Festival of Christmas Trees

At Seton School there is an annual tradition where the second graders get a wooden Christmas tree to take home and decorate.  Then a few weeks later, all the kids bring in their decorated trees and they line them up on tables with the decorator standing behind his or her tree.

The whole school comes down to see the second graders handiwork and parents are also invited for the festivities, which includes cookies and punch.

Last year, Mary Grace did a nice job with a silver tree that had silver and blue ornaments with white mini  lights.  This year, William wanted to make a Minecraft theme tree, so we let him go with it.  He painted and decorated the tree and the whole family pitched in to help make the "ornaments", which were Minecraft cubes.

I arrived just in time to see Santa make an appearance.  The screams of excitement as he walked in was priceless!

The Minecraft tree, freshly completed

I love my Minecraft tree!

Posing with some of the Minecraft decorations

Two Minecraft trees side-by-side

Posing with the big guy, after asking for a new snowboard

Singing Christmas songs with Santa

The tale of the dreaded water slide and fear overcome!

As a family, we've finally gotten to the point where we can all go on the water park rides at Seabreeze.  So the adventurous 8 year old of mine wants to do all of them.  And my cautious 7 year old is a little more... conservative.

Mary Grace announces she wants to go on the Helix, where you essentially get shot down a tube leading to a toilet-bowl like area, then into a sparkly clean pool.  She was motivated to do it the whole time, and after the first time couldn't wait to go again.

William wanted to try a new ride so I suggested "Riptide", which is a moderately fast moving water slide with a bunch of banks left, right, left, right, etc.    He announced, yeah I want to do that one!  So we grabbed a tube and he announced he changed his mind and actually didn't want to go.

So we put the tube down and walked away and he then announced he actually did want to.  So we grabbed the tube and headed up the stairs.  After the second landing of 5, he changed his mind again!  Walk all the way back and he head out of the area.

So we go back and forth like this a few more times, until he suggests that I try it with Mary Grace while he watches (I guess the theory is that if we make it, it's ok for him to try?).  So Mary Grace and I did it with much success.

OK, he says, I'm ready to try it.  So we pass the second landing,  third, fourth, and we're on the top platform  "Umm, I changed my mind, I don't want to go".  :(

So I take him aside and try to convince him to go. And he REALLY wants to go, but the fear is holding him back.  My poor little boy was so torn that he started crying.  I gave him a pep talk and with tears rolling down his face, he agrees to do it ("but with my eyes closed the whole time").  So we get on the raft and 3..2..1, we go.  And I see him look up after the first bank.  Then I hear him laughing after the second bank.  And I sense his excitement after the third, fourth, fifth, all the way to the bottom into the big pool of water.

"THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!"

So my brave son overcame his fear and made his dad super-proud.  And we went on again and again and again, and had a blast!

Lovely afternoon on the lake!

It's feeling more and more like summer!

Today we were invited to Canandaigua Lake to spend the afternoon with Terry, Jack and Delia at the cottage they were renting.

We brought lunch and started with that.  Immediately following lunch we all went for a nice long swim, playing with rafts, floaties, boogie boards and noodles.  The rain kicked in heavily and we took a brief break inside.

Then, it was back to the lake for more swimming and playing.  This time we got the paddle boat out and had a great time taking turns paddling around the docks.  Now it was 5:30 and time for dinner.  Thankfully the rain picked up once again and it was easy to coax the kids out of the water.

After dinner the rain let up, so we headed back outside for some fishing.  William caught a pumpkin seed sunfish then a smallmouth bass.

8 hours went by in what seemed like 2 or 3, fun was had by all, and we have another awesome summer memory in the books.  Woo hoo!

Vacation kicking into overdrive

Tomorrow we leave for the grand canyon, flagstaff and Sedona.  It's been a great vacation already and even without this extra excursion it's been awesome. 

Today is the first day we didn't swim since we arrived.  Mary Grace and William have been getting along famously.  William had been outstandingly well behaved.

We did bumper boats, miniature golf and go carts at cracker jack today.  We all agreed that bumper boats were the best.  Everyone but Nate got drenched by getting pushed into the waterfall...  We'll get him next time! 

The desert hike that wasn't meant to be.

As our plans for an Arizona vacation firmed up I decided to look for activities that would be fun for the kids.  I found a "creatures of the night desert tour" that coincided our vacation with a bonus full moon.  Sold!

So we got directions from our hosts and ventured out.  The tour was to run from 7 until 9 and we left at 6:30.

First we went to the wrong park.  Obviously we're tourists...  Then we went to the mailing address of the park which was essentially a police station.  Then we went to another address associated with the web page and that was a county park truck depot. 

At the truck depot we ran into two other families who were equally confused.  We followed them to the park visitor center and decided to follow them. 

Now the kids were less than enthusiastic by this point and we were 30 minutes late but we decided to venture out anyway. 

So the daylight faded as we hiked a lovely trial and saw these sights.  Best part was seeing the moon come up over the mountain framed by saguaro cactai.

First fish EVER!

Tonight at Lake Riley, my boy caught his first fish ever! 

We decided to try this spot after our first fishing outing on Saturday afternoon didn't result in any catches. 

He literally cast his fishing pole one time and got a bite.  Not sure what kind of fish it was but it was about 6 inches long and... well... perfect! 

We brought three worms with us from the backyard and the other two worms were promptly eaten with no hook contact.

He was so excited he was jumping around and smiling ear to ear.  Daddy was pretty proud too!

Fishing adventure #1

We broke in Williams new fishing pole today with a afternoon trip to Corners Glen.  We opted for a hike after fishing for about an hour and a half.  They just aren't biting! 

It was lots of fun and on sure we'll try again in a the coming weeks.  The excitement will just have to wait a little bit longer.

6 year old daredevil on a hike

On our first hike to Washington Groove area in 2013, and we actually walked from our house past the playground, up the sledding hill and into the park.  

We hiked and collected branches for our new teepee, then walked back to our house.

I remember not too long ago when William couldn't make it to the end of the street and back and I would have to carry him.  Looking forward to lots of fun this summer hiking and hopefully biking too!

So long Disney Princesses

We never really encouraged Mary Grace to love the Disney Princesses, she took to them quite naturally.  It was such a preoccupation that we had seen all of the movies multiple times, and had started a sizable collection of products.  As the products kept rolling in, year after year, I wondered if there would ever be an end to the variety.   Disney marketing is a typhoon.

My favorite and the item that led me to coin the term "franken-toy" was the Disney Princess Kitchen.  Because it's important for a princess to be handy in the kitchen after all.  We have costumes for every princess (and one prince), several different pairs of Disney Princess shoes, tiaras, towels, robes, coloring books, painting kits, branded games (checkers, dominos, etc), sidewalk chalk, and the list goes on.

But one of the early items were the princess wall decals.  12" long images of each of the princess that have adorned Mary Grace's bedroom wall since she got her bedroom.  And that's what this post is about.

She decided to redecorate her room with a more prominent American Girl Doll theme, and being short on usable wall space, she took down the princesses and put up the American Girl posters...

It's a sad day for these two parents.  I know that at only eight years old, she hasn't outgrown them completely and once we get to Disney in Florida, I have a feeling that her interest will be rekindled, yet that nagging sense that my baby girl is become all grown up is becoming more of a reality with each passing day.

Remembering 6 and 7

The kids are on the verge of outgrowing their current ages so I wanted to put some things down to remember them.

1.  First time Mary Grace ate garlic bread tonight.  She acted like she's always eaten it although Anne and I both know that's not the case.  I quote Mary Grace:  "Ummmm!  So garlic-y!".  We're perplexed by it, but hey, she ate something new so we'll take it.

2.  William's inability to eat without getting whatever he is eating all over his face.  This was really cute at 3.  Enough said.

3.  William gets so excited by visitors, especially unexpected visitors.  Tonight, their favorite babysitter, Yanni Turner stopped in to say hi.  William was so excited that he was rambling on and on completely incoherently, jumping from one topic to the next all with a single sentence and a single breath!

4.  William wakes up no later than 7:30am every day.  On the non-school days, he tries to wake everyone else in the family up so he'll have someone to go downstairs with him to watch TV.  When that fails, he'll climb into my bed and bug us until we get up.  Love that one!

5.  Mary Grace and her doll accessories.  Today, we made some doll accessories out of "salt dough", which is flour, salt and water.  We made miniature:  bread, cinnamon buns, muffins and waffles.  She's always on the lookout for items to use with her dolls, like the little plastic thing on a pizza to keep the box from touching the pizza.  She uses those as doll tables.

6.  Acronyms.  Mary Grace told me to today that mommy was leaving to go do "B. R. A."  I had to ask and the definition was "birthday related activities".

7.  Spelling.  For some reason both kids are doing impressively well in spelling.  They keep bringing home tests with grades like "A+" and "12 out of 10".

Big "S" coaster

On New Years Eve, after dinner at New Mings and desert at Friendly's, both with the charming and entertaining Jones', we returned home and decided to play a game of Yahtzee.

I made myself a cup of tea before the game started and since we were playing in the dining room, I grabbed one of our new coasters a gift from our neighbor Andrea that have a monogrammed "S" on them.

Mary Grace decided to make a cup for herself as well (she's such a big girl now, that she can make her own tea) and upon return to the dining room asked

   'Mommy, where are those big "S" coasters?'

At this point, you may want to say that question out loud to understand Anne and my hysterical reaction to this question...

Happy New Year!