Kindergarten Cutie!

I'm making a brief appearance on the blog to commemorate Isla starting Kindergarten!

Tomorrow is the big day!  Our 5.5 year old is a kindergartener!

She is SO excited!  We have her backpack and school supplies ready, her lunch is packed, a new haircut and her 1st day of school clothes laid out.  (Actually she's had clothes for the first week laid out in a little organizer in her closet for a month.)

We've practiced opening and closing her backpack, and loading and unloading a folder from it, reviewing her ABC's and phonemes, read lots of Kindergarten books, visited the playground and looked at lots of pictures of her classroom.

Andrew & I went to the Kindergarten back to school night on Monday and saw her classroom (loaded with carts and shelves and stacks of books!) and met her super nice teacher.  We learned all about the intricacies of drop off and pick ups. Her school seems great.  It is huge, but there is tons of parent involvement and lots of art, music and PE. We took lots of pictures of the kindergarten playground, lunch area and classroom and Isla loved looking at them all.

Best of all, Isla and Charlotte are in the same class.  We have a video of us telling them they will be in the same class.  They are screaming and jumping for joy.  The bad news...Charlotte has strep throat and has to miss the first day.

We tucked Isla in and gave her lots of hugs and kisses.  She told me that she has enough love to last all year at kindergarten.

We'll let you know how it goes!

(This picture is about 6 months old.)

Coming Home to Rome

I continue to have grand plans for this blog that never amount to much when real life rudely interrupts, but I want to quickly write about my weekend.  (Me, for once - not the kids!)  At some point I'd like to write more, because this experience is one that has the best chance of being explained in writing, but time will tell.

Saturday evening marked the end of 9 months of RCIA, 16+ months of serious contemplation, more than 17 years of consideration, and a calling that has been with me as long as I can remember.

On Saturday evening I "crossed the Tiber" and entered into full communion with the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil mass.

I don't have any of my own words to describe the feeling yet, but completely two secular quotes from popular movies keep coming to mind and they are ludicrously inappropriate and appropriate...

 All those days watching from the windows
All those years outside looking in
All that time never even knowing
Just how blind I've been
Now I'm here, blinking in the starlight
Now I'm here, suddenly I see
Standing here, it's all so clear
I'm where I'm meant to be

(Yep, that is Disney's Tangled)

and this is what kept running through my head as we went through our final rites during Holy Week...

"It was like coming home, only to no home I'd ever known."

(Sleepless in Seattle!)  So silly, but that's where I'm at right now.  I'm glad some screenwriter had the eloquence to describe my experience perfectly!

 Here's a blurry picture.  I'm possibly one of the candle dots.

Christmas Magic

Sibling rivalry is alive and well in our house, but...
So is Sibling Camaraderie and Sibling Love!  Isla and Isaac have been having such a fun time together this Christmas.
Now that Isaac is truly able to participate in many activities, Isla and Ike will run off and play together.
Today they made a snack shop in the bar and sold "Swordfish Lemonade," they ran and hid (over and over) from the vacuum, played Cranium Hullabulu, and experimented with Baff in the tub. 

Despite all the fantastic gifts we received this year, there is no question that our family's greatest gift is each other.  It is magical watching Isla and Isaac discover that.

Night Night Little Ikey

Ike's bedtime routine is funny and very exact (he's a little more of a routine hound than Isla), so I thought I'd document it.  This is just with me.  I think it is different with Andrew.

We get ready for bed...bath, jammies, teeth, sleep sack, etc. in no particular order.  Then  Isla comes in and dances around and sings her lullaby - "Lullaby, lullaby, go to sleep little Ikey.  Lullaby, Lullaby, sweet dreams till your awake." - or a similar variation.  The we sit in the rocker and read as many books as I'm willing to read.  After that we go the closet and while I hold him,  Ike turns off the light, closes the door, and we go to the window.  He opens his side and I open the window and we look for the moon.  Lately it has been missing and Ike says something along the lines of, "It's sleeping." or "The moon is hiding."  Today he saw some clouds and told me they were fire. 

After that Ike closes the window (with help), puts the bar back, closed the blinds and checks to make sure they are all the way closed - all things I used to do, but he's very interested in doing things himself right now.  The I sing his songs - often Godspeed, Away in the Manger, and Morning Town Train (recently it has come to my attention that this is not a Rafi original.)  Then I turn on his music - Disney Lullaby Vol. 2 (Guess who listens to Vol. 1?!?)  and give him a dancing snuggle and put him down in his crib.

He was totally flexible while we were traveling, but I could tell he was very excited to do his little routine when we got back.

A Baby Changes Everything

On our drive home we blasted some Christmas carols, and despite having lost my voice for 3 weeks, I screeched along with my favorites.

Initially the kids were enchanted with the music too until they remembered the dvd player.  (We turned Ike's seat around and this was his first trip getting to see the dvd player - it was a blessing and a curse.)  I made everyone listen to all of Faith Hill's Christmas album before we watched a show.  Isla really loved it, especially the "Gchazzy" rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  The last song is called, "A Baby Changes Everything."  It is the story of Mary, but is something that speaks to the heart of any mother.  It is a beautiful song.

Hours later when I was putting Isla to bed, she asked, "Mom, does a baby really change everything?"

I'm not sure what she was thinking about when she asked, but I told her, "Yes!" and told her just how magical and special it was when she became my baby and changed everything for me in a wonderful way.  After I told her, she snuggled down and was quiet with a happy smile on her face.


Tonight she's gotten out of bed multiple times saying, "I'm worried about how I'm ever going to sleep on Christmas eve!  I'm just going to be so excited!"

Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord!

It is Advent.  The head of my Mom's group made a point of reminding us that Christmas starts on Christmas and runs until Epiphany and that we should be focused on Advent right now, but I'm not entirely sure I know the difference...at least not in an external way.

We've always made this time a time to talk about the baby Jesus, so I don't think it will be particularly different this year.  One thing that will be different!?!  My rockin' advent calendar!  I've had a squinty skeptical eye on a few face book friends who do daily Christmas activities with their kids leading up to Christmas.  It seemed like an impossible task at a time that is already a little nuts.  Then I started looking at the Calendar and realized that with all our fun Catholic advent activities and all our normal Christmas activities, I only needed to do a few Christmas crafts and we'll have an activity a day too.

I had a lot of fun making this advent calendar with some inspiration from on I'd seem on a blog.  There is a tag for each day and I glued the activity/ies on the back.  Some are set in stone - i.e. St. Nicolas Day, but others move from year to year.  I also didn't glue every activity on.  That way we have flexibility if someone gets sick or if Andrew and I change our mind about when we want to do something.

Today was our fist day.  Isla totally got it and was excited, but Ike wanted to pull all the tags ogg.  Today our activity was starting the calendar and lighting the first candle on our advent wreath.  Tomorrow is decorating the kids bedrooms and setting up the nativity.   Some other highlights include picking and decorating the tree, writing letters to Santa, St. Nicholas Day, a party with Santa at the parish hall, Breakfast in Bethlehem at preschool, a cookie making party (as long as my friend doesn't have her baby), making gifts, buying and donating gifts, having a little fiesta for Our Lady of Guadalupe, a holiday movie night, a holiday book reading night, our family Christmas party, and Carols, Candles, and Cocoa!  (That last one might be more for me!)

Like many of my plans, this may backfire and be "that thing we did in 2013."  Hopefully it won't!

Joyful Thanksgiving!

We drove up to my parents house last Sunday.  We left at 4:40, and after a quick Starbucks stop, we were on the road by 5am. 
Overall the drive was fantastic!
Here's the breakdown:
Lows:
- I had about 2 hours of sleep because I'd stayed up late for a giant work deadline.
- We got stuck in one big traffic jam in the middle of nowhere on SR 99 because of an accident
- I was super sick

Highs:
- Andrew, my Hero, drove the entire way
- I slept
- Ike slept
- Isla was mostly content to watch shows
- We had lunch at In & Out
- We arrived by (I think) 3:30, maybe even sooner.  It was so nice to begin the trip with the kids outside in daylight.

The first day was sort of a bust and a blur - I worked on my project most of the day (and night) and finished it!

After the crazy first day we had a wonderful time enjoying my beautiful home town, relaxing, doing puzzles, and getting to know BABY JULIA!

The kids were so excited to meet their new cousin!  She turned 6 months old while we were there and is a smiley curious long legged beauty.  Because I was sick, I didn't get nearly enough snuggle time, but I had so much fun watching her interact with her cousins and watching my sister and brother in law skillfully and lovingly parent their little girl. 

Isaac has been facetiming with Julia, so he was especially thrilled to meet her, and Isla, who is normally a little reticent around babies was excited and engaged and loved doing the little things she does for Isaac, like getting toys and singing songs.  The kids were even fairly compliant with being quiet for her naps.  I was really impressed with them.

We celebrated Thanksgivakuhbirthaversary - Haunnukah, my parents wedding anniversary, Julia's 6 month birthday and Thanksgiving.  My mom made matching aprons for Julia and Isla and matching aprons for April, me, my mom and her sister, Gruantie Didi. 

This year we experimented with pies and I made a keylime pie with our backyard key limes (our new family tradition), and April made a sweet potato pie (If I asked you who my sweet potato pie was, you'd say...I WAS!!!!)  It was awesome - very cheesecake-ish.  I liked it best served warm.  My sister, aunt, mom, dad and I all crowded around on Wednesday and made pies in sort of a choreographed pie making party - there was a constant stream of dough being made, rolled, filled and baked.  Of course we had all the traditional pies too, including a dairy free pie for Ike and my uncle and my Grandma Helen's awesome awesome pumpkin pie (note to self - use the libby's recipe, not KAF, and try rerplacing water in crust with milk.)  Her pumpkin pies are perfect - no cracks and no weird liquid showing up the next day.  (The turkey was possibly the best I've ever had - Go Dad!  Super juicy and flavorful!)

The morning of Thanksgiving a bunch of people did a Turkey Trot for a local food bank - I'm fairly certain the event covered their entire annual operating costs.  It was massive.  Andrew came in 3rd in his age and I think would have done even better if he had gotten right up to the starting line.  Apparently the mob got off to a slow start.  By Thursday I felt well enough to go down to the park and watch the race.  It was, and always is, absolutely stunning in every season.

My cousin Lindsey arrived, via bike!  (150 miles!!!) on Wednesday afternoon and Gruncle Richard arrived that evening.  In the early afternoon my Aunt Chris and Cousin Aleks arrived with my Grandma Helen and Grandpa Don and my Grandpa Bill and Nanny Claire arrived right at the same time.  We had appetizers and visited.  It is SO special to see my kids playing with my grandparents.  I have so many special memories with my grandparents and now my kids will too.  (At one point Ike fell asleep in my Grandma's arms while she was reading Isla and Ike a story.  It was so cute!)

The extended family stayed until Saturday, so we got a chance to really visit. 
We drove home Saturday and got home around 9:30pm.  (Left at 10:30am).  It was a good drive - really clear and pretty and we had very few stops.  We discovered that Chickfila is a good place to stop because the food is a little better than most places and the playground is a great place for the kids to blow off some steam.