Friday, May 28, 2010

Our Graduate

Megan has attended the Little Red School House for the last three years, first as a pre-schooler and this year in their kindergarden class (their last year). Memorial Day weekend marked the end of school and "graduation" from kindergarden.

Teacher Bethany, Megan and her ill-placed diploma.

The irony is that Megan will be repeating kindergarden in the public school next year because she is not old enough for first grade. Sadly all of her friends will be moving on. But in the end we think it will be good for Megan's social confidence when she is no longer six months younger than all of her peers. So we are looking forward to another great year of kindergarden next year.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Enchanted Forest

To celebrate the end of the School Year, Little Red School House took a trip to Enchanted Forest. Just like pretty much every day this May, it was wet and dreary, but that didn't stop the kids from having fun.
Megan, second from left.
Don't they look excited??
Mac teaches the kids how to ride the Frog Hopper. Oooh, Honey, you are SO brave!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Stay At Home Mom

On May 14th, Mac left for a 10 day fishing trip in Alaska with JD. That left me in the role of single parent and stay at home mom. This is not my typical role, something that must've worried Mac a bit so he left me an itinerary of the kids activities so I wouldn't screw up too badly.

Anxious to prove my super mom status and to support a local event, our Dad-less family headed to Riverfront park for the official re-opening of the Union Street Bridge. The free event was a great one for the kids. They got a passport and we travelled around the park to nine different areas collecting stamps (and treats).

It was a gorgeous day to be out walking in the park. And the kids were getting along so well.
Yeah, it is all hugs and smiles, all day every day...NOT!

The bridge, now with a new lead free finish!
Collecting stamps. Megan refused to ask the lady at the first stop by herself, but Liam was all over it. Then Megan complained that it wasn't fair that Liam got to go first.
Stop #4: The Tom McCall statue. Kind of looks more like Tom Sawyer.
The Acid Ball. The kids got Tootsie Rolls at this stop. Then the old lady says,"I have something for you, too, Mom." and then she hands me a free pen! Now that isn't fair. I thought about punching her in the nose and stealing the bag of Tootsie Rolls, but I figured that wouldn't be a very good example of the "No Hitting" rule in our household. So instead I told the kids they had to share. So many great lessons in just one little stop.
The Pavilion stop had cookies and lemonade, which even the adults could have so we hit this stop twice.
The whole loop was over a mile and a half, so the kids got a little tired of walking. We stopped at the park so they could run, jump and climb, in order to give them a rest.
The last stop on the passport was the Carousel and the completed passport earned us a free ride. For the first time ever, I rode a horse instead of standing next to Liam to make sure he didn't fall off.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. I was pretty sure most stay at home moms must be closet alcoholics, but I wasn't even tempted by the liquor cabinet once. In fact, the week was great fun and I really enjoyed having so much time to spend with the kids. I even got them to school on time! Of course, they were super excited to have their Daddy back and I was excited to get to use the bathroom by myself for the first time in ten days!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Easter

Sure Easter was four weeks ago, but Easter is a weird holiday with the timing so dependent on the lunar cycle. So this is really the moon's fault, because if the moon had been more co-operative this post would have been right on time!

Anyway, Saturday morning we headed to the local church for the Easter egg hunt. The day was off and on stormy, but with me stepping into a church it was amazing lightning didn't strike! This particular hunt has many great qualities, namely it is close, it is free, it has donuts, and it has the highest egg density I have ever seen! The church was a little chintzy with the chocolate this year, but times are lean, so I will forgive them.

I tried to find a donation box to slip some money into to assuage my guilt for crashing this Christian shin-dig, but there was none to be found. I even asked someone about it, but he waved me off and suggested I come to the Easter service instead. Fortunately, God knows it is the thought that counts.

The hunt started a little late, so we had been standing out in the bone chilling cold for about 25 minutes before they got moving and Liam was really complaining about the cold. Maybe if the kid had an ounce of body fat instead of hanging out in the 10th percentile for weight, this wouldn't be such an issue.
Anyway, the hunt set off and Megan ambled around, picking up an egg, walking 20 feet, picking up another, and then walking off to another corner for one more egg, when 20 eggs could have been had just by standing in one place and throwing all the eggs within reach into the bag. Liam picked up about six eggs, and then said they were "too chilly to pick up" but I told him to pick up two more and then threw a couple into the bag for him because I didn't want my kid to be the only loser who couldn't get to a double digit accumulation. We warmed up by eating another complimentary donut.

When we got home, we took off all of our wet, soggy clothes and the kids got into their Easter finest for some egg dying.

All decked out for Easter eggs

While in the appropriate garb, we proceeded to make cookies, because the kids would not have gotten enough sugar if we didn't make baked goods. I don't really get the whole cookie cutter thing. I mean, why go to all that trouble for something you know you are going to burn your tongue on because you are going to eat them before you even give them a chance to cool? Fortunately, I have mad MacGyver skills that can one up Martha any day. I smashed the Pilsbury loaf (what you don't think we made cookies from scratch do you?) into an oval shape, and sliced egg cookies for the kids to decorate. Ta-dah!

The oven had the last laugh, because the cookies kind of came out round instead of oval. The kids didn't seem to notice.

Sunday, the bunny left lots of eggs for the kids to find and Easter baskets. The eggs had candy, but the Easter baskets had non-candy treats, including juice boxes, fruit snacks (those are practically candy!), yogurt covered pretzels and dried fruit. My poor kids with their health crazed parents are barely getting an adequate portion of refined sugar and red-dye #5.
And then the last hurrah: The Treasure Hunt! This is what Easter is all about. And now that Megan can read, the Easter Bunny was able to send the kids running all over the house chasing clues, making them "look in the dryer" in "look on the refrigerator" while Mac and I sat in the living room drinking coffee.
But never fear (for my soul), because I did learn Earth shaking religious info this Easter. Did you know that the Immaculate Conception had NOTHING to do with Jesus! Nothing! I was so shocked by this I actually spent some of Easter reading about it and not just the Wikipedia article (although that was the majority of it). Now anytime somebody makes an immaculate conception joke, I will laugh - not at the joke but instead at the joke teller's heathen ignorance!

It was a very good Easter, indeed.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Great Wolf Weekend




Oops. Just realized I never posted this. We went up to Great Wolf Lodge for the weekend of April 24-25. It is a humongous hotel in BFE, well BFW (Washington) anyway.

We played for hours on Saturday and then had bedtime songs from a singing tree in the lobby. Sunday Mac did it all again while I turned into a race gremlin. Then just to make sure we were fully pickled with chlorine, we spent the rest of Sunday evening in the water park.



The kids had a fantastic time and were getting pretty brave at the end. I think this will be Megan's year to learn to swim!

Awesome Weekend!

Like many other weekends, this one mostly revolved around running, but this time, not mine!

The kids did the Awesome 3000 on Saturday and Mac rocked his first marathon, clocking a 3:46 in Eugene! More details here.
Ready to run!
Liam cheers Megan on and keeps hoping for a high five.

Mac and his finisher's medal

I am pretty sure the marathon robbed Mac's brain of necessary glucose, because he was WAY to excited about the space blanket: "These things are amazingly warm!"