Saint Patricks Fun

What a fun day of green we had!

When Jared and Lydia were little I always had fun learning activities planned and we did them numerous times throughout whatever holiday season we were enjoying. I still plan activities and we still do them but it seems they all end up being done on the day of the holiday.  I know Jared being in school is part of it, since I see him less; and preschool is also part of it, Lydia and I do quite a few things together in those 3 hours twice a week but I am not sure why I can't get it together to do them more regularly? Especially since Lydia and I have plenty of time at home together. Again I feel Jared being in school is a big part of it as when he gets home I just want him to have unstructured play time. And maybe my feelings have changed a bit about raising kids and I feel Lydia should go more at her own pace or maybe Jared just liked doing them more? Maybe I just didn't give him as much of an option, it was just "lets do a learning time activity!"where as I ask Lydia more if she wants to do one with me and she does not always want to.  I may never know.  In any case, we had a lot of fun yesterday.  These learning activities are still one of my favorite ways to connect or spend time with Jared and Lydia. I guess I also take our kids out to meet up with friends or go places more now too. We have more time to do stuff outside of home as well since no one is taking naps and Charlottesville has so many great things to do!  It's funny how different our life is now compared to when we were in Colorado. After re-reading this is appears I at least know some reasons why I do them less...

Back to our day.

Leprechauns came and made mischief and left a fun surprise for Jared and Lydia even though Jared set a trap to catch one in our basement.  It was a lot of fun. The rugs and toy boxes from Jared and Lydia's rooms were switched and books turned upside down.  Furniture was all moved around and pictures turned upside down. Our main floor got quite the make over. A trail of gold coins was left for them to follow to their own pile of "gold" (Rolos) and Jared and Lydia loved it all. We enjoyed Lucky Charms and Fruit Loops for breakfast with a green smoothie and made sure to wear green.

That Halloween decoration goes so well. 

He was pretty ticked at the note the Leprechaun left him. He also thought they had pretty bad handwriting. "He couldn't even make a C!" -J Next year he plans on using mouse traps.... I tried to discourage this, warning him that if he really ticked off a leprechaun he may not get anything from it or if he caught one before he left a surprise he may not be able to leave anything.  Also what if he really caught a mouse? I would not have been surprised if we were still living in our Colorado townhouse and that happened. 

After school we played outside for awhile and then came in for St Patricks Day activities.  Sight word reading and number identifying shamrock style, a little Rainbow math, Do a Dot dice games, a fun rainbow snack and a science experiment. It was a great afternoon. The kind I dreamed about having when I pictured myself raising children.  Fun snacks and learning activities together while I made dinner in the kitchen.  Good, simple engaged fun. Does this happen every day? Nope.  But I sure love it when it does.   

Fruit loops on a pipe cleaner with marshmallow clouds. 

Baking soda treasure hunt.  I placed some gold (pennies) and shamrock charms in this pan and covered them with baking soda. I dyed some vinegar green and then had Jared and Lydia spray it to uncover the treasure.  At the end I dumped all the remaining vinegar into the pan and it left a fun mixture to pay with. 

We had our traditional St Patricks Day drink of Sprite with Lime sherbet and I made Irish Soda bread which was fine but will not be a regular menu item. Such a nice day! 

Spring beginnings

Spring weather has made it to Charlottesville! We spent a lot of time outdoors the past week and it was lovely.  I wish it never got hotter than 75 degrees!  One day we met up with some friends after school to ride bikes. It was the warmest day of the week and our friends (the Shaw's) brought popsicles to share. It was a great way to start our bike riding/Spring activities.  Jared and Lydia have loved being able to go down in our "woods" and explore the creek and play in the fort.  We had some friends over Friday after school and together they collected at least a dozen empty beer bottles.  The previous owners apparently had some good times out back.  This is on top of the 10 or so we collected last summer.  These friends (the Farnsworth's) just got some lambs and needed bottles to feed them with so we got our woods cleaned up a little and they got some more bottles.  It turned out well for everyone. I am so happy we have this space for Jared and Lydia to explore.  

We took a trip up to Harrisonburg today to do some more roller skating.  (It was a cloudy cooler day so it worked out really well although I would go skating in any weather!) Lydia and Jared have been getting over colds this week so they both wanted to take more rests this time but they both had a great time. I love roller skating so much!  Mark and I even got to skate a few laps together which was fun. He was such a good sport.  He may have even enjoyed it a little bit.

 

 We met up with our friends the Lenox's and had fun skating around with them.  We are so fortunate to have such fun friends here.  They are most likely moving this summer and we will miss them so much! 

Lainey is my little buddy. 

Tara is for sure one of my favorite persons here in Charlottesville. 

On a less fun note, Lydia decided to try giving herself a haircut one day.  She and Jared were playing in the basement and then Jared came upstairs and told me what she did.  She cut a big chink out of her bangs and some off each side of her face.  Her hair was pulled half up so luckily you can't see where she cut her hair because it was the bottom layer but I couldn't believe she did it. I thought she would have done something like this when she was 2 or even 3.  It was super annoying.  I hope it grows back soon!

I am still working on my state license for preschool. I have gotten pretty much all of my requirements done and am waiting on the county zoning people and then I will submit my application and have my inspection. I need to find some other ways to reach people for advertising but I am working on it.  I keep thinking of how cool it would be to get enough interest to have 2 classes but will be so relieved to get enough for one. Mark and I did decide to send Lydia to the preschool over in Earlysville. They meet T Th F and have early drop off so it just matches up better. I just want to still have fun with her before she goes to school so I am going to go with them instead of the MWF school. We drove by the school again for her and she said it was now the one she wanted to go to so we will go with that.  She has been doing great in Sunbeams and has been really fun in preschool. I am sure she will do well. It will be a new experience for her.  She is starting swim lessons in April and this time Jared will not be in her class.  Jared is doing well at school too. He has really learned a lot about dealing with disappointments/not getting what he wants right away (it was so hard for him the first months of school so many tears!) and is doing so well with his reading and school work. I love hearing him read and seeing how he has progressed.  I feel like he has school pretty well figured out and enjoys it. He is a really nice kid and I am so happy to be his mom.  Both Jared and Lydia are really great kids.  

Lost February

I know we did some fun things and just things in general the last 3 weeks or so but life as we normally know it has been put on hold the last little bit while I tried to work on my state license for my preschool.  The requirements are not terribly difficult but they are super particular and there are a lot of them.  Every evening after Jared and Lydia go to bed I try to chip away at the requirements list.  With planning preschool lessons and my application I am really missing that 2 hour nap Lydia used to take!  I was commenting to Mark that I was quite jealous of his plan time at school. Normally in the evening I would work on this blog, read a book, watch a show with Mark, or plan fun family outings or activities to do at home with Jared and Lydia but there has been none of that! I am almost done with the application part but will then need to make up safety drills and emergency evacuation plans, get zoning approved, meet with the fire inspector and zoning person, and meet with the state inspector.  Sometimes I get really stressed about all of this.  Part of it is that once you submit your application you only have 60 days to get it cleared. You also have to submit 3 background checks (for myself and Mark each) and a tuberculosis test which is only good for 30 days. We have put a decent amount of money into this preschool. We have paid for background checks, CPR/First Aid training, printing copies and fliers, paid County zoning and licensing fees, bought things like fire extinguishers and I am so worried that I will have done all this work and spent all this money/time and then I will not have enough kids to even run my preschool.  It is going to be a long Spring/Summer waiting for people to sign up! I feel like it has taken over my life and can't wait to have everything set up for the Fall.  I am so grateful to Mark who has been so supportive and encouraging.  I have also been trying to decide where to send Lydia to preschool next year.  We have toured two nearby schools and both would honestly be fine.  Lydia's biggest deciding factor is the playground but she would do fine at either. I feel like for this year of preschool I want it to be as much like school as possible. The dilemma I am facing is the schedule of the schools. The one I actually like a little bit more is MWF.  The problem is that my school will be T Th and I don't really want Lydia there since I am doing pretty much the same curriculum and she would be much older than the other kids. On the other hand if she was in my school then she would be going "to school" 5 days a week which would actually be some good preparation for her. At the same time, it is her last year before school and I would rather be able to go do fun stuff outside of preschool with her since soon enough she will be gone all day. Choosing a preschool is not really that big of a deal but it has been way more difficult this time around mostly just because of my preschool. I actually really wish she could go to the same one Jared went to but it is just too far away. We will figure it out soon.

We have had some crazy weather the past weeks I do remember that much. One day I drove over to Fishersville (about an hour away) for an all day training for (you guessed it) my state license and that day we had several tornado warnings.  I drove through pouring rain, scary dark clouds, crazy wind and ended the day with a beautiful full arched double rainbow and flood warnings.  We did not have any tornadoes touch down in Charlottesville but there were some within 45 minutes of us.  My friend Julie was kind enough to watch Lydia for me all day and then pick Jared up from school when she picked up her 2 boys. Jared and her son Tyler are best buddies and in the same class so Jared was pretty thrilled with the set up. Lydia and Julie are good buddies too and I know Lydia had fun with Julie.  It was so nice of her to help me out.  It was short notice too.  I had called the licensing people to ask some questions and they asked me about the training and strongly suggested I attend this one because they are only offered once a month and with all the requirements I needed to get it out of the way.  It was pretty boring and super long but at least I can check it off as done! That same week Mark and I drove up to Masanutten (35 minutes away) for a painful time share presentation.  We did one of these right after we were married and this once was probably worse! It was so long and they were so pushy. I actually won a contest I entered at Panera bread which is how it all started. I thought it was just for 200$ in gift cards to Panera but it turned out to be the gift cards + a 75$ visa + 2 separate stays in condos here in Williamsburg/Masanutten or 3 options in Florida. I don't know when we will go on these trips but for us having accomadations covered will really help out. I am not sure if they will be worth the time we spent at the presentation, it was so bad but we will try to enjoy our trips.  My friend Tara was kind enough to watch Lydia for us. It was weird to have 2 days in one week when other people watched Jared and Lydia.  That rarely happens once a month so twice in one week was really strange. I am glad we got the presentation done so now when we go on our trips we will not have to sit through it and I am really glad I could get that training out of the way.  Back to the weather. We also had more snow!  We had one weird snow/ice storm and and we had some awesome Spring like days followed by more snow.

There was not very much snow so we couldn't really go sledding but we did a few runs down our side yard.  Fortunately there were no injuries this time.

The ice was really interesting and really weighed down trees.  We were sightly concerned about trees falling onto our house or blocking our driveway...

This tree is not this curved regularly.  And the pine tree below is normally quite full. 

 One large branch did fall off of this tree (you can see it in the back) and around town you could see lots of downed branches. We were fortunate to not lose power.  We really lucked out with these winter storms this year. The last storm was not very big, school wasn't canceled or delayed and they are pretty quick to cancel.  It was my favorite kind of snow.  We could watch it fall and some piled up but not very much and it just turned everything into a winter wonderland. It was so pretty.

To show Spring is coming, we noticed our daffodil stems pushing out.  I am so happy to have my own daffodils growing. I hope they get enough sun to really sprout.  When we planted them in Colorado only the bulbs on the edges got enough sun so of the 30+ we planted we would get like 5 I hope we do better here.

On one of the pretty Spring days we met up with some ladies from church and had a fun play date/picnic in the morning and then met up with Julie and her boys at Walnut Creek in the afternoon.  Mark actually had the day off as Albemarle County asked the schools to close because it was the Primary voting day so lots of people would be at the schools.  Mark and I went to vote, it took about 10 minutes for both of us and then got to play outside all day. It was really nice to visit with fun people and Mark got to play disc golf at Walnut creek so he was pretty excited. This coming week looks like full on Spring. It's hard to believe its March already.  There are just 3 more months of school!

Awhile back, while reading the Friend magazine Jared noticed a fun project with paper airplanes.  The idea was to make a plane and slingshot it from a board with 2 nails attached in it.  He had been waiting patiently to make it and yesterday he and Mark got it done. I snapped this picture as I drove away to a baptism at church so it's not very clear.  They drilled 2 screws into the board, attached a rubber band between the screws made their planes, added a paperclip to them and had a fun time "flying" the planes from the deck.  Mark said that it ended up working pretty well.  I think it will be a great evening activity with these warmer days coming up.

  

Some other things probably happened and we have some fun things planned for March so I hope I can finish up my state application and get my evenings back!

Valentines fun

Another Valentines has come and gone. Valentine's Day is Lydia's favorite holiday so she has been super excited. We did our mailboxes which were a huge hit. The one new thing we did was instead of just decorating Jared and Lydia's door with hearts the night before Valentines we added a new heart with something we loved about them each night for the past 2 weeks.  I am not sure if they enjoyed it more than just one night so we will probably rotate years.  Maybe as they get older they will enjoy that one more. We had lots of heart shaped food and fun learning times and today after church we decorated cookies and then delivered them to friends which was really fun.  I enjoyed delivering them today so we could visit with the families but also hope to do some heart attacks with Jared and Lydia soon, maybe next year we will start that tradition since they will be a little older. We made a yummy Valentine themed dinner with our strawberry soda floats.  For each other Mark and I put together a fire pit "cook box".  (He also got me flowers) When we had our friends the Players' over for tin foil dinners on New Years they supplied all the necessary tools for getting our fire going.  We really want to use our fire pit so we decided to copy them and put together a cook box.  I got a hatchet, (this was like 2 days before Valentines and the cashier at Lowes joked about it being a suspicious Valentines gift) a charcoal chimney, some heavy duty foil, tongs and charcoal.  We are set to use our fire pit once it warms up a little. Lydia made some Valentines for her Sunbeam teachers and was so excited to hand them out.  We sat down in Sacrament meeting and she was on the lookout for the teachers.  When she saw one she ran over and shouted Happy Valentines day!  This teacher is an older single sister and I think it made her really happy.  Her other teacher typically sits behind or in front of our family and she was running late today. Lydia was watching the door like a hawk and kept asking where Sister Alman was. She was pretty relieved when she came in after the Sacrament. Jared and Lydia both had fun making their Valentines for their classmates.  I remember Jared writing his out last year and it taking a really long time.  This year he sat down and got them done super fast. His writing has really advanced since he has been at school.  His penmanship could use a lot of help but he can do it quickly and without putting up a fuss at all. It was really nice to have a chance to visit with some families from our ward too.

I will be sad to take down our Valentine decorations as they are some of my favorites but Saint Patricks Day is fun too.  It's always fun to decorate a space for the first time.  We are almost out of "first time" Holiday decorating as we have been in our house now for about 8 months.

Jared still really loves money.  We actually got him a ceramic UVA piggy bank for his birthday and no less then 2 weeks later he dropped it and it broke. It was a sad moment.  Then shortly before Valentines day I saw these squishy (unbreakable) piggy banks at Target's dollar section and knew they would be a big hit. I wish I got a picture of the that exact moment when he saw it.  Super fun. They really look forward to these Valentine Mailboxes all year.  Each year I think I should do these throughout the year, not just at Valentines but I haven't quite gotten myself together enough to do it. Probably because I am not sure I want to use them and make them less special for Valentines. Besides the piggy bank all of Jared's mailbox items were Star Wars related so he was especially thrilled.

Learning time fun:  We had an unexpected snow day Monday and Tuesday right after Valentines so I pulled out more learning times and a few science experiments. It was a fun way to spend our snow day.

Jared hunted for sight words and Lydia found the same words and identified the beginning letter and its sound.

The joy of baking soda and vinegar. 

Valentine's Themed dinner.  Costco had these red and "white" heart shaped raviolis available and I knew when I saw them I would buy them.  I am such a sucker for these holiday marketing tools! 

Heart shaped french toast and pancakes

Here is Mark with our yearly valentine puzzle. We get one for each other each year. 2016: Vintage cereals boxes. 

We sure love these 

 two and can't really imagine life without them.