PLS: Post-Library Syndrome

The boys on a Holiday morning

The boys - ahem, Paleontologists - are busy this morning excavating our garden in search of dinosaur fossils.  Yes, Miles is wearing safety goggles - he is a cautious paleontologist.  Their kind secretary brought them out some hot chocolate - complete with marshmallows.  Go, boys, go!

Lucy on a Sunday evening

Sunday church drawing

by Jonas:

I adore his labeling.

A LOVEly Valentine's Day

So I think everyone had a good day.  Here is a picture I took in the morning - while their valentine shirts were still clean (it didn't last long. . .):

Yes, this was the best I got!  I'm not sure what Lucy's problem was, but it might have been something about me taking her BooBoo away.  That girl.  But I love the picture because I love these kids.

When we got back to taking the boys to school, the girls had some fun.  I painted Lucy's fingernails for the first time - holy hard.  The polish was practically off before I got to blow it dry.  But she still loved it and would look at her hand and say, "Wow."  Totally worth it.  She had to go to bed before her special treat from me (a chocolate sucker), but she did get to enjoy some pop-rock candy in the morning.  It was awesome watching her eat it.  :)  Love her.

Emmy and her lovely nails (we did her toes, too).  She was so happy about the polish.  We went to Mostly Music today and had a lot of fun there.  We also delivered her valentines to some of her friends (mainly walking around the neighborhood) and that was really fun and special for her, I think.  Of course the yummy treats of the day made it extra sweet for her as well.  Love her.

Jonas had a really good valentines party at school - filled with cupcakes, cookies, valentines, oh my.  When he got home we all looked and read his valentines.  So cute.  Of course he thought the little messages on each valentine were totally specific to him ("See, she does think we bee-long together!"  or "Why did she say that to me?  She doesn't like me."  It was too adorable.)  Love him.

Of course Miles had a wonderful day.  He loves this type of stuff - really, what kid doesn't?!  He had a fun valentines party, too - filled with treats, games, and valentines.  The above Valentine was one of our favorites.  :)  "Happy Valentine's Day, Miles.  Your true lover, (I blotted out her name just b/c)."  How awesomely funny and sweet is that!?  Love him.

I got the kids and Ben some extra-special treats from Gertrude Hawks - mine and Ben's favorite chocolate store we found while living in New York.  The kids kept saying "yum!" as they ate their "Valentines kabob" tonite.  It was perfect.  Ben sliced up some of his chocolate-covered-apple-rolled-in-nuts and shared some with me.  Yum.

So a good day.

P.S.  Love Ben, too.  A lot.

We're ready for V-day. . .

What happens when their Boos get washed

(remember:  the girls' boos are like unto linus' blankie.)

Yes, it's kind of sad.  But it also makes me laugh.

Close

scene:  The family was in the family room getting ready to read some bed-time stories.  Miles wanted to read a couple of nursery rhymes - well, instead of reading it, he asked, "What are little girls made of?"

Emmy replied:  "Salt!"

Silverton 2012

I wish I could say it was the best trip ever.  But I can't.  But I really wanted to - I wanted it to be a totally fun family trip.  While it was still good, with moments of great bliss, it fell short of being "great."  Oh well, there is always next year.  At least I think so. . .

I am always good at "lowering my expectations" when trips involve kids - so I don't get super-deflated when it's less than ideal.  So I'm not sure why I had such high expectations this time.  Perhaps b/c I just really needed (wanted??) a good, relaxing, and fun break.  But I think my family is still quite young - my kids, not necessarily Ben and me - and so that does present challenges.  

Anywho, it was a good trip.  A trip worth taking, yes.  The objective of the trip was met - letting the kids go skiing.  So I can't complain too much.  Just a little perhaps.

We drove up Friday morning in not-horrible conditions.  It had snowed overnight, but the roads weren't completely snow-packed.  Yes, I closed my eyes for the 5-mile stretch of mountain-pass craziness.  But Ben is a rock-star of a driver.  We got to the ski area and Emmy was the first one to ski with Ben.  Then Miles.  Then Jonas.  We (minus Ben and Miles - now skiing) checked in to our "house" a little after noon and that was good to just chill, unpack, let Lucy nap, etc.  Jonas was the last - per his request.  He did well, but his last run he looked miserable.  He wasn't feeling so hot.  We went back to our place and Jonas took about an hour nap.  I woke him up and tried to get him to eat something, but he wouldn't and fell back asleep.  He finally woke up when we started the movie, ate 3 bowls of cereal, and felt somewhat better.

Saturday morning.  Jonas was doing a little better - but not really good.  But he was still determined to ski that day.  Ben had wanted to ice skate on the rink all day on Friday - he and I were going to go after the kids had skied, but it was being "resurfaced" at exactly the same time.  Bummer.  So Saturday morning he took the 3 oldest kids to the rink.  Per Ben, they lasted less than 10 minutes.  Ben was so sad and frustrated.  Yes, the car did say it was -4 degrees, but still. . . Another bummer.  So we just hung out at the house until a little before 11 (the ski area doesn't open until then and that was our check-out time).

The order of Saturday went Jonas, Emmy, and then Miles.  We rented a sled and the kids enjoyed that for a bit.  Miles wore my gators and that made all the difference for him and playing in the snow.  Jonas felt okay while skiing and then got progressively worse as the day went on.  We finished up the day - and Ben and I still didn't get our date on ice.  There was a big group playing hockey.  Besides the fact that Jonas looked and felt like crud and so we had best be on our way anways.

In terms of skiing, I think the kids did really great.  The boys finally got the snow-plow and so they could ski on their own.  The whole slope.  So that was really fun.  Jonas really got on with the snow-plow on Friday, Miles not until Saturday.  But Ben gave Miles the "Most Improved" award so that was good for him!  Miles surprised me by wanting to do the large jumps and also by wanting to go down a steeper run.  He did get a little out of control on the steep run and crashed into another little girl.  But, besides the drama (which apparently this little girl thrives on. . .), all was well.  Miles even tried the steep run again - this time without incident.  Awesome.  Jonas just did great.  I hope we can take him again when he feels better, though.  Emmy was pretty much harnessed-up the entire time, but still did well.

Here are some pictures to make my post even longer:

Hanging Out:

 Eating breakfast.  I'm even in the picture.  :)

 Funny picture, but it does show the lodge where would hang out, warm up, eat, color, etc.

 Jonas, Emmy, and I played some pick-up sticks at the place.  Jonas is building a contraption here, I think.

Friday nite movie-time.  Jonas was quarantined in the back - he'd just awoken.  We did let him join the other kids on the couch. . . :)

Ben

The only one I got of just Ben.  He enjoyed that he didn't always have to follow right behind the boys.  So he got to do the jumps himself at times.  Wahoo.

Miles

 He enjoyed the sledding spot!  He was pretty much the only kid that figured out how to use the steering and brakes.

So cool!  Skiing down the mountain!  I was very proud of him.

Jonas

 Another cool kid cruising down the slopes.

 He had fun - but couldn't steer.  And wasn't feeling great anyways.

 The snow-mound is always fun to play on!

See, yep.  Pretty much feeling miserable.  Poor kid.

Emmy

 Wheee - she loved sliding down the mound of snow!

 I love this picture - it shows Lucy giving Ben a sweet head-hug.  She gave lots and lots of hugs to Ben that trip.  Maybe she missed him or something.  It was so adorable.

 Cute Emmy with the lodge behind her.

 Skiing at the end harness-free.

 Yep, no steering control.  :)

Plain tuckered out!

Lucy

 There she goes!

 She couldn't do much in the snow - but she certainly could eat the snow that stuck on her mittens!

 Yay, she loved snow-eating!

And my favorite picture of her!  So cute!  She is laughing at Emmy sliding down the snow.  What a doll.

Oh this post almost wore me out as much as the trip.  Though not really at all.  Good times for sure.  Great times to come, right!?

Da Boyz

Now it's on to the boys' updates.  Miles is a pretty great student - at least I think so.  Thus, I - at times - think boarding school would be so great for him.  His wonderful qualities do him well at school-like settings.  His not-so-wonderful-and-more-like-horrible qualities do him poorly at home.  Ben and I are often "beside ourselves" with that boy b/c we don't know what to do with him that we haven't already done, blah, blah.  His "problems" are hard to describe really.  But it pretty much boils down to:  1. him being a supreme pesterer  and 2.  him not having any clue on when enough is enough.  A game can go from fun to cries in a matter of seconds when Miles comes around.

But, with all that said and done, Miles truly is a wonderful kid.  I'm amazed at how he can be so thoughtless (not mean-spirited thoughtlessness, just genuine thoughtlessness) one minute and so sweetly thoughtful the next. He is a very tender boy.  He is very helpful.  He is a great cleaner - when made to clean.  He's really in to his legos.  He creates fun games to play - until. . . it becomes not fun anymore.  He 2 favorite things, as he declared in his classroom on Monday, are playing and cooking.  He decided he wanted to do gymnastics.  I really wanted him to take art classes (the kid is very artistic and creative), but gave him the option and he choose gymnastics.  Even after his trial class, he still wants it over art.  Alrighty, we'll see how it goes. . .

He's an amazing reader.  He pretty much reads a book a night.  A full-sized kid book - like 75-100 pages.  He especially likes the Magic Tree House books - but reads pretty much anything.  He recently read some Roscoe Riley books and some Ready Freddy books, too.  When he finishes them at night he comes down and tries to tell Ben and me everything that happened in the book.  Sometimes we let him.  Other times, we just have to cut him off.

(It's now a few hours later that I am writing this.  I could end Miles' update on a really, really sour note - seeing as that's how he decided to end my evening.  But I'm biting my tongue.  Really hard.)

So on to Jonas.  The poor kid who gets the brunt of Miles' "crud" as I'll nicely call it.  I hope as Jonas gets older he'll just rise above it, rather than whine about it.  But I can't say I blame the kid.  He's been dealing with it since just a baby:

and this:

Oh brother.  Oh bother.  But he'll be all the better for it, right?

He, too, is a really great student.  But I don't threaten boarding school on him.  For a kindergartner I think he's a really great reader.  He's also a great writer - with pretty good spelling and penmanship.  He has a best-buddy at school - Jake.  He's a somewhat close neighbor and so we know him and his family.  Jonas tells me all about Jake's rifles and BB guns and how he's going to go shooting rabbits with Jake and his dad this summer.  And on and on.  We had Jake over for about 4 hours last Friday and Jonas could not have been happier.  He's also in to his legos lately.  He loves to build his boat, take it down, then build it again.  Finally today he started creating flying objects with his lego pieces and they were really cool.  He always talks of making an airplane crash for some reason.  But then one day, when he thought he was going to have to fly on an airplane, he exclaimed, "No, I don't want it to crash!"  Funny boy.

He really likes little babies - especially Lucy.  He's totally cute with little ones.  He loves to make banana bread and - lucky him - we got to make it today.  I found a clearance lunch box the other day at Target - it was Mario.  Jonas has played Mario like twice in his life, yet loves Mario.  He saw the lunch box and has begun using it for his snack-box (he's only 1/2 day, so lunch for him).  He's very protective of his box and doesn't want Lucy to even touch it.

For the very most part, he's a lovely boy to have around.