Falls Lake

Zac took the kids to Falls Lake today while I graded, took my walk, and did laundry and other miscellaneous chores.  It works out pretty well in terms of productivity for us to each take the kids for one of the weekend days.

It was a beautiful day.

The greenway is starting to turn green.

We're on the cusp of spring...

Reptile Day at the Science Museum

On Saturday, I took the kids for the day.  We were having our neighbors Kim and Mike over for supper, so once again Zac was tasked with cleaning the house in addition to other chores and errands.

It was reptile day at the science museum.  The kids mainly did the crafts and activities, and glanced at the creatures a bit.

Simon's obsession with writing sight words carried over there as well.  Alice had brought a little notebook with her (she mainly draws pictures) but Simon kept taking pages out so he could write words.

The kid is completely incorrigible.

I had them play outside a bit afterwards to try and get some energy out.

Mornings with Alice

Mornings with Alice can be rough. She apparently was not fond of this french toast Zac made for her.

Went I passed by her room, I noticed these notes that Simon had evidently slid under her door in the morning. She'll stay in her room and read on the weekend mornings sometimes now, instead of running around the house with Simon.

"Alice, I love you and mom and dad. Love."

"And please can you come downstairs soon?"

You ate my son

To pass the time while Alice worked on a craft at the science museum, I played this fill-in-the-blank word game with Simon. It was going pretty well and keeping him occupied.

But then suddenly things took a dark turn when he thought the word was "ate" instead of "are."

Rockin' Kids

On Sunday Zac took the kids to Laurel Hills park.

It was such a warm and beautiful day that we had supper on the deck.

Eventful day

In addition to putting the fish in the tank today, I had planned out a fun day to get the kids out of the house so Zac could clean it. The weather wasn't great, so we did indoor stuff.

First, we went to see How to Train your Dragon #3 at the movie theater. Alice did fine, but Simon squirmed around a lot and kept asking how much longer the movie had.

After the movie, we went to lunch at the McDonalds with the play place.  We had lunch and the kids got some energy out on the climbing things. In a classic Alice moment, at one point she managed to slide into the table, knock her juice box over with her hair, then squirt a bunch out the straw while grabbing it.

Then we went to the library.

Finally we went home and Donovan and his family came over for dinner.

Fish tank day!

The note from Alice says, "Dear Dad, The fish tank looks great. I can't wait to put the fish in."

So today was finally the day!  After breakfast, Zac took the kids out to the holding tank in the garage and let them catch the fish to put in the big tank. The fish are from our pond.

There they go!

Zac spent a lot of time preparing this tank. He bought it off Craigslist for a pretty good deal. He scraped the blue pain off the back of the tank and painted it black. He built bigger doors for the stand so he could more easily service the giant filter, and repainted it.

It's a great addition to our dining room!

Simon's spelling test

Simon is the kid who wakes up on a Saturday morning and gives himself a spelling test over sight words.

And makes scary masks!

In green: "Scary  Roar"

In red: "This is scary"

In pencil: "Does this look scary? Yes it does."

Alice's student-led conference

This afternoon, Zac went to Alice's student-led conference, where she showed him her portfolio and talked about what she was learning. (Neither one was big on sharing the details, so that's all I have to report.)

 

Notes from the Kids

Alice proudly presented this to me after school one day.

"Dear mom, the summer is going to be fun. I can't wait! I hope we go to the pool.  This summer is going to be the best!"

(The irony is that I'm kind of dreading the summer since I decided to try and save money and embrace my parenting role and not sign the kids up for camps all summer.)

Simon loves to play games where we have to guess words. Today after his shower he went and wrote this.

"Mom, I like you, but guess what word is behind here and no peeking."

The Fish Tank

Zac has been spending a lot of time refurbishing a giant fish tank and stand he bought off Craigslist.

It's almost ready!  He just has to put the doors he made on it (had to widen them to fit the giant filter tank under it) and add some fishies.

Homework

We usually have the kids do their homework at the dining room table after supper every day. 

Simon can finish his packet for the week in about 15 minutes.  We make Alice practice her spelling words every day. I've started making games like crosswords and words searches to make this process less painful. She enjoys the puzzles, but still really struggles with spelling. Alas.

Simon reads...sort of

So of course he's reading along just fine until I tried to make a video of it...

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...)