As an early birthday gift, my parents got us a stereo for the van that can play CDs and Steve expertly installed this over the weekend. I have been absolutely starving for classical music, in particular, so that the kids can listen to many great works and get familiar with them. On Monday, we started with Beethoven's 9th- the first two movements on the way in to school seemed to have them all calm and listening intently (happily they were really into it). Then, on the way back we listened to the next two movements including the famous last movement with the "Ode to Joy" theme. You would not believe how all four of them were singing at the top of their lungs (their unborn sister was either also excited, or terrified by this, b/c I could feel her thrashing around to the music also). They were truly beaming with happiness, all four of them! Tuesday we listened to Mozart in the morning and Prokofiev in the afternoon. I think Prokofiev was too much for them and gave them complete sensory overload and fighting ensued- but the same pieces worked very well to rev them up for the day this morning.
I was talking to Steve the other night about this great article in my favorite magazine, "The Week". The article was about the Dali Lama, and I was relaying the story to Steve. Valerie was there in the kitchen with us, listening. At the end of the story, a waitress asks the Dali Lama "What is the meaning of life?" and he quickly answers "Happiness!". And Valerie chimed in, "Of course it is!", as if that was a silly question. And I realized, our children truly do live like that- for pure happiness, in all that they do. It made me realize again how much we can learn from them.
Here is a video of Livy, talking about Tornados:
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Monday, March 10, 2014
Friday, January 31, 2014
Snowy South Carolina
This week has been really interesting. Friday of last week, I started seeing winter weather advisories on my phone for South Carolina. The panic continued until finally, school (and blessedly, work) was closed all day on Tuesday with not even a flake. Tuesday night around 9 p.m., some frozen precipitation begin to fall. Neighbors were happily walking the streets taking in the unusual weather. When we woke up on Wednesday we had a few inches of snow on the ground! For hours, Steve's were the only tire marks in the neighborhood, as EVERYTHING was shut down. The kiddos and I had a great time playing in the snow. Ethan was out there for hours. There was a snowman in front of many houses in the neighborhood, and people used their boogie boards for sledding. Thursday and Friday were two hour delays for fear of black ice.
The other pictures are of Emi and "GeDads" visit (sorry for the blurryness) this past weekend, and my lunch with Ethan and Valerie last week at their school. I had lunch with Julia too but forgot to take her picture. The other picture is of Livy enjoying her tea party. She just loves pouring water from one saucer to the next.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve 2013
Julia the Pilgram
Julia had a Thanksgiving feast in her class at school and the parents were invited. They put on a play about the first thanksgiving and Julia did a fantastic job as a pilgrim. It was a lot of fun seeing her in her classroom playing with her friends after the feast.
Julia at her Thanksgiving Party at School
Cutting our 1st Carolina Christmas Tree
Each year we cut our own Christmas tree. The tree farms have some different offerings in South Carolina, and I believe we got some kind of Carolina pine-very different but very pretty. We ended up getting one that was close to 10 feet tall since our ceiling here is much higher, then realized our old stand was not up to the task. After the tree fell for the second or third time, we got a heavy duty one that did the trick. Steve said we could practically run and jump into the tree and it wouldn't budge.
Valerie Helping
Sometimes having a big family makes things easier rather than harder. We are finding that to be the case a lot lately, with Ethan and Valerie being especially helpful with LOTS of things. Here, Valerie is helping with the many pine needles that covered our back yard in the early winter (dressed appropriately as always!). Ethan and Valerie also help out with cleaning up and frequently read stories to Julia and Olivia at bedtime.
Ethan at Cubscouts
Ethan's cubscout pack made these reindeer pots and filled them with peppermints. Then we went to a local nursing home to sing carols and give these out. That night, we got there 10 minutes late and they were already finished with singing. I was really proud of EVJO though- each of them went around talking to folks, hugging, and sitting in laps. Ethan and Valerie also each played a Christmas song on the piano there. This was definitely a highlight of the Christmas season for us. Ethan and Valerie are both excited about going back some time soon to play some more piano for the residents there.
Julia the Angel
The different events at St. Peter's were another huge highlight over Christmas. The biggest was a choral concert given by the entire school, singing arrangements composed by the USC music composition students. Then, EV&J each had a Christmas party (at the same time) in their classes. Julia's class performed the nativity play and Julia was a perfect angel.
Valerie's Angel
Bath Time for the Girls
Ethan Playing His DS
Ethan and Valerie love their DS games.
Valerie Making Crafts
The kiddos got a lot of craft-like things for Christmas. These things were big hits, since it gave us great things to do in the week they were off.
Julia Practicing her Letters
This Melissa and Doug book where you trace the letters with a water filled brush/pen has gotten hours and hours of use by both Julia and Olivia. Julia is doing a great job with learning all of her letters and is now doing some very very early reading. She seems to get it, but hasn't developed a work ethic with this stuff yet. Still, she enjoys attention and time together, so she is totally game much of the time.
Olivia on New Year's Eve
To cap off our crazy year, we had the absolute best time with our wonderful friend's, The Sombats. We met up at Massanutten and so enjoyed chatting and catching up. We also enjoyed an indoor water park, and some of us did some skiing, ice skating and snow tubing. Meggan had planned out New Year's eve so nicely, with different activities for the kids meant to last until midnight. As you can see in this picture below taken at midnight, Ethan was the only child awake to bring in the new year, and not even all of the adults made it!
New Year's Eve with the Sombats
Birdhouse Bonanza
Some more crafts- the kids love building things with Daddy.
Ethan Before His Haircut
As you can see here, Ethan was not too happy about getting his hair cut.
Ethan After His Haircut
Will try to post more frequently!
Julia had a Thanksgiving feast in her class at school and the parents were invited. They put on a play about the first thanksgiving and Julia did a fantastic job as a pilgrim. It was a lot of fun seeing her in her classroom playing with her friends after the feast.
Julia at her Thanksgiving Party at School
Cutting our 1st Carolina Christmas Tree
Each year we cut our own Christmas tree. The tree farms have some different offerings in South Carolina, and I believe we got some kind of Carolina pine-very different but very pretty. We ended up getting one that was close to 10 feet tall since our ceiling here is much higher, then realized our old stand was not up to the task. After the tree fell for the second or third time, we got a heavy duty one that did the trick. Steve said we could practically run and jump into the tree and it wouldn't budge.
Valerie Helping
Sometimes having a big family makes things easier rather than harder. We are finding that to be the case a lot lately, with Ethan and Valerie being especially helpful with LOTS of things. Here, Valerie is helping with the many pine needles that covered our back yard in the early winter (dressed appropriately as always!). Ethan and Valerie also help out with cleaning up and frequently read stories to Julia and Olivia at bedtime.
Ethan at Cubscouts
Ethan's cubscout pack made these reindeer pots and filled them with peppermints. Then we went to a local nursing home to sing carols and give these out. That night, we got there 10 minutes late and they were already finished with singing. I was really proud of EVJO though- each of them went around talking to folks, hugging, and sitting in laps. Ethan and Valerie also each played a Christmas song on the piano there. This was definitely a highlight of the Christmas season for us. Ethan and Valerie are both excited about going back some time soon to play some more piano for the residents there.
Julia the Angel
The different events at St. Peter's were another huge highlight over Christmas. The biggest was a choral concert given by the entire school, singing arrangements composed by the USC music composition students. Then, EV&J each had a Christmas party (at the same time) in their classes. Julia's class performed the nativity play and Julia was a perfect angel.
Valerie's Angel
Bath Time for the Girls
Ethan Playing His DS
Ethan and Valerie love their DS games.
Valerie Making Crafts
The kiddos got a lot of craft-like things for Christmas. These things were big hits, since it gave us great things to do in the week they were off.
Julia Practicing her Letters
This Melissa and Doug book where you trace the letters with a water filled brush/pen has gotten hours and hours of use by both Julia and Olivia. Julia is doing a great job with learning all of her letters and is now doing some very very early reading. She seems to get it, but hasn't developed a work ethic with this stuff yet. Still, she enjoys attention and time together, so she is totally game much of the time.
Olivia on New Year's Eve
To cap off our crazy year, we had the absolute best time with our wonderful friend's, The Sombats. We met up at Massanutten and so enjoyed chatting and catching up. We also enjoyed an indoor water park, and some of us did some skiing, ice skating and snow tubing. Meggan had planned out New Year's eve so nicely, with different activities for the kids meant to last until midnight. As you can see in this picture below taken at midnight, Ethan was the only child awake to bring in the new year, and not even all of the adults made it!
New Year's Eve with the Sombats
Birdhouse Bonanza
Some more crafts- the kids love building things with Daddy.
Ethan Before His Haircut
As you can see here, Ethan was not too happy about getting his hair cut.
Ethan After His Haircut
Will try to post more frequently!
Monday, November 25, 2013
Mysterious Mustaches
On Thursday night, Valerie's last soccer game (at night under the lights)ended in a 1-1 tie. It was such an exciting game with Valerie playing goalie for part of it and having some amazing saves. You should see her- a 36 lb firecracker, charging girls more than twice her size, absolutely fearlessly. She loves it too. This game was great, as were others this season- all of the girls on her team played their hearts out.
When we got home, there were four mysterious envelopes in our mailbox full of mustaches!!!! I can't tell you the fun that we had! But maybe you can see it from some of these pictures. I have some more pictures of Olivia, where she put the mustache on her chin, forehead etc, before getting it in the right spot. Very very fun. I suspect I know who the lovely sender of these mustaches is, but will need to confirm :)
Over the weekend, Valerie's girl scout troop had a Thanksgiving dinner. We all went and it was really neat- over 100 people there and each family brought something different. There were enough desserts for each person to have about 10 each, and I think each person there pretty much did eat 10 each- the desserts were almost totally gone by the end!
I took Julia to a ninja turtle karate birthday party of a classmates and she had a blast. She had been looking forward to the party for WEEKS.
On Saturday we took a trip to Fort Jackson and first played on the playground. Olivia went down this huge slide and it was like a tidal wave when she hit the water at the bottom. Hence, the pink army pjs we had to get her before going to do our grocery shopping. At the commissary it was so crowded that we literally had to wait in line as we walked down each isle. The kiddos were very good through all of this though. Steve went to the auto center on the base while we were shopping, where he can put the van on a lift to change the oil easily.
We are all ready for Thanksgiving- the turkey is thawing in the fridge. The kiddos helped me plan the meal on our drive home on Friday. They all agreed on brownies for dessert (although we'll make pumpkin pie too). And they all insisted on mashed potatoes. Ethan wants fish (tuna) b/c he said that the Indian's taught the Pilgrims to fish and that was what they had at the first thanksgiving. Valerie strongly suggested baked beans. I might be able to work in the baked beans, but the fish might need to be bumped to Friday's menu.
When we got home, there were four mysterious envelopes in our mailbox full of mustaches!!!! I can't tell you the fun that we had! But maybe you can see it from some of these pictures. I have some more pictures of Olivia, where she put the mustache on her chin, forehead etc, before getting it in the right spot. Very very fun. I suspect I know who the lovely sender of these mustaches is, but will need to confirm :)
Over the weekend, Valerie's girl scout troop had a Thanksgiving dinner. We all went and it was really neat- over 100 people there and each family brought something different. There were enough desserts for each person to have about 10 each, and I think each person there pretty much did eat 10 each- the desserts were almost totally gone by the end!
I took Julia to a ninja turtle karate birthday party of a classmates and she had a blast. She had been looking forward to the party for WEEKS.
On Saturday we took a trip to Fort Jackson and first played on the playground. Olivia went down this huge slide and it was like a tidal wave when she hit the water at the bottom. Hence, the pink army pjs we had to get her before going to do our grocery shopping. At the commissary it was so crowded that we literally had to wait in line as we walked down each isle. The kiddos were very good through all of this though. Steve went to the auto center on the base while we were shopping, where he can put the van on a lift to change the oil easily.
We are all ready for Thanksgiving- the turkey is thawing in the fridge. The kiddos helped me plan the meal on our drive home on Friday. They all agreed on brownies for dessert (although we'll make pumpkin pie too). And they all insisted on mashed potatoes. Ethan wants fish (tuna) b/c he said that the Indian's taught the Pilgrims to fish and that was what they had at the first thanksgiving. Valerie strongly suggested baked beans. I might be able to work in the baked beans, but the fish might need to be bumped to Friday's menu.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Handmade in SC
Last night I finished Livy's bag. Now I've made one for each of the children. Livy especially loves hers and it is so much fun to make something that they like (that doesn't get eaten for a change!), and they don't seem to mind that I am not too good at this. Ethan and Julia got super hero bags (pictured above) over the weekend, with pockets inside!
Not that I have the market on hand made goods cornered. Look at what Steve made for our family room!
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Weekend Visitors
We had a really nice weekend with Emi and Granddad who got to see Valerie and Julia at their soccer games. We also went to the park and had some True BBQ among other highlights. I think their favorite part of the visit might have been the early morning wake up calls!
We were also treated to a visit from Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bill! It was so nice to see them, even if briefly! Next time we'll see if they are brave enough to spend the night with our crazy crew.
We were also treated to a visit from Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bill! It was so nice to see them, even if briefly! Next time we'll see if they are brave enough to spend the night with our crazy crew.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)