Family Time preschool reanbean T and Me Tiny & Buba: babysitter bikes family swim mom's night out movie night
by reanbean
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Just the Highlights
Monday night I met up with some local mom friends to watch the season premiere of The Bachelor. I have never before watched even one minute of the show, but I really wanted to take the opportunity to connect with these moms. Many of them get together weekly as their kids are all part of the same playgroup, but I’ve never been able to join in because they meet in the afternoons when I am working. I can’t say that I’m hooked on the show, but I did really enjoy the girl time. They plan to meet weekly on Mondays to watch the season unfold. I know I won’t be able to make it every week, but I do hope to join in again at some point.
Tuesday was Buba and Tiny’s first day back to preschool after just over 2 weeks off. They transitioned back pretty well. Buba was a little whimpery at drop-off and was sobbing when I came back to pick them up, but his teacher reported that he was happy and having fun all morning and that he only started to cry when he realized it was pick-up time and didn’t see me within the first five parents who walked through the gate. He gave me a big hug (which I didn’t mind at all) and calmed down as soon as I got him into the minivan. When I told him it was okay that he missed me, he responded, “I was crying because I was cold.” Not even four years old and already he’s too cool to miss his mama.
Thursday Tiny and Buba had their first afternoon with our new babysitter. I had been using some middle school girls to look after the kids for about 90 minutes on Thursdays while I went off tutoring and T was still at school. The girls were great babysitters, but there were some transportation issues involved. So, I decided to hire an experienced high school girl who is able to drive herself to and from our house. Buba was tentative at first, but warmed up quickly once the sitter agreed to read 101 Dalmatians. T got home before I did, so I didn’t get a full report of how things went, but he said they all looked like they were having fun.
We had another gorgeous day on Saturday, so T and I took the kids and their bikes over to Grammie and Grandpa’s house. The kids played outside in the cul-de-sac for probably an hour or more while T supervised and Grammie and I chatted in the driveway. We all had lunch together and then we took our family home for quiet time.
Saturday night T and I had our weekly in-home date night. We like to wind down on Saturday nights with a movie and some popcorn. Sometimes we just watch something in our own collection or stream something from Netflix, but recently we’ve been renting some new releases from Redbox. It’s a good thing they only cost about $1.00, because most of the rentals have not met our expectations. However, last night, we watched The Change-Up and actually enjoyed it. There were definitely some not so great, eye rolling parts, but we had quite a few laughs, and it was definitely not a waste of our time.
Sunday afternoon, I took Buba and Tiny to family swim time at my gym. With my membership there, I can bring up to two guest to swim for free. This was not the first time we’d gone, but we hadn’t been swimming for several weeks. They were both beyond excited about getting to go swimming and asked repeatedly all afternoon when it would be time to go. I was both pleased and impressed to see that they wasted no time getting right into the water (with floaties, of course). And both were comfortable enough to do some jumping into the water. Tiny will only jump from the steps and does more of a horizontal jump, which keeps her head mostly above water. But Buba has recently learned that he likes to jump straight down and have his whole body under the water. He jumps right in front of me, and his floaty brings him right back up to the surface, but man, I was impressed with that kid today. He must have jumped a dozen times or more and just couldn’t get enough.
Mean Queens, Tick-Tock Croc, and a Poisoned Apple
Last week, Grammie took all of us to see Disney on Ice. Buba and Tiny experienced their first train ride into Boston, as well their first event at the Garden. I’ll admit, both T and I were quite nervous about how the show experience would go. Our kids know a handful of Disney characters by name (mostly the princesses), but have never seen a Disney movie (we still do almost no TV with the kids unless they’re sick or it’s a special occasion) and aren’t really familiar with any of the classic fairy tale stories- Disney version or not. My hope was that they’d be excited enough at seeing various characters on the ice to hold their attention for the duration of the show.
Fortunately, we had very, very good seats. We were pretty much right in the center and maybe 20 or so rows up from the ice. The Garden wasn’t at all packed, and we could all see pretty well without having to look around the people in front of us.
Buba was pretty content just to sit and take it all in.
Tiny loved waving to the characters and wanted to know everything about what was going on.
It was hard to hear all of her questions over the performances that were going on, but I did my very best to explain the excerpts from Alice in Wonderland, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Peter Pan, Tangled (which I have never seen), and Snow White. Oh- Snow White and that poisoned apple! Tiny had many, many, many questions about that story. One week later, she is still questioning why that evil queen would want to give Snow White a poisoned apple, and why Snow White would take even one bite when everyone in the audience was yelling, “NO! Don’t eat it!” According to Tiny, the next time we see Snow White, she is going to tell her to tell the Queen, “No thank you, and you can just keep that poisoned apple for yourself.”
The one and only story that I didn’t have to explain was the excerpt from The Princess and the Frog. That story has become very familiar to Tiny over the last year. I can’t remember for sure, but I believe it was last Christmas that she received a set of Princess Tiana pajamas. At the time, I had no idea who the character was, but she’s loved Tiana from that moment on. For her birthday, she received the Tiana story book for her Tag reading pen and now knows Tiana’s story by heart. And Tiny was so, so, SO excited when Tiana came skating out at for the last performance of the show. Her smile was as big as could be and her hands and arms were flapping with pure excitement. I was so happy to se her so happy.
I still don’t feel like we’re ready to start watching full length Disney movies (for the record, Buba couldn’t make it through the 54 minute Rudolph video we let them watch just before Christmas). But I have requested a few of the Disney character fairy tale books from the library. I know Tiny will love listening to the full stories and seeing the characters she recently met on the ice, and I’m sure Buba will be happy learn more about those pirates and the tick-tock croc.
Hard to Believe it’s January 1st
With a beautifully sunny and unseasonably warm (47 degrees) day, it would have been just plain wrong to deny Tiny’s request to go outside and ride bikes.
I didn’t pay close attention to the time, but my guess is that we were out there about an hour or so. It feels like spring is just around the corner, but I’m sure we’re due for more cold weather and snow (though, not too much, I hope!) before that happens. I know both Buba and Tiny are looking forward to building snowmen, sledding, and snow shoeing, so for their sake, I hope we do have some classic winter days in our future. But for now, we’ll keep on enjoying this gorgeous weather while we’ve got the chance.
The Second Day of Christmas
Our second day of Christmas was busy and much less leisurely than our first day. We were expected to be at Grammie and Grandpa’s house by mid-morning, which should have given us plenty of time to finish up our Christmas activities at home, but time does fly when you’re having fun.
Tiny and Buba were up by 7am, but were content enough to play quietly for a bit in their room before calling for T and I to get up and get Christmas morning going. They were both very excited to see their stockings full of surprises, along with the gifts they each had asked Santa for.
our tree on Christmas morning (never did get a whole lot of ornaments put up)
Tiny's gifts from Santa: double stroller, Tinkerbell doll and kitchen toy, and stocking filled with fun surprises
Buba's gifts from Santa: Little People garage, Buzz Lightyear and Woody figures, and stocking filled with fun surprises
Tiny digs right into her stocking!
Santa brought Buba a Laurie Berkner Band video!
Buba exploring his new garage
Tiny mixing muffins in Tinkerbell's kitchen
Buba and Tiny playing together with the garage
Buba takes a turn mixing muffins, while Tiny takes a turn on her own with the garage
Tiny redressing her new Belle princess figure
showing off her Tinkerbell
rockin' out to the Laurie Berkner Band
After a delicious breakfast of cheesy scrambled eggs and bacon, we finished unwrapping gifts from my side of the family- the ones we hadn’t gotten to the day before.
opening the BIG one from Aunt Vickie (a Fisher Price Grand Dollhouse)
So much furniture for the new dollhouse!
TIny opens even more furniture!
Both Tiny and Buba (especially Buba!) were very eager to play with the new dollhouse, but this time, we had to keep them going on to the next gifts. However, we promised that T would assemble the dollhouse the next day (and he did) and that they could play with it as soon as he finished (and they did!).
opening the sleeping bags for their new dolls
Maggie (formerly known as Hally) and Eva having a slumber party with Cinderella, Tinkerbell, and Belle
Buba thanking Aunt Vickie and Uncle John for all the wonderful gifts.
Not long after Buba ended his phone call, we rushed to get everyone ready and off to Grammie and Grandpa’s house. Santa had filled stockings for each of us over there, and there were numerous presents beautifully wrapped under the tree from family, as well as Santa.
opening presents in Grammie's sunroom (ice skates from Santa!)
new puzzles!
Hello Kitty puzzles for Tiny
Tiny opens her new IXL. She has no idea what it is, but thinks it looks pretty cool.
trying out his new digital camera
Yay! A Cars car transporter!
The Play-Doh creativity center looks like tons of fun!
After opening all of their presents and having a little lunch, Tiny and Buba chose a few new toys to take upstairs to one of the bedrooms for quiet time. While they had some much needed downtime, I set up their new IXLs (which they refer to as their iPads). They were eager to explore with them once their quiet time was over, and remained intensely focused on them for about an hour or so while they waited for dinner to be ready. (We’ll definitely be setting some limits on the use of these toys.)
newly "plugged" in with the IXL
already addicted to the IXL
Not long after our very yummy roast beef and Yorkshire pudding dinner, we packed everything up and headed back home again. After unloading the minivan, our living room looked disastrous with all the toys and presents stacked up and strewn about. But we all helped pack away old toys this afternoon, and found places to store all the wonderful new gifts we all received.
I truly was a wonderful Christmas celebration.
celebrations Family Time Tiny & Buba: Christmas presents
by reanbean
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The First Day of Christmas
This morning began the first day of Christmas for our family. Tiny and Buba are very fortunate to receive numerous gifts at Christmastime from family, friends, neighbors, and even T’s colleagues. Because we spend pretty much all of Christmas Day over at T’s parents house, we’ve chosen to have Buba and Tiny unwrap their gifts from T and me, my extended family, T’s colleagues, our neighbors, and friends on Christmas Eve Day.
The morning unfolded pretty much the way we expected it to. Tiny and Buba were given a present, unwrapped the present, and then played with the present. The unwrapping part is now very quick, but the playing time can last anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour. We spent roughly 3 hours working our way through presents this morning, and we still have a decent amount of untouched gifts under the tree. Of course, no one’s complaining. But it’s looking like we may need a third day of Christmas this year.
Unwrapping a gift from T's colleague.
wrestling with the ribbon
playing with new puzzles (Cars and Disney Princesses)
"Look what I did!"
Tiny's fist 48-piece puzzle
a gift from a neighbor
wondering what it might be
Tiny gets a magnetic farm board
Buba gets a magnetic dinosaur board
"Look at my new dress-up costume! I'm a friendly, pink dragon!"
Rrrrrrroooooar!
"What can it be?"
"New Cars shoes!"
"I see Cinderella!"
"I wonder if my Disney Princess shoes will fit over my feetie jamies?"
"I'm the best at putting on the shoes."
"I'm taking her to school."
reading books at "school" to Hally (who might have been renamed Maggie or Mr. Bear)
reading to Eva (who may have been renamed Mr. Tiger)
Tiny and Buba on Ice!
I know I learned to ice skate at some point when I was a kid, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t 3 and a half when I started. However, having lived in New England now for almost 16 years, I know that our kids are going to need some fun, cold weather activities to get us through the long winter months.
It had been proposed that we put ice skates on Tiny and Buba’s Christmas lists, but before asking the grandparents to make that kind of investment, I decided that we should try out ice skating with them first. As luck would have it, our local sports center (soccer/hockey) had some open skate time today. And with T home from school (Veterans Day), it seemed like the best day to try it.
But our adventure was almost over before it began. We arrived at the ice rink only to find that the smallest skate size was a size 8 and our kids would need a size 6 or 7. However, kids under four skate for free and our guys were super, super excited to try it. So we slapped on those too-big skates and gave it a go.
Both Buba and Tiny were a little uncertain at first, but honestly, I was shocked at how quickly they were ready to be off on their own. Buba in particular, was very eager to skate all by himself with no help from anyone or anything.
Tiny was less steady at first, but quickly became the speedy one.
And Buba soon realized that he could cover more ground (and more quicky) when he was willing to use the double crate.
There were certainly a fair numbers of slips and spills, but overall, a good time was had by all.
Conversations Family Time Tiny & Buba: Halloween trick-or-treating
by reanbean
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Trick-or-Treat!
Yes, Halloween was technically almost a week ago, but for us, tonight was trick-or-treat night. Due to issues related to our October storm, trick-or-treating in our town was rescheduled until after all the issues were resolved. Even though we had done a bit of trick-or-treating in Grammy and Grandpa’s neighborhood on Halloween night, both Tiny and Buba were very, very excited to put on their clown costumes one last time and visit a few of our neighbors. We didn’t go all over the neighborhood, and they didn’t collect a ton of candy, but it was enough. It was the perfect amount.
After we’d returned home, Buba and Tiny were eager to help pass out candy to all the kids who came knocking on our door. They hurried to the door at the first sound that we had visitors, and carefully placed miniature chocolate bars into the open bags. At one point, Tiny stood before a trick-or-treater with a Butterfinger in her hands waiting patiently for the girl to request the treat. The girl just stood there waiting for Tiny to hand over the candy, but Tiny held firm as she announced, “You have to say ‘Trick-or-treat!’” While her bossiness can sometimes be a problem, I love that she wasn’t afraid to tell a big kid how it’s supposed to go.
Before starting our bedtime routine, T let the kids choose once piece from their plastic pumpkins. He offered M & Ms, Peanut Butter Cups, Crunch Bars, and straight up chocolate. So what did our two little monkeys choose? Raisins! Because for them, that was the perfect ending to their magical night.
Hooray for Halloween!
There was certainly no shortage of Halloween spirit at our house this year. Tiny and Buba wore their Halloween t-shirts (store bought and hand made (but not by me)) with great excitement. It was so interesting to talk with the kids about our Halloween traditions and to hear what they had to say about them. This was the first year where there was some fear and uncertainty about seeing others dressed in costumes. And after seeing one very cool, but also very terrifying Frankenstein at a Halloween Party at T’s school, Buba and I had a very, very long talk about how everyone goes home, takes off their costume, washes away the make up, and is just a regular person underneath it all. Both Buba and Tiny repeated these words several time in the last two weeks, needing to do so to fully understand what they mean, but I’m still not sure they really get it.
Pumpkin carving was great fun once again. It’s still a lot of work for them to scoop out all the seeds and pulp, but they tried. We followed the same methods as last year. I drew shapes on a piece of paper and let Tiny and Buba choose which shapes they wanted for the eyes and nose of their jack-o’-lantern. They also got to decide how many teeth they wanted, as well as where in the mouth they should go. T and I did all the carving, but they stuck around to watch the magic unfold and were super excited to see their freshly carved pumpkins all aglow.
In the past, I’ve always chosen the outfits or costumes that Buba and Tiny would wear for Halloween, but this year, I asked the kids what they wanted to be. Tiny announced that she wanted to be a clown with no hesitation whatsoever. Buba chose to be a firefighter, but quickly changed his mind when he learned that Tiny would be a clown. At that point, he decided that he needed to be a clown too. Then, just before Halloween, he started telling everyone that he was going to be Frankenstein. But at that point, the costumes were already purchased. Fortunately, he didn’t seem too disappointed when I pulled out his clown costume for our town’s Halloween party on Saturday).
And just because it’s so much fun to see comparison photos (MandyE is the best at these kinds of posts), I pulled up photos from our previous Halloweens with Tiny and Buba.
7 months (2008)
19 months (2009)
2.5 years old (2010)
3.5 years old (2011)
Trick-or-treating was postponed until Saturday in our town due to all the down trees and power lines and numerous families still without power (we’re still on that list), but Buba and Tiny had a great time going door to door in Grammy and Grandpa’s neighborhood. We only visited six or seven houses (it’s more fun to visit our own neighbors), but it seemed to be all they needed, as they made no fuss about going back inside to help Grandpa give candy to those that visited his house. And while they were extremely excited to show Grammy all the treats they had collected, neither Tiny nor Buba made even one request to taste any of them.
I’ll admit that I was quite frustrated and disappointed to learn that we may continue to be without power for two more days. The news made me cranky, and I know I was short with the kids on more than one occasion as a result. But it’s hard to stay cranky when you’re walking around with two little clowns filled with the excitement of trick-or-treating on a crisp October night.
Picking in the Rain
Last Friday night, T and I decided we’d take the kids apple picking Saturday morning rain or shine. We’ve been wanting to go for weeks, but the weekends have been busy, or the weather hasn’t been great. As it turned out, the weather wasn’t all that great on Saturday either, but we had no other plans, and the kids were super excited to go, so we threw on our raincoats and rain boots and headed up to the orchard.
Due to the soggy weather, there were no hayrides out to the fields this time. Fortunately, the walk was a short one. After picking the very first apples they could get their tiny, little hands on, Tiny and Buba began chomping away at their sweet, juicy, fresh picked apples.
They soon discovered that eating and picking at the same time was not as easy as it looked. T and I tried to encourage them to do their best to do both, but what they really wanted to to was eat their apples.
So they ate, and T and I picked. We had a 20 pound bag to fill, and I was sure Buba and Tiny would finish their apples before we filled the bag. But by the time they both got down to the core and seeds, it was pouring (prior to that it had just been a light drizzle). I headed back to the farm stand area with the kids, while T finished filling our apple bag.
This wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind when I said I was looking forward to apple picking this year, but in spite of the weather, we all still had a really good time. And now comes the best part- where we get to feast for weeks on the delicious apples that we picked ourselves!
Unofficially Fall
Around here, most people feel that Labor Day marks the end of summer. Officially, fall doesn’t actually begin until the third week of September (September 23rd this year). But for me, it’s the first day of school that marks the end of summer and the beginning of fall. T had a teacher work day on Monday, and his first day with students was Tuesday. So, even though Buba and Tiny don’t start preschool until September 12th, in my mind, fall has begun.
This summer seemed to really fly by for me. We managed to squeeze in two vacations (Iowa and our beach trip), but we only spent two afternoons at the pool and none at the local splash park. It was a busy summer- I was tutoring most mornings while T was on parent duty, and then T was painting and doing little home improvement jobs while I was the parent on duty. We had planned to spend the last two weeks of summer doing more together as a family (the splash park was definitely on our list), but then Buba got hit with the yuckies. He was sick for about 5 days, and just after he seemed to have fully recovered, Tiny got hit with the yuckies, and we started all over again.
I do wish we’d had the time to fit in some more family fun, but I have to admit, I’m not really unhappy to see the summer come to an end. I love fall weather- those cool crisp mornings and temps rising to the mid 60s or so. There are so many things we are looking forward to- apple picking, pumpkin picking, pumpkin carving, trick-or-treating, and jumping in leaf piles- in addition to the start of preschool, the start of new gymnastics classes (one for each kid), and the start of dance lessons (tap/hip-hop combo). So, as fun as the summer was, with vacations, and playdates, and lots and lots of time at the playgrounds, I’m ready to get back into our school-year routines. It’s going to be a great fall. I just know it.