growing up

A surprising interaction between little nael and j happened earlier this evening. Snowboarder and I had to do a couple of errands today and snowboarder decided to take the kids along instead of having them stay home with my parents. Snowboarder loaded the kids in his truck along with the balloons they got from a birthday party the night before. I found it strange that snowboarder would let the kids take their balloons but I didn't say anything. Our first stop was Home Depot and when the kids got out of the truck, I made sure the balloons were in the front seats so they wouldn't fly off when the doors opened. Our next stop was Kohl's. Before I got out, I told nael who was playing with the balloons to make sure the balloons don't fly out. She agreed with me, grabbed both balloons to put aside in the truck then I stepped out followed by j. J and I started walking towards the store entrance and not even a minute later, I hear snowboarder saying "Uh-oh, there goes j's balloon!". I look back up and I see a balloon floating away. I turned to J but he didn't seem to hear or notice anything so I didn't say a word. It wasn't until we pulled into our garage when j started asking for his balloon. As I unbuckled him, I told him to ask his father who in turn replied, "go ask your sister." J got in the house and asked his sister for his balloon. Snowboarder and I stood back and waited for nael's reply. Apologetically, nael explained that his balloon flew away by accident. Then, she handed j her balloon and told him he could have hers instead. J simply said "oh!" then gladly took big sister's balloon. Thankfully, there were no tears or whining on j's part. Snowboarder and I were surprised by how nael handled the situation. She owned up to her mistake and found a resolution without any prodding from us. I told nael right after how proud we were of how she handled the situation. She's not a little girl anymore...she's growing up!

wildlife animal sanctuary

Along with my parents, we all headed up north to check out The Wildlife Animal Sanctuary. It's a sanctuary for large carnivores - tigers, bears, lions, etc. A majority of these animals were rescued from abuse, neglect and euthanasia all over the country. At first, the kids thought we were heading to the zoo or to Wildlife Experience but as we drove on the highway, I pointed out a couple billboards with a picture of a tiger featuring TWAS and the kids got all excited. It was almost 100 degress today so it was pretty hot when we got there. As we drove up to the facility we spotted several black bears by the entrance. Inside, we saw a lot of tigers, a few lions, horses and also a camel which was rescued from euthanasia. We were also lucky enough to see 2 young cubs, 6 months old, being released in a lock down field. Watching the cubs playing with the dogs was pretty neat. While we were there, we had a picnic lunch then soon after headed home.

1K fun run

Little nael completed her first 1K fun run this morning at her new school. The morning started off with a 5K and snowboarder ran while nael and I cheered him on. About an hour later, nael took off with snowboarder down the hill, around the loop and up the hill down to the finish line. According to snowboarder, nael ran halfway till the water station, walked a few feet then when snowboarder pointed out a boy running past her, nael decided to run the rest of the way all the way to the finish line. Woohooo! When she got done, nael said she had so much fun and wants to run again. Atta girl!

woman

Baby j was walking around the house yesterday wearing my shoes yelling out "jeffrey a woman, mama!" Should I be worried?

construction zone

We had little nael's 5th birthday party yesterday at the backyard with a Construction Zone theme and it looked like all the kids had a great time. The day started out cool, warmed up a bit but started to rain right before we were going to have cake. So we all scrambled inside the house and ended up having cake and ice cream indoors.

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5th birthday

Our little nael is all grown up!! She turned 5 over the weekend and snowboarder was lucky enough to spend the morning with her in school today as they celebrated her birthday.

last day at 'nastics

It was baby j's last day at Kangaroo gymnastics today and he had a blast. He walked the balance beam, hung on the parallel bars and crawled through the tunnel. Had to explain to baby j that today was the last day till the Fall session and all he could say was "why, mama?" over and over and over....

hopscotch hustle

Snowboarder got back this morning after being away for 4 nights and he had plans to spend some time with the kids. However, little nael and I along with her Nonny already had plans of our own! We headed on to The Curtis hotel in downtown to attend a fun event by WeeCycle called Hopscotch Hustle which is a fundraiser. Nael had so much fun! There were all these different stations in several big rooms...a build-your-own sundae corner, a design-your-own cupcake station, a mad hatter area where you can design your own funky hat, a photo booth, dress up, music by The Music Train and even a fashion show. Nael's favorite though was the balloon lady who made a balloon shooter as requested and a really neat ladybug for cousin teddy.

4th annual easter egg hunt/J's 1st major owie

We hosted our 4th annual easter egg hunt & potluck brunch again this weekend and boy, what an endeavor! It had snowed a few days ago so with the help of Melissa, Evan's mom, we shoveled the snow from the backyard for the egg hunt. And with snowboarder's help, we decided to make little trails all over the yard. When we got done, the yard looked like a maze of snow! We had a huge turnout, about 26 kids, definitely more than the previous years but I think moving forward, I'm going to start scaling down to no more than 15 kids. Otherwise, with the kids getting older, it's just going to be chaos.
Anyway, towards the end of the party, baby j was hanging out in the front yard with snowboarder and as he was making his way back to the front porch, he tripped and hit his head on the concrete steps! OWWWWW....I heard him crying but I didn't think anything of it since he was with snowboarder but when I finally went to see him minutes later, snowboarder had him in his arms and baby j was just balling. I walked up to check on him and there it was, staring me in the face, a golf ball sized bump on baby j's forehead!!!! I didn't freak out or anything or maybe I did and I don't remember, but when baby j reached for me I calmly took him inside, got his favorite pillow and had snowboarder grab some ice. J finally settled down and actually let snowboarder hold the pack of ice on his forehead for a long time. We gave him some Motrin and hoped that it was nothing serious. We thought about going to the hospital but decided to keep an eye on baby j for the next 24 hours and take it from there. Surprisingly, j didn't want to nap and hours later seemed like he was back to his normal self and his golf ball bump shrunk down to the size of a gumball!

'nastics

I've been wanting to take jeffrey to a class just like I did with little nael when she was much younger but hadn't found one that worked with big sister's school schedule. It seemed that baby j was getting the shorter end of the stick since nael has been busy with school and other classes while he just goes along for the ride! Nael has taken gymnastics, swimming, music, and cheerleading classes. Jeffrey...nada! Well, today I finally got him to Kangaroo gymnastics over at the rec center. Same class and coach that Nael had just fast forward 2 years later. I told jeffrey when he woke up this morning that we were going to gymnastics class after we took big sis to school. He was excited and said "'jeffrey going to 'nastics" although he had no idea what gymnastics was until we got the gym at the rec center. He had a great time. He danced during warm-up and shook his sillies out. He rolled on the mat, walked sideways on the balance beam, crawled through the tunnel, hung on the rings and raised his legs...He was loving it. Towards the end of class, j plopped himself on the floor and said "jeffrey tired" but he did get up 3 times to do the ring exercises. On our way home, I asked j if he wanted to go back again to gymnastics class and all he said was "jeffrey go to 'nastics again".

little ballerina

Today was the first day of little nael's ballet class. She's been dying to take ballet lessons so she was pretty excited. When we got home from class, she couldn't wait to practice what she learned today.

pajama brunch

We headed on over with my parents to Second Home for their Pajama Sunday Brunch and the kids couldn't have been more excited. We told the kids the night before that we were having brunch the next day at one of dada's restaurants and we could go dressed in our jammies. Little nael couldn't wait and even picked out one of her new pj's to wear the next morning. What a fun sunday! We walked in and the servers were dressed in pj's. There was a kids' den with Toy Story on tv, sleeping bags, pillows and blankets on the floor complete with an all-you-can-eat breakfast station manned by their own "host/sitter". The best part, the kids 8 and under eat free!!! What a deal. We got to enjoy our brunch without having to worry about the kids running loose in the restaurant. We drank mimosas and bloody marys, noshed on french toast, waffles, donuts, pancakes, and snowboarder even had chicken fried steak! Needless to say, we all had a great time...