Welcome Home Mom!

Today was a big day - Mom was finally coming home!

When we woke up, we all stared longingly at the gingerbread house that we made yesterday. We wanted to eat it, but we also wanted to wait and share it with Mom. Oh, it was so hard to wait.

We passed the time reading and cleaning up the house a little bit. After naptime, we went to the airport to pick up Mom.  Hooray!

She was really happy to see us and gave us lots of hugs. She also brought us a few presents - an Animal doll and some peanut butter balls. We sat down to dinner together for as a whole family for the first time in over a week, and when dinner was over, we finally, finally got to eat our gingerbread house. Yum - it was worth the wait!

Home Sweet Home

What we did today

Dad had planned to take us to Enchanted Rock today to climb a mountain, but he got worried that it would be too cold. We were all a little disappointed, but we found plenty to do today.

We had a fun morning of Skyping with Bubbe and Facetiming with Mom. I don't know what kids did before all of this video conferencing technology. On Facetime, we got to see our new little cousin Annabelle and our Aunt Jen. Aunt Jen looked so happy. We know she's going to be a great mom. Turner was especially excited to see the baby and was sad when they had to go. After we hung up, we all agreed that we are excited to see Mom tomorrow.

Fun Fun Fun!

On Skype, I kept trying to change the computer settings. Dad is sometimes delighted, and sometimes annoyed at how into computers I am. During the call, Turner asked Bubbe to please come visit us. After we hung up I told Dad that I couldn't wait until we went to Disney World with Bubbe. Dad wonders why I don't say this stuff to people when I'm talking to them.

We made a bit of a mess

We read some stories and then Dad gave us made-to-order lunches before naptime. After nap, he had a surprise for us that really made up for missing Enchanted Rock - we were going to make a Gingerbread house!

We were super excited. At first we looked at the box to come up with ideas, but pretty soon, we had our own. Dad came up with the idea of using food coloring to make colored icing, and Hazel grabbed all kinds of sprinkles.

I read the instructions on the box. The first step was putting the house together using the icing and the gingerbread walls. We all took turns applying the icing, and Hazel and Turner helped hold the walls in place while the icing dried. Once it was finished, Dad made bowls of colored icing and handed them to use to use to decorate. Turner didn't quite understand though, and before any of us could stop him, he started eating the orange icing!

The finished product!

Dad had to throw that bowl away and explain to Turner that the icing was for decorating first, not for eating. He made a new bowl of orange icing and gave it back to Turner, who got it right the second time.

We had a great time decorating the house with icing, sprinkles and other candy. When we were done, we admired our great creation.  We really, really wanted to eat the house. But all of us kids decided together that we wanted Mom to see it and to share it with her, so we are going to wait until she gets home tomorrow before we eat it.

Dad made us dinner tonight. It was our last dinner before Mom gets back. We are so excited!

More Winter Playtime

Its hard to believe how much we've packed into Winter Break. Today was as busy as ever.

This morning we talked to Mom on facetime and told her all about our Winter Break so far. Then we headed back over to the Austin Children's Museum. It was only open for 3 hours today, so we tried to get there right when it opened.  What a difference from Sunday.  Today it was super crowded.  There was a line out the door.  Fortunately, we had a membership, and that line was a lot smaller.

Today we did different things at the museum than we did on Sunday. We brought our coats this time, so we could play on the giant outdoor playscape. It was three stories tall. Hazel went all the way to the top, while Turner and I stayed closer to the ground.

After we had had enough of the cold, we headed inside to the experiment area. Today the experiment was ice tunnels. They gave each of us a block of ice and some paint saturated with salt. We painted the ice and watched as the salt in the paint melted the ice, creating tunnels in the ice. Hazel and I thought it was amazing, but Turner wasn't as impressed.

When we finally had enough of that we headed over to the Moving Gym area. We went back and forth between that area and the grocery store area for a while. Turner managed to sneak away into the toddler area. Dad was impressed that Turner remember to take off his shoes before going in there, but a little frustrated that Turner kept running off.

Hazel and I asked Dad if we could go back to the experiment area to paint a bigger block of ice together. Dad said okay as long as we stayed together. We did, and we patiently and politely asked the museum staff for help getting our ice block set-up. Dad was impressed at how good we worked together. Meanwhile Dad took Turner to a reading area and they read books.

Hazel in the tunnel

We finished up in the water area which was just as fun as yesterday. We left as the were closing the museum. We came home, had lunch, and all took a well-deserved nap.

After nap, we had dinner and a game night at our synagogue. There were a bunch of other kids to play with. We played our pizza and cooties games, ate dinner and dessert, and then ran around until we were too tired to move. We put on our pajamas, climbed into the car, and headed back home, asleep before our heads hit the pillows.

Winter Ice Cream

Today Dad took us to a tour at the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory in Brenham, Texas.

Before that, you may remember that I lost a tooth yesterday and asked the tooth fairy for $15.30. When I woke up this morning, I found this note.

I did not get $15.30, though the tooth fairy did leave me a dollar, a neat book that I wanted, and some instructions on how to (eventually) get 15 dollars.  Oh well.

After the tooth excitement, it was time to head down to the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory.  We all did very well on the drive down there, listening to some songs Dad put together for the drive.

There were about 16 people in our tour group, but we liked the tour guide and always stayed at the front so we could see everything. I really liked watching the pipes on the factory floor, while Hazel liked looking at them putting all the ingredients in. Turner just wanted to eat the ice cream, which we all got to do at the end of the tour. Dad also brought lunch for us. Hazel thought it was hilarious that we got to eat our ice cream before our lunch.

Hazel and Turner fell asleep on the car ride home while I intently watching the road to make sure Dad and the GPS knew where we were going.

Tonight we had a nice dinner and then movie night.  Each of us got to pick out a short movie clip to watch. Turner picked out to Schoolhouse Rock, Hazel picked out a Huckle cat video, and I picked out a duckling story.

Not a Lazy Sunday

Our busy day even included riding these pigs

Today was our busiest Winter Break Day yet!

My note for the tooth fairy!

It started with a bang.  I woke up early and was playing with my new loose tooth when it popped right out.  I was so excited I rushed to put it in my tooth pillow and write a note to the tooth fairy.  I told her exactly what I wanted in the note.  Dad is wondering how the tooth fairy is going to afford that.

Then we called Mom and talked to her on facetime. She was still in bed.

Dad made us an awesome breakfast and we headed over to the park. Hazel rode her bike, Turner rode his scooter, and Dad and I walked.  Unfortunately, a cold front came in yesterday, and even with all of our heavy winter coats on, we were ready to head back to the house almost as soon as we got to the park. The cold is one thing that we don't love about Winter Break!

I can do Dad'd job now

We had a yummy lunch and then it was naptime for Hazel and Turner.  While they were napping, Dad and I worked on some computer programming classes at www.code.org/learn. I was able to get through an entire introductory class and even earned a certificate!  We emailed it to Mom so she could be proud of me.

Hazel in deep concentration, painting

While normally Dad likes to let Hazel and especially Turner take really long naps, we had more to do today, so we had to go in and wake them up. Hazel was pretty easy to wake up, but Turner is a very heavy sleeper. After a few gentle attempts to wake him, we finally just all yelled "Wake up" at the same time.  That did it.

We grabbed a quick snack of graham crackers and milk (Hazel said it was the best snack she ever had), and headed to our main destination for the day - the new Austin Children's Museum.

This was our first trip there, so we weren't sure what to expect.  Before going in, we found a row of pig statues. Dad thought it was pretty strange - there was no explanation for the pigs or anything, but Turner LOVED them.  We ran around climbing on all 11 of them before even going inside the museum.

I am an artist

The new museum is definitely a lot bigger than the old one. When we first walked in they had a big painting studio. Hazel ran right into it, and I followed. Dad helped us into paint aprons, and we painted and erased glass walls over and over. Turner didn't seem as exited about the painting and instead played with some peg walls.

From there we went to a room where we could make paper rockets and use an air cannon to shoot them into the sky. Hazel's rocket went all the way to the ceiling. It was the highest of any of the rockets we saw. We took her rocket home so she could color it some more before dinner.

Tuner did this while Hazel and I painted

The next room we went into had a bunch of colored pegs that you could plug into a light board. Once again, Turner was in heaven there. Dad, Hazel, and I had to drag him away. Fortunately, the next room we went into was just as fun - a giant indoor water play area. They had water drums you could play, and buckets where you could pour out water. It was fun. The three of us played there for 45 minutes before Dad finally said we needed to see the rest of the place.

Playing with peg lights

The next room we went into was a kitchen. I thought we might get to cook something, but instead they had a neat experiment we could conduct to test our five senses. The woman was just starting to explain it to us when the fire alarm went off. It was really loud.  So loud, Hazel started crying. We all had to evacuate the museum. As soon as we got out the door, they told us it was a false alarm (a little kid had pulled an alarm) and we could go back in.  We went right back to the kitchen to work on our five senses experiment. The women said that alarm was a loud way to understand our sense of hearing!

Getting wet at the children's museum

The experiment consisted of a plate of about 8 different food items from the kitchen.  Many of them were similar, so we had to use a lot of our different senses to figure out what they were. We touched them, smelled them, even tasted them. A few tasted awful - like the vinegar that looked like water, or the baking soda and salt that looked like sugar. The sugar sure tasted good though.

All three us playing at the grocery store

The last room we went in was a play grocery store in kitchen.  This is pretty standard in children's museums. However, this one had a twist - a real scale. Hazel loved piling fruit on and watching the needle move. I had a blast looking at the numbers and guessing how much fruit would add to the total. We spent 3 hours at the museum and could have spent even more. Its nice to see a better children's museum in Austin.

Two more peppers makes 4 pounds

When we got home, Dad made us a pizza dinner, gave us baths, and read us bed-time stories. He also promised that tomorrow would be even more fun. I can't imagine what he has in store. I went to bed with my tooth and note to the tooth fairy under my pillow...

More lights

Today was another fun Winter Break day. I woke up early and let Dad sleep in. When Turner got up, I fed him a healthy breakfast of graham crackers. Mom called at 7am to get Dad out of bed. I answered the phone and talked to Mom for a while. I passed the phone to Hazel and Turner. We agreed that it was nice to talk to Mom.

After Dad got up and gave us breakfast, we got ready to go to the park. But it started to rain pretty hard, so we decided to stay in and read instead. Dad put on the Kentucky basketball game and we all watched it for a while. I kept everyone up-to-date on the score by telling everyone how much each team was ahead or behind. It was fun watching the game together. We ate lunch while watching the game. We didn't get to finish watching the game, though, because I had swim class.

Since it was just Dad, we all went to my swim class. I did really well. Turner sat on Dad's lap the whole time and watched me. He even clapped for me when I did well. Hazel said she was proud of how well I did. We were all very tired when we got home and all four of us took a nice long nap.

When we woke up, we helped Dad make a delicious and healthy dinner and headed out to look at more lights. This time we went to Austin's 37th street, which always has a bunch of nice house lights. Hazel and Turner liked the houses with Snowmen and Candy Canes.  We all agreed that the house with lots of sock monkeys was the best.

It was another late night for us, so we went to bed without much fuss. Dad says we are in for another fun day tomorrow.

Winter Break

School is out for the rest of the year,which means it is now Winter Break! Hazel and I have been talking about Winter Break all year, and its finally here. When I came home from school today, I told Dad "I can't believe its Winter Break" Mom and Dad asked me if I was going to miss school and I said "No - I'll be back in a couple of weeks"

This morning, Mom flew to Panama City, Florida to be with her sister and new niece Annabelle. That means Dad is going to get all of the Winter Break fun with us for the first week.

Tonight we drove to Marble Falls, TX to see the Walkway of Lights. They supposedly have 2 million lights there. I tried to count them, but stopped at around 10 or so.  It did seem like it was a lot of lights.

We all had a really good time, but were pretty tired for the drive home. Can't wait to see what Dad has in store for us tomorrow.

Family Band

Should we form a band?

Pictures

Okay, I know its been a while since I've posted. We've been really busy! I hope to get some posts up in the next few weeks (with some help from Mom and Dad) talking about all of the amazing things that have been happening the past few months.

In the meantime, I wanted to share some awesome family photos we had taken recently. Enjoy!

Summer Wrap-Up

Mitch's last day of preschool

Labor Day weekend we wrapped up our awesome summer. Since our road trip, we were very busy having fun in Austin.

It has been very hot, so we spent as much time in the water as possible, at different splash pads and pools. Sometimes our friends even came with us! We are very grateful to have both the Quarry and Brushy Creek Splash Pads not too far from home. In fact, we like the Quarry so much, that’s where we had my 6^th birthday party, right after we came home from our road trip. It was a blast and I’m glad so many of our friends could make it to my celebration.

We also found lots of fun, nearby pools, each very different. The nearby middle school has a pool, which was good for a quick dip when we were hot and didn’t have a lot of time. We’ll probably like that more when we’re older because it has a diving board. We also visited the pool in our old neighborhood with friends and were chased out by a sudden thunderstorm. We were searching for a new swim school, so that gave us the chance to try out their pools too.

Mitch's last day of preschool

We found the best pool, by far, at the end of the summer – Milburn Pool. It’s great because it has a huge waterslide that was fun for the grownups and a splash pad with a waterslide in the middle of the pool that is more our size. Fortunately, the two times we went to Milburn, we took friends with us, so we were able to share the fun with them.

One day in August, Mom was sick and Dad took us out to the lake with our friend Will, who has a boat. Each of us had a chance to ride in the tube behind the boat and had a great time. 

It’s exhausting being out in the hot sun all the time, water or no water, so we had to find some inside fun too. We hit a lot of fun birthday parties at some interesting places, went to a few library story times, Mom took us to the children’s museums in San Antonio and Austin, and we went to Ikea a couple of times, with and without friends, where we tried out all the beds and enjoyed their kids eat free lunch.

Turner's haircut - before

We also took care of some business, like Turner’s first hair cut. Mom had a hard time cutting off his curls. He said he was ready though, and he looks like a much older kid now. He was super proud of his new ‘do. The next morning when he went to school, he yelled to anybody who’d listen, “Hair! Hair!” while hitting the top of his head. 

Hazel needed some one-on-one time with Mom, and one day in August, she got it. They named it Chick Day. One morning when we all would have gone to preschool, Mom dropped Turner and me off and she and Hazel went for breakfast at Einstein’s Bagels and then the mall so Hazel could use a Claire’s gift card she got for her birthday. She picked out a crown, a Hello Kitty doll and a humongous pen that writes in different colors. While they were at the mall, Hazel rode a carousel. They had a great time together.

Turner's haircut - after

At what may have been the hottest part of the summer, we all went to San Marcos to cheer Mom on while she rode her bike 26 miles in the Tour de Jalapeno. Her training buddy rode along with her, which made the ride a lot more fun, Mom said. We are pleased to say she made it, but came home with a flat tire.

Other outdoor time included making mud pies and getting together on Saturday mornings with other kids who started kindergarten this fall. We also went to some Round Rock Express baseball games, which we really liked. Some of them finished with fireworks and one finished with a chance for kids to run the field. I keep telling Mom we want to go to more games next year than we did this year.

Some exciting end-of-summer news was when some new friends moved in. A new family a couple houses down includes a teenager who has turned out to be a great babysitter and her two little sisters. Also some good friends moved back to Texas from California, including a baby and a boy my age. Mom is really thrilled to have them around again.

Chick Day

We wrapped up the summer, with back to school events, including a party at a trampoline place – which I didn’t like and immediately left -- and a meet the teacher morning. That gave me a good start for kindergarten.

Labor Day weekend, the week after school started, felt like our last gasp of summer. It was still incredibly hot out – it was more than 100 degrees every day that weekend – but almost all the pools are closed after September 2. So we made the most of it!

Mom was hard at work cleaning and organizing our house while I was at school last week, so we kicked off our weekend getting rid of stuff we didn’t need any more at a yard sale. Mom and Dad woke up early to get out there and we had fun blowing bubbles and using our sidewalk chalk. It was an overwhelming success, and there wasn’t much left for Mom to haul to Goodwill afterward.

We next headed to my new swim school for my first Saturday lesson there. It went really well -- much better than my after-school lesson -- and Mom was very impressed with how well I did. So impressed that we went next door for frozen yogurt afterward!

Our afternoon was filled with more swimming when we all headed to Milburn Pool for the last time to meet up with some friends, Dylan and his dad, Eric. That also turned out to be more exciting than we expected, when Mom offered to babysit Dylan, who is also in kindergarten, so Eric could go watch football with Dad downtown.

Chick Day

After we had pizza for dinner, we made gingerbread cutout cookies, and Mom was very excited about how well we shared all the cookie-making tools and about how good we were at making the cookies ourselves. After that, we made sleeping bags out of blankets and all went to bed camping-style in the upstairs toy room. Hazel and I have been talking for ages about wanting to have a sleepover, so we were really excited. Even though we looked really wiped out, Mom expected us to fool around. But after she turned the lights out, she didn’t hear a peep. When Dad and Eric came home, Eric picked Dylan up to go back to their house, and Dylan was so knocked out, he slept through the whole thing! We all agreed, our first sleepover was a real success.

Sunday we took it easy during the day because we had a big night ahead of us – a party at the house of one of my kindergarten friends named Evan, who we got to know at the summer playdates. I was excited to see him and he cracked a huge smile when he saw me at his house. His Dad made a really cool outdoor oven and made tons of gourmet pizzas for everyone. We brought dirt cake topped with gummy worms that we helped Mom and Dad make that day. Hazel ran off with the other girls at the party and Mom and Dad didn’t see her pretty much the whole time we were there. Turner really liked Evan’s dog. It was all a real blast and we hope to party with them again soon. It was definitely a fun way to end summer.

We have lots of photos!

For summer wrap-up, click here. 

Mitch's 6th birthday: click here.

Turner's first haircut: click here. 

San Antonio with Mom: click here.

Chick Day: click here.

Chuck E Cheese birthday party: click here.

Mitch's last day of preschool: click here.

My First Week of Kindergarten

August 26 was my first day of kindergarten. I was really excited to start school. 

I had the chance to get to know my kindergarten teacher last year when I was in preschool, this summer on my birthday when she taught a cooking class I was in, and last Friday at Meet the Teacher day. She is super nice and a great teacher. We also had the chance to check out my classroom and put my supplies away at Meet the Teacher day. So I was as prepared as possible for the big day.

When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I did was crawl in bed with Mom. I snuggled her for a long time. She was very happy I took the time to say hi on my exciting morning.

The day before, on Sunday, I ate a sticky granola bar and the next thing I knew, my loose tooth was gone! While I was eating my granola bar, it popped out and I swallowed it. Mom and Dad told me the Tooth Fairy would understand, and that it happens to almost everybody, so I was okay with it. But I wrote the Tooth Fairy a long note explaining what happened. I also told her it was my sweet tooth, and asked her to bring me something sweet to eat so I could return to normal.

So not only was Monday my first day of school, I woke up to a surprise from the Tooth Fairy. She left me a letter telling me to look in the freezer for my sweet treat. Sure enough, there were popsicles waiting for me, but the Tooth Fairy’s note said I had to wait until after school to eat them, plus I had to share with everyone. I was super excited.

After breakfast, we took some pictures then headed over to school. When we got there, one of the girls in my class, who we knew from incoming kindergartener playground get-togethers we had all summer, ran up to Hazel and hugged her with all her might. She looked like she thought Hazel saved her day. We think she thought Hazel was going to be in her kindergarten class. She and Hazel really enjoyed playing together all summer, and she looked pretty bummed when we told her Hazel isn’t in kindergarten yet.

I had a great morning, and when lunchtime rolled around and we went to the cafeteria, I had a surprise -- Mom was there! Every day, parents volunteer to help kids with things like opening milk cartons and yogurt containers. It makes it so there are enough grown-ups at school for us to have two recesses on the playground. Anyway, Monday was Mom’s day to volunteer. My face lit up in a great big smile when I saw her. Mom was happy to see me too, and thrilled to hear from my teacher that I was having a really great day so far. At the end of the day, Mom explained that she would not be there every day for lunch, just once or twice a month. I had no problem with that the rest of the week.

We spent most of our first day learning a lot of rules and how to do things like how to walk down the hallways and go in and out of the lunch room.

We had a lot of other fun things to do the rest of the week. We had Gingerbread Man Day, when we read a book about a Gingerbread Man, then we had to go look for him. We found him in our classroom, then ate him together. 

We also played fun games like Freeze, Please and had PE twice. At the end of the week, I decided my favorite thing about school is recess, but I explained to Mom that there are a lot of rules, like we can’t scream unless we’re hurt, and we can laugh but not get too wild. 

Another great thing this week is I saw lots of people I knew from the past two years – my old preschool teacher, the principal, and the librarian.

After-school was a learning process for us this week too. Monday I came home really wild. Mom gave me some time to calm down, but we had to go pick up some supplies for my classroom, so we headed to the Dollar Tree and a visit to Petsmart, which was next door, afterward to look at all the animals. Then we headed to Lakeshore. They were quick trips but afterward it was time for dinner and bed, and I had a real meltdown at bedtime.

Then Thursday I had swim lessons at a new swim school right after coming home from kindergarten. It was a disaster. I swam all over the pool disrupting the other classes and hit my teacher over the head with a kickboard five times. Mom was mad that I hit the teacher and was disrespectful but also understood that I need time to unwind after school. So we moved my swim class to Saturday instead, which went great this weekend.

For the time being, we are going to just keep our afternoons clear so I can unwind. Every day this week, my teacher said I did an amazing job all day, and at the end of the week, my behavior report said I was excellent. So Mom and Dad figure if I am doing my job listening and learning all day at school, it’s only fair to let me blow off some steam in the afternoons. It’s tough being away from home all day. When Mom picked me up in the afternoons, a couple of times she asked if I wanted to go home or to the playground at the park. Both times I just wanted to go home. 

Last week was a big one for Hazel and Turner too. They moved up to their next preschool classes! They both did great. They were happy and had no trouble transitioning.

Hazel has the teacher I had this summer. When she came home Monday, she yelled at Mom, “I had more fun than you ever seen!!!”

Turner had a good day Monday too. When he went back Wednesday, he ran to his teacher and gave her a huge hug.

We are all looking forward to week number two!

To see my first day of school pictures, click here.