Basement flood

On Wednesday evening, Alice and Parker went to play in the basement.  Alice came up and said that her feet were wet.  Zac went downstairs immediately and discovered that our hot water heater pipe had sprung a leak and drenched part of the basement. Thank goodness the girls went down there, or it would have been much worse.

The next morning, Zac stayed home from work and the repair people came and fixed the pipe, pulled up the carpet, cut out the damaged drywall, and put a bunch of fans and dehumidifiers down there.

Video of kids watching cat videos

Simon is obsessed with our cat. We recently discovered that he also loves watching silly cat videos on youtube.

Rainy day play

Sunday was rainy but warm, so Zac took the kids on a wet walk.

Astronomy Day

We went to the science museum downtown for their annual Astronomy Day.

Simon would not high-five the fake astronaut.

The kids made "rockets" out of 2-liter plastic bottles with party hats on top and paper wings on the sides.

And this was new this year: they actually got to go outside and launch their rockets!

The day was so gorgeous that once we were outside, they didn't want to go back in. They just played in some shrubbery and foliage in front of the museum for an hour.

Simon's kindergarten open house

On Thursday, Dillard Drive Elementary school had an open house for kindergarten. I couldn't find any actual detailed information about it, so we took Simon.  It turned out to not really be for kids, as there was a half hour long power point presentation in the library to kick it off. Luckily I'd brought some little pads of paper, so Simon spent the entire time folding them and cutting holes in them, but at least he wasn't going crazy.  Alice did paper work for a while, then wandered around the library and looked at books.

Finally the presentation was over, and we took a little tour of the gym, cafeteria, and a kindergarten classroom. Zac and I weren't too interested in this and could have skipped the whole thing, except we wanted to get Simon thinking about kindergarten and wanted to have him have a chance to see inside the school. Somehow I think his transition to kindergarten may be a bit rougher than Alice's.

Since the open house was from 5:30-6:30, both kids were a bit bonkers--hungry and tired.

We couldn't get Simon to take the dragonfly picture, but Alice did.

Deception

"I pretended that I clipped down but I didn't when Ms. Jones asked me to."

Simon's cake

I picked Simon up from daycare today, and he was busy in the sandbox making a cake with candles.

A nice day to play

After all the snow this past week, it was nice to have a warm sunny day to play outside.  We took the kids to Pullen Park in the morning, for a play date with Simon's friend Donovan. Although Simon considers Donovan his best friend, they didn't play as well together this time. Simon is still too content to just do his own thing. But, it was a lovely day to be outside and we enjoyed visiting with Donovan's parents while the kids played.

Back home, Simon checked out his fort.

Simon's cat pictures

Snow Day #3

On Friday, Alice's school and my school were still closed, but Zac's work and Simon's daycare were open. So Zac took Simon in, while I stayed home with Alice. I'd arranged a playdate with Emory, another kid in the neighborhood, that is in kindergarten, goes to Alice's school, and is the son of Zac's coworker, Rachel.  The kids played in the basement, played outside, painted...did about everything.

Later that evening, while I was trying to get supper ready, Alice wanted to play with ice, and then she wanted to dye the ice. I gave her specific instructions to just use a few drops of food coloring. A bit later, Parker came over and joined the fun.  I'm cooking supper this whole time, so by the time I checked back in, she'd gone through nearly all of the four bottles and there was melted ice everywhere and dye on everything.

This is a good summary of life with Alice. What I consider are rather minimal limits, she'll still break. She'll also make a giant mess. And then whine and be difficult when you make her clean it up. Day in and day out.

After three snow-days straight home with Alice, after already having a three-day weekend (and now it's the weekend again) I decide that Alice should go to summer camp all summer long.

I spend the evening looking through the camp booklet. I relent a bit, and only plan to book her into about 6 weeks of summer camp (3 of which are mandatory since I go back to school before she does). That still leaves five weeks with Alice.

Many days I think I am really not cut out for this parenting gig.

Snow Day #2

It was no surprise to anyone that after getting 6 inches of snow (up to 12 inches in parts to the north and west of us), everything was also closed on Thursday. It was almost too beautiful outside, with the  snow-covered branches against the bright blue sky.

(We have to take pictures of our house from this angle because we have workers fixing some of our rotten siding, so we currently have a porta-potty in our front yard and a trailer in our driveway).

This is to go with the pictures taken from this angle yesterday. (This is about 1pm, so some snow has already melted under the tree.)

Whenever I get frustrated about how much fixing-up our house needs, I just remind myself how much I love having windows with a good view. It really pays off on days like this.

In the morning we had our friends from the neighborhood, Andrea and her two boys (Murphy and Glenn), come over to play. The kids played inside for about an hour while it warmed up, then we bundled up and headed out to play in the now. It was so gorgeous and fun. 

We ended up taking a walk / sled ride around the pond.

We ended up at the park. We had the place to ourselves.

Simon wanted to swing (but I wasn't pushing him at the exact right heigh/speed, hence the grumpy face).

Our neighbors went back to their house and we headed home on the greenway, which was very white.

Back at home, we had lunch, napped, painted, played...it was fun most of the time. Alice and Parker played a lot, so thank goodness for Parker to keep Alice busy!

I love this amazing cat Simon painted. (Too bad it's just on scrap paper from work).

Snow Day #1

On Tuesday night, everything was closed or cancelled for the next day, in anticipation of a major snow storm. But in the morning, there was nary a speck of snow.

It started snowing at our house around 10:30am, but nothing was sticking for the first hour or so.

About two hours later, the snow was sticking (photo 12:44pm).

By 2:45 pm we had this:

By 5pm, I was wondering if we would ever go back to work and school.

We had 4 inches of snow on the deck railing. This is a lot for NC! And it was still snowing.

It was beautiful!

Alice and Parker made a snow creature.

So did Simon.

The neighborhood was transformed.

I took a walk after supper just because it is not dark at night in the snow. It was beautiful!

 

Even as a teacher whose schedule is severely disrupted by snow days, and a parent who is driven insane by staying home with kids, I can't not wish for snow. It is just so magical and beautiful.

Dance Routines

On Tuesday night, Alice had me make a video of her freestyle dancing. I think she has potential as a figure skater!

But probably no future as a break dancer. (Be sure to notice Zac's expression about 5 seconds in).

Alice and Parker passed some of the time on the snow day working on dance routines. Here's one:

Ice crystals

I thought these ice crystals on my windshield were beautiful.