The main event

The main attraction for Lakeside is the safari park.  We went last year and the kids had a blast so we had to go back. This guy was my favorite:

We saw a little bit of everything including alpacas which Zach called baby giraffes.

Unfortunately, it was too cold for the giraffes to come out, but I don't think Zach realized he was missing them.

They each got a turn feeding the animals the food and carrots and the little ones got to "drive" with daddy.  It was definitely a great day.

Thursday

We planned another trip to Lakeside for part of Jons vacation.  It was delayed by a day, but Jon forgot all about it once we hit Cheesehaven!

We unloaded the car, hit the grocery store and tried to get the kids worn out by playing at the playground and taking a long walk by the water.

The birthday boys:

Vacation

For the past few years, Jon has been saving 2 of his vacation weeks to take together in October.  We miss the crowds pretty much anywhere we go, we get to celebrate 2 birthdays while he's around and since we love October, it just works for us.  We started vacation with a free hockey game.  The Lake Erie Monsters lost their home opener, but the boys got bottomless popcorn and had a blast.
We kept Sam in school last Monday and Tuesday, but pulled him out for his birthday last Wednesday.  Sam wanted to head to the nature center for his birthday.  The first thing we saw when we got there was a turtle climbing some rocks then falling over on his back.

We spent a ridiculous amount of time standing there watching the turtle eventually turning himself over.  It was kind of cool to watch and everyone cheered for him when he fixed himself.

We explored, the kids put on a puppet show and tolerated a few pictures.

The rest of Sams day was filled with going out to breakfast with dad, playing with friends, donuts for dinner, Royal Rangers and a late night ice cream run.  I think he had a good day.

Make them stop growing

Sam is 6 today.  How does this keep happening?  My little cuddle bug has turned into a huge cuddle bug...that can read (almost).  Sam reminds me of a full grown, large dog who thinks he's a lap dog. He's my little guy trapped in a big boy body.  He loves to curl up in our laps, climb into bed with us on Saturday mornings and give random hugs and kisses all day, every day.  He still has his little guy smile, but he's becoming more of a big guy every day.  Sam is a whole new guy now that he's in kindergarten.  He wanted to learn to read and he's well on his way.  He's made his own friends and is even teaching Ben a thing or two.  He is our video game kid.  He would play all day if we let him. He loves to play tag and is still into Skylanders and Avengers. He loves to build things with Bens legos and he's discovered kung fu, but swimming is still one of his favorites.  He could live on candy corn and crepes.  He thinks daddy tells the best jokes (I know, I'm working on him) and deep down he adores the babies.  He makes us laugh every day.

Rock star

He picked up a book and started reading.  Hes so awesome!

Bust

We headed out to do some apple picking this morning, but it didn't go as planned.  Melrose apples are our absolute favorites.  They were supposed to be ready to pick, but after we got there, we found out they wont actually be ready until the 15th ish.  Also, because we had such a harsh winter, the trees are not holding up well.  They aren't allowing anyone to pick apples for fear that the branches will come off the trees with the apples.
We called a couple other orchards in the area and got the same story.  I might have a lead on a place that will still let you pick your own so we're going to check into it and try again this week.
While looking for other orchards, I came across Mapleside who is currently hosting a fall festival. We headed that way to see what they had happening.  They had an area completely closed off for kids with inflatables, a maze and a playground.  We decided to skip that part when we saw it was $12 per person to enter.  Instead we walked around, found some goodies to take home and grabbed a bunch of Melrose apples that they had ready to go.  We also left with 1 picture where all four kids are basically smiling!  I guess it wasn't a total bust.

More chuck E Cheese

Sam had his 6th birthday party at Chuck E Cheese yesterday.  Aunt Corrie decorated his cakes to look like Captain Americas shield and Thor's hammer.  They turned out great.

The kids were ready to go the minute they woke up.  Sam thoroughly enjoyed being the center of attention and was excited to play every possible game with his friends.

Unfortunately, both Ellie and Zach are already talking about when they can have Chuck E Cheese parties.

Wait for it...

Ben was drawing an elaborate science experiment on a chalk board.  My favorite part is in the very middle where he wrote wait for it   BOOM.

Sleepy boy

We had to wake him up from his nap the other day because he slept an hour and a half longer than normal.  He didn't move the entire time.

Happiness is a warm tush!

When we moved into our Lakewood house, it came with a heated toilet seat.  I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen, until the first time I had to pee.  It was January in an old, drafty house.  Sitting on a heated toilet seat made our butts feel like royalty.
When we moved, we joked about the toilet seat, but it was April and the house is significantly warmer than the Lakewood house on any given day.  It wasn't until last weekend (when the high was 50 degrees) that we truly missed the heated seat. We've had our bedroom windows open (with a fan in one) so our room, and bathroom, has been especially cold.  I decided to surprise Jon with an early Christmas present and bought a heated seat for our bathroom.  It even has a built in night light.  Its awesome! We feel like royalty again.  I know it sounds completely ridiculous, but I highly recommend this little piece of heaven!

Wordless Wednesday: No pillow needed

Zippers

This girl really loves her zipper jammies!

Hello fall

Its cold outside, and its awesome!  We were supposed to hit 50 degrees today, but I don't think it actually got that warm.  This is my kind of weather.  Its cold and cloudy. We're bundled up, watching football and eating Jons amazing chili for dinner.  It doesn't get much better than this.  The kids were excited to put on their zipper pj's and curl up under the covers.  The funny thing is that if we were still in the Lakewood house, we would probably have the heat going.  The thermostat would be set at 68 and we'd still be freezing.  Its shocking how not cold 62degrees is in a new, efficient home!

6 weeks

We have been back in the school routine for 6 weeks.  For Sam, 6 weeks will officially be tomorrow, but close enough. Sam loves school.  He has new bus friends and school friends.  He loves his teacher.  He comes home smiling every day.  I think his favorite subject is computer lab, not gym. I'm completely shocked by that.  He has a new best friend who happens to live right around the corner from us. He is learning letter sounds and for the first time ever is getting excited to learn how to read. He's even memorized some sight words like and, you and is.  I get to volunteer in his class in 2 weeks and I'm very excited to see first hand what his day is like.  Even though he loves it we still get a lot of I don't know's and I don't remember when we ask about different activities.  The thing that has most shocked me is (as of today), he wants to do school at home next year like Ben.  He doesn't know why, but thats his plan for now.  I guess we'll see.

Ben is also doing relatively well.  I was excited to start a new year with a couple new tricks, but I was also a little worried.  We really scaled back on school last spring because of all of the packing, moving and drama.  I didn't want him to go into shock when he saw the difference in the amount of work he has now compared to last year.

He's adjusting really well.  Something I started doing was writing out everything he has scheduled for the week.  If he wants to do 3 days worth of math in one sitting, he can.  He knows exactly what pages need to be done and what problems.  We've also divided his subjects into mom and Ben subjects.  He can do grammar, math and copy work on his own in the office while I'm with the babies.  Some of his reading needs to wait until nap time so I can read with him and we wont be interrupted.  He seems to like this system. Hes been finishing his work by Thursday for the past 2 or 3 weeks.

Each year I'm amazed at the amount of work he has each week, but I think we do a great job of breaking it down into manageable chunks.  Each day he does math, grammar and writing.  We listen to a piece of music throughout the day by the composer we're studying.  Each piece of music gets 2 weeks and each composer gets 13 weeks.
4 days a week we read a poem.  Right now we're reading through poems by William Blake.  He likes these significantly better than the poetry we did last year.  Its nice to hear him have opinions about the poems rather than the blank stares I got from him last year!  We listen to a hymn and /or folk song and try to guess the meaning or a story behind them before looking them up.  Spelling is also 4 days a week. Ben writes his spelling words once or twice for 3 days and on the 4th day I give him a spelling test.  Spelling continues to be his best subject.  This week we spelled: wrinkle, wrist, particle, laughed, difference, distance, product, listen, castle and certificate.
Twice a week we do a picture study.  Just like the composer, we study 3 artists a year and each picture gets about 2 weeks.  He studies the painting and then we talk about what he sees, if it reminds him of anything etc.
Each week he does art.  He'll alternate between drawing the picture we're studying and getting to pick what he wants to draw.  He is also taking an art class at Olmsted Performing Arts that he really seems to like even if when given instruction on their projects he has his own ideas! He writes out his Bible verse from church each week and he also does a short book report each week.  He can pick from a book he reads to the babies or something we do in school. He also does a presentation for us each week.  He gets to pick the topic and gives us 3 minutes worth of information on that subject.  We're working on him with taking notes and practicing, but we've been told by people at church they can see a difference in their conversations with him since starting the presentations.  
Every Friday Jon takes Ben and Sam out for an early breakfast.  Jon does Bible reading with them and then Ben comes home and tells me what they discussed.  I love that set up.
History, science, geography and literature all kind of lumped together.  Ben does a lot of reading. History has focused a lot on explorers and martyrs.  We're reading about Marco Polo for geography. Ben has done a great job of finding everything from the Tigris river to Armenia on the map.   We've been reading about a hermit crab for science and also exploring the different layers of the atmosphere along with learning about the equator and hemispheres.
Literature includes random Shakespeare plays, a book about Leonardo Da Vinci, tall tales like Paul Bunyan and a book called The Princess and the Goblin which he likes a lot more than I expected.
We're also trying to incorporate nature walks, cooking and some french, but we haven't been as consistent with those as I'd like.  
Its a lot, but he can finish everything in about 10-11 hours each week.  He does school at random times during the day. Its a pain to get Sam ready for school each day especially since they couldn't have picked a worse time to pick him up, but it gives Ben a better opportunity to focus so he has plenty of play time when their friends get home from school. I don't want to jinx anything, but we're off to a good start this year.

Wordless Wednesday: Daddy time

Dance party

We've been having a few dance parties recently before bed time.  The kids have been loving jumping on our bed and being dancing fools.  Jon has been playing dj and introducing the kids to some interesting 80's music!

After some fort time Saturday morning, we had another dance party.  The kids were extra excited when we let them break the rules and dance on the furniture.  I'm sure we just ruined all of our credibility for the future!

Fall

This is my view every morning when I open the curtains in the living room.  How can fall not be everyones favorite season???

Fort

Some mornings are just stay in your pj's and build a fort mornings!

Part time princess

Ellie definitely has her princess moments.  She loves to be in a dress, twirl around in it and wear pretty shoes.  She doesn't like having her hair combed, but she loves it when Gram braids it and experiments with it. 

Ellie also has plenty of tom boy moments.  She loves playing action figures with daddy.  She got to be wolverine on Friday.

She also loves to make Lego creations with her brothers. She is all about building dinosaurs right now.

I love a girly girl who can hold her own with the boys!

Chalk

The boy loves his sidewalk chalk!

Party

One of the kids friends had a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese over the weekend.  We had been doing a good job of avoiding that place, but now we'll be there twice in 2 months since Sams 6th birthday is next month and 6 is the magical year we picked when you have your party at the most annoying place in the state Chuck E Cheese!  Here are some highlights:

Wordless Wednesday: Service project

Kung Fu

Sams been talking about taking a kung fu class off and on for a while.  Some friends of ours are instructors and have their own place.  Sam tried out a class two weeks ago and loved it.  However, he spent a lot of time looking at himself in the mirror, playing with other kids and acting slightly out of control.  He has been asking to go back so tonight we joined a class for the next month.  If he can focus, learn something and continues to have fun, then we'll stick with it.  If not, then we'll move on to something closer to home and a lot cheaper.  This class is definitely a commitment in many ways. 

Daniel is an amazing instructor. The patience he has are amazing.  He goes through a move or a sequence with the group then works individually with each kid.  Sam did a bit better with his focus this week. We'll see how he does when it comes time to practice and if he can keep his attention on Daniel rather than the mirror, we might have a fighter on our hands.  Ben is in so much trouble!

Wordless Wednesday: Dazed (and probably confused)

Home

When we moved I told Jon about every 5 minutes how much I loved the new house.  We've lived here 5 months and I still adore our new house.  While I miss how walkable Lakewood is and I definitely miss the porch, I wouldn't want to go back after experiencing Olmsted.  I adore our house. I love that we can all be in the kitchen at the same time and not fall all over each other.  I love that its ok if more than one person has to pee at the same time.  I love that the kids have a basement. Even our currently unfinished basement is 1,000 times better than our Lakewood basement.  I love that Jon can be fixing us football snacks in the kitchen and still be able to watch the game with me at the same time.  I love that we know, and like every person on our short street.  I love that we have kids everywhere of all ages.  I love that I can send the kids out to play until bed time and know they're ok because every parent on the block is looking out for them.  I love that we can take walks/bike rides and not worry about uneven sidewalks or cars coming barreling down the driveways and not looking for kids.  I love that the kids (and us) feel safe here and are happy to run 500 feet ahead of us on our walks.  I love that we can see the stars. I love the quiet, aside from the planes and train whistles, but I love those too.  I love our home.

Outed

Happy birthday to Corrie (2 days ago)!  Its so nice to have her home for the rest of the year and get back into our normal routines of bad tv, ice cream dates and play time at Chick Fil A.  Gram decorated an awesome cake for Corrie and cooked an amazing dinner for everyone Monday night. The only down side was Gram put her real age on the cake (with candles) so Ben officially no longer believes she is in her 20's.  Fortunately, he still believes I'm in my 20's.  I'm ok with that!

Boys

Ellie had her first sleep over with Gram and aunt Corrie last night.  It was a little weird just having the boys, but I think we had almost as much fun as Ellie did.  We did a little shopping and found some super cool hats.
Zach got some new dinosaur pj's that he LOVES!

We took a long walk, had some play time and baths.  The boys made a Zach sandwich instead of going to bed. Sounds about right!

I'm glad she had so much fun, but its good to have her home...when she isn't playing with poop!

Big boy

Ellie hopped off her bike last night and Zach hopped on. Hes tried to ride his bike, and her bike, a few times over the summer, but he just hasn't been coordinated enough or capable of peddling.  Last night something clicked and he took off.  He needed help getting started a few times, but over all he did great!  I'm so proud, but I don't like this growing up thing my kids are doing!

Getting older

I have issues with age.  I don't like to think about how old I am or birthdays.  I know I'm not really old, but I still feel like their is so much I should have done by now and that makes me feel old.  Then I see friends who are only a few years older then I am, but feel so young next to them.  Its weird how your brain plays tricks on you.  

I was brought back to reality this weekend though.  A guy from high school was recently diagnosed with ALS, another has battled cancer, a friend at church is facing a possible MS diagnosis (in her 20's) and a family member had a serious health scare this weekend that I thought couldn't happen for at least another 10-15yrs.

While most people wouldn't call me old, I'm old enough to have friends with horrible diseases/medical issues. I'm old enough to get them myself.  That makes me feel old.  I know I can't prevent it or stop it.  All I can do is live like normal and deal with what ever comes our way.  That doesn't really make me feel better.  It definitely doesn't help with my dislike for my birthday.  Its one of those things that shakes you for a minute and you tell yourself to remember the significance so you can change something, help someone or do something, but then you get back to your life and those feelings that were so important and your vow to make a change slowly fades into the background.  I guess thats normal.  Its not comforting, but its life and sometimes it stinks.  Ok, now I really feel old!

Star struck

Goof balls