Memory Lane

This past weekend, the boys and I drove into 'Bula to see family.  Have I mentioned yet how excited and grateful I am that we are so close now and can do a visit for a day?  Fabulous!  Anyways, this was a chance for the grandparents to see the kids and for the kids to play with their cousin Ciearra as Shelly came in to visit as well.

While the little ones played with Papa Dale and Nana, Shelly and I tackled the attic storage. We sorted and consolidated, ah, um, "stuff."  My goal was to see what was up there that could be sold at a garage sale, what could be shoved together in the same box to free up room, and what were items to come home.  My secret other goal was to force Shelly to go through her "stuff" 'cause that was what was mostly up there. 

There was success...and a few trips down memory lane :-)

We found a ton of barbies (Shelly's), Fisher Price toys (both of ours), Precious moments or something like that (Shelly's), a handful of books (Shelly's), some old highschool / college photos (Shelly's), old McDonald Happy meal toys (both of ours), random stuff animals (both of ours and some we couldn't remember), and a handful of odds and ends.  We laughed, we made "what the heck is that" faces, we found toys for our littles to play with, and we laughed some more.

In the end, we came out with at three full boxes of stuff for yardsale and emptied / consolidate 6 totes of "stuff."   Mom was excited to get some of her attic back.  I was excited to get some the empty totes to fill with my own "stuff" at our house!  Great job, Shelly,...Next time we tackle Dad's house!

Preschool

Within one week of working, Brian's hours were upped and he was being asked to come in between noon and three several days a week.  This left us with the puzzle of finding someone to watch the kiddos for an hour of two while we both were out working.  The little munchkins were just not quite trust-worthy enough to leave to their own devices :-)

I frantically made phone calls to several local daycare centers in the area.  However, just two actually even called back!  We had our fingers crossed that we would be able to get both boys into the same center and that it wouldn't cost too much.  I hoped that there would be some structure / preschool program for Tamlin and not just a full day of playing.

We struck it lucky and the local YMCA had openings for both boys.  Yes!  This center was recommended to us by our neighbor and I had visited the place earlier in the summer and quite liked the director.  Within 48hours, the boys had toured the place with Brian and I had submitted the paperwork.  The following week, they were both headed off to school for three days a week. 

Tamlin, of course, was ecstatic.  He is such a social butterfly and couldn't wait to play with other kids again.  Jude wasn't too sure what was going on.  I was worried that Jude wouldn't be too successful with the potty at a new place and that he would cry for Brian or me.  I knew Tamlin would be wonderful with his outgoing personality and love of making friends.  Brian was leery that he would miss the boys too much.

So...what happened?

The boys did fine


Jude's teacher say that he is fine with not missing his parents, eating most of his meals, and is sleeping well at naps.  His room has a bunny that is paper-trained so it hops around free.  Jude affectionately calls it his bunny.  After the first day, he has been mostly successful with the potty...though pooping is sometimes a miss still.  Last Wednesday, Jude even made a beautiful marker drawing that was sent home to us :-)

Brian's teacher says Tamlin is doing great.  The downside is that he has cried every single time I've come to pick him up to take him home.  He just HATES to stop playing and leave his new friends.  His class has preschool structure for most of the day, though some of what he is learning he learned last year, such as letter recognition. However, his class goes on field trips!  Next week they are off to the Cleveland Museum of Art.  How cool is this?!

I'm glad they are both doing well here so far...especially since we'll be eligible to have them go here year round and even before/ after school if needed.

Halloween 2013

 Halloween 2013 in our new home and new town!

Halloween this year was great because Tamlin got way more into it than before... and Jude got excited because Tamlin was excited.   We started the holiday with getting out the bucket of decorations and carving pumpkins.  Since Jude was new to this, he was a bit wary of the more frightening decorations.  He learned that spiders can be "scary" when they vibrate or move! 
As a family, we journeyed to the Halloween store to check out the latest decorations.  This is a blast since they usually have many of the animated decorations up so that buyers can make them work.  Jude jumped a mile into the air when Brian made a huge spider jump out at him!  Man, if that thing was cheaper, it would have come home with us just for our amusement.

e wWe spent one evening together at a local park turned haunted trails / family festival.  This was a hoot!  We got there early and parked in the far field because I wanted to avoid parking chaos.  This meant that we got to ride the shuttle bus over to the park entrance (and riding a bus was fun for the little ones).  The trail was "family friendly" for the first couple of hours, so there weren't people jumping out at everyone and the lights were up in the haunted houses.  Both boys were troopers, though they did hold my hands tightly when we went into the houses.  Tamlin did like the lake of floating carved pumpkins and the spinning tunnel.  Jude wasn't too sure about everything, and did want to be carried a few times.  He didn't yell or cry, but did say that things were"scary".  Besides the haunted trail, we rode a tractor hayride through blow-up decorations.  Lastly, we played several kiddy games for fun Halloween prizes.  Jude was a bit small for some of them, but he still had fun. By the time we left, there were TONS of people around us and many more trying to get in...I was VERY glad a parked off-field.  I would definitely go again next year...and will encourage the little ones to dress up to get in the spirit of things.

As to costumes, I am not usually one to make the kids dress for a theme but this year it just worked out.  I knew that Jude would be just the right size for the dragon costume we had.  Tam had worn this when he was almost two.  Jude loved it and even wore the dragon hood/ head the entire time.  He also had an awesome roar. Tamlin toggled between a knight and a race car driver for the longest time (with a brief point of wanting to be both...think knight rider).  In the end, I made his knight costume (and only had to pick up the silver fabric).  He loved the chance to flail around his wooden sword.

We decided to go Trick-or-Treating with our cousins, especially since Wakeman was treating on a sunday afternoon instead of a weekday evening.  With some minor coordination, several generations of family met up with our pack of costumed kids ready for some candy.  Even Uncle Roy and Aunt Doris made out to see everyone dressed up.  Here's a photo of the kiddos: I know the oldest is Paris and Kate the youngest girl, but the boys are Roman, Ben, and Nathan (I think). 

 Treating was great...the four boys all ran ahead from house to house, where the girls and Jude hung back with most of the grown-ups.  I had forgotten how much walking is done when trick or treating outside instead of inside at a mall.  Jude tired quickly and was carried for much of the time.  Many of the homes had people dressed up and sitting outside in lawn chairs passing out their candy.  The entire experience had the air of fun, family, and wholesomeness. 
 

 

Besides trick or treating, the YMCA held a fun night of kiddy games with candy as prizes.  This was a means to raise money for the child care center, since each game cost a whopping 25cents.  I took the boys dressed up to this festival.  It was a great chance to meet their teachers again and have fun.  Besides the games, there was hot-dogs and popcorn and cookie decorating to participate in.  It totally reminded me of my grade school carnival games :-)  Good times!  

On Halloween at the child care center, the classes had a huge costume parade through the facility.  Brian was able to walk over to see our little guys walking around in their costumes.  So cute!

After all this excitement, and with a cold rainy forecast, I decided not to trick or treat in our town on Halloween evening.  I didn't think the boys would be too upset and we had already gathered a ton of candy.  I was wrong... the boys weren't upset at all!  They LOVED passing out candy :-)  We sat in our enclosed front porch with our bucket of treats.  Tamlin kpet opening the door and yelling "We are open for business" just so anyone on the street would know that we had candy to give out.  He would drop handful of treats into the awaiting buckets.  Jude also handed out candy, but usually one piece at a time :-)  They both watched from the window and would yell excited what costumes were walking toward our door.  I laughed at their antics the entire time.

All in all, the holiday was a success...and now the decorations are down and put away...
And I am totally stoked to start the Christmas holiday season!

Deer

It is the season for deer...

And I hit one on the way to work.

Luckily I wasn't going to fast since I had just come through an intersection.  I struck the beast a glancing blow of the driver's side bumper.  The deer walk away.  And after some duct tape to hold the light in place, I traveled onward to work.  Yeah,  we keep duct tape in the truck of the car and it has come in handy often.

I got home and thought, well we can just buy a bumper and put it on. Replacement can't be too hard to do and factory bumpers were about a hundred bucks.   Brian cautiously said ok, he thought he could do this....but why don't we call insurance?  I felt that hitting a deer was surely not covered and our rates would go up because of filing a claim.  Or even that our deductible would be as much as the repair so it wouldn't matter.  However, Mr. Voice of reason convinced me to at least ask.

Well, a nice thing about small towns is that I feel I can walk into a place of business and be helped without waiting too long.  Such was the case at allstate, and the insurance lady only laughed a little at my duct tape job.  Yes, I was covered 100% for hitting a deer and would be covered for a rental car.

Easy enough I filed the claim and took the car to the body shop and got the rental.

The rental was a huge jeep Cherokee.

It was huge.

It had push button everything.

Did I mention that it was as big as a whale?

I kept it exactly fifteen hours before taking it back for a swap.  (In my defense of being against such a big gas guzzling beast, it did smell like,stale smoke too).  The rental guy was very nice and let me take a more normal car instead...a nissan maxima.  However, after driving about 1mile I realized it wasn't shifting gears.  What the frack?   So I call the rental shop, more than a little irrational that this is the second vehicle that seems unacceptable.  Well, the gentleman was again very apologetic, but it seems that some newer cars can be driven in automatic OR manual.  guess what I had it in unknowingly?

Cool feature, but definitely something to know before driving off the rental lot.

After all of that rig-a-maroll, I do really like the car.  If we had extra money and could afford a  nicer car, I would so choose this one.   It even has a sunroof!   At least for a few days, we are pretending to live in high style.   My car is supposed to be done on Tuesday.

Mill hollow park

Now that the weather has turned a bit cooler, we decided to start checking out the local parks instead of just heading to the beaches.  This last weekend was our first attempt.  Now that Jude is bigger, he has to hike along with the rest of us instead of going in the carrier.  He isn't too sure he likes this idea and would much rather be carried like a king.

According to the website, this park was to have trails, river, bridges, and a playground.  All great features for us to check out as a family, though I know the boys would spend the whole day o the playground if they could.   

Well, once there, the map wasn't that helpful as many park maps are just too simplistic and out of scale to be of much use.  After I had stared at the map for a good ten minutes and the boys have gone mad with waiting, Brian made the tactical decision to just head off toward the river and explore.  Ok.

Wow.

The river was cool.  It so reminded me of walking down under the viaduct with my dad when I was younger...or maybe like walking down at the ford.   The river was shallow and had a very rocky shore consisting of small rocks (lots of shale).  The other side was a cliff face.  We slowly walked along the shore...just exploring and enjoying time together...

 throwing rocks in the river

catching crawdads

 skipping stones

watching minnows

Wading in the water

Catching a toad

Looking for fossils

Trying to walk on slippery rocks to an island

Chasing a fallen hat downstream

Playing king of the mountain

Feeling the water rush over our ankles.

Jude really liked picking up and dropping stones.   Tamlin flitted about from rocks to meeting other hikers to wading in the water.  Brian and I had a contest to hit the floating leaves with thrown rocks.  I lost....but I will just say that it is a good thing that neither of us are relied upon to hunt moving targets for food.

We did head up on a trail for a short bit...but then the boys saw the playground.   I knew there would be no convincing them to hike in the woods once a playground with swings and slide was in their sights.  I know that we will back to this park again and explore some of the other trails....especially as the leaves on the trees change color.

It was a good afternoon and I am sure we built some good family memories.

Potty training update

Jude is having more success with the potty after a bout of using pull-up pants.  Man oh man, those pull up pants are just like diapers....especially in Jude's mind.  We ran through the box and have now gone back to only underwear during the day.   Jude is highly successful if we keep asking him if he needs to go potty every hour or if he is dry.   We then make a big deal out of being dry, complete with yeahs, high fives, and fist bumps.   A success in the potty earns him a M&M and a sticker.  

Now going number two hasn't been quite as a successful....though we do have a bag of planes for him once he reaches this goal.   And Jude looks so cute in his little underoos.

Both Brian and I are glad to be done with diapers, even if there is still a bit of laundry with the underwear.   Good job my little man.