Daddy, now I KNOW that Santa really exists!

This season, with Mary Grace at 9 and William at 8, we expected the inevitable question:  "Is Santa Claus real?"  I can see the school-bus conversations from the kids with older and much-older siblings telling my children that Santa isn't real, along with all the shaming questions like "do you really think it's not your parents?"

So on Christmas morning at 7:50am, the kids came barreling down the stairs to find a multitude of presents under the tree, cookies and milk left for Santa consumed, and carrots and celery left for reindeer munched.

The day was spent opening gifts, playing with gifts and eating a big Christmas dinner.  (Ham this year)  At the end of the day, finally at bedtime, Mary Grace confided in me...

"Daddy, I wasn't sure if Santa was real or not, but now I know he is, because of the different wrapping paper on presents from Santa. I mean, Mommy wouldn't go off and buy special wrapping paper and hide it from us just for Santa's presents, that would be crazy!"

William said something similar:

"Daddy, now I know that Santa is real because I wanted Tetris Bop-It but it was out 

of stock in every store Mommy went to and even on-line but somehow Santa got it for me!"

So, I just want to let the doubters out there know that Santa is alive and well and continuing to fulfill the wishes of children everywhere.

The Case Of The Broken Tablet

For the past year or so, Mary Grace and I have been reading Nancy Drew mysteries.  She really enjoys reading them at bedtime, but like me, she gets confused with all the characters.  So unlike me, she came up with a solution - take notes.  So while we're reading each book together, she's got her pen and pad of paper and she's making an entry for each new character and writing notes about the characters too.

But the more interesting part of this post is when I got home from work last week, Anne met me at the door to deliver some bad news.  My lovely and fairly new Nexus 7 tablet has been accidentally dropped, resulting in the screen cracking and no longer taking touch input.  And who broke it?  The little girl up in her room, crying for the last hour or so...

She had been taking videos of her dolls, and needed to get to one of her upper shelves in her situation bookcase, so she climbed on a chair with the tablet, lost her balance and dropped the tablet, regained balance then got the tablet, then uh oh.

So I went up to her room and told her it was OK and that I was happy that she didn't get hurt herself after she described to me what happened.  A good learning experience for all involved.  No more using my tablet for recording doll videos, no more taking chances with Daddy's tablet.

And now I get to order a replacement screen from China and try to get the old one out and put the new one in.

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!

Best coloring - survey

Mary Grace and I had a contest tonight to see who could color the best Hello Kitty coloring page.  We would appreciate your voting on the winner since the in-house judges appear to be biased.

Daddy thought his was better, then Mary Grace jumped to the lead by adding a background color and mounting hers on cardstock.  Desperate for a win, Daddy changed his to "Merry Christmas in jail" by adding the bars.

Please vote now!

Museum and Science Center afternoon

I bribed William to behave in church this morning with a trip to the RMSC and it worked.  So after lunch and baking, we arrived at 2.  We ended up staying until 5 when they ushered us out.

The best parts were the T-Rex named Sue exhibit, where William was digging for bones that Daddy was burying.

We also had fun with the K-Nex area and the new architecture area.  Here's one of our creations!

Mama's 90th Birthday

Classic exchange between Mary Grace and William

I just found this note I had written, intending to blog it, but never got to it until now:


Mary Grace:  "I only like the white part of cookies and cream"
William:  "Whatever"
Mary Grace: "Whatever is a naughty word"
William: "That is false"
Mary Grace: "What does that mean?"
William:  "Something that is not true"

This is from May 2010.  William was 4 and Mary Grace was 5.  William shows a command of boolean logic  at age 4.  Funny.

Hershey Day 3

Actually, a little misleading title as we left Hershey PA on day 3 to head to Ikea.  We had been wanting to go there since the basement is all but finished now and we had a list of decorating ideas and accessories to stock up on.  We also got to meet some Seton friend from William's class for dinner, as they have recently relocated to Pittsburgh.

We got on the road nearly on-time and the trip went pretty smoothly thank you Scooby Doo and iPad.  But alas, an hour long Scooby Doo movie does not fill up a 4.5 hour drive across central Pennsylvania.  We relief on crafts, books for that.  On of the cool things we saw were tunnels through the Allegheny mountains, I think 4 of them, then one last tunnel in Pittsburgh.

We arrived at Ikea just before lunchtime and headed right in for lunch then an extended shopping trip that took us to dinner time.  The Hoyle's met us there and upon their arrival, we put the kids into their child care so we could shop peacefully.

We gathered up all of items on our list and a few more, picked up the kids and headed across the street to Ichiban hibachi for a yummy dinner.  It was the kids first experience with hibachi and they loved it.  Sadly their favorite memory was getting "pee'd on" by a little squirt gun placed inside a ceramic figure held by the sushi chef.  Good times... good times.

After dinner, we got on the road at about 8:30 headed for Rochester and had an eventless and extremely long drive back home, arriving close to 1:00 am.

And so ended our family vacation, except for the part where I had to assemble and install the stuff from Ikea.  :)   It was a good time and we look forward to our next road trip to Corning in the fall.

My favorite memories are sleeping between the kids in the hotel on the second night, alternating snuggling with either one and becoming familiar with how often they turn over, William kinda crying on one of the kiddy rides when there were kids easily 2-3 years younger than him on the ride (and Mary Grace consoling him while still on the ride).  Losing William at the water park for a good 15 minutes when he told me he was going down a water slide then changed his mind, leaving me at the bottom scratching my head.  And feeling like Clark Griswald driving the kids hours and hours to an amusement park.

Hershey Day 2

After our "preview" evening's 2.5 hour tour of the park, we went back to the hotel and crashed hard.  It was a long day.  The next morning, we headed out to Hershey with the goal of getting there by 10 to avoid the rush.  We got there by 10, but I was one of thousands with the same idea.   I think there's no avoiding the rush at Hershey.

We started out the day on some of the standard rides like the "meant for little kids" flying helicopters:

 Then moved on to the Scrambler, which the kids and Daddy enjoyed immensely!

After several other rides, we had lunch and headed towards the water park.  On the way, we encountered this ride:

http://www.hersheypark.com/rides/details.php?id=83

which had a short line (10 mins), so Daddy decided to inconvenience the kids to take a ride.  It was awesome.  I look forward to taking the kids on it next time we go!

On to the  water park.  We didn't get any photos of the water park for obvious reasons, but suffice it to say that it was incredible.  Castles with all sorts of water toys, a huge tower with 4 different water slides, a overcrowded lazy river and then it started to rain at 4:00 (as we expected).  We relaxed and waited for the rain to pass, then rode some more of the kids rides, like the carousel.

And the flying jets ride

We left the park exhausted at 7:00 and stopped for pizza which we ate in the hotel room while watching Sponge Bob Square Pants.

A good nights sleep and we prepared for day 3 of our summer roadtrip!

Hershey!

Not the candy bar, the awesome Hershey PA!

One night I was reading an American Girl book to Mary Grace and the lead character mentioned going to Hershey Park while she was in Pennsylvania.  I turned to Mary Grace and said, hey, Hershey Park!  Would you like to go there?

Anne and I had mentioned going there at some point in the last 3 years but it was always a destination that was somewhere down the road... like Disney.  I mentioned it to Anne that night and that was enough for her to take the ball and run with it.  She put together all the details, including the accommodations, discount passes to the park, an itinerary and even printed directions.  In addition to Hershey, we would also go to Ikea in Pittsburgh to get supplies for the basement!

So I took off of work a Thursday and Friday in early August and off we went.  The long drive there was softened by lots of car activities including watching a Scooby Doo movie on the iPad.  Between the printed directions and the GPS on my phone, getting there was a breeze, except for that stretch of route 81 that went though a clone of Jefferson Road in Henrietta.

When we arrived, we immediately went to Chocolate World.  We parked, stretched and made a beeline for bathrooms and restaurants.  On the way in, we got to take it all in.  LOTS to do, but alas, the factory tour that Anne had done as a young girl was replaced with something more modern.

After lunch we visited with the Reeses Peanut Butter Cup character, then when the Hershey Bar character came out, the line was instantaneous and insane so we skipped him.

We explored the gift shop afterward and I snapped this photo next to the "make your own Hershey Kisses mix".  We ended up buying some at William's instance.  :)

We first did the Hershey Experience Ride thing.  I was so cool that the kids wanted to go on it again, so we did!  It's their summer vacation after all!  Best part?  The singing cows, of course!

Next, we did Make You Own Chocolate Bar, which was very interesting.  The kids had fun picking their ingredients and seeing their chocolate bar going down the assembly line.

We left shortly afterwards and checked in at the hotel.  We had a little time before we had to leave for dinner and the amusement park, so we all went to the pool and played there and in the hot tub.  Thankfully, we had it all to ourselves!

Lackluster quick dinner, then off to Hershey Amusement Park!  We got an OK parking spot but still walked a good 20 minutes to the front gate.  The kids were so excited to see all the Hershey product banners, etc.but we rushed them into the park since we only had 2.5 hours until the park closed.

That night, we did the monorail, the gondolas and a few kids rides.

Day two coverage in the next post!