Easter 2013

We had a great Easter, with lots of candy for the kids, an Easter egg hunt in the yard, a big breakfast & then Easter dinner at Phil & Sue's house with Grammy & Grampy and tons of food! Here are some pictures from today:

Spring Pictures

Pinkberry Traitors

The kids vetoed Pinkberry after dinner in favor of ice cream (the horror!!) so we went to Emack & Bolio's instead. I have to say their deep purple cow ice cream was pretty delicious. Here is Charlie with his chocolate peanutbutter cup ice cream cone:

Easter Egg Hunt

Since Charlie had off today for Good Friday, Mike worked a half day from home and then took the kids to the Weymouth Club for an Easter Egg hunt. Apparently Amelia was completely terrified of the costumed Easter Bunny at the event and Mike had to hold her the entire time and collect her eggs for her. Amelia apparently has been under the impression that the Easter Bunny is a baby bunny and when she got home she informed me reproachfully that "the Easter bunny is *not* a baby bunny!"

Nevertheless the kids were happy with their haul.

We Have A Green Belt!

Charlie passed his belt test on Sunday and was officially awarded his green belt today. Congratulations Charlie!! And he was already hard at work in class today learning his form for his blue stripe!

Why Dieting At Work Is Always An Epic Fail

Must Be Spring Haircuts!

Top Ten Reasons Never To Bring Your Kids To The Dentist With You

I normally go to the dentist on Tuesday nights, the only day of the week they have evening hours. However, I had a cleaning that I had to reschedule back in November, because Charlie's first quarter parent/teacher conference fell on the same night. It was rescheduled but they didn't have an evening appointment until March, when lo and behold I had to cancel again due to Charlie's 2nd quarter parent/teacher conference which again fell on the same night. Rather than wait another four months for an evening appointment I just decided to suck it up and take the first available appointment they had, which was today at 3:30 and meant that I had to take both kids with me.

So after the horrendous experience that ensued, I am here to report on the top ten reasons NEVER to bring your kids to the dentist with you!

10. You can't yell at them with your mouth open and full of instruments.
9. They continually ask the dental hygienist for crayons and toys.
8. They expect to receive toothbrushes, floss and toothpaste even though they are not the patients.
7. By far the most interesting things in the exam room are sharp or have wires.
6. You can't chase after them when they decide to leave the exam room and go to the bathroom 800 times a piece.
5. They suddenly become unable to talk about anything except how much candy/junk food they are allowed to have.
4. The exam room floor probably isn't clean enough to be rolling around on and the doorstop is definitely not clean enough to put in one's mouth.
3. They expect to be rewarded for their terrible behavior with prizes from the prize bucket even though, again, they are not patients.
2. One of them has a big mouth and proceeds to tell the dentist, "Mommy forgot to brush my teeth today, and last week too!"
1. The receptionists give you EXTREMELY dirty looks when one of your kids mistakes the emergency exit for the bathroom.

Needless to say, my next appointment is scheduled for a Tuesday night so I don't have to take the kids with me again!!

Broadening Her Horizons

After, well, her entire life of pretty much eating nothing except peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches, bologna and cheese sandwiches, chicken nuggets and microwave pancakes, Amelia is finally broadening her horizons! She can now be reliably counted upon to eat such child hood staples as macaroni and cheese, pizza, grilled cheese and even spaghetti with marinara sauce, which she ate last week for the first time without dramatically gagging. She will now eat most firms of chicken, even trying a chicken and black bean burrito last week. She will also reliably eat chilli, most fruits. and ... Ok I think I've run through her food repertoire, but you get the idea -- slowly improving from terribly picky to just regular picky :-) Here she is eating macaroni and cheese for lunch today, which had previously been, like most foods, on the "nope won't eat it" list

Getting Better On The Balance Beam!

Messy Bubbles

Since it was 51 degrees today this qualified as a "lamb day" as Charlie called it, and I took the kids down to the park this afternoon. Here is Amelia blowing Crayola colored bubbles, which come with a warning to "wear washable clothes and shoes" while playing with them and that they are "best played with on grass or dirt to avoid clean up". As you can tell from the picture, for all their messiness they were barely even colored, making them entirely not worth the aggravation.

Celebratory Lunch

Charlie had his test for his green belt this afternoon; he had to be at the Taekwon Do studio at 11am for a final one hour practice class and then the belt testing took from noon until 1:30pm. The test involved demonstrating 5 "one steps" which are different kicking/punching combinations, then demonstrating the "form" for his belt, which is a series of stylized moves against multiple imaginary opponents, then the 5 one steps are demonstrated against an opponent in sequence and finally they demonstrate free form sparring.

As you can imagine this all takes quite some time, especially because they have the adults of each rank test together and the kids test together and then they sometimes further divide that, depending on how many people they have testing for each belt.

Charlie did great as far as I could tell, and the results should be posted tomorrow around noon, with the belt ceremony on Wednesday.

Since no pictures or videography is allowed during the testing -- or actually not at all in the school -- I don't have any pictures from today except this picture of Charlie enjoying his celebratory lunch :-) Congratulations on a job well done Charlie!

The First Day Of Spring

Ok so it doesn't look much like spring! Poor Charlie has been counting down the days till March 21st thinking, apparently, that since it is the first day of spring it will magically be 65 degrees and sunny. The other day he looked at me mournfully and said, "Mom, my teacher says March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, but so far we have had all lion days!! When are we going to have the lamb days??"

I didn't have the heart to tell him that usually in Massachusetts it is April that comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, not March ....

Gearing Up For His Green Belt

After getting his green stripe in July, Charlie is finally testing for his green belt on Sunday. The school has had a new head instructor (I still don't know what they are called in Taekwon do!) since September and he is much more strict than the previous one; now you have to have four stripes -- one for best form, one for best kicking combination, one for best one-steps and one for best effort -- before you are allowed to test for your next belt. Charlie FINALLY has all of these and has been given the go ahead to test Sunday at noon. In preparation we are getting him to 2 extra classes this week in addition to the Wednesday and Friday classes he normally does. So here's to a week of Taekwon do and more Taekwon do! Good luck on your belt test Charlie!! Since I never got my green belt I am super excited for you :-)

Monster Bubble Bath

Charlie discovered the jets in the tub and here is the monster bubble bath that ensued. Needless to say he needed a bath after his bath..,

Blondies

The kids were begging for baked goods this morning but with not enough cocoa to make brownies and not enough chocolate chips to make chocolate chip cookies, the usual suspects were out.

Not to be dissuaded Charlie remembered that I had had a cookie cookbook once upon a time, dug through my cookbooks to find it, and picked out a recipe for blonde brownies which turned out to be very yummy in deed.

Here is Amelia spreading a random can of chocolate frosting on her brownies before eating them. I can safely say that she is the only one who missed the chocolate in the recipe!

OK Really

For real, this is the last snow day of the year!!! As it is, with 5 snow days and 1 hurricane day to make up this year Charlie will be in school until July 5th unless they make up some days during April vacation...

I Guess She Loves Her New Boots...

Bribery

She let me French braid her hair for gymnastics in exchange for a chocolate chip muffin...

She's Not Going To Live This One Down

I came home from work today and went upstairs to find Amelia watching TV in my room and eating chocolate covered raisins. When I walked in she promptly looked up and said, "Mommy, I put a chocolate raisin up my nose and now it's all gone. I can't find it any more!" She pointed repeatedly to her right nostril.

I stared at her. "You didn't really put a raisin up your nose did you?"

She made a halfhearted blowing attempt and tried to stick her finger up her nose. "I lost it in there!"

I ran down to the kitchen and retrieved Mike and a flashlight. We tipped her head back and stared up her nose. "I don't even... " Mike started, then: "Oh yeah, it's up there."

After several attempts to get her to blow it out failed miserably (she doesn't know how to blow her nose under the best of circumstances) I decided there really wasn't much else to do except take her to the ER, over Mike's protests that a chocolate covered raisin up the nose was probably the stupidest reason ever for an ER visit, and couldn't he just go at her with a pair of tweezers. Or some nasal spray.

I had Mike and Charlie drop us off so they could do the previously planned Target run, and walked up to the ER reception desk with Miss Raisin. "She stuck a chocolate covered raisin up her nose," I explained to the receptionist as I handed her my insurance card. She went into the back to photocopy it just as Amelia sneezed.

"ACHOO!"

Then, "I have a raisin!!"

I had barely enough time to process the fact that Amelia was holding out a snot covered chocolate raisin before she popped it into her mouth and ate it.

I stared at her now chocolate-snot covered face. "Oh my god, why did you just eat that?" Was the only thing I could manage to say.

"I was hungry!"

I looked up as the receptionist came back. "She sneezed it out and ate it! We just saved a $100 co-pay!"

The receptionist laughed. I hope for her sake that we were the strangest thing she had to deal with today.

And Amelia, I hate to tell you this, but your future boyfriends will be hearing about this one....

Hmmm I Wonder Where She Learned This From...

2nd Report Card

Tonight was report card night at Charlie's school. Since it was also book fair night and a bake sale we all went & the kids picked out books and then played semi quietly while Mike and I met with Charlie's teacher. (I wisely didn't sugar them up at the bake sale until AFTER we finished the parent/teacher conference.)

Charlie's report card was very good; in the Personal Growth section (I.e behavior) he scored satisfactory or outstanding in all areas, some of the "outstandings" being in respecting the rights of others, respecting authority, working independently and completing classroom assignments. His teacher said that he is a classroom leader and gets along well with his classmates.

Academically they rate on a scale of 1 to 4 with 1 being not meeting standards and 4 being meeting or exceeding standards. Charlie scored 4s in Reading, Math, Social Studies & Science. and a 3 in Writing. His teacher commented on his extensive vocabulary and knowledge base, said that he frequently participates in classroom discussions and that he takes school very seriously. Good job Charlie!!

Happy To Be At Gymnastics

Jungle Party

I got off work early today so we could all go to Kyla's 2nd birthday party at Katie & Jason's house. The party was a jungle theme and the kids had a blast. Here are some pictures.

OK We Had Our Fun In The Snow

It can all melt now.

The Last Snow Day Of The Year

Really. Please.

Out Of Sorts

Amelia has been decidedly out of sorts the past few days Or possibly she is fully into the Terrible Threes and we have a long road ahead of us!

Here is just a sampling of the things that have come out of her mouth over the past several days:
"I don't like you anymore!!"
"You're mean!!"
"Stop laughing at me!!"
"You hurt my feelings!!"
"Go away!!"

Sigh. I can only imagine what will be coming out of her mouth when she is sixteen...

Hotel De Glace

My friend Jessica & I checked off "sleeping in an ice hotel" from our bucket list on Sunday; it actually was not as bad as I thought, even though I had to get up twice in the night to pee :-) We followed the instructions given at the mandatory in service that we had to attend before going to bed, and we were toasty warm! Here are some pictures from the trip!