawberries, all we did was help my mom pick the berries. Then we came home and she made jam while we sat outside eating a bucket of berries. I didn’t realize that it’s such a big deal and an all day process. What a fun thing to do as a family though!

silly boy

Amanda — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:44:00 +0000

Last week Micah wanted to take a nap on the floor, so we put the crib mattress down on the floor for him to nap on. I figured that if he was really ready for a big boy bed, this was a good way to get him used to it, before buying a big boy bed. That way if he doesn’t like it, he can just go back to sleep in his crib. Well, nap time went perfectly. Bedtime comes along and we gave him a choice and he chose to sleep on the floor again, so we kept the mattress on the floor for him. About 2 am I heard a couple thumps on the floor so I went up to check on Micah. I thought the thumps were Micah walking around so when I found that he wasn’t on the mattress or next to it, I started to look though the entire house. I got worried but for no reason. I knew no one broke into the house and I knew Micah couldn’t get out of the house, so I knew he was somewhere in the house. Suddenly it dawned on me to look under the crib. After looking through the house. Why didn’t I think of that first?! I looked and saw a little tiny hand peeking out from under the crib. I lifted up the dust ruffle and there he was laying perfectly parallel with the crib under it. The thumping I heard was Micah bumping his head up and down on the floor. He usually does that on the mattress when he’s trying to fall asleep. So I put the mattress in the crib and put him in the crib. I would’ve taken a picture but it was 2 am, I was tired, and I didn’t want the flash to wake him or Kenan. It was quite cute!

Oh, Kids…they attempt to be so convincing.

Amanda — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:48:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I was at Target with Kenan and I let him pick out a box of popsicles. He picked a box of ice age popsicles. The kids were so excited until they bit into them and found a gooey center. Needless to say, the rest of the box went uneaten. Fast forward a couple weeks. I threw the popsicles out, and last night Timmy comes and tells me that he wants to try them again. Apparently he saw a commercial advertising these very popsicles and the gooey part is supposed to be an acorn. So you didn’t like them to begin with, but now that there is a gooey “acorn” in them that means you will like them? Hmmmm…..I’m not buying it.

About a week ago, Kenan was sitting on the couch upstairs Jeff. Kenan really wanted to go downstairs and watch cartoons. Jeff said “No Kenan. How about we stay up here and cuddle for a bit?” Kenan, who was very disappointed, said in his most convincing and enticing voice, ” well, papa, did you know there is a big soft comfy couch downstairs?” It still didn’t work but hey, he tried.

The other day Kenan was at the dining room table playing starwars guys. He uses his imagination which is awesome, and he had his crocodile playing as well. Lucy came up to see what Kenan was doing and Kenan and her conversation went something like this:

Kenan to Lucy: “Lucy do you want to kiss the crocodile?” Lucy just stares at Kenan. Kenan in his best enticing voice, “You’ll turn into a princess. If you kiss this crocodile, you’ll turn into a beautiful Princess Leia.”

Way to Go Timmy!!

Amanda — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:12:00 +0000

Last night I went to Timmy’s baseball game. He plays on the Yankees team and they are undefeated with 2 ties. Timmy is the only kid on the team who hasn’t hit the ball…until last night! Don’t get me wrong – he’s gotten on base plenty by really watching the ball and walking, but no hits. Last night the first ball was way outside and he didn’t swing. The next swing he smacked that ball so hard, it soared to shortstop! It wasn’t a grounder or pop fly. It was a solid hit and he singled to first. Awesome! To be honest, every time he gets up to bat I’m probably more nervous than he his. If Timmy strikes out he just happily walks to the dugout. When he walks he casually brings his bat to the dug out and sets it down. We have been telling him that he doesn’t need to do that, the coach will grab the bat. I really wasn’t expecting him to hit the ball at all last night. I was so surprised and happy and proud of him. I even had tears of joy because I was able to see him hit it! It was a wonderful moment. He had the biggest grin on his face too. I think the grin was a combination of happiness that he hit the ball, and excitement of going to Culvers afterward. We had told him that we would bring him to Culvers when he hit the ball. He stole second base and it was clear that he was the most excited player on the field.

After the game, I asked Timmy how he felt and he said that he didn’t even realize he hit the ball because he closed his eyes for second right when he hit it. Then he quick opened them and ran as fast he could to first base when he realized that he hit the ball! He said it was cool that Auntie Rachel and Uncle Aaron were there to see him hit the ball, but he said it would’ve been way cooler had his dad been there to see it. Jeff wasn’t feeling well so he stayed home with Kenan and Micah. Of all the games. Oh well, I’m that he will see Timmy hit the ball again.

Partied out!

Amanda — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:33:00 +0000

We threw a 5th a birthday celebration for Kenan this afternoon. This was the first time he’s had a party where he was able to invite friends, and he was so excited all day!! He invited 10 kids and 7 showed up: Aiden, Axl, Chloe, Daniel, Jacob, Jude, and Owen. With the exception of Jacob who is a good family friend, the rest of the kids were from Kenan’s preschool class. Hannah, Timmy, and Micah were great helpers! Micah helped by napping the entire time!! Hannah and Timmy played with the kids, helped fetch punch and cake, hand out the hats, help with scavenger hunt, and many other tasks. The weather was beautiful for the party so we had the entire party outside, with the exception of the all important potty breaks. Even the cake and ice cream was eaten outside. There were no clouds in the sky and the temp. was 77. I have to say the party turned out great for planning it on the fly, and not having an idea for decorations. I took the wait and see approach as Hannah and I drove to Party City where most everything is way over priced. I was not very good at planning ahead on this one. All I knew was that Kenan wanted a dinosaur party. I had no idea what I’d find for decorations, but once there had a blast picking out stuff, and my head was buzzing with ideas for decorating. Overall an awesomely fun, yet tiring day. What a success!!

Here is the pin the fossil dinosaur head on the skeleton game. The kids had a blast with it, and it ended up being a 6 headed dinosaur. It also provided a great back-drop for pictures with the birthday boy.
Here is where we hung the pinata. It had the pull strings so it was much safer than 5 year olds swinging a big stick at it. Each kid got to pull a string twice before the candy finally came out. We tried to find a dinosaur themed pinata but ended up getting a bull. None of the kids noticed so that was good.
Here is where we set the tables up. The card table didn’t have an umbrella, so to make it more festive looking, we tied balloons to little dinosaurs and used it as a center-piece.
We didn’t have another card table so we used our round table with an umbrella. We hung dinosaur decorations underneath the umbrella. We hung green streamers along the fence and used green table cloths to give the impression of a jungle. We used dinosaur printed napkins, orange plates, blue forks, and purple cups. Good bags were the pinata candy, dinosaur bookmarks, dinosaur pinball games, dinosaur finger puppets, and little barrels or pterydactls. The kids used little paper gift bags of green, blue, and red to collect their finds. We splurged on plastic explorer hats for each kid instead of the cardboard cone hats. The kids were explorers and went on a scavenger hunt for their prizes. As far as the activities mentioned above, they came in handy, but mostly the kids wanted to run and play around, which was fine by us. :-) Kenan unwrapped the presents, but we didn’t open the packages until all his friends left. We didn’t want pieces to get lost, toys to get broken, and feelings getting hurt. We told each child that we would try to have play dates later this summer so that they could each have a chance to play with Kenan individually. They were happy with that.

The cake was from target. I love the cakes from target! Something about the frosting makes them delicious! We also served punch. That was a big hit! The punch is really easy to make. It consists of hawaiian punch, and 7-up. You pour an equal amount of each into a punch bowl or pitcher and server. Simple and delicious!

Two things I learned:

For any person throwing a party for a bunch of 4-5 year olds, is to make sure you have a whistle. I did not have one, but I know it would’ve helped tremendously!!

Plan ahead. I think the party turned out great, but how much better it would’ve been had I planned ahead and thought about decorations, loot prizes and other fun stuff. I’m not complaining by any means, but I wish I would’ve thought further ahead on this. That’s okay though, as long as the birthday boy and his guests had a great time, nothing else matters!

Good try Kenan.

Amanda — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:14:00 +0000

Yesterday Hannah had her friend Emma over for the day. Kenan was being goofy and tried to get Hannah to open her door to let him in. When it didn’t work, He tried saying, “Hey Hannah. Can I please come in? It’s Hannah Montana.” Still didn’t work. What a nut.

Today is Kenan’s 5th birthday. He was born at 3:52 five years ago. Even with all the struggles and challenges that boy brings with him, these 5 years have gone by so fast. He is so funny and loves to do things to make people laugh. He is kind and sweet and usually has something very sweet to say, especially when it isn’t accompanied by the word poop. He is so smiley and cheerful and brightens my day. I can’t believe he is 5 today! This morning he came into our room and said “I’m 5 today!” Later, I asked him to get dressed since he was only in his underwear. Jeff said that he was going to wear his birthday suit. Kenan’s reply, “I don’t have a birthday suit.” I said “yes you do.” Kenan- “where is it, I can’t find it.” He was able to have a playdate with his friend Jacob today and they played so nicely! Kenan thought it made his birthday very special to have his good friend Jacob over to play.

Tonight Kenan has a t-ball game. I wonder what silly things he will do tonight. After his game we will have cake, and presents.

Some assembly required

Amanda — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:45:00 +0000

Why do toy companies make toys that need to be assembled? I have a problem with it for a couple different reasons…#1 patience to a 2 year old is a foreign concept! When I started to assemble his little people garage he threw a fit, because he wanted it NOW. #2 it never just goes together easily. It either has tons of tiny little screws that you have to screw into the toy, or there is one piece that just won’t fit right with the piece it’s supposed to. An no matter how hard you try you can’t fit it in there. Why can’t the instructions say that optional tools might be needed to pry the piece into place or something. Finally the garage was assembled and you could never tell that our 2 year old had ever thrown a massive fit.

I wonder… if you never tell a 2 year old that they are 2 will they not enter the terrible 2′s? All’s well that end well though. :-)

By the way this has only heightened my quest to find the ultimate assembly required toy for our niece when she turns 2. :-) Stay tuned…