A Little Organization

My other project yesterday (besides Legos) was to organize/purge our massive pile of downstairs toys. The kids and I took a trip to Target in the morning for some storage bins, and they "helped" me assemble them. (Okay, Ben helped and Rebecca got in the way and/or cheered "Go Mommy! Go Mommy!"). Then we went through all of the toys the kids keep downstairs and threw away about half a dozen broken remote control toys, numerous other broken toys/pieces of toys/happy meal toys/baby toys, etc. We filled a trash bag and a half with junk. Then we attempted to organize the remaining toys as best we could. The result looks a lot better than before, however we still need to tackle the UPSTAIRS toys! That is a project for another day...

Legos

As previously mentioned Ben received a lot of Star Wars Lego kits for his birthday. He cleared off a shelf on the book case over his bed to make room to display them, and set about nagging Joel and I to help him put them together. So Joel did one with him the other night, and I did one with him yesterday during Rebecca's nap. It took me all of Rebecca's 2 hour nap to finish this 177 piece project, and I am rather proud of myself. I did have a few tiny pieces left over after I finished, which I am hoping were just extras! Ben was very happy with the result.

Pool Time

We've been spending more time lately at our community pool (in our subdivision) instead of going to the JCC pool. We've been going after dinner or bringing sandwiches with us, and it's been very enjoyable and relaxing. We usually see several neighbors there in the evenings as well as a couple of Ben and Rebecca's school/camp friends who also live in our neighborhood. So there's usually plenty of company and kids for Ben and Becca to play with. Here are some pictures from Friday night/last night.

First Day of Summer Camp

The kids started summer camp today (and mom and dad both went back to work after a week off, boo...) The kids both had a great first day of camp. Rebecca didn't seem to notice at all that she was with some different kids (about half the kids in her group she knows from preschool and the rest are new) and she seemed to adjust fine to her new camp counselors. She separated easily from me this morning and by all accounts had a great first day.

Ben as usual was a little more reticent, worrying about who would be in his group that he knows, but once he saw that he knew three of the boys in his group and one of the counselors, he was fine, and shooed me away. He described his first day as "awesome", and told me all about swimming, tennis, computers, arts & crafts, drama, and how he got to have a popsicle.

At home tonight, far from being tired, the kids had so much energy that at one point they were both down on their hands and knees scrubbing my kitchen floor with sponges. Not that I am complaining about that, exactly, I was just hoping that camp would tire them out a little more!

Abby's Charlotte Pics

I am borrowing Abby's slide show of pics from their visit last week. With permission, of course.

Ben Turns 6!

That's right, 6 years ago today I had a baby boy! We started the celebration early this morning (a little too early -- "Your clock only says 6:57 but I swear the one in my room says 7:02" he told us). His present from us was a Nintendo DSi, which he has only been talking about at least once a day for the last six months. We got him a couple of games to go with it, and both sets of grandparents also got him some games, so he ended the day with a total of 7 games for it so far, so he's quite happy.

We continued the celebration later on with a birthday party with 7 of his friends at Sports Connection, then came back home to open presents. Every single one of his friends got him various Lego Star Wars kits except for one who got him a Lego Ben 10 kit and one who got him some other type of Lego thing. Legos are awfully popular right now it seems... actually come to think of it, when we go to a boy's birthday party I usually give Legos as well! Maybe I should rethink that. The Lego thing may be slightly out of control. Anyway, Ben's going to have a lot of Legos to put together. Not my area of expertise. Hopefully Joel will step in.

After present-opening we headed to PF Chang's for dinner along with Joel's parents (after telling Ben to pick a second choice because The Pancake House, so we told him, did not have a table for six). Now we are home, Rebecca is in bed finally, after missing her nap today and becoming a quivering ball of nerves as a result by the time we got home from dinner.

However the day is not done yet because somehow the "birthday tradition" of letting Ben stay up as late as he wants on his birthday has arisen. Last year he made it until 10pm, but I am pretty sure his stamina has increased dramatically since then. Still hoping to talk him into bed by 10 ;) I am tired!

Below are the obligatory pictures and videos from this momentous occasion.

Driving Me Nuts

Joel was golfing in a charity tournament today, so I decided the kids and I would use the day to get necessary errands done, including getting party favors/decorations for Ben's birthday party tomorrow. For some reason, although I have driven past Party City about 8,000 times I have never made a precise mental note of its location, because I don't usually have any reason to go there. But today I decided we needed to go there to get supplies to make goody bags for the party.

Mistake number one was not looking up the address before we left. We did some other errands first, and I thought Party City was somewhere in the vicinity of where we were. So I typed "Party City" into the GPS, and it said Party City was less than a mile away. So with that as confirmation, I started to follow the GPS's directions, which I thought were a bit odd because it was taking me off of the road that I was pretty sure Party City was on.

Mistake number two turned out to be not renewing my vehicle registration when it expired at the end of May. Because instead of taking me to Party City, the GPS delivered me right to the Matthews police department, and as I was driving past admiring all the shiny cop cars, one of them pulled me over for the expired registration. As I waited irritably for the officer to come back with the citation, Ben asked, "Are you going to jail?" And then Becca started singing, "Mommy's going to jail... Mommy's going to jail...." (It turns out that Mommy is not going to jail, and as long as Mommy gets the registration renewed two weeks prior to the court date, Mommy does not have to pay the fine either).

After that incident I was quite irritated, switched off the GPS, and (correctly) determined that Party City was on the road I thought it was on, but clear on the other side of town from where I was. So we set off again, with Ben whining somewhat understandably, about how long it was taking to get to Party City (this whole adventure took upwards of an hour I am sad to admit, including a potty stop for Rebecca who announced that she had to poop and wanted to do it in the potty so she could have "fruits" [fruit snacks, her reward for doing number 2 on the potty at home]. We stopped at a bagel shop where she entirely refused to sit on the potty).

We finally found Party City and set about getting the things we needed for the party, while Becca tried to snatch everything she could reach from her seat inside the shopping cart saying, "That's mine! I want that! LOOK! BACKYARDIGANS!" every 5 seconds and Ben countering with, "NO, that's NOT YOURS! It's MY PARTY! Can we get this? How about this? This? This? This?"

With sanity rapidly slipping away we wrapped it up at Party City and headed for the car. At some point in the parking lot one of the kids did or said something - I don't remember what at this point - and I yelled, "You kids are driving Mommy NUTS! NUTS! I am about to run through this parking lot screaming like a lunatic! That's how nuts you are driving me!" (Which outburst Ben thought was very funny).

We got in the car and started to navigate into the drive through lane at McDonald's next to Party City because by this point it was 1:30 and we had yet to eat lunch. As I stopped to yield to another car entering the drive through lane Rebecca yelled, "Mommy! GO! You are driving me NUTS!" Egged on by our laughter she continued to intermittently yell, "YOU ARE DRIVING ME NUTS!" all the way home.

Carowinds

Today Joel and I took the kids to Carowinds, which (for those of you who don't know) bills itself as the largest amusement park in the southeast, and is located about 20 minutes south of us in Fort Mill, SC. I was actually kind of surprised that Joel suggested we go to Carowinds, because he professes to hate amusement parks, and if you consider that fact, add in 2 little kids and 90+ degree weather, well, let's just say I thought Joel was either very brave or very insane to suggest it. But since I am also either very brave or very insane, I enthusiastically supported the idea.

We arrived at Carowinds at about 10:30 this morning where we started off with some kiddie rides (I was going to say "before the weather got too hot", but it was already too hot). They have a whole Peanuts themed section of the park with rides for preschool/elementary age kids including a mini roller coaster (which Becca wanted to go on but Ben did not).

We spent most of the day, though, in the water park. We rented a cabana by one of the wave pools, which had a table, chairs, bucket of ice with bottles of water, lock box for valuables, and a TV. No air conditioning in those cabanas, just a ceiling fan, so still very hot, but shady. I thought it was money well spent especially with the TV, because Becca took several breaks to sit in the shade and watch Noggin and chew on ice, and was very happy ;) You could also order food and they would bring it to your cabana, so we did that for lunch so we didn't need to drag the kids around looking for food. It was also handy because there was a mid-afternoon rain storm, and while everyone else got soaked/ left to try to find shelter, we stayed in our cabana (where Ben tried to "barricade" us in using an inner tube and a table). So in the end I felt the cabana was worth it.

Ben's favorite part of the park seemed to be the wave pool -- he loves those and tries to go as deep as he can and find the biggest waves which strikes me as funny because it took us like 4 years to get him to set foot in the ocean because he is afraid of waves. He also went on many of the water rides, some with me and some with Joel. He loves the water slides where you sit on an inner tube and the thing is like 4 stories high and pitch black inside. Becca preferred the toddler-friendly spraygrounds and little water slide but seemed to have as much fun in her own way as Ben did.

The amazing part of the day was that we stayed at the park until 6pm, went out for dinner on the way home, then stopped at Ben and Jerry's for ice cream, and when we got home (by that time at about 8:30) the kids both immediately jumped out of the car, grabbed tricycle and scooter, and started chasing each other around the cul de sac. In other words - BOUNDLESS ENERGY! Joel and I meanwhile, utterly exhausted. But it was a good day.

Below some pics though only a few since we spent most of the day in the water park, I didn't have the camera out much. The last picture, unfortunately in silhouette because he was standing in the doorway of the cabana, is Ben wearing my sunglasses while picking his nose. Good stuff.

Cousins

Ben and Becca's cousins Charlie and Amelia visited this weekend. We only had two full days with them before they had to head home but we tried to cram in as much fun as we could - swimming, a trip to Monkey Joe's, breakfast at Terrace cafe, and - for Abby and I - dinner at Miro and shopping at Nordstrom :) The boys also spent a lot of time playing in the sprinkler, playing video games, and chasing each other around with light sabers. Amelia spent a lot of time napping and screeching like a parrot, and Becca spent a lot of time watching her youngest cousin nap and screech like a parrot. She was very interested in the baby, and was always at Abby's elbow ready to help with diaper changes, getting Amelia dressed, etc.

Most of the picture taking, including the by now infamous "cousins picture" (which always involves at least one uncooperative child) was done by Abby, so when she posts her pictures I'll steal some of them and post them here. Here are just a couple that I took.

Cannoli Therapy

The last day of school brought mixed feelings with it for Ben. He's happy that it's summer but he doesn't want Kindergarten to end. He misses his teacher already, and is very sad that he won't get to see her all summer and won't be in her class next year! He broke down and cried on the way to dinner tonight, and mournfully announced through his intermittent tears over dinner, "Every time I look at these noodles, it reminds me of Mrs. Osborne!" He made several other woeful and dramatic pronouncements of his love for Mrs. Osborne, before being distracted by dessert. Cannolis solve all problems, it seems. Or at least take away the pain for a while....

In other last-day-of-school news, Ben accidentally left his backpack on the bus this morning it seems, so now I have the predicament of trying to figure out how to track it down. Fortunately he managed to deliver his report card to me this afternoon even without the aid of a backpack to put it in, and his marks were all "3"s with the usual exception of "takes care of materials" and "works independently". And after the backpack on bus incident (the second this year), I am not going to argue about his "takes care of materials" grade!

Congratulations Ben, rising first grader!

Kindergarten Video

Ben's kindergarten teacher made this video of photos from throughout the school year and gave the parents' each a copy at today's end-of-the-year party. We couldn't have asked for a better kindergarten experience for Ben - thanks Mrs. Osborne!

Ps, this video is LONG (10 minutes) but if you watch the whole thing you'll get to see a picture of Uncle Mike near the end! Yes Uncle Mike somehow made it into this video.

PJs & a Party

The last few days of school have been filled with fun activities for the almost-first graders! Today was Pajama Day, and also Ben's birthday celebration. (His actual birthday is not until the 19th, but he wanted to celebrate it at school too). So after having pancakes for breakfast in his classroom, playing games, and watching Curious George, he got to have lunch with Mom and share a cookie cake with his classmates. Ben was so excited to show me the cafeteria, the lunch line procedures, etc, and to sit at the teachers' table ("Because when your Mom comes for lunch you're allowed to sit at the teachers' table!!"). He was also allowed to have a Capri Sun with lunch instead of milk (with my consent). He lorded his spot at the teachers' table, his Capri Sun, and his TWO slices of cookie cake over his friends. Such power, when Mom visits and it's your birthday (or almost).

One Difference Between Boys and Girls

ME: I got you guys both new socks today.

BEN: Socks are so boring. All they do is go on your feet. I was hoping you were going to say "I got you a DS."

BECCA: I got new socks! I got new socks! Look at my new socks!

Weekend Wrap Up

Joel has been in Chicago since Friday morning for a conference, but the kids and I had a great weekend because Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit! We had a busy weekend that included going swimming and to the splash park at the JCC, having a yummy brunch at Brio, and going to an outdoor concert at Stonecrest. We also chauffered Ben to two birthday parties on Saturday, and I put my dad to work hanging pictures and fixing the upstairs toilet. Mom also made chicken soup for me since I have had a cold for the last few days... Yum! Thank you Mom and Dad for a wonderful weekend! Now we will start looking forward to NEXT WEEKEND, when Aunt Abby, Uncle Mike, and cousins Charlie and Amelia come for a visit!

Pictures of Pictures

Finally got our portraits back from the photographer - are these kids cute or what?!

Thanks But No Thanks

Yesterday was Joel's half-day, and after going to the gym he decided to pick the kids up early to save me the trip later on. Unfortunately he arrived to pick up Rebecca just as she was changing into her bathing suit to go to the splash park, which is one of her very most favorite activities. So when she saw Joel she grabbed onto her teacher and cried, "No, No! Tell Daddy to go away!" So Joel came home with only Ben, and I had to go out an hour later to get Rebecca anyway.