Happy Puppy Day!

I think I was starting to run out of steam at this point. The kids were still going strong but we needed a little pause. Sydney's snack was the perfect thing.

We sang the song, played 'Puppy Puppy Where's Your Bone' and had Pup-a-roni & Cheese for our snack.

Funny Moments:

The kids were pretty obnoxious puppies during the game. They kept trying to lick each other...eww!

We sat down and watched Clifford's Puppy Days while we ate the Mac&Cheese...er...I mean...Pup&Cheese. The kids one by one made the realization that Clifford was a Puppy and it was Puppy Day. The difference in their ages is really illustrated with how quickly they catch on. I love that the littlest girls don't even notice that 4 other people have said "Oh! He's a Puppy, like Puppy Day!" hehe

Happy Star Wars Villain Day!

Talk about your creative reasons to celebrate! The boys were really on board with this day. Blasters, light sabers, being evil...it's right up their alley.

We sang our song, played a unique twist on Hide and Seek that Isaac made up (you shot the guys with a blaster when you found them), and ate Dark Side of the Force Donuts.

Funny Moments:

Ash Lee running around in circles saying "I can't hide! I can't hide! I can't hide! I can't hide!"

Savannah hid a couple of times so well no one could find her. I think maybe she's double jointed. She crammed herself into the tiny cubby in our computer desk.

Happy Balloon Day!

Before we started all our celebrations, I pulled out our party decorations and the girls helped me decorate the room. We have pink and yellow streamers and a banner that says Happy Stuffed Animal, Lego, Balloon, Wilky, Puppy, Star Wars Villain, Dragon Day! I thought I had some balloons in with that stuff but I didn't. We improvised and it turned out even better...these balloons made awesome crinkly noises!

We sang our Balloon Day song, played Keep The Balloon Off the Floor and ate a Balloon shaped cake.

Funny Moments:

The "balloons" are made from a roll of bags you keep in your diaper bag to tote dirty diapers around. They smell like baby powder and don't exactly float but all the kids thought they were the coolest ever. I have to say, this is one of my prouder cheap-skate moments!

We did two rounds of the game, School Kids and Preschool Kids. The little girls' game went pretty quick but the big kids game was going forever. The little girls kept cheering and winding themselves up until they'd POP and run out to play too. To end the eternal game, I sent them (and me...much to Rand's chagrin muhahaha) out to knock the balloons around for an extra challenge.

Happy Lego Day!

What a great idea Lego day was! All the kids love legos and they were all excited to start our Holiday of Holidays with this one.

We learned the song (kinda), played a relay race lego building game and ate Lego Waffles.

Funny moments:

Ash Lee decided to be a puppy when it was her turn to race so she went last. We did two kids at a time so she ended up racing by herself. Everyone cheered her on and she was so proud of herself finishing in first place!

I don't have a toaster (DARN YOU MICHIGAN AND ALL YOUR TREASURES!) so I had to broil the waffles. I had 3 body guards keeping the little ones out of the kitchen and it's burningness. Special kudos to Savannah, Isaac and William for their awesome safety patrol!

Bullwinkle's

Our trip to Bullwinkle's was pretty fun. I was kicking myself all morning for not throwing some extra batteries into my purse (thanks to the Hupps for stocking me up with a gross of batteries). I tried and tried to get the camera to give me one more shot. It decided to work at lunch time so above is a picture of the kids drinking their sodas. It was an all-you-can-drink situation so with my advice to avoid certain sodas (can you imagine Scout & Sydney with a little Mountain Dew in them?!) they were able to go back and forth to the fountain as many times as they wanted. They reveled in their "mixed-drink" concoctions and felt super-independent when they were allowed to walk up the ramp all by themselves.

So that's the picture, and why there's only one. I tried to grab some pics with my phone but they ended up blurry and un-centered. Plus, I can't figure out how to get them off of the phone.

I had never been to Bullwinkle's before so I had to rely on Isaac's vast knowledge of where to go. He did pretty well except for the grown-up related things like where to buy tickets. :) We wandered around trying to find someone to ask for help. There was a group of kids from a day care all wearing yellow shirts standing around confusing issues but we found a girl behind the ticket redemption counter to help us. She whipped out a brochure and explained all the amazing wonders that Bullwinkle's held for us.

Since it was Spring Break they were hyper-vigilant with their wrist band checking so we bought tickets for Kidopolis (a tunnel playground thing like the ones they have at McDonald's playlands...but on steroids), tickets for the froghopper (free with the kidopolis bands), a baggy of game tokens, and lasertag tickets (the lady assured me that the little girls would love it...I'll cover that in detail later).

We headed off to Kidopolis where the kids went nuts. The daredevil boys climbed to the very top and would yell down to me. It always took me a while to find them and I think part of their tactics were to find the weirdest places to wave from. The little girls started out playing in a "tree house" on the ground. If you've been there before I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I had the camera all ready to snap the cutest picture and that's when I realized the camera wasn't going to work...rats.

We played there until 11:30. I finished my book and the kids were hungry. It was a great break time. We went over to the lunch area and got a giant pizza with sausage & pepperoni and two orders of greeezy tastey breadsticks. I already told you about the fabulous beverages so drinking sugar and gorging on grease while watching reruns of Rocky & Bullwinkle was definitely a highlight.

After that we went to the froghopper. Thank heavens those kids are still young. I don't know if my stomach could have handled that feast followed by the up & down jostle of a carnival ride. The froghopper is just a vertical up and down ride. It took them all the way up then sort of bounced up and down while they giggled. Even the cynical "I'm too old for this" Rand got into it.

We ran into Savannah playing in Kidopolis on her playdate and hung out with her until they left for lunch.

Then we went up to the Lasertag area...buh buh buh bummmmm. We stood in line for a long time waiting. Sydney was nervous and held my hand pretty tightly but I told her if she didn't want to do it she could just stand by me. When we got to the front they wanted to put us in with a group of grownups and pretty tall kids. I told them "No way Jose, we'll just wait for the next group." The young girl working there was kind of annoyed but I didn't really care...one of the benefits to being twice her age and more annoyed than her. :-P When our turn finally came, we walked into the room that had the little girls so nervous. Once they saw how the blacklight made everyone's clothes glow they forgot about nerves and went crazy. The guns were a little too heavy for the little girls but they were troopers. They stood right by the charging station (Isaac told us later that some of the big kids on their team were annoyed) and peeked from behind the barricade wielding the giant guns in true Sarah Connor style. I don't know if they ever figured out how to shoot the guns but the image of Scout standing there in her little blue skirt and glowing skinny white-tights-legs holding a futuristic laser weapon was unforgettable. The boys, needless to say, had the time of their lives. The rest of the day (and the next) was filled with laser fire sound effects as they relived their moments of glory.

After that we had to go home to pick up Savannah. I sent out a quick email, grabbed some more batteries and we headed back for Kidopolis fun and to spend the tokens I had gotten.

When we got there the place was CROWDED. The morning is definitely the time to hit Bullwinkle's. The kids didn't seem to mind and went off to Lord of the Flies' it up in the tubes. They were running and playing, laughing and yelling. I could hear all of them once in a while calling to each other and having a good time. I sat down and cracked open a brand new book (we stopped by the library on the way). I was just finishing up the 3 page prologue and getting out my camera to try to get some action shots when I saw Savannah just sitting there in a mesh tube. I went over and tried to yell up to her over the din. She was crying and had hurt her toe. Yelling back and forth, I couldn't convince her to come down. A worker from Bullwinkle's was there and offered to go get her. He went up after her and got her down. She had stubbed her toe on who knows what and was bleeding. It looked like she had bent her toenail back and the whole thing was swollen. I carried her down, we got a bandaid for it, and since it wasn't just something I could kiss and make better, I decided we needed to head home.

We had only been there for 15 minutes so the kids were confused and a little disappointed but when they saw that I had to carry Savannah they agreed that we should head back.

We were at home for about an hour when it was time for activity days for Savannah. She was able to put on sandals and wanted to go. I dropped her off and the rest of the kids and I headed out to the grocery store to pick up ice cream.

We made it home, picking up Savannah on the way, and all the kids went out back to play in the muddy grass while they ate their ice cream cones.

It was a wild and crazy, big food, big fun day.

We're Baaaack!

Our trip to the Portland Children's Museum was a big hit. It had it's high points and low points, it's sticky points and its sweaty points, but all-in-all, it was a triumph. Here's a blow-by-blow:

We left around 10:30 but by the time I stopped to get gas we were just too hungry to go on. I busted out the PB&J and the kids went to town.

When we got there it was raining with a mix of snow. We ran in and quickly realized that we weren't the only one to have the clever idea of going to the Children's Museum on a soggy Spreak Break Wednesday. The place was packed to the brim with tiny kids suffering from some serious Ritalin withdrawal and their pampering lumbering grandparents. It was like a commercial for Playskool meets Depends. Very strange.


The kids thought the building section was a little dull. Ash Lee liked the hats and the older kids liked running to the top level to bang down on the portholes at us.


The boys ran off to find the digging pit while the girls explored the medical area. There was an ambulance with flashing lights, a working receptionist area and anatomically correct baby dolls. The girls found a little fold out couch and got comfy.


We made it in time to "Jam with Johnny." We sang Wheels on the Bus, If You're Happy & You Know It, I've Been Working On The Railroad, Miss Mary Mack and many other public domain songs ...along with some Original Works (available on CD in the gift shop). It was...long. It only lasted half an hour but Johnny managed to make it feel like a whole week of wholesome family entertainment. We even had to take a potty break. The kids really liked it though and the best part was when Ash Lee & Scout got up and danced in front of everyone...they did the Robot. It was RAD.


Next we went to the Twilight Area where the kids colored with LEDs onto glow painted walls. It was really cool. I took a video so you could get a better idea of what was going on. The flash makes it look bright and shiny but it's actually really dark.

The video is Scout and Ash Lee. Scout says "We are bad bad children, we are coloring on the walls" and Ash Lee says "I'm coloring a picture for my mommy."

The kids all got into the trees for a picture but Ash Lee decided that was a little too dark for her. She went over to the theater section and got her make up started while we finished up the tree pictures.

At this point we lost Ash Lee. I was drawing the butterfly on Williams face (his choice I swear) when Scout took off back toward the trees. Troy went after her and when he got back seconds later, Ash Lee was no where to be seen. Talk about panic time. We were both grabbing kids and running in opposite directions. Troy was giving orders to Random and Savannah who were splitting up and I was YELLING her name (lost child time is not the time for worrying about causing a ruckus). The staff at the Children's Museum was AWESOME. A lady came up to me with a radio and said, "How can I help?" I described Ash Lee (all the while still running around calling her name). She radioed all the areas and followed me around getting more descriptions. All the areas radioed back to her and she was this little command central checking off all the areas ("Clay area clear" "Water Area Clear"). They found her just around the corner from where we were on a stage with a group of other kids having a blast. Troy and I recovered from our cardiac arrest and thanked those people who were so fast. The whole thing lasted about a minute from the time we looked up and didn't see her to having her back with us. After that we gave Savannah the job of holding Ash Lee's hand and Random the job of holding Scout's hand.


Next we went to the digging area (only one exit!) and let them dig around in the rubber chips. They had their painted faces at this point.


Finally, we ate the rest of our lunch at the snack area. Everyone got to pick their own drink. The kids were so well behaved. I took them one at a time to pick out their drink while other kids (aforementioned ADD kids) were running around pushing the buttons and the change return (on our vending machine while we were trying to order and their grandparents just watched with this haggard expression), they just waited patiently and were joyfully grateful when they got their treasured drink.

It stopped snowing by the time we left but it was still drizzling. The ride home was uneventful and now the kids are watching Pete's Dragon and eating crackers...I think I need a nap!

Walkin' Boots & Swimmin' Goggles

Sometimes pictures say it all.

S is for Ssssongs!

Every good holiday needs a carol! So here they are. They are masterpieces of fine writing. The kids did a good job coming up with rhyming words and figuring out how many more syllables the lines needed.

Puppy Day:
(BINGO)

I love Puppies big or small,
In every color too,
Brown ones, black ones, yellow ones,
Pink ones, white ones, purple ones,
I love Puppies big or small,
But yellow (or insert your own favorite color) is my favorite!

Star Wars Villain Day:
(Popcorn Popping)

I looked out the window and what did I see?
I see a battledriod shooting at me!
Darth had brought me such a bad surprise
Stormtroopers blasting at the awesome good guys.
I could see a clonetrooper what a treat
The emperor's lightning shooting at my feet.
A deadly surprise
But the good guys
Are finally eating some battledroid pies.

Stuffed Animal Day:
(Old MacDonald)

I have a bucket of stuffed animals
Happy-Stuffed-Animal-Day!
And in that bucket there's a __________.
Happy-Stuffed-Animal-Day!
With a ______ here and a _____ there
Here a _______ there a _______ everywhere a ____ _____.
I have a bucket full of animals
Happy-Stuffed-Animal-Day!

Silky Day
(Happy Birthday)

I love my blankie so much
I love to snuggle it all day
It's so silky and cool
Happy Silky Day to you!

Dragon Day:
(Hall of the Mountain King)

Dragon Dragon Mountain King Mountain King Mountain King
Dragon Dragon Mountain King Mountain Mountain King

The Dragon Guards his treasure well, treasure well, treasure well
The Dragon Guards his Treasure well treasure treasure Well!

Lego Day:
(Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)

Lego bricks are really cool
I can make them into a school
I can build a plane or car
I can make the car go far
Lego Bricks are really great
Let's play with them I cannot wait!

Balloon Day:
(Jingle Bells)

Red Balloons, Green balloons, Ballooning all the way
Oh what fun they are to pop or let them fly away. HEY!
Blue Balloons, Pink balloons, ballooning all the way
Oh what fun to blow them up and watch them float all day. HEY!

R is for Rice is sticking to my socks

William asked what we were having for lunch. I said "Sandwiches with all the fixins." Who knows why I bust into Oklahoma-speak when asked menu questions but there it is. He said "aww." At first I was taken aback...who says aww to Peanut Butter & Jelly?! Then I realized...sandwiches...again...aww.

So I ran (ok that's an exaggeration, I sorta moseyed--wow is that really how you spell that word?) to the fridge to see what I had in there. It was sort of perplexing. Left over spaghetti sauce, thawing chicken, half a bunch of green onions, 1 tortilla, green jello that we didn't eat on St. Patrick's Day, and some rice. Hmmm. Obviously it's grocery day.

I figured I'd just put stuff on plates and keep piling it until everybody said "oooo" instead of "aww" So we started out with some sliced cheese (ooo's from Savannah & Scout) added some rice (ooo's from Rand who said last time we had curry "We NEVER get to have just plain rice"--he's kind of a drama queen), green jello (ooo's from Ash Lee) and topped it all off with a big glass of grape soda (ooo's from William...I promise we'll all rinse with some delicious water so all of our kids' fancy silver teeth won't fall out).

They all ate, they all were happy. I had some time to put this week's menu together. All was well. Until I went in to get that delicious water I raved about earlier and I walked through the mine field of rice.

If I were the devil and I were in charge of making Hell very unpleasant, I think I'd start off by making people walk through rice in their socks. Sure, it's not as bad as, say, swimming through a molten pool of brimstone but it's not far off.

Happy Tuesday :-D

Holidays

On Friday we will be celebrating:

Lego Day (William)
Balloon Day (Ash Lee)
Stuffed Animal Day (Savannah)
Puppy Day (Sydney)
Star Wars Villain Day (Isaac)
Dragon Day (Rand)
Silky Day (Scout)

The posters they made look great and are adorning the dining area of the apartment. I'm interested to see what they come up with for games and songs. Should be interesting!

Official Incident Report

It's been a while since I had to write one of these up!

Location: The "Park"
Date: March 24, 2008
Time: 12:10, 12:13, 12:15, 12:24, 12:30, 12:35, 12:37, 12:40, 12:55

Summary: Poor Ash Lee.

Description of Incident: Ok so I don't know why I think we can go to the park without having trauma. I think I should schedule our days to always include a session of therapy for all involved immediately following our return.

It all began as we crossed the road (imagine, THIS was the part I was worried about...what a fool) and entered the "secret" park. There's a charming paved trail that leads under some trees that line the river and goes past a house or two until it emerges in this little subdivision park. Very "quaint" as Random says. So we are on this trail when Ash Lee SCREAMS and freezes. She won't move. Why? Because of all the SNAKES!

The trees that charmingly line the charming trail drop charming little seed pods on the ground that freaked the living snot out of that girl. She was convinced that not only were the seeds alive but they were, in fact, going to eat her. I showed her they were just seeds and a not-too-convinced Ash Lee mustered the emotional fortitude to finish the 10 foot journey to the park.

Ok so then the kids are running, playing, laughing, swinging...then...it happens.

The inevitable pee-pee bonk. Of course. The teeter-totter isn't so much of a teeter totter as it is a device planted by terrorists to attack the unsuspecting crotches of small children. Ash Lee was the first victim but by no means the last. After the second time the teeter-totter was outlawed...after the third time (as the kids were getting off when I made the "stay off the teeter-totter of doom" rule) everyone decided it was evil and just naturally stayed away. It wasn't a huge pee-pee bonk...forgotten almost immediately and no crying (just "I bonked my pee-pee" then she was off) but in my opinion, all pee-pee bonks should be noted just in case.

So time passes and we've been at the park for about 20 minutes when Ash Lee needs to go potty. I asked her if she could hold it...no. I asked her if she wanted to go out in the woods...she thought about it (other kids yelling "isn't that illegal")...but no. So I tried distracting her. That seemed to work. I figured we had about 5 minutes before she remembered which was ok since it looked kind of gray and I was feeling the occasional sprinkle.

Then...it happened again.

Ash Lee tripped and fell right next to me. If I hadn't been taking pictures of the kids with Professor Fluffybuttons (the cat that wandered over the fence) I could have reached out and grabbed her...she was that close. She didn't even fall far, it was one of those small little trips that kids do sometimes. One minute she was standing by me nervous about the big fluffy orange cat, the next she's on her hands and knees in a mud puddle.

I throw the camera onto the table and bend down to see what's wrong. I helped her stand up (funny how this isn't a natural reaction in children crawling in mudpuddles) and tried to help her ring out her pants. They were kinda drippy but she was mostly concerned that her hands were wet. I helped her try to flick off the water but then it was getting on her Pink Marshmallow coat and that just wasn't going to be ok. After we assessed the situation and everything was all right, she wandered off to find Savannah (apparently Savannah understands the trauma of Pink Marshmallow stains better than I).

She came back right away. This time she said her finger hurt and she had a huge splinter in it. She says she got it from the mudpuddle but I still haven't quite figured that out. I pulled out the splinter and now she's ok. Although she brings it up from time to time even 2 hours later.

We went back home, past the slivery mudpuddle, over the flesh eating seed-snakes, near the pokey bushes where it's illegal to go potty, across the road, over the poop-infested grass and back home.

End of Report.

If you click on the slideshow it'll take you to a bigger version with captions. I'll add to it throughout the day. Happy Monday!

Spring Break Schemes!

Wednesday of this week is Make Up Your Own Holiday Day. I thought this would be a great theme for all week. Today we'll be figuring out what our Holiday will be and pick its colors. We'll make posters to explain it.

Tomorrow we're going to pick the traditions and songs that go with our day. I'm going to try to help them all come up with a game that has to do with their day and help the older kids pick a tune and rewrite words.

Wednesday and Thursday we'll work on decorations. Isaac will be gone Wednesday afternoon and the Hupps will be gone on Thursday so we'll be taking two days for this one. The kids who will be here both days will also work on Holiday cards or a special aspect of their unique holiday.

Friday is our big day. We will celebrate the Holiday and give each child some time to explain it to everyone, play their game, sing their song and show off their decorations.

I'll decorate the house with crepe paper for all the holiday colors and I'd like to ask each family to bring in a food for their child's holiday. I'll leave it up to you to talk with them about it and guide them to something that they would enjoy eating and is practical (barbecue ribs or caviar are examples of foods that are impractical :-P).

Other than our Holiday plans, I've got centers around the house for the kids to choose for themselves how they'll spend the week. We have a computer, DS, Wii, Craft, Freeplay and movie station open all the time. We'll try to do circle time around 10:30 (modified for big kids & talking about holidays), an outing at noon (barring rain), craft time for the holiday in the afternoon and Reading time at the end of the day to wind down. My children's teachers have asked them to read for a while everyday so I'm going to encourage that at 4. I have lots of books for all the age groups so we can buddy read (big kids read to little kids) or read individually. I'll keep working with the little girls on their reading lessons throughout the day when they need some one-on-one attention.

I'm hoping that if we give them this free relaxing week with a few punches of excitement they'll really feel like they've had a break from school and have had fun.