Ringing In the New Year, Toddler style

With a sippy cup toast of course. Caroline actually partied pretty hard tonight, staying up until after 10! She showed no signs of being aware how late it was when we left our friends' party, and was still awake and insisting it was not bed time when we got home. We left Ben at our friends' house for a sleepover and I got a kick out of telling him, "see you next year" :) Happy New Year, all!!

New Year's Eve Day

To get the kids out of the house this morning while the cleaners were here, I took them and my laptop to the book store. I was able to get some work done and they had a treat and browsed for books (I let them each pick out one to buy). Then we headed on a long-ass errand over to Fuel Pizza, the closest of which is about 20 minutes away, to pick up a gluten free pizza and drop it off at Caroline's preschool for their New Year's Eve party (or Noon Year's Eve as they call it, because they have a little ball dropping ceremony at noon followed by a pizza lunch). Since Caroline cannot eat regular pizza but loves pizza, I did not want her to be left out. After that we came home and now Ben and Rebecca each have a friend over to play until 4. Then at 5 we are heading over to spend New Year's Eve with friends - busy day!! And, Joel and I are both working today although Joel only worked this morning and is now at the gym.

The Belk Bowl

Joel was invited to accept a check on behalf of the hospital at today's Belk Bowl college bowl game between UNC and Cincinnati. He got 2 free tickets to the Gridiron Club so he and Ben enjoyed heated leather seats, free food (Ben apparently helped himself about ten times to everything from nachos with pulled pork to cake to hot chocolate) and an open bar. Here is Ben getting acquainted with the Tarheels' mascot. 

Girls Afternoon

With Joel and Ben at the Belk Bowl game, Becca requested pottery painting as her activity of choice. Keeping Caroline from breaking anything was priority number one; other factors like not making a mess we had to be a little more realistic about ;)

Wardrobe Malfunction

Caroline is learning how to put her coat on by herself by laying it on the ground, putting her hands in the arm holes and flipping it over her head. She will not allow anyone to help her and about half the time she ends up with an upside-down coat on.

Great Wolf Lodge 2013

We spent our fourth Christmas at Great Wolf Lodge this year. This year we also took a trip there in July with the cousins (minus Caroline and Joel), and Ben also got to go there on a sleepover/birthday party for his friend Jared. The extra visits this year did nothing to dampen their enthusiasm though! Also, Ben's best friend Jared and his family also decided to do Great Wolf Lodge for Christmas this year so that made it extra fun for the kids. Jared's younger brother Evan is a year older than Becca, and baby Josh is three months older than Caroline and is in her class at preschool. So all the kids had a buddy this year.

This year was also slightly different in a couple other ways. In previous years Joel had to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and was also on-call both nights for phone calls. This year although he had to go in to round both days, he was not on-call for phone calls. He actually finished up at work on Christmas Eve and made it to Great Wolf Lodge a little bit before the kids and I got there. We upgraded our accommodations to the biggest room they have, which has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a living room area. Joel and I stayed in one bedroom, which had a king bed and private bathroom, and Ben and Becca stayed in the other bedroom which had two queen beds. We set up Caroline's pack n play in the living room. So everyone was able to get some decently private sleeping space. This was the first year that Joel stayed overnight with us there, since we had the bigger room and he was not on call.

This was also our first trip to Great Wolf Lodge with a gluten-free Caroline. I was a little nervous about it, and packed a cooler of snacks and food for her. But it turned out to be a really easy place for her to eat. At the Christmas Eve dinner buffet, the chef came out and walked down the line with Joel and pointed out all the gluten free items to him -- and there were a lot of them, including roasted chicken , baked ham, lots of veggies, mashed potatoes. The next day at lunch I talked to the waitress about Caroline and she told me that they have a separate gluten free prep space in the kitchen and could make her a gluten free kids hamburger meal complete with a gluten free bun and french fries that are prepared separately in dedicated gluten free fryer oil. She also sent the head chef over to our table, who said hello to Caroline and explained again about the kitchen set up and how I would not have to worry about her food getting contaminated. He also said next time we come we could get a special allergy wristband for Caroline if we wanted, so all the staff would be  immediately aware that she had food restrictions. So it was a big relief! Here are some pictures from our trip.

The kids checking out our upgraded accommodations:

Ben and best friend Jared at the Christmas Eve dinner buffet:

Becca and Caroline enjoying the water park:

Weekend Highlights

Some other highlights from this weekend

1. Becca conked out after yesterday's super long birthday party:

2. Ben had a new friend over to play on Saturday. They are in the same class at school. Ben is starting to call some of his friends by their last names. So his new friend is "Hobs" because his last name is Hobson. So cute! LOL.


3. Caroline is learning how to pedal!

Rainy Monday Christmas Eve Eve

Ben and Rebecca started their two week winter break today by sleeping until 8. Actually Caroline and Rebecca slept until I woke them up at 8:15. Why they can't do this on a day I actually have off, I don't know. The kids I guess had a long day yesterday; Ben went to a friend's house to play for the afternoon and then stayed up late watching some of the Eagles game, and Rebecca went to a classmate's birthday party (The Longest Birthday Party in History) at Ray's Splash Planet. Not sure what Caroline's excuse was; probably a combination of a shorter than usual nap yesterday, staying up a little past her bedtime, and the dark, rainy morning this morning.

I have a pile of stuff to do for work, a pile of dishes to do, a pile of laundry to do, and then to pack for Great Wolf Lodge, our annual Christmas tradition ;) We are heading over there tomorrow after lunch. This year, we have friends joining us there also, so the kids are extra-excited!

One more thing -- this morning at the cranky breakfast table after I woke them both up and hauled them downstairs-- Rebecca was whining because I was getting Caroline's breakfast and not doing whatever it was she'd asked me to do, and Caroline goes: "Becca! 'NUFF! [enough]. Mommy getting Cah-line's botbot!! [sippy cup]" LOL. Becca was not too happy to get scolded by a two year old.

Caroline & Clara

... Give the peppermint bark two thumbs up!

Peppermint Bark

I decided to make peppermint bark for the kids to take to school tomorrow for their teachers on the last day before winter break... As usual I a) decided to do this at the last minute and b) went way overboard and made about four tins worth instead of the two I had planned on. And the dog has been feasting on candy cane crumbs all afternoon...

Class Holiday Party

Caroline Not Blowing Out Her Birthday Candle

A reluctant Caroline, as promised :)

Tasty Toes

Kiawah Weekend

Our weekend in Kiawah for Joel's half marathon was a lot of fun! We got stuck in some rush hour traffic for the last 45 minutes of the trip on Friday evening, but despite that the kids traveled well over all. Since we got in later than expected we went straight to dinner where we were meeting friends Javier & Crisi and their kids who were also in town for the race. We were all tired after the drive and somehow Joel didn't protest when Ben ordered the most expensive thing on the menu (a $36 steak dinner). Caroline got some gluten free pasta with butter and cheese, and dug in with both hands and ate almost all of it. 

After dinner we found the 3 bedroom villa we had rented for the weekend, and Ben walked in the door and said, "wow this is kind of tight." But he was right, it WAS kind of tight, and wasn't helped by the fact that there was way too much furniture / things for me to worry about my kids breaking in the place. Fortunately no one broke anything and I managed to get Caroline to bed in her pack n play in a strange place with NO CRYING! She was really tired, and I sat with her until she fell asleep.

Saturday morning Joel got up early and headed to the race , which was about a half mile away from our villa. After the kids got dressed/ate breakfast we headed over there as well, arriving just in time to see the first half-marathon finishers, who were doing something like a 5 minute mile. Joel was doing something like a 10 minute mile, and apparently was so busy chatting with other runners that he didn't bother listening to music until mile 11. He did a great job -- way to go Joel!!! 

After the race we went out to lunch and then Caroline and Joel took a nap while I walked with Ben and Becca to the beach. It was getting windy and starting to rain when we set out.  By the time we got to the beach and the kids ran around and chased sea gulls and dared each other to run into the water and decided to head back, it had started POURING. And the beach was a 15 minute walk from the villa. And I got a little lost and my cell phone battery died. But the kids had a lot of fun despite (or probably because of) this adventure.

Saturday night we had dinner and birthday cake with friends Kim and Hal and their kids (also in town for the race). Caroline's birthday cake, despite being 48 hours old and having been dropped in the parking lot once, held up remarkably well. It was certainly edible, if not "delicious", but the kids all seemed to enjoy it.

And Sunday we packed up early and headed to Charleston where we took the kids to the aquarium and then out to lunch where we found a deli that happily had gluten free bread so Caroline could enjoy a sandwich just like the rest of us! Then we headed home, and ended a long/tiring weekend with unpacking, grocery shopping, starting laundry, etc. Ben and Rebecca were a little off-the-walls when we got home probably because of having been cooped in the car, and Caroline held up decently for a while despite having not napped in the car on the way home like we assumed she would. We were all certainly ready for bedtime! I think I was asleep by 9:30 last night.

Below are a few pictures! I will try to post a video of Caroline not blowing out her birthday candle later ;)

Too Many Things to Do...

--to be blogging!! I have work to finish up, packing to do, and then need to pick the kids up from school shortly after noon so we can head to Kiawah for Joel's half marathon! The almost-a-birthday-girl is all packed up and ready to celebrate the big "2" on the road this weekend! It took me forever to make her cake last night (was up until 11:30 which is way too late for me!) but no time to blog about that ordeal now!! Here she is, at school this morning getting ready for her "Shabbat birthday" , and below that, the troublesome cake is ready to travel :)

Bagels & Blocks

This morning was bagels & blocks at Caroline's preschool. Of course, I had to supply Caroline's (gluten free) bagel for her, which, after 30 minutes baking in the oven came out crusty and delicious looking, and seemed to have held up better than I expected it to on the ride to school / wait for the festivities to begin. Of course after all the trouble I went to, Caroline took about 3 bites of her bagel and opted to gorge herself on fruit instead! The bagels are ones that my cousin recommended, but they are uncooked so need to be baked. So they are kind of a pain in the ass. This, my second attempt at making one, came out much better than the first time I tried, which was marred by a malfunctioning toaster oven / impatient child ("I want bagel! I want bagel!") and didn't seem to rise all the way. Bagel number two (skipped the toaster oven and went straight to the regular oven) looked much better but Caroline didn't seem overly impressed with it ;) Oh well. At least I have the ability to supply a bagel for her when necessary!

6 Year Old Checkup & EOG Scores

So I finally took Rebecca for a (belated) 6 year old well checkup, after somehow completely forgetting to do so when she actually turned 6 at the end of September. She is 45.5 inches tall and 46.2 pounds, which puts her at the 50th percentile for both height and weight. Her height seems to be dropping off.

The checkup went fine until I asked the doctor if we could do a celiac screen on both Rebecca and Ben (who was along for the ride) because Caroline's GI doctor had recommended having the other kids tested and I had not done that because, well, my kids hate needles and also the thought of having ANOTHER kid with celiac disease, especially one who's old enough to remember what, say, an Oreo tastes like, was just too difficult for me to contemplate six months ago. But Abby gave me a bit of a lecture the other day about how I needed to do it, so out came the needles and my kids FREAKED! It took myself + two nurses to hold Becca down, and Ben was not much better. In fact Ben was traumatized not only by the blood test, but afterwards spent an hour freaking out about the possibility that he could have celiac disease, though I tried to reassure him that it was just to make sure that he didn't, and that I really didn't think he did. I don't know when the test results will be back, because in the chaos of the ordeal I forgot to ask. But I'll be sure to update here when they come in!

In other news Ben got his results from last year's End of Grade exams. North Carolina switched last year to what's known as the "common core" standardized test curriculum , which has been adopted now or is in the process of being adopted by 45 states, basically so that test scores across states and against other countries can be compared accurately because everyone's taking basically the same test. Unfortunately for NC , and as other states have found as well, the common core tests are a lot harder than the tests that they replaced. In NC only 42% of 3rd through 8th graders were deemed proficient in math , and 44% in reading on last year's test. This compared to 83% and 71% the previous year on the old test.

Of course at Ben's school it was more like almost 90% of students were rated proficient in both reading and math last year (still a drop from previous years which were >95% usually). Ben himself got a "3" (proficient) in math and a "4" (superior) in reading. So, yay Ben! As a reward for the "4" in reading, we got him the Lego Marvel Superheroes video game.

Snuggling With Furry Friends

Silly Straw!

Final Hanukkah Pics of 2013 :)

My little Hanukkah candle:

Modeling her new winter-wear:

Penguin Slide

Caroline invented a new game last night that involves sliding around the floor on top of her stuffed penguin that Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathleen gave her for Hanukkah :)

Back to the Salt Mines!

We had a great Thanksgiving visit with Aunt Abby, Uncle Mike and the cousins, who left this morning. Since then I have been trying to catch up for work (been off since last Monday afternoon), started some laundry and cleaned up a bit, and took the kittens to a follow-up vet appointment where they were pronounced ringworm-free. I also scheduled a 6 year old well exam for Becca (yes I totally dropped the ball on that and it is now two and a half months later!) and booked a 3 bedroom villa for two nights in Kiawah next weekend, because Joel is running a half marathon there on the 15th. Note to self-- next half marathon should be closer to home, since even off-season it is going to be $650 for two nights. The 15th is also Caroline's birthday, so it will be fun to be at the beach for her birthday I guess, even in December! Hopefully the weather will be good! Now back to work!!

Eagles-Themed Hanukkah

For Ben tonight, courtesy of Uncle Mike and Aunt Kathleen!

Hanukkah with Cousins

New iPad

Joel finally talked himself into a new iPad today :)

Puzzles with Cousins

Happy Thanksgivvukah!