Lightening Review, October* 2013

*Disclaimer:  When I say "October 2013", what I really mean is Halloween 2013.  Here are all of our activites for the second half of October crammed into one lightening-quick post:

We went to the Hickory Ridge Farm Pumpkin Patch to get a pumpkin or two.  I had the girls each choose a smaller pie pumpkin, because I knew I would be cooking them down for baking.

We also rode the pony, walked the corn maze, ate kettle corn, played in the bounce houses, went for a hay ride, and played on a hay bale mountain.  It was great for the girls, and I found myself wondering...why did we not do this until our last year in this area?

We had a Halloween dry run the weekend before the big night, and used it as an opportunity to get some stress-free photos and play in the leaves.

We    Brandon and the girls   Brandon carved the larger of our two pumpkins while I took pictures and the girls supervised.  Elora at least tried pulling out some of the pumpkin guts, but Kaylie wouldn't touch it!!!

And finally, we went trick-or-treating with Lydia and Little James.

Brandon had to take a 3 day trip for the class he was taking, so he couldn't go with us.  Rebekah and Big James were in Florida visiting family.  We missed them, but holy cow, we had a great time anyway!!

See, super fast!  Yes, I might have glossed over a few things, but you got the highlights.  :)

June.

A photographic sampler of the month of June.

June 1: Water Play

June 2: Chuck'E'Cheese

or, More On Potty Training  Reinforcement

Elora, while fully capable of using the potty, has consistently shown a lack of enthusiasm for doing so.  Why gt up and go to the bathroom, when it doesn't seem to bother her in the least to have wet pants?  So, we've been trying to inspire the proper enthusiasm in her, both punishing her bad choices and rewarding her good ones.  This reward chart is actually something that I made for her back in January, but that I never blogged.

Note:  I made this exclusively for our own personal use.   I do not own the rights to any of these images.

These are the counters.  

I made 3 for Chuck E Cheese, 5 for the ice cream, and 7 for the movie.  I printed it all out at home, then took them to Office Depot to have them laminated.  I cut out all of the counters, and used Velcro in the squares on the chart and on the backs of the counters so that they could easily (and repeatedly) be moved around.  Then I hung it all on the wall right next to the potty, right at her eye level, with the card board sleeve from the movie hanging over it all so that she would be able to see that, too.

Based on advice I'd received and articles I'd read, I thought it might help to give her something to work toward, and for her to be able to see it and be reminded of it every time she went to the potty.  Initially, she was really, really excited about it, but she would never go more than a day or two without an accident.  Fast forward to June, and she FINALLY got her 3 days in a row!

June 6: At the Zoo (with Aunt Bekah)

We've been zoo-ing about once a month or so, since it got warm.  By this point, it had gotten hot, and knowing that they have these awesome water fountains just inside the zoo, we dressed the kids in their bathing suits.  We ended up getting there shortly before story time, though, so we did that first.

The kids could not wait to go play in the water, but when they got there, they were super shy about getting in it.  Elora, in particular, does not like to get water in her face, so she just kept backing into the fountains.  And of course, whatever Elora does, Kaylie must also do.

And then we learned that a baby giraffe had just been born that morning.  Have I ever mentioned that giraffes are Elora's favorite animals? These pictures aren't great, because they were taken through the glass and my camera kept wanting to focus on the fence rather than the giraffes (I forgot about manual focus), but isn't he sweet? Only about 7 hours old here, and already standing and walking around.  So, so cool.

June 14: Hopscotch

It was late in the day, either just before dinner or just after.  The girls and I had been inside all day--we hadn't even changed out of our PJ's.  It was a beautiful afternoon. not too hot, and Brandon decided it would be criminal if we didn't get at least a little fresh air.   We opened the garage door, set out the blue lawn chairs, and watched the girls play.

I didn't really take any pictures of their faces.  I was fascinated by the light, the nightgowns & boots, and the chalk lines.  Is it weird that I'm kind of in love with this picture?

June 28: Farmer's Market & A Speech Therapy Update

There's a farmer's market at the local park every Wednesday and Saturday during the summer, and Rebekah and I finally got around to taking the kids to check it out.  

We ended up eating half of our strawberries right there, they were so good!  We haven't made it back yet, but I'm thinking we really ought to.  

That afternoon, Kaylie had therapy.  We're still going twice a week, and Kaylie is making great progress!  She's added lots of new words to her vocabulary, and is signing for a lot of things as well.  Jennifer has moved from just trying to get Kaylie to repeat simple words to focusing on specific letter sounds and final consonants.  For example, Kaylie says "eee" for "eat", dropping the T and speaking only the beginning of the word.  We're trying to teach her to say the whole word.  At the end of each session, Jennifer always makes suggestions for what we can do with Kaylie at home, so that she continues to learn in between visits.

Elora always goes with us, and is always very good while we're there.  Jennifer either brings something special for Elora to play with, incorporates her into the lesson, or allows her to play one of the kid's games on her tablet.  Frankly, I think that might be Elora's favorite.

And that brings us to the end of June.  Next time, I'll try to bring us up to date in July.  :)

Weekend With Aunt Peguy

Peguy and her boys (T-man and J-bird, as she calls them on her blog) came down from DC for a visit a few weekends ago.  It had been almost a year since we last saw them.  (Wait, what?  Where the heck did all that time go?)  Her little one is already 8 months old, and we just got to meet him.  Crazy.  They came down on Saturday, and we spent the afternoon just relaxing around the house.  

We ordered take-out for dinner, then Peguy and I took the three older kids out to play for a bit while J-bird took a nap.  We didn't take anything but the camera out there with us initially, but I kind of face-palmed and then ran back to the house for the bubbles.  

 

Sunday morning was just as relaxed.  We took our time getting moving, letting the kids enjoy one another's company.

We didn't do much of anything until after lunch, when we walked the kids to the little playground behind our neighborhood.

We decided--unanimously--the we aren't going to wait so long between visits this time.  Maybe next time, I'll pack up the girls and head on up to DC for a nice relaxing weekend at Peguy's.  :)

Play Date!

By the time we got back to Titusville on Tuesday afternoon, it had been days since I'd spent much time with the girls and I'd missed them terribly, no matter how much fun I'd had.  So it worked out well that we'd planned a play date for that afternoon.  We met our friends (and my mom and my niece) at Sand Point Park and proceeded to spend the next few hours just playing.

We took a break in the middle to get a snack and blow some bubbles.

But it didn't last long.

IT was a good way to spend the afternoon.  :)

Free Day in Tampa

Brandon and I spent the day after the wedding in Tampa.  James and Carrie were living there (they'd had their apartment for less than a week at that point) and had the day off, Sam and Tony weren't leaving until the following day, John was still around and the girls were playing happily at Gigi's house.  After cleaning up the house where we'd spent the weekend, it was a lazy day.  There was a lot of this:

And quite a bit of this:

We ended up heading over to James and Carrie's new place, then more or less repeated the process.  We spent a few hours there, just chillin'.  It felt really very good to do nothing for a while, after the traveling and the chaos.

I did get some pictures of Sam, Tony, James and John in the shirts that we'd made for them, which was really cool.  Carrie and I went for a walk, too.

There's a small lake in their new community, with a path leading to it.  She hadn't walked out there yet, so we were exploring.  The lake is quite pretty, with a playground and picnic area nearby.

That night, we went to a Greek restaurant called the Acropolis for appetizers and drinks.  As we were walking in, Brandon took the camera from me and took about a zillion pictures all at once.  He does that from time to time, because I sometimes complain about never being in any of the photos.  It's kind of a joke with us, at this point.  James's photo bomb made it even better.  :)

There was a German place a few doors down from the Acropolis, and the plan was to move down there for the main meal, but the food was so good, and we were having such a good time that we never left the Acropolis.  We discovered that they had hookahs, moved out to the porch, and camped.  We got there around 5, and didn't leave until after 10.  If it felt good to do nothing for a while, it felt even better to go out with my friends and be an adult.  Don't get me wrong, I love being a mother---but it was fantastic that I didn't have to be a mother for the night. I got quite tipsy, cursed a blue streak, and freely discussed things not suitable for a child's ears, safe in the knowledge that my children were well taken care of for the night.  Oh, it was wonderful.  We all had a good time that night, even if the guys (except for John, who was driving) did get a little obnoxious later.  

Everyone left the next day.  John went back to Gainesville, Sam and Tony went back to San Francisco, and Brandon and I drove back to Titusville.  All in all, it was a great weekend.  

Matt & Robin Tie the Knot

Has it really been a month and a half since my last post?  Good grief.  And now I have all of our trip to Florida to post.  Hm.  The wedding first, I think.

The whole trip was planned around Matt and Robin's wedding (and since we were going down anyway, there was no reason not to make it a full-blown visit).  Matt is someone that Brandon and I have both known  since forever, though they didn't get to be good friends until after high school.  We met Robin through Matt, and in the year or two since then, I've gotten to be friends with her, as well.  I even got to help her plan the wedding and make her jewelry, which I love.  Anyway, there was never any question about us going down for the wedding, especially since Brandon and Elora were both in the wedding party.

We drove down on February 28, a Thursday, and Brandon went over to Tampa (home base for all things wedding) that evening.  On Friday, they all got up and went paint-balling for the bachelor party, which I think is pretty cool.  They had to stop after only a few hours and take an extended break because John fell and dislocated his shoulder, and had to head to the ER to have it put black in place.  

Before and after.  Can you guess which is John?

I can't say that I precisely approved of all the bruises he ended up with, but they had fun.  Matt was in much worse shape.  At the end of their game, he had the dubious pleasure of playing open target to all of his groomsmen, and came away from the experience looking rather like a leopard.

Brandon's bruises were just as nasty, but he didn't have nearly as many of them.  Silly boys.

Anyway, I left the girls with Papa and Gigi and drove over to Tampa on Saturday, along with Kaitlin, the long-time girlfriend of another of the groomsmen.  We left Titusville around noon, but didn't end up making it to Tampa until about 5 o'clock.  We stopped for a late lunch, got caught in traffic on I-4, and then got stuck in the Plant City Strawberry Festival traffic when we tried to reroute.  We had a good time with it, and acquired a huge case of strawberries too.

When we got to the house we were all staying at, Sam was the only one around.  Carrie was at work, Tony was asleep, and the guys had all gone fishing.  Sam was busy putting together the flower arrangements for the wedding.

She and Robin had bought the burlap back in the fall, the last time that we'd all been in Florida, and had made the burlap flowers in the intervening time.  (If you're interested in how she did that, I'll soon be posting all about it on the craft blog.)  Paired as they were with the real flowers that they'd chosen, they looked incredible.  

I'm totally not surprised.  Sam did the flowers for her wedding as well, and they were nothing short of stunning.   This time, she did only the floral arrangements for the ceremony and the reception, while Robin made the ladies' bouquets.

The wedding took place on a converted farm in Lakeland, complete with a large loft for the use of the bride, a smaller room below for the guys, a reception hall with kitchen, and a gazebo with a seating area beyond for the ceremony.  It was perfect for an outdoor ceremony--except that it was unseasonably cold that day.  At it warmest, it only got up to about 58, and it was breezy and often overcast.  Everyone but Robin wore sweaters and jackets.

Staria and Jimmy brought the girls over to the house the morning of the wedding, then stayed there to get ready while I took the girls to the farm to get ready there.  Elora was the ring bearer princess.  She loved everything about it--the dress, the boots, the bit about being a princess--right up until the time for her to actually do it.  I'd forgotten, as I often do, that she doesn't like big groups of people that she doesn't know, and unfortunately, while she knew most of the guys in the wedding party, she didn't know any of the ladies.  She was shy and clingy that day, and had to be coaxed through all of it.  It took the threat of giving her job to Kaylie to even get her into the dress.  Carrie was a huge help in getting her ready.  It was talk of the baby in Carrie's tummy that finally got her to relax.

Kaylie was perfectly happy--so long as I was holding her.  Otherwise, she was every bit as fractious as her sister, and less easily diverted.  I finally had to call Brandon up to the loft where the ladies were getting ready to take her, just so I could finish Elora's hair, and get myself ready.  Even then, the bridal party had already gone to line up for the ceremony before I'd had a chance to put on my dress.  I got down there just as the procession began.  By that time, Staria and Jimmy had arrived, and Kaylie was with her Gigi, happily munching on a cake pop pilfered from the reception.

Poor Elora was still feeling overwhelmed and rather bewildered.  Rather than following several paces behind Ainsley, the flower girl, as she was supposed to, Elora simply walked beside her.  They stopped together at the beginning of the aisle, where Ainsley just stood in place and flung the flowers in front of her by the handful.  Everyone was telling her to keep going, to drop the petals as she went, but she stayed put until Matt came to get them, and Elora stayed with her.

  .Robin made her entrance with her father in a horse-drawn carriage, which drove in a circle all the way around us before stopping at the beginning of the aisle.  

She looked so lovely, and so incredibly happy!  

And of course her jewelry was awesome.  :)

The ceremony itself was beautiful.

Unfortunately, Kaylie decided to pitch another fit about halfway through, and I wasn't able to get any more pictures, but I think this one captures it pretty well.  :)  Actually, I didn't take many more pictures at all that day.  I stayed pretty busy, even after Staria and Jimmy left to take the girls back to Titusville.  I did get this one of the serving staff, who were almost comically glum:

And this one, of the guys all chatting outside toward the end of the reception:

Do guys "chat"?  Whatever.  That's enough for one post, I think.  :)