Creepy Crawlies!

WARNING! Really gross bugs below! YUCK!

Gramps took Stephan to the public museum yesterday on Stephan's day off from school. He snapped a few pictures with his phone of Stephan checking out a few creatures in the live bug exhibit. Stephan is awfully lucky that Gramps was there because there is no way I could have watched this! (The second picture is particularly icky!)

They also saw a wonderful interactive traveling exhibit about the Titanic. Visitors get a boarding pass with a passenger's name and information. The exhibit staff are in costume & character. At the end, visitors can find out if their passenger survived the Titanic. Stephan LOVED it and has been begging to go back. Last night, he dressed up as a "3rd class Titanic passenger" and carried his ticket around the house. He wore his Indiana Jones hat, a blue sport coat and packed a satchel with various traveling items. If Stephan is not some kind of movie set creator when he grows up, I will be shocked!

BLAH!

This one makes my stomach turn....

American Heroes

Last Year Stephan had this Joshua Chamberlain book on his Christmas list. Santa brought it for him :) If you have children who love history like Stephan, the American Heroes books by RFK Jr. are great books. (He also wrote a nice children's book called St. Francis of Assisi Life of Joy.) I received an email today that the next American Hero book is out! I was very excited to make it my first official Christmas purchase! (And to keep my blog politically balanced, I want to note that Mrs. Cheney also writes wonderful children's books about history which Stephan also owns.) It makes my heart glad that Stephan finds so much joy in learning about our nation's history. But this brings me to the real purpose of my post: WHAT to do about Christmas....our sweet ten year old son still believes in Santa with his whole heart. Last year in 4th grade many of the kids believed & so did cousins and friends we know. But I have a sad hunch he is one of the last believers. I think we need to tell him before someone at school does. And yes, yes I realize that Santa is not what Christmas is all about, but telling him reminds me that he is growing up fast....and I personally am sad to let Santa go. Good thing we have Norah!!

From Amazon...I have no idea if I am allowed to post these. Please don't sue me! :)

The Trick or Treat countdown begins...

It is five days and counting until Trick or Treat. And our first Trick or Treat at night on the real Halloween! Stephan is busy practicing his whip skills, which WON'T be used along the Trick or Treat route, don't worry! Grammy scoured the resale shops to find a brown bomber jacket. It's PERFECT. I snapped a couple of pictures of him in his full costume, but I decided not to post them. That would ruin the fun next weekend! But here is a sneak peak.

You may remember that Stephan worked hard last year on a very long story called Indiana Bones. He started a few new chapters this weekend that he dictated to Grammy. He told me he will give it to George Lucas and Steven Spielberg for free just as long as they put him in the bonus features when they turn it into a movie :)

He is doing very well in school! He had a big unit test in Social Studies this week & got 100%! He also continued his 100% streak on spelling tests. This is the first year he receives letter grades instead of satisfactory, development, etc. On Wednesday I get to spend the afternoon at his school for their Halloween party & parade. I am excited to get to know the kids at his new school. He feels a little bad that kids are getting into who is popular and all that fun stuff. He seems less concerned about whether or not he might be popular than he is with the concept in general. He keeps asking me "Why does school have to be that way?" Don't we all wonder?!? He has made some good buddies, but I feel like the kids at his new school are older than at his other school. Does that make sense? They are just a little closer to middle school life....

Did I mention that Norah LOVES to color with crayons! I give her paper and crayons in her high chair when I cook. She thinks it is SO exciting! Every now and then she looks at me and squeals with delight like she just can't believe what she is creating. Then she holds her pictures way up high over her head and squeals some more. I love watching her grow into a little toddler!

14 months!

Our little peanut is 14 months old! It is just amazing to see how much she has grown and how much she has learned.

Norah now says banana (ba-na) and hi (hi-ya). She has been saying hi for a little while, but it was previously a greeting reserved just for her da-da. "Hi-ya da-da!" She also said Liza (Li-ya) this weekend. Don't worry everyone, we're working on other names too! :)

Norah loves her dress up shoes and has been wearing them around the house. She brings them to me in the morning to put them on and every now & then she stops to admire their shininess. She likes hair accessories so much now that she wants to wear several all at once. Hey, two headbands and a bow could be a new trend!

Her favorite spot is under the kitchen table. She sits underneath the tablecloth with tupperware or measuring spoons & occasionally pokes her head out to say 'Hi-ya!" Sometimes she just sits under the table quietly. I saw her little feet sticking out the other day & looked under the tablecloth to find her just relaxing with her sunglasses from Julia & Grace.

Norah enjoys looking at my Parents magazines over and over and over. She flips the pages to look for babies. She was particularly fascinated with a picture of a sleeping baby so I tore out the page & she carried it around the house with her. I am going to cut out pictures and make a little book for her.

And Norah still loves to imitate. She coughs when we cough, sighs when we sigh or copies any silly sound that Stephan makes just to see if she will do it too. Her new "move" is a golf swing. She started to swing her arms with her hands clasped when she watched Casey and Stephan hit balls in the yard. If you ask her to golf, she'll show you her swing. (This thrills Casey more than you know!) She loves when I sing "If you are happy and you know it" because she can't wait to do whatever action I sing....clap your hands, stomp your feet, find your belly button, stick out your tongue...and so on.

One of the greatest sounds is Norah's laugh. She is so full of joy and happy just about all of the time. However, when she is inpatient (in the car, for example) she has mastered the loudest SCREECH that I can only describe as a baby pterodactyl. Not even a Raffi cd can tame the pterodactyl these days. We hope this is a short lived phase like her brief meltdown phase when she got dressed or undressed. (That passed, thank goodness!) I made up a silly song about patience that I sing when she screeches that seems to work....most of them time.

I'm so excited!

The symphony will perform the music from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as part of its children's series. They will also perform pieces from Holst and Stravinsky. I ordered tickets right away! Even though Stephan traded in his cello (sniff! sniff!) for the guitar, he still enjoys classical music. He notices it during movies and we find some of his favorites on Itunes. He is particularly fond of the Harry Potter score. I can't wait to hear it played live with my little man!

An update to the previous post...

Liza just sent these pictures over from Sunday. Here is Norah wearing my headband! (And cheering on the Pack!) This reminds me that I forgot to tell the leaf story in my previous post. What are big brothers for? Filling their little sisters pants with leaves, of course! While we were at Pops and Liza's house, I realized that Norah's pants felt a little puffy in the seat. When I looked inside, I found TONS and TONS and TONS of leaves. Stephan looked a little embarrassed, but we all had to chuckle. I found it particularly funny because it had been a couple of hours since they played in the leaves & I hadn't noticed!

Pop snapped this picture at Stephan's game. We were so proud of his motivation & sportsmanship. He played on both teams! When the other team did not have enough players, he played as their goalie until others arrived. And then he played goalie for his own team. He did SO well! Stephan loves to play goalie & is thrilled when his coach gives him a chance to fill in for their regular goalie.

This is cousin Hannah racing to her 1st place conference championship win! We were not at the race, but I had to post the picture and say how proud we are of Hannah! When I first met Casey, Hannah was about three or four years old. And now she is in high school and an AMAZING runner! You may see her in the Olympics one day :)

Pumpkin Farm

Over the weekend we went to the pumpkin and apple farm. It one of my very favorite annual traditions...4th of July activities, pumpkin & apple picking, and decoarting the Chirstmas tree. We went to the same farm I went to as a child and have always taken Stephan there. And now we live right near by! Casey is very particular about pumpkins and Christmas trees. And he always finds the perfect ones! And somehow Stephan always manages to stick his foot in the mushiest pumpkin in the patch. Yuck!

Norah was fascinated by the pumpkins. I wanted a cute picture of her sitting among all the pumpkins, but she had other plans. She examined each one carefully and rolled on them with her tummy.

Stephan walking down the Golden Delicious aisle. He said it looked like Bridge to Terabithia.

On Sunday we watched the Packer game at Pops and Liza's house. Aunt Shelly was in town for the weekend and brought Norah this cute polo track suit. She liked to point out the stripe to everyone she saw. And she was thrilled with her bow! Norah really likes wearing hair accessories lately. She has always tolerated them, but now she wants to wear them. (And I am SO excited about that! Finally, she loves shoes and accessories!) Even though she has a lot of stretchy headbands, she likes to wear one of my regular headbands. She wore it all weekend & didn't want to take it off at bed time.

This is an atom splitter made by Stephan. He checked out a book called Star Jumper from the library. The character in the book makes all kinds of creations with boxes and other supplies. Last night after homework and dinner, Stephan got to work on the atom splitter. He did it entirely on his own and improvised some of the parts since we did not have all of the materials used in Star Jumper. (I don't know if you can see the slits with quarters in the front of the box or how the forks are attached to the sides.) He wants to make a model of Star Jumper's spaceship, but the supply list he gave me has about 40 items! And we don't have many of them like nylon yarn and copper wire. I want to figure out a way for him to make it though because he is so creative. Hmmmm....there seems to be engineer blood in his veins. I wonder where he gets that?!?

Stephan has always enjoyed making elaborate things out of household items. When he was 4 and 5 years old, he used to make costumes out of printer paper. If he wanted to be Robin Hood, he made all of the arrows, a bow and the arrow bag out of paper. (He also had quite a collection of costume hats to go with whatever he made!) And when he was in 1st or 2nd grade, he made elaborate scenes, such as a Civil War camp, in our living room. He made the fire out of construction paper, brought pots and pans from the kitchen, made a tent and set up a little scene with other items he would find from around the house. It was fun and creative, but he always wanted to live his scenes in place for days and days....

Stephan is very thoughtful with his work and play. I think that is why he is struggling with the speed math unit at school. He gets all of the problems he finishes correct, but he always, always runs out of time. They have 5 minutes to complete 100 problems, and he needs just one or one & a half more minutes. It has caused a lot of frustration for him AND us during math homework. I found a speed math "training" book on Amazon. Maybe that will help.

(I am sorry the text spacing is off in this post! I cannot make it look normal!)

Creative title???

So often I have trouble thinking of a title for my posts. If you searched the blog for "A Fun Weekend," I think you would find a handful of posts. We really did have a fun weekend though! And it was a long weekend for me thanks to a certain explorer.

Stephan's soccer team had another great win. The kids are working hard to communicate well and work together as a team. That evening Casey and I joined Pops & Liza, Joel & Arlene and Casey's Uncle John and Aunt Sally who came all the way from Fort Worth, Texas for a delicious dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. We were so happy that they invited us to join them for a night out on our own. (Not that we don't love eating out with the kiddos!) It was a treat to visit with everyone. The next morning, we all went to brunch at another favorite restaurant along with Stephan and Norah. The little peanut was much more interested in playing outdoors though and was thrilled as could be to play in the leaves. Liza, Casey and I took turns taking her for walks during breaks between courses.

Norah and Liza called each other to coordinate their orange wardrobe.

Aunt Sally and Pops

Pops, Daddy Man and Steve-o
Three generations of Young

Later that afternoon with our tummies full, the kids and I drove to visit Gramps and Jude at McCreedy's cabin to play on the beach. It was actually that warm! Stephan spent his time digging a WWII trench complete with sticks and some kind of netting while Norah discovered the sand. She was very uncertain of it at first, but after a while, she was sticking her fingers and toes deep into the sand. She pushed up on her knees, raised her arms high and then flopped into the sand over and over. She loved the wet sand at the water's edge. She stuck her toes in the waves and would have jumped in if I let her.

While Stephan was in the hammock, five or six deer sprinted through the yard!
On the way home, we spotted three more deer at the edge of the road.

Stephan will always find a project!

Come on over....

My new blog to keep track of training and fund-raising for the 2009 Avon Walk is up and running. It's also a place for me to post about other things on my mind that do not need to be posted on our family page. The new blog (found at www.mommybmusings.blogspot.com or you can find it by clicking on my profile) was designed by the talented and creative Danielle at Blogs by Danielle. She also designed the Forever Young site. I think it turned out great. She did a great job!

A few fun things about Norah at 13 1/2 months

1. Norah wants shoes and socks on all the time. This is a big change from the time when she kicked her shoes off every chance she got. I was so frugal with her shoes because she constantly lost them in stores or on walks. Now she brings me her shoes to help put them on her feet. She always tries to do it herself first though. She even wants to wear shoes and pj's and has cried a few times when I took them off for bed.

2. Norah loves Elmo. She does not know Elmo is on tv, but she chose him from a box of Nic's old stuffed animals that Jude gave us. Of all the fluffy creatures, her eyes gravitated to that fuzzy red monster. I am not ready for the character obsession so I won't be buying Elmo everything, but she was pretty thrilled when we saw him on packaging at the store. She squealed and pointed. "Mo!" We waved goodbye to the box though because for now Elmo is just a cuddly character who lives at our house.

3. Norah continues to learn new signs. It is a big help because she gets fairly frustrated sometimes when she wants us to understand her. Her new signs are things she made up on her own and not actual baby signs we taught her.

4. Norah prefers we sing regular children's songs and not lullabies at bed time. If we start something like Twinkle, Twinkle, she pops up and shakes her head "no." She wants to hear her favorites like Old McDonald...only we sing them softer and slower.

5. She is FINALLY getting more teeth! Norah still has just two bottom teeth. Her two top teeth and a third bottom tooth are all starting to poke through her gums.

What a great brother...

Yesterday, we were driving in the car. It was a rare quiet moment as I went over to do lists in my head. All of a sudden Stephan said "Norah is awesome" and then returned to quiet. What a sweetheart! That touched my heart.

Avon Walk & new blog!

I am excited to announce that I just registered for the 2009 Avon Walk in Chicago! 39.3 miles for a great cause! I also decided to create a new blog to track my training and fund-raising for the walk. The talented Danielle of Blogs by Danielle (she designed this blog) will be helping me create a fun look. I will let you know when it is ready.

In the meantime, you can be the first to visit my walk page on the Avon Walk site:

http://info.avonfoundation.org/site/TR/Walk2009/Chicago?px=1290545&pg=personal&fr_id=1780

Me with Shelly at the 2008 Chicago walk...we look pretty good for Day 2!

A quick update...

No pictures....sorry! I just wanted to post a mini update about the kids. Stephan is doing well in school. He has quite a bit more homework than last year, and with the exception of a couple of grumpy nights, he has been a trooper about finishing it and finishing it early! He has done very well on his tests, even spelling. Spelling has always been his biggest challenge, but he got an A on his first test & will likely do the same this week because he really knows his list! He loves soccer. Although we try not to focus too much on winning, he is excited that his team has a 4-1 record. After two years on a team that never won, I have to let him soak in the success just a tiny bit! And just like last year he begs to be goalie. Does he know what it does to my blood pressure during the game?!? I personally would never want to be goalie, but I am very impressed with how often Stephan wants to take on that challenge.

Norah was sick this weekend. AGAIN. This time she had Roseola, a fun virus with a fever & rash. Poor little peanut, she was miserable during the fever phase. And....so were we! :) Two sleepless nights and a lot of worry about how to make her most comfortable. Luckily by Sunday morning, the fever broke, rash appeared (the sign she was no longer contagious) and all is well!

Stephan can't wait for Halloween! He usually plans his costume immediately after Halloween the previous year. He plannes to be Indiana Jones, but now he is uncertain. He seems to be leaning toward a Harry Potter character or a soldier of some kind. (He is thinking WWII or Civil War...he is our little historian!) After years of trick or treating on a Sunday afternoon, we are excited to live in a neighborhood where they trick or treat at night on the real Halloween! It makes it so much more fun!! Miss Norah will be dressed up too...we are trying to figure out her costume. Stephan suggested she be something that "represents her personality" (yes, he said that!). I thought perhaps a cow since that seems to be her favorite animal. But now I am thinking either a flower or a ladybug. Stay tuned!