Coloring Fun

In the past few months one of our favorite activites has been coloring, in all of its simple glory it really keeps the kids' attention. Especially if I sit down and color with them. I usually find coloring pages online and print out 3 - one for each of us to complete. Sometimes I make up projects or just hand them a blank piece of paper. I keep teasing Andy that he should join us sometime. Actually, by doing this I am trying to help both kids a little with their coloring skills... and I'm starting to see some improvement! This is just one of the pictures that we colored during November. I hope you can tell who colored which picture! (I did NOT color the one on the right!!!)

Lynnae's First Decorated Cake

A couple of weeks ago Lynnae had the opportunity to decorate a cake, for the first time ever. I sent her off with my decorating tips, of course she chose to use them with blue frosting, and this is the result. She was pretty proud of her cake!!!

We Are Thankful For...

At the beginning of the month we made a turkey to help us countdown the days to Thanksgiving. I believe my sister, Daja, found the project and suggested it from another blog... But I’ve forgotten where it came from. The turkey’s body was easy to make, and then we traced and cut feathers to place around the turkey. Each of us had a different color so that we could take equal turns filling out the feather with something that we were thankful for. Most days we were able to discuss this after dinner as a family... It was a great exercise for us, and it was neat to see the full list of things that we are thankful for as a family. I’ve listed them all by color below – can you guess which person came up with the items for each color?

Teal:
Family
Mom and Dad
Food
My BFFL’s (Best Friends For Life)
Paints
Holidays
Air

Pink:
Friends
Rainy days
Music
Technology
Quiet moments
Good deals
Sleep

Green:
Buzz Lightyear
Cookies
Books
Dancing With The Stars
Letters (abc’s)
White shoes
Buddies

Yellow:
Nice house
Tasty water
Lazy days
My pets
Good humor
Warm slippers

We hope that you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Letters to Santa

We are sending off our letters to Santa this week. Charlie drew Santa a pretty picture. When I asked him what he wanted from Santa, he simply said, "Christmas!" He does not yet understand the concept of Santa!

Lynnae's was a bit more interesting... I'm not sure if the picture will be legible so, here is what she said:

Dear Santa,
How are you? Are you having a good year? I've had a long year and I'm trying to be good. I hope I have been good enough to not to get cole [coal]! Here are things I want for Christmas: A ceabord [keyboard], my [birth] mom, sheaky dinyks [shrinky dinks], a happy Christmas. Horeses [horses], dolls, to meet my cusans [cousins], Spongebob vidoe [video] games, Spongebob The Movie, a kitten, my tooth to come out.

Isn't it interesting what kids come up with?

Dear Mama, by Lynnae

[In answer to the question of whether I'm going to get one... lo and behold, I did. These letters are so cute and inspring me to think up a new plan for the next FHE...]

Dear Mama,

I love you and thank you because:
Your helpful!
Your helping me on the United States test!!!!!!!!!
Your nice and caring!!
Your antelagent [intelligent]!!
Your smart!!
Your loving!!
You show that you love me!!!!!!
Your always helping the family!!
You like mosic [music]!!!!!
You play with me!!!
Your a good leter [leader]!!
Your always helping me, you, Charlie, and dada!!
You spend most of your time with me!!
Tern [turn] over...
I've never epresheaded [appreciated] someone like I do in this family!! [awe... this one surprised me]

Love you with all my heart,
Lynnae

To Daddy, by Lynnae

Dear Dad,

I love you decause [because] and thank you Your helpful!!
Your antelagent [intelligent]!!
You like since [science]!!
You work Microsoft!!
Your smart!!
You helped me with Ziggy, tiger and boone!!
You play with me!!
Your nice!!
Your loving!!
You teech [teach] me!!
You so [show] that you love me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your helping the family!!
Your a good leter [leader]!!!!
You've always deen [been] nice to the family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Lynnae!!

Dear Charlie, by Lynnae

Novemder [November] 17 2008
Dear Charlie (age almost 3),

I love you becouse [because]:
Your the sweetest boy I've ever met!!!
Your a reily [really] sweet and caring doy [boy]!!
Your adorable!!
Your funny!!
Your playful!!
We're family!!
Your always thair [there]!!
Your the only one from are [our] rele [real] mom!!
Your yonger [younger]!!
Your always coping [copying] me!!
Your able to be with me!!
We have stof [stuff] in comin [common]!!
Your entellegent [intelligent]!!
Love,
Lynnae

[isn't that sweet?]

Skate America

I have never been a huge sports fan. In fact, one of the things that I love about my husband is that he is also not a huge sports fan. There is no football season in my house... we only watch the Superbowl. We don't worry about basketball, and while I like baseball - we aren't fanatic about it. The sports we do like are a little off mainstream... Andy is into golf. And me? I am into figure skating.

I have been following figure skating closely since about the time of the Harding/Kerrigan scandal... which is also the first year that I watched Michelle Kwan skate at nationals. She took 2nd place behind Tonya Harding, who was later stripped of her title. I remember being enthralled with Michelle and annoyed that she was lost in the whole scandal. Anyway, at that point I was hooked and I have been a big fan ever since. At one time, my TiVo was so full of figure skating that all of our other shows were being deleted.

I have always wondered if it is any better to watch a competition in person. Watching on tv you get to see everything up close, and filming is so good now that it always looks so crisp. I just wondered what it would be like to actually be there. This year I got an answer to my question.

One of the huge annual events in the international skating world is the Grand Prix. It is a series of competitions that start with Skate America and then travel to Canada, Japan, China, France and Russia. Each country can send their top skaters to compete in up to two competitions individually. The skaters in each classification that earn the most points get to go to the Grand Prix Final. It is a great competition that usually gets me really excited for the rest of the season.

Skate America is usually somewhere on the East Coast, but this year it was in Everett - about 20 minutes away from us. Andy, knowing how much I love this sport and how much I have wanted to see it in person, bought us tickets and gave them to me for our anniversary. He bought tickets to the ladies short program and the mens long program. This was a perfect choice because the mens competition included Evan Lysacek and Johnny Weir... two US skaters that have a bit of a rivalry. He got us great seats that put us right by about 50% of the jumps... if you happened to watch the competition on tv, you might have seen us in the crowd.

I did not think that we'd be able to use cameras, so I didn't bring mine... that was a mistake. I did manage to take a few pictures with my cell phone that weren't too horrible. I also took a couple of videos on my cell phone... sorry for the poor quality.

Was it better in person? Absolutely! When Evan Lysacek took the ice as the final skater of the evening, the feeling was electric. When he skated, you could tell in person just how strong of a skater he was. His skates did not make the noise that most of the others did. Although he was gliding just as fast as the rest, his technique made it seem like he was floating. He didn't bob up and down like the others either. The crowd, including me, was up on its feet from the middle of his footwork pass until the very end of his program. It was amazing.

Did he win? Nope. Neither did Johnny Weir... Takahiko Kozuka (Japan) did. Oh well! I will definitely take the next opportunity I have to see figure skating in person... and in 2010, US nationals are in Spokane!

Rachael Flatt (US)

Tugba Karademir (Turkey)

Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek warming up

Evan Lysacek

First Parental Trip to the ER

We have officially marked another parental milestone... Our first trip to the ER for a child’s injury. Charlie, as I’ve mentioned, is all boy and all acrobat. Sometime on Friday night he got out of bed and started playing with his train set... Which is right by his closet. He has also learned how to open and shut his closet, and has played in there a bit. We, unfortunately, had never noticed a jagged corner on a wire shelf near the bottom of the closet. I went in to check on him before going to bed on Friday and found him asleep on his floor... Which is not that unusual. He got up and wanted to go potty, so I took him to the potty. While he was sitting there he just started sobbing. So I went to go rub his head to make him feel better, and lo and behold, I found a huge mass of blood in his hair. Yes, I freaked out. Turns out he managed to gouge himself pretty good on that wire shelf.

After a call to the nurses line, Charlie and I took off for the ER. I told him that we were going to go on a space adventure. We brought Buzz Lightyear and Curious George along with us. On the ride there I told him that he was going to be a space ranger like Buzz and that he had a special mission at the hospital. When they put his identification bracelet on his ankle, I told him that was his space ranger tag and that it was all about him. Hours later he told me, “I am never, never, never going to take this off Mommy!” (I actually had to coerce him to finally take it off on Sunday.) He did excellent in triage and cooperated with the nurse very well. In the waiting room he made best friends with an elderly woman who was there accompanying a neighbor that had had a seizure. He was being very lively. It didn’t end when we got back to his room. I put on tv, the only thing on was Kim Possible, and he continued to be very happy and cooperative with all of the nurses. There was a slightly crazy person next to us, but I actually think Charlie managed to block that out. There was some debate over whether they would staple his wound or glue it, and in the end they decided to glue it. He was very still and didn’t cry at all as the doctor worked.

Three and a half hours later we were leaving the ER. They gave him a teddy bear, to which he promptly replied, “Thank you for Cuddle Bear!” And now, its name is Cuddle Bear still... It is his new favorite stuffed animal, even eclipsing Curious George. Six nurses came in to say goodbye to him and told me that he just might be the most happy and cooperative 2 year old they have ever seen. I told him how proud I was of him and he looked at me and said, “I’m proud of you Mommy. Can we go home Mr. Mommy?” (That is what he likes to call me now... I’ve been working on the differences between Mr. and Mrs... But he hasn’t gotten it yet!) We got into the car and I fought to stay awake until we made it home... At 4am. (I woke up at 6:30 that morning to prepare for a school festival for Lynnae, so I was beat!) I honestly could not believe how well he did during the whole evening.

Two days later he got frustrated while he was sleeping and pulled all of the hair out from where his scar was. Luckily the wound did not reopen... But now he has a nice bald spot. And, the offending corner is blocked with a baby gate and two boxes until we can repair it!

Halloween

Halloween was a very fun, and very packed day for our family! We started out the morning at Lynnae’s school helping the kids assemble their skeletons. Charlie actually had a lot of fun during that too, the teacher let him play with a huge tub of blocks... And since it was mass pandemonium, it was a 2-year-old boy’s heaven.

After school, we had lunch and the kids put on their costumes so that we could head out to the children’s museum. My awesome employees gave our family a membership to the museum when they found out about the kids, and we hadn’t had a chance to activate it until recently. Both kids really enjoy it, and they had a cute set-up for Halloween. Charlie’s favorite was the sticky bubbles, which they had made with dry ice. Lynnae really liked making bright blue slime... Although I was very nervous about it in her white angel’s costume! Both kids had fun playing pumpkin and ghost bowling, and throwing spiders onto a huge web. After we were done in the Halloween room, we headed over to the construction exhibit, and then into the art room. They had several art projects set-up. Charlie made a 3D pumpkin, which he promptly destroyed within the next half hour, and a clothespin bat. We are still playing his favorite bat game, which is to attach it to his shoulder, and then have conversations with it... It is very cute! Lynnae made a smaller version of the skeleton, a necklace, and a bat for herself. We spent so much time in the art room that it was time for us to head home afterward!

At home we ate a quick dinner and then got ready to head out for trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. Originally Lynnae wanted to be a mad scientist and Charlie was going to be her experiment... But then a couple weeks before Halloween she started telling us that she really wanted to be an angel. So, we let her... And she was really proud to wear her costume, even when her friend Tori ended up having practically the same one! Charlie’s favorite character right now is Buzz Lightyear, so of course he was Buzz. He was going around saying, “To infinity and beyond” and shooting his pretend lasers all day.

Trick-or-treating was pretty fun... It took Charlie awhile to get the hang of it. At first he was stepping into the people’s houses and saying, “Can I come on in?” Then, once he realized they all had big bowls full of candy he started saying, “Give me my trick or treats!” Finally, he seemed to get the concept of staying on the stoop, saying “Trick or Treat” and waiting patiently, finishing up with a “thank you”. Next year I will be practicing before going out!

When we got home we watched the Charlie Brown Halloween special again... Twice. It was a great first Halloween for our family. Charlie fell asleep downstairs with the hugest smile on his face. Lynnae is still telling us how it was her best Halloween ever. As a parent, that is really all I could wish for.

Congratulations Andy

Andy has worked at Microsoft for the past 10 years and has been fortunate to have a great career, a ton of opportunity, and an overall good working experience. (A lot of it has to do with all of the work he has put in, of course!)

This past week Andy started a new position in a new group that he had worked with briefly a few years ago. He is very excited for this job, which will let him tinker around with hardware as much as software... a perfect mix for him!

To congratulate him the kids and I made a sign for him and put it up so that he would see it when he walked in the door after his first day in his new job. We cut the letters from construction paper, glued them on regular copy paper and then I let the kids color them... Yes, the t is glued backwards, but that just makes it more precocious! They had a lot of fun and Andy says it is the biggest sign he has had in a long time.

We are proud of Andy for landing the new position!

Sidewalk Chalk

This fall has been absolutely beautiful in Washington. We have had a ton of sunshine, much more than I can remember for the past few years, and the leaves have been beautiful as a result of it. The kids have also been able to do a lot more outside play then usual, which is nice for them and for the moms. :) Of course, this week we have had torrential rain, but you can't really complain after the beautiful weeks we had before!

During the week of Halloween the kids had early release at 11:30 every day to accommodate parent/teacher conferences in the afternoons. This, coupled with the sun, gave everyone in our cul-de-sac a lot of time for creativity. The day before Halloween Lynnae and her friend Courtney wanted to go outside and use some sidewalk chalk. We had a whole bucket that we had barely touched from the summer... so I handed it over to them. As soon as they started, the rest of the kids in the cul-de-sac came out to join them. Within two hours our street had some of the most coverage in chalk that I have ever seen! They used over half of the chalk and had so much fun doing it.

The rain came the next day, but it took 2 days for the chalk to fade away. It was a really fun day for everyone on the street, and it was fun for me to see them out there again like they were during the summer!

October Food Crafts

We had a lot of fun during October this year! We didn’t just make paper and nature crafts, we also did a couple of food crafts.

Near the beginning of the month we made caramel apples. I decided to do it the long way and bought a bag of caramel, (instead of the wraps.) We had a lot of fun unwrapping all of the caramel... It was a race between Andy and Lynnae, Andy won. Cooking the caramel was another matter. I did not realize how messy it would be and how difficult it would be to clean it up! So, I hope the kids enjoyed caramel apples this year because we will probably not be making them this way again... From now on it is the caramel wraps for us!

Then during Halloween week we made sugar cookies in the shapes of a pumpkin, witch, ghost, witches hat, haunted house, and cat. Charlie and Lynnae each got to decide which cookies they wanted to cut and push them into the rolled dough. (I am saving the rolling out of the dough for Christmas... I thought we would just start with letting them cut it!) They both did really good. When we frosted them we made purple, orange and white frosting. We also used candy corn and gummy worms to decorate them. I was actually very surprised at how good Charlie did on this... All of his cookies were very symmetrical. Lynnae also did a good job, although we have more work to do in learning how to spread the frosting!

All of our cookies

Lynnae's cookies

Charlie's cookies

Pumpkin Carving at Home

Finally, after all of that pumpkin hunting and buying, we were ready to carve our own pumpkins at home! The Monday before Halloween we decided to devote the evening to our carving. Lynnae and Charlie were very excited! I was wondering how much of a mess this was going to be...

We started by cutting off the tops and scooping out the innards. Lynnae was having a hard time figuring out how to separate the seeds from the strings, so we had to help her with that!

Andy and I chose the fast and easy method for carving our pumpkins... We used templates! Lynnae really wanted her name on her pumpkin and we decided to let her do it all herself. So she drew her name and then cut it out without our help. We were actually very impressed with how well she did, for an 8 year old we weren’t sure if it would turn out. The big gaping hole under her name is supposed to be a mouth. That one threw me into fits of laughter. Charlie colored his pumpkin, and had a great time doing it! We were all laughing and having fun all night.



The next day I made pumpkin seeds. Since I watch my sodium, I try to stay between 1600-2000 ml a day, and most pumpkin seeds are drenched in salt... I searched for a pumpkin seed recipe that would be different. I found one on allrecipes.com that was really good, and a third of the sodium in most pumpkin seeds. First I roasted the seeds in the oven, then I pulled them out and fried them in olive oil and sugar. Finally, I tossed them in a mix of sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and a tiny bit of salt. (I cut the salt in the recipe in half to reduce it even more.) They were very tasty!!! I thought they were very similar to kettle corn.

This year was so much fun that I am already looking forward to pumpkin carving next year. And the mess was not too bad!

Pumpkin Carving Party 2008

Did I mention that neither Lynnae nor Charlie had ever been to a pumpkin patch before this year? They also had not contributed to carving in the past. In the words of Lynnae, “I ooooonlyyyyyy got to watch!!!”

This year was extra special for her because we actually got to go to two pumpkin patches. We went to The Farm with the Boschees, and then a week later we attended a Pumpkin Carving Party at our friend’s the Stutzmans. This pumpkin carving party is a huge deal... It starts with appetizers, leads into a trip to a pumpkin patch where everyone chooses their pumpkins, then goes into an early dinner. But that’s not all... It then goes into pumpkin carving itself and wraps up with dessert. They had a pretty big crowd this year!


We decided to pick out one pumpkin at the party to be our family pumpkin. Andy got the idea to find a nice green one and carve it upside down to look like an alien head... I think it turned out pretty good! (Although Lynnae has incessantly called it scary ever since that night.)


The kids had a lot of fun, they really, really like the Stutzmans and the Zaniewskis... who were also there. Lynnae also enjoyed spending time with Candice's parents, who were in town visiting.

Here are a couple of pictures from the pumpkin patch, I just wish I could include ones of Charlie and Lynnae!



This trip concluded our pumpkin patch visits for the year. but we still had four pumpkins to carve from the week before...

The Farm 2008 - Pumpkin Patch #1

Can I tell you how nice it is to have some time to be at the computer now that the Halloween activities are over? Tonight we start in on Thanksgiving... hopefully it will be a little more contained!

Finally, we get to some pumpkins! As I mentioned earlier, in the Sit and Spin post, we reignited an old tradition with the Boschee family this year... An annual trip to the pumpkin patch. The Boschees made the long drive up to Snohomish and we all went to The Farm, which is a neat pumpkin patch just outside of downtown Snohomish on the side of the Snohomish river. The Farm has everything you could want in a pumpkin patch... A Washington State corn maze (that actually has our interstates and things carved out,) a hay maze for little kids, a petting zoo, a kids play area, hay rides, a putting course, a restaurant, food stands – including the important kettle corn, and I’m sure there is more that I am not thinking about.

The Farm's "Directory"

When we got there we decided to wander around for awhile. The kids saw the petting zoo right away, and they needed to spend some time there! There were goats, puppies, kittens, and lots of other animals to look at. Then we headed over to a fishing place they had set up, but we decided just to watch that one. After wandering some more and checking out the gift shop we finally headed over to the pumpkins.

Madison petting a goat!

It was some work to find a wheelbarrow, but when a family that was leaving gave us theirs, Madison and Lynnae had fun trying to steer it. Once we got into the actual field they gave up, and Jeff and Andy took turns maneuvering it around. Charlie found his pumpkin right away, showing a determination to get it off the ground. I was surprised when he actually was able to lift it up and hand it to Andy! Then I found mine, Andy’s was right behind... But Madison and Lynnae were being very picky. They really wanted to find the biggest, most perfectly round and orange pumpkins that they could. This was slightly an issue because we went early in the season and many of the pumpkins were still green. They finally found theirs, and Lynnae actually managed to get her monstrous pumpkin off the ground too. She held it just long enough to take pictures and then started saying really fast... “Take it, take it, I can’t hold it!” So we took it out of her hands and added it to the wheelbarrow. Once the Boschees found all of their pumpkins too we headed back out... Muddier and ready for dinner!

Andy's Find

Before leaving we actually stopped to take some pictures of the families... So once we can get this adoption finalized, I will be able to change our main picture to one of the entire family!

The next week we headed to the Stutzmans’ Annual Pumpkin Carving Party and picked out one last pumpkin from another patch for the whole family... Stay tuned!

The view from the Farm

Countdown to Halloween Paper Chains

Early in October we made paper chains out of orange and black construction paper as a Family Home Evening activity. I pulled out some scrapbooking paper and we cut out designs to decorate paper plates... Each of the kids had a lot of fun with the plates! Then we attached the chains to the plates and hung them up above our breakfast nook to rip off one chain per day. Eventually I had to move them over to our back door because they were too high up to be reached. The kids really enjoyed watching the chains disappear, even though it took Charlie about half of the month to learn how to gently tear only one chain each day.


On Halloween we were down to just one chain left, and both of the kids were really excited! We are planning to do paper chains for Christmas as well!

Skeletons: A Third Grade Tradition

Every year 3rd grade students at our elementary school spend the first quarter learning about bones. Each week they learn about the function of at least one bone, and then trace and cut it out of lightweight cardboard paper. They keep the bones in a folder until it is time to assemble their full skeletons. As far as anyone seems to know, this is a tradition that goes back to the opening of the school in the early 1990’s.

Lynnae’s third grade class was fast at work during the last two weeks to make sure all their bones were cut out. They even spent last Wednesday working only on Science to get it done! The teacher asked the volunteer parents to come in and help with the assembly on Halloween. Of course, I wouldn’t miss it... And I brought Charlie along for the fun too.

It was mass pandemonium. The desks were moved to the outsides of the room, and in the middle of the class 20 children had bones spread out all around them... As they learned how to attach the breast bone to the ribs, slide the vertebrae in, attach the neck bone and cocyx, the head and the pelvis, and on and on... Six parents and one teacher rushed from child to child to try to help them figure out how to align shoulder bones or help cut out missing bones. Finally, the project was done and it was recess time. I grabbed my camera with about half the kids still in the class and snapped a few pictures.

The kids had so much fun, and Mr. Bones proudly took his spot on the window by our front door to greet the trick or treaters that night. At least one set recognized that we must have a third grader in the house!