Visiting Santa

Thursday, December 1, 2005

Every December, since Rebecca was little, Grandma & Grandpa have taken the kids to see Santa at Crown Center. This year I got to go along and we had a really nice and relaxed time.

Crayola sponsors Santa & his Christmas Land, and being that we went on a Thursday afternoon, the kids were able to play and go through as many times as they wanted. They always do an excellent job of selecting the perfect Santa - all with real beards, essential in making a realistic Santa. This gentleman was perfect and did a great job of helping the kids feel more comfortable. The girls talked to Santa, but didn't want to sit on his lap. Sam watched from a distance - never crossing the rope - and was pretty pleased when he heard Santa was a pretty big train fan.





After visiting with Santa we did a little bit of window shopping and then went to a really fun little restaurant called Fritz's Railroad Restaurant. This restaurant does not have traditional servers. Each table has menus and a telephone. When you're ready to order you "call" the kitchen and give them your order. Near the ceiling around the restaurant is a suspended train track and a little train. The train delivers your food in a plastic bin. Depending on the size of your order determines the number of times the train stops at your table. It came to us twice... once with our fries, and the second time with our sandwiches. At eye level they have another train behind plexiglas that also circles the restaurant and helps keep the kids entertained.

A little bit of Christmas

Wednesday, 30 November 2005

Diane's church on Wednesday nights has a short service where their organist plays for about an hour in the chapel. He is very good and has taken a new position and will be leaving at the end of the year, and Diane invited us to hear him play before he left.

Since her church is downtown, I decided to take the kids early so we could do some window shopping - something they love to do - and pick out some new Christmas ornaments for the tree. The store we went to with all the incredible ornaments is one where you take a deep breath and pray no one sneezes. They did an awesome job of picking out their ornaments and not touching anything they weren't suppose to.


We spent quite a bit of time just looking in their shop window. They have a small santa's train that moves which Sam and the girls could sit and watch for hours.

We still had time before the performance, so we went into the children's toy store and boy did we find some fun things! We played with three or four different displays for a good 30 minutes before walking over to the church. I am hoping GR and I can get over there together sometime next week to do some Christmas shopping. They have amazing things that you simply don't find anywhere else.

The St. Louis Magic House

Friday 25 November 2005

We have rediscovered a favorite St. Louis location. Although it was a popular site for the day after Thanksgiving everyone really enjoyed themselves. This was a trip best described in pictures - not words, although I've used some. They are bringing Clifford the Big Red Dog in January - May, we will definitely be coming back at some point during that time to experience it again with our favorite PBS/Scholastic character.

This is one of the first "exhibits" you come to... most people were doing hand prints. But GR and Becca decided to do their face prints.


They have an entire area for little kids 5 and under with slides, two different sand play stations and a water station. Here Sam is playing in sand that isn't gritty or fine (that's a station all it's own) - you can mold it and sculpt it, but it doesn't seem to dry out like wet beach sand.


Here's the water station. The water flows down a series of ramps. The children can experiment with diverting or damming the water to change the flow, or create water falls, and pools. We spent quite a bit of time in this area.


There is a small fishing pond - Suzanne is helping Emily fish - the poll has a magnet on the end of the string and the fish are metal tipped. When you catch a fish you can either release it back into the pond, or you can take it somewhere else and release it. Then you can watch your fish make it's way back to the pond through a Plexiglas glass covered "under floor" stream that feeds into the pond. This was quite popular and it took Sam quite a while to finally get his turn to fish. I should have adapted the Lebanese concept of 'waiting' in line.


They have an entire town set up in kid size ... A house, a bank, library (below Emily is the librarian, checking books in and out using the computer system and stamping cards), TV station, grocery store, etc.


This portion of the Magic House dealt with moving air and air pressure and the effects it has on objects. I loved watching toddlers reaction to the floating balls. They stood in stared, looks of confusing and wonder on their faces, as they tried to figure out why the balls were floating in air. They also had air compressors set up with empty water bottles on strings to create "bottle rockets." You filled the water bottle with air and then released it to see how far up the string it would go. Very cool!


The electrostatic Ball is one of the things the Magic House is famous for. Suzanne and I both gave it a whirl. The trick is to move/shake your head around a lot - but your can't touch your hair or help it lift with your hands. Suz's hair really performed well - mine might have done better if I could have waited an additional 5+ minutes for it to collect enough static charge. Unfortunately the kids wouldn't try it - I'm thinking next time they might be brave enough to try it.

Vintage ski caps

23 November 2005

The bet

22 November 2005 - 4:00pm.

On our way to St. Louis for Thanksgiving, the gas light went on on the mini-van shortly after picking up GR from work. He suggested we purchase gas in Olathe, I on the other hand wanted to wait until we got into Missouri where the gas would be cheaper.

In Olathe gas was $1.94/gallon ... cheaper than at home ... $1.99/gallon. I knew, if I waited until Missouri, I'd be able to pay $1.90.

And so the bet was on. If I paid $1.90 or less per gallon when I had to stop and fill up, than GR wouldn't purchase any more computer hardware!

How could I possibly afford to loose this bet! And Missouri didn't let me down:

WOW!

Monday AM as we empty Becca's school bag:
B: Look Mom, I got my first WOW!
M: That's awesome - look you got all your numbers going the right way! I'm really proud of you. You did a great job.


Tuesday PM as we walk to the car from in front of school.
B: Mom I got another WOW!, today!
M: Really what for?
B: Writing my numbers 1-15.
M: Why did you stop at 15? Why didn't you write to 20 or 25?
B: Mrs. C wouldn't let me.

The back of Monday AM's paper is pictured left, back of Tuesday PM's paper picture right. And at the bottom is a how she wrote her name on her first WOW! paper - I was really pleased with how well she did using upper and lower case letters and what a great job she did keeping her lower case letters the right size.

6.2 Million Gallons

GR ran across this article on MSNBC and decided we must go for a family vacation! And after watching the Today Show broadcast live from the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, on November 21st, I am in total agreement. So much so that I'm actually willing to pay the $23/adult - $17/child entrance fee - yikes!

Look out Aunt Alice, here we come!

Hope yours was great!

Rebecca drew this turkey on Tuesday before we pulled out for StL. I had hoped to email it out to everyone, but I had one way internet service (I could receive email, but couldn't send it) and the computer that could send out emails couldn't talk to the computer that couldn't. But it was too cute not to at least post here so a small fraction of you could see her artistry.

We had a wonderful holiday at my parents home, and per tradition, GR's parents joined us for wonderful food, conversation and friendship. It was great!

More pictures and experiences to come from our trip!

I told Mom I would post pictures of Emily's completed dress. Then I went back and read everyone's opinions again, and realized I'd gone against everyone's advice... no one thought the large rick rack would look good on the hem... eeek.
Despite that I still think it turned out cute - is it a little much, yes, but does it look wrong - the jury is still out. Emily on the other hand LOVEs it. She wore it to a party Saturday night, to Church on Sunday and then to school on Monday. And so far it's holding up okay with all the washing.

P.S. Don't you just love Rebecca's stance in this picture! Both of them have such a great sense of style and poise.

Nine for nine

It's been confirmed, all of the leaders and youth who went and raked leaves yesterday have red itchy spots. Two stayed home from church today... one because his parents thought he had chickenpox, the other because he'd convinced his parents he had poison ivy.

In leadership meetings this morning, he told everyone that despite Rebecca's looks, she did not have chickenpox. After seeing Rebecca, the primary president, Camie, said, "Wow, it's a good thing you told me." I caught Camie in the bathroom after the first hour of primary and she said Becca was being a real trooper. And she is.

Pin Oak Mites!

Yesterday GR's young men were asked to provide service to a non-member sister who needed the leaves in her yard raked. They met up at the church and since I had quilting at the same time (9-11), GR took the girls, and I took Sam. From what GR has told me they raked 13-15 bags of leaves for this woman who was very grateful for their service and it didn't seem to take them very long because, 2 hours later they had not only raked all the leaves, but he'd also taken them all out for breakfast at McDonald's. So they made quick work of a big job.

When I got home around 1:30 Rebecca had suspicious red dots all over the side of her face and neck. I instantly pulled up her shirt to investigate her tummy ... last week the "Chickenpox" letter went out to the PM Kindergarten classes because a child in the other PM classroom had a confirmed case of it ... so although they looked like bug bites, we made calls to the Grandma's to find out what the first signs of chickenpox looks like. And we gave her the first of many doses of benadryl

These bites look very much like chiggers, but they develop a very small white head - like a pimple, and become welts like mosquito bites can.

While at a friends last night I was describing Becca's bites to Steve who said... Ahh, we had the same thing two weeks ago when we were up (NE) at my Mom's. He and Kathy had raked leaves all afternoon and that night tons of little red bites appeared all over the upper portions of their bodies. Turns out they are Pin Oak Mites, and they have been a huge problem in eastern Nebraska and Kansas. They live in the tree and "rain" down when the wind blows and the leaves fall, and my little girl is covered in these horrific little bites.

All of GR's young men have them, but none to the extent that Rebecca has them. Even Emily managed to come home with only 2-3 bites. Becca literally has 50+ on her face (one under each eye, and one on her left eye lid), neck, upper chest, upper back and lower back. She is miserable and looks it too. Kathy put calamine lotion on her bites last night which kind of helped, and this morning we started with benadryl again, which for the time seems to be the biggest help other than total distraction.

Hot Dogs in Honey BBQ Sauce with Honeydew

The kids had a class field trip to the local H____ grocery store. From what I gathered from the teachers conversations in the hallways, who had just taken the morning classes there... they had expected a 20 minute tour. What they got was an amazing 20 minute, very task oriented, kid friendly tour, and a snack - whole apple, slice of American cheese, sugar cookie and glass of water - in the stores dining room, which took an additional 20 minutes. The tour was excellent and the teachers loved it, they just weren't prepared ...

The field trip took up most of their 2-1/2 hour classroom block of time. The classes had arranged for a child to bring the snack, which is a really big deal for most of these kids - they love to be responsible for that. And for the morning kids after a slice of cheese, an apple and a cookie, they weren't all that interested in eating a classroom snack.

So when I walked in with Emily's snack, Hot dogs in honey BBQ sauce (steaming hot in a sauce pan ready to transfer into a mini-crockpot) with honeydew melon and heard all this, I stuck it all in the school fridge, and was prepared for it to be our dinner.

Oh no, this time around, the teachers gave the kids a slice of cheese at the store and asked for the cookies and apples to get boxed up so they could be either eaten in the classroom or sent home in totebags. I microwaved the hot dogs to take the edge off the chill, and they and the honeydew were served along with the cookies.

They ate all but a handful of hot dog bites (I cut up 15 hot dogs and they had 15 kids attend) and a most all of the honeydew melon (and I cut up the whole melon for them). Mrs. S commented to me at the end, that the kids LOVED it, "None of them may be hungry for dinner, but they loved it!" and kept asking for more. So it was a great success.

Thanks to everyone who helped brainstorm Hh foods.

Art

I love the art teachers at preschool! They are incredible and use the most interesting things for the kids to use to apply paint to paper... bubble wrap; different size balls - golf, pingpong, marbles, etc.; kitchen utencils, etc. For the project below, they used blown up balloons to dip into pie pans of paint to apply the paint to the paper. I LOVE the result. This one is definately getting framed and put in the artwork hall of fame.

Side note: Anyone who would like to own a print of Emily's art, can now do so. I have it scanned into the computer and can make any size print you'd like -- 5x7; 8x10,11x14. I am currently waiting for a 4x6 of this image to arrive for the family journal.

Turkey Feather Homework

Last Wednesday Emily came home with "homework" - a blank construction paper feather that she could decorate any way she wanted that would be hung in her classroom until Thanksgiving. While Becca was in school and Sam was taking a nap on Thursday, she painted and painted and painted until she had her feather just the way she wanted. Here she is with her feather and then another picture of her feather with the nearly dressed turkeys from the morning class (left) and her afternoon class (right).

Yeah or Nay

I'm making this little dress for Emily - I LOVE the teeny red rick-rack I've used around the neckline and the sleeves, and planned to use the jumbo rick-rack along the hem. But now I'm not sure if it's cute or over powering or both. Cute and both, I'm fine with, plain overpowering, I'm not. So once again, I need your advice, jumbo or no jumbo?

Side note, I have plenty of the teeny rick rack and could do a row of it 2" or so from the hem... I could also purchase another package and do 3 rows... Anyway need help/suggestions

Hh Week

The letter for the week at Preschool is H, and on Wednesday our girl's the snack girl. They like the snacks to be healthy, and if/when possible coordinate with the letter/theme for the week. I'm having a hard time thinking of something suitable for this weeks snack. All I can think of is homemade whole wheat bread (mom's bullet bread made in green bean cans, so it's preschool sized) and little slices of ham and cheese.

Emily thought we should take the white cheese and crackers (the Havarti cheese I introduced to them last weekend - she doesn't know it's name, so it's kinda funny she suggested it since it starts with H... but anyway), but I suggested we think of something else... at $8/lb I'm not thinking 16 preschoolers need to have that as their snack - even if it is H week.

So any other suggestions?

31 October 2005

There is one house that I have always admired. The landscaping is always, and I mean always beautiful, the color of the house is fun, and yet tastefully perfect, and at Halloween time, these women put on an amazing production! Just take a look at these pictures. They are all hand carved and they use real pumpkins every year!

Costume Day, I’m a little Pepper

Monday, 17 October 2005

Today has been costume collection day…

Rebecca
We went through lots and lots of “I wanna be _____” before Rebecca finally settled on a KU Cheerleader, three weeks before Halloween. GR and I checked all the large department stores, then the local sporting good stores, before looking online and calling the University bookstore. Online the outfits had a $30 price range! Add to that the wait time and shipping costs and we opted for the local bookstore. On the morning of the 17^th I called and they had one left in her size which I asked for them to hold. The plan was to pick it up while the girls were in school.

That morning I put Sam in “big boy” underwear – we’d had two successful trips to the potty and I opted to keep him in his underwear for this jaunt to preschool and campus. Unfortunately while I was picking which pose of Emily’s school picture to purchase, we had a little accident. Here’s the huge difference between boys and girls. With girls, there would have been a huge puddle, shoes would have been soaked, etc. With Sam, just a small softball size wet spot on his shorts… no running down the leg, etc.

I took off his wet clothes and put him in a pull-up I had stashed in my purse and off we went to the bookstore… “I’m a Little Pepper” t-shirt, pull-up and sneakers. It simply wasn’t worth the gas or the time to go home and get him a new pair of shorts to wear.

He was too cute walking onto campus without any reservations. Totally confident and wanting to do things on his own. One guy tried to hold a door open for us, and Sam told him, “Mine!” I tried to explain, but how to you explain it to a 19 year old in 5 words of less so they really understand – you can’t. But Sam did it, he opened and held open each of the doors we went through for me. On the way in we got some odd looks from students, but on the way out, all he got were comments about the awesome shirt he was wearing (thanks Ezra!).

Becca’s outfit fits her perfectly – I was a little concerned she wouldn’t like it because the skirt wasn’t pleated, but she was ultimately happy with it and it looks so cute on her!

Emily
Emily has been very set on being Tinkerbell. The same night we went looking for cheerleading outfits, we looked at Tinkerbell costumes. The ones we saw weren’t the right size and just weren’t “fairy princess” enough. We looked at the patterns and had the same problem – they were really disappointing. So I spent quite a bit of time over the weekend looking online and watching auctions on eBay. We’d gotten a Disney Store Catalog with the perfect costume, but were concerned about sizing and getting it here in time for a couple early Halloween parties.

I found lots of Disney Store Tinkerbell costumes on eBay, and was watching 3 or 4 auctions all at once that were getting ready to end Monday night. All of them kept getting higher and higher and higher until I finally called GR… he called the store at the mall and they had everything we wanted. After work he went and picked up the outfit, wings and shoes – he called me from the road and said “I love my daughter very much.” “Yes, dear I know you do – what are you doing?” “I’m driving to Indpendence Center to purchase a wand” “You don’t need to, she doesn’t need it and if she does, we’ll make it.” (Plus how is she going to hold a wand and a tricker-treat bag? That’ll be the first thing that gets handed to Mom to hold.)

Thankfully it wasn’t missed, and Emily’s face was pure delight when she opened up the bag and tried on her costume. The entire ensemble was perfect and she beamed each and every time she put it on.

Sam
Side note on Sam's costume. We looked at purchasing one of those too, but none of them looked right. Most were Thomas the Train costumes that looked more like Thomas PJs than a Train costume. And Sam wanted to be a choo choo because he likes trains, not because he's obsessed with Thomas. So that's why we spent time and made his costume.

Even more Halloween

Sam has always wanted to be a Choo Choo. And the amazing thing is you'd ask him (after having not been asked for days) and he'd respond the same way every time - Choo Choo. GR did 80% of the work and I did the other 20%. He literally spent 6 hours painting it on Saturday. When Sam came down from his nap about 2pm, he looked at the box and said in a quiet awed voice - "My Choo Choo?!" By his reaction you could just tell he thought it was perfect, and he knew it was for him.

But when it came time to put on the costume for our block party on Saturday, he wasn't real sure he wanted to wear it. It took having Rebecca put it on to show him before he was willing to wear it. And he wore it for a good 30 minutes before wanting it off so he could run around and play.

On Halloween he wore it for 4 houses before wanting it off - he wasn't able to walk very well - so we put it in the wagon and he pulled it along to the remaining 12 houses or so that they went to.

Saturday 29 October 2005


Thrusday night is Reality Sisters. A group of 5-6 of us meet at 9pm and watch that nights Survivor. We also usually bring a little snack of some kind. Some bring sweets, other bring appitizers, etc. The food really varries and I tend to bring "test" recipes to see their reaction. Although this week, I was able to take them one of Grandfather's pomegranets. Grandfather sent me a box of ~10 and I took one to share - and they LOVED it so much I'm taking another next week.

These women have introduced me to some great foods with thier snacks. This week Shannon brought two things I've never had before - Havarti cheese and a yummy flavor of Triscuit - Rosemary and Olive Oil. I liked it so much that I picked up some this morning when I stopped at the store for milk and hot dog buns for the Halloween Block party tonight.

The kids LOVE combination of a little square of cheese on the triscuit. GR on the other hand, didn't. An hour later he was still complaining about the taste the triscuit left in his mouth! I admit they are strong, but the cheese really mellows the flavor and they make a great combo snack!