November behavior

Well, she improved towards the end of the month.

Simon's truck

"Mom, I built a truck!"

Alice and Simon's art

The first two are by Alice:

The rest are by Simon:

It's exciting. His drawings are actually starting too look like things--his favorite things: airplanes and caterpillars, and maybe a cat?

Our living room playground

Parker usually comes over in the evenings to play with Alice after supper. Every day she rings our doorbell around 6:30.

Apex Community Park (Day 5 of 5)

This morning we went to a new park. I can't believe we've been on the park circuit for 5 years and still have new parks to check out. This is such a great area in which to live.  I scouted out this park  on a map and it looked promising because there's a 2 mile paved greenway loop that goes around a small lake. Now that Simon can finally ride his bike well enough to go places, it seemed like he was ready.

I dropped Zac and the kids off at the southern entrance then I went to get groceries at the nearby Kroger. When I was done, I drove to the northern entrance to the park, which had some playgrounds and met them there.

Yates Mill Pond (Day 4 of 5)

Day 4 of our long slog through the stay home days dawned bright and beautiful. Our plan was to keep Simon awake and head out to Yates Mill Pond to catch the last of the fall colors. But first, breakfast.

The kids take their trees everywhere with them.

Zac fired up the ol' SLR by doing a quick photo shoot with our in-house watch model, Alice.

Then we headed out to Yates Mill Pond for our family fall hike.

We fueled the kids up with gummies at the very first bench.

Then they spent an hour at the very first fallen tree in the woods. Nature is great for our kids since all they want to do is climb on things and tear things apart. By the time they were done, there was no bark left on this tree trunk.

 

Then they climbed on the dung hill for a while, and even found an assassin bug (Simon knew not to pick it up this time).

We finally headed out on the hike. It went quickly as the kids basically just chased and raced down the trail. We did stop at this cool tree to play for a bit, before heading off to the waterfall.

Getting the tree (Day 3 of 5)

On Friday, we just stayed around the house and went out to get our Christmas tree. Zac strung the lights on it during naptime then we decorated it before supper. After supper, a package arrived for the kids.

To make room for the tree, we moved Alice's art table to the front windows in the study.

During nap, I took a walk on this beautiful fall day. This is the pedestrian bridge over the highway.

Can you find Simon in the picture below?

Do you see him now? (He's like a cat, always looking for little places he can climb into.)

Excuse me

I was standing in front of the silverware drawer. Alice opened it and bumped me. "Hey, watch out!" she said.

"Alice, you're supposed to say, 'Excuse me' before you bump into someone so they can move out of your way."

"But then they'll think I farted! How will you know if I want you to move out of the way or if I farted?"

"Context clues. Am I in your way? Or does it stink? We'll figure it out; don't worry."

Thanksgiving (Day 2 of 5)

We went to Burlington for Thanksgiving.  The greatness of Thanksgiving food is still totally wasted on our kids, although this year they at least liked the turkey. One step at a time.

It was a beautiful day, so we went to the fish fountain, the neighborhood park, and scootered around a bit. Eleanor painted my nails, Alice's and Simon's. Poor Zac was left out.

Trees, nests, volcanoes, and bikes (Day 1 of 5)

Wednesday kicked off the first of five stay-home days. (The kids were a little more excited about this than we were, to be honest).  On Wednesday, I mainly took care of the kids so Zac could chip away at his infinite to-do list for the house.

We started the beautiful day at dragon park, where the kids climbed trees and build nests.  Simon also likes the tire swing now, although he doesn't want to go as crazy as Alice does, but he'll at least sit on it and let you push it now.

After afternoon naps, we had some fun with volcanoes in the kitchen and race tracks in the garage.

Only 4 more days!

Simon loves kitty (too much)

Simon loves the cat more than anything. The poor cat is quite tolerant, but I feel like her expression in this picture shows that she may be getting tired of Simon's affection.

Simon's sad goodbye

Apparently the morning drop off has been getting rougher, where Simon will not want to leave Zac, and sometimes cries.

Ms. Georgiana sent me these pictures to show that once Simon comes in (and gets a tissue) he's totally fine (especially with his best friend Donovan).

Alice can think about her choices

Translation:

1. I thought I could talk in the hallway and pick poppy seeds.

3. To not talk in the hallway. And to not pick poppy seeds.

I was very confused about why there were poppy seeds in the hallways, but Alice explained that these were two separate incidents and that she was picking poppy seeds outside.

I'm honestly surprised she doesn't come home with this form every day. This was the first one we've seen so far.

Morning with Simon

Alice was playing at Parker's, Zac was working on something, so Simon and I went outside to play. He's a fun kid to hang out with.

Kids and the tree

Lake Wheeler: Now and Then

On Saturday morning we planned to go to Yates Mill Pond for our annual family fall walk there, but Simon fell asleep in the car on the way there, so we kept driving down the road to Lake Wheeler to give him more time to nap. This turned out to be silly because he slept for about an hour and half in the car anyway, while Zac and I took turns playing with Alice.

November 18, 2017 (almost 6 1/2 years old)

Three and half years ago we were here...

April 20, 2014 (almost 3 years old)

Simon eventually woke up. The funny thing is whenever he falls asleep in the car, he wakes up exactly where he left off. He opened his eyes, and without missing a beat, said, "We're here! I want to get out!" With no awareness he had been asleep for over an hour. We didn't have much time left before needing to head home for lunch, but we took a little walk along the shoreline and Simon made little mounds in the sand.