It's November Already??

Greenfield Village

DFD Pumpkin Patch

A witch, the Verizon guy, a dalmatian,
and Woody from Toy Story.

Neighborhood "Spooktacular" Parade

I can't believe it's already November! We had lots of fun for Halloween. The kids went to lots of different parties and events. We visited two apple orchards and ate lots of cider (Liam's new favorite) and doughnuts, had fun on tractor and hay rides, visited the Dearborn Fire Station's Pumpkin Patch a few times,went on a haunted train ride a few times, participated in the Highland Neighborhood Associations Spooktacular parade, and went to a few parties.

 I think Julian's favorite thing was the skeleton we made out of plastic milk jugs. He told me one week that he wanted to learn about skeletons. So we did! He can tell you all about bones now and the names of bones. We visited out chiropractor (who is a great man) that week and he showed him some models of the spine and x-rays. Julian really enjoyed that. It's been fun (and interesting) being able to create his curriculum!

This year was the first year that Julian really voiced his opinion about what he wanted to be for Halloween. I already lots of costumes and decided the boys would be a fireman/firetruck and a dalmatian. Cute, right? Well, Julian was adamant that he was NOT going to wear the firetruck costume. He put on these toy Buzz Light Year Wings over his clothes and insisted he was Buzz Light Year. He went through the parade like that. So then I felt bad and took him to Target to see if they had any "real" costumes left. Of course, no Buzz, but they had 1 Woody costume left, in his size. Meant to be, I guess!

Liam really got the concept this year. I thought he wouldn't last very long trick-or-treating, but he proved us all wrong. Not only did he last, he was dancing and singing (Iron Man, of course) the whole time. In fact, he would have outlast the other kids had we let him. He was never scared. Went up to every house, said "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" to everyone! So proud of my little man! Speaking of proud, Liam is finally off ALL meds! I thought we'd never get to this point! Crossing my fingers that this continues!

We have so many upcoming things we are excited about too! This week we get to go on a field trip with our homeschool group to a police station! The boys will love it! We're also taking a trip to the Detroit Science Center. I'm also looking forward to Sunday when Julian sings in church with his preschool class! I can't wait to see my little singer!!!

WARNING- Proud Mommy Moment!!!

This is one of the writing assignments that Julian did yesterday. The directions asked him to look at the picture and come up with a story about what was happening. It also provided a word bank of short e words to help. On his own he wrote the sentence "There's a spiders web in Peg's way." Peg is the name of the hen flying the jet. It's from one of his reading books. Anyway, then he wanted to go on and write "A bat is on mom's shoulder." The only thing I helped him with on this sentence was the "sh" for shoulder. 

I'm so proud of him! He's learning so quickly and doing so well! It's been such a gift to be able to stay home with him and teach him.

Who Needs an Oven??

Never would have said that before until our oven broke. It's the never ending saga in our household. Basically, mom leaves job, cuts budget and oven breaks. That's Rummel luck for you!

The good news is we (we, as in Mark and his Dad with the help of his friend Tom who repairs appliances) know how to fix it. Well, we know now. Although through never ending trial and errors and parts that were ordered and didn't work and now having to go order a new part. So I guess it's still up in the air as to whether it will be fixed. It's been a month already!

So what's a girl to do?? Planning carefully! I've been cooking everything on the stove top. Now it's been so long, I'm getting more creative. Come to think of it, with all these "extra" appliances, we hardly really need a stove. For example, I made brownies tonight without an oven (I used the waffle iron), and they're really good! We warm the garlic bread for our pasta on the grill (just about anything can be cooked on a grill). I made apple crisp in a skillet and even found a cookie recipe that uses a skillet! We have a toaster oven, a roaster, a Crock Pot, and a bread machine. Those things can't take care of everything an oven can, but I think we're doing pretty well without an oven. Never would have imagined!

Waffle Brownies 

 

These Are the Days of Our Lives.....

......and I hope my children will remember them, because I always will.

Today, we ventured out to The Henry Ford Estates. I hadn't planned on it, but it was turning out to be great weather and I was sick of going to the park. Julian had been learning about the signs of fall, so I figured why not. We ended up spending 2 hours walking all over the grounds (and didn't cover that much ground either). We stopped to look at the waterfall (our favorite). We found leaves, needles, bark, moss, fungus, sticks, flowers, logs, roots, geese, ducks, squirrels, eggs that were laid on a leaf, a pond, a river, a swamp, acorns, and (I'm sure you get the idea now).

Liam and Julian in front of the waterfall.

It was great fun exploring the grounds through the eyes of my children. It was great to see them feel free and adventuresome. Their curiosity piqued at each new sighting or change in direction of the path.

Taking a little snack break beside the pond.

I plan on taking them back many times over the year so that we can see how things change through the seasons. I really think that the more they see it and explore it, the more they will come to understand about nature. It's great to see the world outside of a book!

Kelly

P.S. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics. Forgot the camera!

First "Real" Vacation

Well, we've been up north and such as a family, however, we just got back from our first real family vacation. I actually started planning this about 4 years ago when I first heard about Sesame Place in Langhorne, PA (outside of Philadelphia). It's like Disney only a theme park with Sesame characters and the entire park is made for little kids! I figured this would be the perfect year to go since the boys are 2 and 4.

The drive was 10 hours long (which I wasn't looking forward to) and I figured that if we're going to drive that far, we're going to stay for awhile. I found a steal at a hotel outside the city in New Jersey. We had 5 full days to enjoy the city. The first two days we were at Sesame Place. To sum it up, Mark said it perfectly, "The first day at Sesame Place with the kids made my whole year." The kids enjoyed every minute of it, especially meeting Elmo for the first time. Even I was excited to meet all the characters.



After we had out fun at Sesame Place we spent 3 days doing "kid stuff" in the city. I wouldn't have thought that Philadelphia would be a good place for kids, but I was wrong! We spent one day playing at the Adventure Aquarium. We pet sharks, sting rays, and starfish. We even walked through a tunnel with sharks swimming over us. The next day we spent 4 hours (yes, count them, 1, 2, 3, 4 hours) at the Please Touch Museum. This museum was so much fun! We played in a life sized car garage, city (complete with hospital, construction site, and grocery store), water room, music room, and everyone's favorite Alice in Wonderland. Our last day didn't disappoint either. We toured quickly through the Franklin Institute (which is a child's hands-on museum teaching them about all of Ben Franklin's inventions). Julian's favorite was the planterium show and Mark liked the Sky Bike. We left there and toured the city on top of a double-decker bus. The first for all the boys!




We had tons of fun, and made great memories!

Liam's Two!

Dearest Liam,

Happy 2nd Birthday Bubba! I am so proud to be your mommy. We have been through some rough times in your short life, but I am so grateful to God that he saw us through that journey of your life and you are now a happy, healthy, amazing little boy.

This past year you have learned to walk and talk. And with each day you're melting our hearts with your abundant love for life. Daddy and I can see how much you love to run, sing, dance, and be as active as you can. And you have a talent for sports already. You're constantly hitting balls and saying, "shoot" ! You love to snuggle with us at night and always want to have a book read to you. Our favorite moments are when you wake up from a nap and want to lay in our arms as we're reclined in the brown chair. You love to watch the Golf channel with your Dad then. Sometimes you even get mad if it's not on!

People can't get past your adorable big eyes and smile. You are such a flirt too! Too bad for the other lady's out there, 'cause you are mine!

Liam, I can't tell you enough how much I love you and how happy you make me! You make everyone in our family so happy. I look forward to many years to come, but with sadness we say good-bye to your baby years! But don't forget, I will love you forever, I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be.

Forever and Always,
Mommy

Family Movie Night

This summer we've started the family movie night tradition. Liam's finally getting to an age where he'll sit (sometimes only for a bit) and watch the movie. Most of the movies I've been getting are older ones that I can pick up from the library, but the kids love them just the same.

I remember movie night as a kid. We would spend some time on Fri. night after dinner going to Blockbuster and each picking out a movie. Then we would get home and watch something together. What is it about watching a movie together that seems so bonding??

Our movie nights start out by ordering a pizza, followed by eating popcorn and watching a movie on a big blanket spread out on the living room floor with lots of pillows. This last week, however, getting a movie from the library backfired on me. I wanted the kids to see Aladdin, but the DVD was so scratched up that we couldn't even make it to the menu. Well, Uncle Stephen rescued the night with his netflix account. We were able to watch Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs on my laptop. We ended up moving movie night that night to our bed so we could all see the tiny screen.

I think just having us all together, doing the same thing, snuggling, and happy is what I love about movie night.