Crazy Eights

Simon loves to play Go Fish, War, and Crazy Eights.  The Crazy Eights deck seemed kind of thin, so I finally laid it all out, and sure enough, a few cards are missing.

(It's been a while and we still haven't found them...)

Charlotte's Web with Emory

The weather had been dreary for most of the weekend, so it was sad that just as it warmed up and the sun broke through, we were scheduled to sit indoors and watch a children's theater play.  The local Cary Arts center youth theater group was putting on Charlottes Web. I thought it would be fun to take the kids to see it, especially since I read the book to Alice two summers ago.

By total coincidence and no planning, out seats were right next to Alice's buddy Emory and his mom Rachel (Zac's coworker).

Afterwards, we walked across to the fountain and let the kids run around together for a while.

And then, after that, we took our kids to the McDonald's with a play place for supper. I think it was their second time ever being in a McDonald's.  The play place feature is really nice.

Elli

It is so adorable how well Simon and the neighbor girl Elli play together.

For a while, they also went upstairs and passed notes back and forth with Alice. Here are a couple I found:

I like all of you especially Eleanor and Alice.

Ok, I love you too.

Simon writes a story book

5 years old 5           Date 23

Name Simon Arcaro

I have a cat. Her name is claw.

Simon's home

Oh no! Claw fell into the sea.  

Sea!

Finally it's summer.

What will they do?

They will swim.

Okay, let's swim!

Then they had a picnic.

The end.

Good bye.

Sweet Siblings

The Flu epidemic of February 2019

The kids and I had Monday off and Andrea's boys were going to come over to play in the afternoon, but our plans were squashed when Simon threw up several times over night, and spent the morning crying about having achy legs.



It was a lovely day outside, but Simon slept most of it, so Alice and I were housebound as well.

Alice made a list of things to do around the house.







Clean Bedroom
Clean Basement
Do Laundry
Vacuum
Clean Bathroom














Alice went up to clean her bedroom but just played there for a long time. Nothing was cleaned up, but some things were rearranged. It wasn't even clean enough for her to vacuum it, like she had wanted. I did laundry and cleaned the bathroom. I didn't have the energy to help her clean up the basement disaster.

Simon stayed home sick the next two days. He slept most of the time, but would occasionally rally enough for a game of Go Fish.

I ended up coming down with the flu as well and I missed the whole week of work.  I don't know if a crucial part of my immune system was removed along with my colon or what, but since I first got sick at the end of January, I've seemed to catch one thing after another. (I'm writing this on March 8th and I think I have bronchitis now...)

Simon's scary mask

At the top it says: Roar. Scary.

Notice the two mouths with teeth.

At the bottom it says: Soon I will come to you.

This is the stuff of nightmares. Brought to you by Simon.

Puppet Workshop

Our friend Andrea told me about this free puppet workshop she signed her kids up for at NC State, so I signed us up too.  It's good to have other activities for chilly February weekends.

The workshop consisted of a lady (dramatic arts professor, perhaps) telling us a little about the history of puppets. Then she showed us some different types. Then we were each given a brown paper bag with some random supplies, and access to hot glue guns, and we set to work.

Simon was mostly interested in writing on the whiteboard table.

We all managed to make something, although I don't think I would describe any of them as puppets.

Alice dubbed mine "Zombie Granny" and took quite a liking to it.

Afterwards, we went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch with Andrea, Glenn, and Murphy.

Simon and Alice then spent the afternoon playing at their house. The plan was for me to take Andrea's boys for a couple of hours on Monday (child trade).  When I picked the kids up at the appointed time, Simon was so sad to leave that he cried. He was also, it turned out, hungry. But he likes their house because Andrea has so many pets.

Valentines

A couple days before Valentine's Day, I had the kids prep their cards for their classes.  The trend these days is to give not just a card, but also a little toy or piece of candy. Some parents go all out and even make little goody bags for each kid. Those parents have more creativity, time, energy and patience than Zac and I have. I was thrilled to find these sets of cards in the dollar bin at Target because the toy (a little rubbery fling) was already attached to the card, so there was no assembly required. I just had to cut the cards out and the kids had to write their classmates names on them. Even this simple task still took two nights for Alice (Simon completed his the first night because he is able to focus on a task for a significant period of time unlike Child #1).

(It's hard for me to look at pictures of myself these days. I always look tired and old and my hair is seriously messed up right now.)

We got our chairs just in time for Valentine's day! We've been looking for something for in front of this window since we moved in two years ago and just haven't been able to decide what would work well. Then on one of our shopping trips to Retro Modern while my parents were here in December, we finally decided on these. They're originals from the guy who designed the North Carolina zoo and they've been reupholstered. Now we just need a little table for between them. (Plastic stool is not the plan.)

Nelson designed these cards for the kids. They especially liked the heart shapes in the trees.

Simon got to celebrate the morning by getting some more work done on his cavities. Poor thing.

Our Valentine's gifts to kids this year were actually leftover Christmas gifts we forgot about in the attic. They got a metal detector and a new electric pencil sharpener. We really know how to show the love.

Things with Wings: Art Roundup

Pictures by Alice:

*****

Picture by Simon:

(Simon is mostly into writing sentences these days, so his rate of art production has declined.)

Playdates with Emory & Elizabeth

On Saturday we had Alice's friend Emory over for a playdate, and on Sunday afternoon we had Simon's friend Elizabeth over. I originally intended for the playdates to be at the same time, so they could each have a friend to play with, but it didn't end up working out that way.

The new fun thing to do is build a little campfire in the back yard and let the kids put sticks in it and cook marshmallows.

"Two peas in a pod"

Pretending to be spiders on a big web...

Alice & I roller skating

I finally got around to taking Alice roller skating at Jelly Beans again. She always wants to go, but it doesn't work well with our schedule since Simon can't go, and it's only for two hours on a Saturday morning.  Plus, I haven't been feeling good enough to go roller skating for a long time. I haven't been here since her birthday party, when I was already starting to feel really weak and sick. So it was nice to be able to zip around the floor with her again.

Alice read a book by herself!

Alice has been reading this book called, Our Teacher is a Vampire for a while now. I don't know if I can say it's the first book she read all by herself, but I think it is. She read some of the Magic Treehouse books, but we would sometimes read parts of them to her at bedtime. But this book she really read entirely by herself. It is so fun to see her finally start to like reading. A few times I would catch her reading in her bed at night when she was supposed to be sleeping. I would pretend to be mad, but of course I was secretly happy.

The last couple of days, she would finish her shower, put on her pajamas, and do a "beach read" on the bathroom floor (because it was warm in there) while Simon finished his shower.

Here she is on the last page of her book (253 pages) -- although to be completely truthful this is a reenactment.

 

She was so proud of herself for reading the whole book! 

 Thank you, authors, for making books kids actually want to read! (says the English teacher who teaches "great literature" that kids don't want to read. Sigh.)

Simon reads a book!

Hop on Pop, read by Simon, age 5 1/2.

Alice's story

I found this story in Alice's pile of work from school.

Translation:
"Once upon a time there was a couple. With two daughters and a husband. The husband was at sea. One daughter was in the garden. The daughter was beautiful. The other daughter was beautiful too. The next day the wife was in the garden. She saw a spider. What spider was it? It was a...black widow!"

Number line

In his homework folder, Simon had a little baggie of cut up numbers, with no explanation. I held it out and said, "What is this? Do you know what you're supposed to do?"  

He said, "Yes! I know!" and he ran off to work at the art table. He came back a while later with this.

Sunset