Author: Melissa

A few weekends ago we headed down to Jackson for a day with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Gordy.  We went to the Ella Sharp museum for an exhibit- Art of the Brick – in Jackson.   Everyone enjoyed it- kids and adults.   There were large sculptures made of Lego and an entire play area where kids could make their own creations.  After the museum we of course hit an ice cream shop where Ajax put away a serious amount of ice cream.

Afterwards we headed to Lansing for dinner at Emily and Adrian’s house.  The kids may have been out a bit too long as they had a bit of a meltdown when it was time to pack away the Nintendo and go home.  But overall, an excellent day.

School was cancelled today … again.  I think we’ve had such a mild winter that the mere mention of snow has school administrative officials in a bunch and then in a knee jerk reaction cancel school.  The weather was so bad, however, that my work closed around 2:30 and Dave ended up staying the night in town at his cousin’s house.

I picked up the kids from daycare and they both said they had an awesome snow day playing with friends.  We did an early dinner and after much threatening we went out in the blizzard to plow the driveway – like a true Michigander- and play in the snow (threat: eat your dinner or you can’t go out in this freezing blizzard with me to shovel the driveway.  Children:  NOO!!).  After we cleared the driveway it was immediately covered again.

Noomi told me that she had five dinosaurs in all her fingers today.  So that was cool.  Ajax asked me repeatedly if he was cute and I told him, of course he was the cutest kid I knew!  After the tenth time, however, I asked what was going on and he confided that a girl at school told him he was not cute.  In a moment of panic, not knowing what to say, I blurted out that’s bullshit!   And then proceeded to lecture that – although some people find it cute to tease or be mean to those they like, that is a jerk move and we are not mean to those we like, etc.  I don’t think I handled it the best and I’m sure a TV mom would of had the most gracious thing to say that instilled calm and confidence in their young child.

On a side note, Ajax seems to do much better with his math homework when Dave and I do not hover.  It was taking over 30 minutes to do a few pages of worksheets, but after we stepped back Ajax knocked it out in a third of that time (so that he could get back to playing Legos or really anything else).  Go figure?

 

Well we’re finally getting some snow here. About a foot fell through mid-Michigan in a little less than 24 hours.  Needless to say employers and schools all let out early on Wednesday. Schools and businesses were closed on Thursday.  And while schools were still closed on Friday, I still had to drag myself to the office.  The kids had fun at Kids Corner and when we got home they played in the snow with neighbors, so overall a win-win.

I must admit that on our snow day we did nothing and it was glorious!  I did a little laundry, we watched TV, and played in the snow.  I managed to use the snow blower to clear the driveway, though after I started it the darn thing kinda just zipped around the driveway by itself.  I just hung on.  We made blueberry muffins for the neighbor and then crashed on the couch.   Actually, I guess we did a few things and it was still glorious!

I know it’s been a long time since my last post. I apologize.  We’re here, we’re doing well – here’s a recap!

The kids are LOVING their classes. Noomi thinks everyday should be dance class.  She asks almost everyday if she is going to dance class she loves it that much.  Her teacher, a college aged young lady named Miss Olivia has the most patience I’ve ever seen as week after week she plays Mr. Sandman and tries to teach 30 or so 3 year olds 4 dance moves (involving – touching ones toes, putting their hands together and placing them to the side of their face, etc).  It must be a skill.   This past Monday the kids received their costumes for their recital and oh my goodness, Noomi wants to live in it.  Right now it’s living in my closet.

Ajax has taken one belt test and is now a yellow-stripe (just above a white belt).  He attends class two days a week and really enjoys it, though he won’t readily admit that.  When you ask him if he likes class he says, eh I guess.  If you ask him, do you want to keep going to karate class, he’ll say – I guess, if you want me to.   When you ask him if he wants to stop and do something else, say baseball, he says – nah, I want to be a black belt. One of the questions for his belt test was – where does Taekwondo come from?  Ajax – Indiana?  Well he eventually memorized the answer and got it right for his test.

This past weekend we headed to Brooklyn to help out on the farm for a bit.   The kids had fun and worked hard.   The weather was lovely hanging in the 50s and today we’re under a winter storm watch and schools have already closed tomorrow.   After dinner the kid went out with Dave to shovel the driveway and Noomi commented, quite proudly that these were her most best boots for going outside.  It was pretty cute.

For Christmas this year the grandparents gave gifts of classes for the kiddos.  Ajax signed up for tae kwon do classes and Noomi signed up for dance.

Ajax has attended three karate classes at Master Shinn’s in Okemos and loves it.  He’s in the Tiger Tots class and so far has been the tallest in his class, which he thinks is pretty cool since he’s one of the smaller kids in class.   He attends class two day a week, which seems a lot, but he’s starting to get pretty excited at the prospect of earning higher belts.  I’m not sure if that’s the right lingo or not, but he’s got his eyes set on the yellow belt.

Noomi has attended one dance class (Creative Movements)(ages 3-5) and she was beyond excited.  Excited doesn’t even capture it.   When I got home from work, Noomi was already in her ballet outfit spinning in the dining room.   As she’d been talking about dance class for month she was over the moon that she was really going.  On our drive there, however, she started to get nervous and said that maybe she would only watch the class.  When we got there she met several of her friends from school and all nervousness went out the window.  I watched her through the window (apparently we’re not allowed in) and she was the only little one break-dancing and spinning on the ground… thank you Mr. Ajax.

 

This New Years we spent the evening with friends in Williamston.  The kids had a blast playing, we ate a ton of unhealthy food, and everyone (except the baby) made it to midnight.

We played an exciting game of Settlers of Catan (one of Dave’s Xmas presents), which brought us up to midnight.

I cannot believe the kids made it up that late but they did and we all watched the ball drop.  We had sparkling cider and the kids had noise makers.  It was a good time all the way around!

Well our family had a wonderful holiday!

The kids and I volunteered at St. Vincent sorting gifts and afterwards I treated them to lunch out and then several hours of fun at Jumpin’ Jack (a large inflatable playground).

Dave was able to take several days off, so we had plenty of family time!  A large part of our family time was spent watching the original 3 Star Wars movies.  And then Dave treated Ajax to the new movie- The Force Awakens.  The kids are all about Star Wars these days.  Noomi has also been watching them with us and loved Darth Vader. She said his cap was so pretty.  And then in the middle of one of the movies when we were all snuggled on the couch she turned to me and said, mom, I like ponies. Do you like ponies?  (on another occasion she suddenly stated, oh I love sparkles, do you love sparkles?_ what a little girl).

Christmas Eve we hosted dinner out our house which was wonderful.  The kiddos enjoyed their holiday PJs and then slept in till almost 7:30 am.  Grandma Dara and Grandpa Rod stayed the night so everyone got to open presents in the morning.  After gifts we headed to my Grandpa Nader’s house and then to Theresa and Tim’s house for dinner.   It was a long day and everyone had a great time.

Oh, on a side note Noomi couldn’t quite pronounce Christmas, so she was saying Smis-Mis.  It was darn cute.

After a week of not feeling well, Ajax was finally well enough to go to school on Friday.  He was quite happy about this as Friday was PJ day and spelling test day.  Ok, he wasn’t thrilled about the spelling test but he got 12/12 and was very proud.  Noomi seems to be a trooper and managed to avoid the nasty virus that ran through our home.

On Saturday we decided to take the kids to the East Lansing winter festival.  It went something like this –

Kids refusing to put on shoes or jackets meant we got a late start.  Because we got a late start we had to hunt college town side streets for parking and stood in the longest line ever to see Santa.  The line was so long it snaked its way through the Marriott lobby with dozens of screaming kids.  Dave was kind enough to stand in line and I took the kids to look around the rest of the festival.  Me: look kids a goat! how cool, wanna feed him?  Kids: nah.  Me: look kids hot coco, want some?  Kids: nah.  Me:  look kids a man carving a snowflake from a block of ice with a chainsaw!!  Kids: can we go back and wait in line with dad?

The only thing the kids seemed to take joy in were the hotel lobby escalator.  Up and down. Up and down.  We rode that thing for over a half hour.  Finally, it was time to see Santa and Mrs. Clause, the kids had been talking big for several minutes, this year Ajax promised to take a wonderful picture.  But when the elf came to escort them to the stage, both kids freaked out and I had to drag Noomi, finally gave up and held her in the picture.  And all of this with dozens of other parents watching.

After the picture fiasco, the kids were finally interested in the goats.  We tried to take a family photo on a sleigh made of ice… but well, the photo speaks for itself.

On Sunday, I took Noomi to a birthday party and Dave and Ajax did a bit of holiday shopping.  And then we all went to bed!

I’m having technical difficulties with the photos… here’s one –

 

 

A few weeks ago we headed up north to Mikado for a visit.  We headed up early on Friday and had a pretty easy drive up.  Theresa, Tim and baby Vivian were also up for the weekend.  With so many hands on deck Rod decided that we should take a giant 80 foot pine tree down.  While Rod knew what he was doing, the rest of us were pretty green.   With Dave on the tractor, Tim guiding the line and Rod working the chainsaw, we all watched from the safety of the house as the giant tree came crashing to the ground.

Ajax was a tremendous helper and a very hard worker.  He pulled branches, piled them up and hustled with the adults.  I was very proud.

 

A miscellaneous post for you!

The Wednesday before turkey day the kids and I had off.  The night before we’d been hit with a dramatic storm leaving us with close to 12 inches of snow.  So we decided that we should go sledding on the hill in town before the sun melted it all.  We got an early start and had the hill to ourselves for almost an hour.

The kids and I climbed all the way to the very top of the hill (which ended up being much bigger than it appeared from the road); I loaded up both kiddos on the sled with Ajax in the back and gave them a shove.  I realize in hindsight I should have given them a bit of guidance because they made it halfway down the hill swerved and then rolled.  Both received snow burns on their checks.  After that Ajax rode the round sled and Noomi and I took the longer one, which proved safer for all.

After an hour more families arrived and Ajax had a blast racing the other boys down the hill, while Noomi had lost interest in sledding and proceeded to stomp around in the icy mud puddles.

I loaded up some muddy kids and took them home where we made pies for turkey day!   The kids were very proud of the apple pie they helped make.

Today (Saturday) we put up our Christmas tree and decorated for the holidays.  The kids were pretty excited.