Holiday Photo Time

Once again, it's that time of year when I try to take photos for our holiday cards.  Kevin had the great idea to head to the botanic gardens to take the pictures.  Much prettier than at home, and we were all ready to get out of the house for a bit.  The fresh air, walking, and climbing steps did us all some good.  We got there fairly early and the place was empty, so the kids got to run around some of the gardens and burn off some pent up energy.  As always, many of the pictures were completely unusable, but funny, so here we go!  I'm not sharing the good ones, so the cards will be a pleasant surprise, but you will know how hard we all had to work to make the magic happen.

 Unfortunate expressions seem to happen a lot with these two.  Malcolm actually does pretty well, but then gets bad expressions when trying to help keep Dorothy in line.

 Here's a perfect example of him looking goofy in an effort to get her to do what we want her to do.  She wasn't standing close to him or looking at me, so he grabbed her to pull her in, but then this expression happened.  She looks great.

 However, sometimes, he just gets plain silly.  It was around this time that we started to lose them a bit.

 There was a big tree with lights and several large pots of poinsettias which would have made a great backdrop, but she was having none of it. Every shot from there was terrible.  Perfecting her pout.

 Going for an evil look.

 The focus is all wrong, and I don't like her finger in her mouth, but Kevin and I both thought that Malcolm looked a lot older here.  You can almost see what he will look like as a young adult.

 I asked Malcolm to sit down in a certain spot (which he did) and then asked Dorothy to sit facing the other way so that their backs would be touching. She knelt behind him instead and I accidentally caught Kevin reaching in to turn her around. You can see what she thinks of my picture taking from her look.

 Finally, she just went limp. Here, Malcolm is trying his best to hold her up and get his face up over hers so he can still be seen. Nice try, kiddo.

 Right after this, we went into one of the greenhouses, and she sat down on a stump and told me to take her picture.

 She still didn't want to look at me, but what the heck, kid? Why can't you do this when I ask?  Both of these poses were done without any prompting from me.  She did it all on her own.  Stinker.

 As far as I can tell, they are both being flamingos here.

 There were some round, window like holes that we had them peek through.  This would have been so cute if her hair wasn't in her face.

 Malcolm had a hard time not making crazy faces at this location.

 In the conifer garden, they got pretty suspicious of me and they have the same smirk.

 Dorothy goes limp again.

 They were pretty much done by now, and their cheeks and noses were starting to get a bit rosy.

Each kid got to take one picture with the camera before we left and this was Dorothy's.  Malcolm's was blurry, but her's isn't too bad for a three year old.

The Candy Experiment

Over the weekend, I decided to try a little experiment with the kids and their Halloween candy.  Halloween night, they each got to have a few pieces, and they had a couple more on Friday.  For the weekend, I told them that I would leave their candy at their places at their table and they could help themselves.  Thirty minutes before lunch and dinner, I would put it away, but other then that, it was up to them to decide how much or little they should eat.

Day 1:
Malcolm did a great job pacing himself.  He scarfs candy that belongs to others, but he is a natural saver when it is his (he's the same with his money).  Dorothy spiraled out of control.  She ate, and ate, and ate candy all day long.


Day 2:
Running this experiment combined with changing the clocks might not have been the best plan ever.  Malcolm tried to do as well as he did the day before, but struggled a bit.  In the afternoon, he came over and gave me half of a Kit Kat bar and said he wanted to share it with me.  A few minutes later, he said that he didn't really want any more, but he just couldn't stop eating the candy.  I asked him if he would like for me to put it up so he wouldn't eat anymore, and he was very relieved to take me up on it.  He struggled, but it was pretty grown up of him.

Dorothy did not fair as well.  She went right back to her habit from the day before, of eating as much as she could as fast as she could.  That girl at a lot of candy.  Dorothy was sick a couple of weeks ago, and has been telling us ever since that she is always going to be sick and how she will never get better (very dramatic).  When we started the candy experiment, I warned the kids to pay attention to how they were feeling because too much candy might make them feel a little sick.  After downing 5 or 6 pieces, Dorothy ran over to me, and told me told me that candy was never going to make her feel sick.  She went back to her spot at the table and proceeded to continue to eat her stash.  By the end of the day, her behavior spiraled out of control and she ended up in bed without a story.  On the up side, she's almost out of candy.

Conclusion:
Malcolm struggled with having completely access to that much candy, but tried really hard to be responsible.  Dorothy was a girl on a mission, and only a lack of time in the day kept her from polishing off her entire haul.  Maybe in a couple of years she will be old enough to monitor her own candy eating.  I would love to be able to just leave it out and not be the one to dole out a piece here and a piece there.

Apple Orchard

Long time, no blog!  My husband got on me today that it has been months since I have posted anything, so I'm getting my lazy rear end in gear and finally updating this blog.  We have had a busy few days, so maybe I'll go back and do a couple of others too.  For now, here is our trip to the apple orchard.

We had planned to go last Friday, but Dorothy woke up really sick and there was no way we could go anywhere.  I hadn't been real hot myself the night before, so we stayed home and watched movies all day (other than taking my son out in the afternoon for some very belated back to school shopping).  Unfortunately, by the time we got around to hitting the apple orchard on Monday, Kevin had to miss out.  Poor guy got to spend the day he took off work dealing with a sick little girl.

 I never would have known about this orchard if not for Malcolm's preschool taking a field trip there.  They alternate years with a pumpkin patch, which I will go on Friday with Dorothy's class.  It is a good size place and from my unofficial taste test of all apple cider doughnuts in the general vicinity, the ones from here are the best.  We brought a dozen home, and I don't expect them to last a full 24 hours.  It's for the best since they don't keep well unfortunately.

As soon as we got there, the kids wanted to run around and play.  They have a nice (fenced) area for the kids with tractors, a wood train and fire truck, a caterpillar made out of tractor tires, a pirate ship, a couple of play houses, animals, and a fence maze.  All great for burning off some extra energy.

 Both kids went straight for the tractors right away.  They were so quick though that it was hard to get many pictures.

 Dorothy drives the fire truck while two other little boys ride in the back making siren noises.

 Malcolm drives the train after telling his sister where to sit.

I made them stay together to do the maze and they got stuck.  Another mom sent one of her teenage girls back in to show them the way out.  I was wondering if I was going to have to go in and get them out, so was very grateful for someone else to do it.  Thank you!

 Malcolm loves this bell for some reason.  Every year, we have to stop by it a couple of times so that he can ring it; and it is loud!

 Dorothy isn't tall enough to ring the bell without help.


 Last night, we watched National Velvet, so the kids were super excited to see pony rides.  We usually go on a week day, and I think they only have pony rides and horse drawn wagon rides on the weekend.  Even though it was Monday, they were treating it like a weekend since it was Columbus Day.

 She was very excited to get the smallest pony, which was still bigger than any she has ridden in the past.

Malcolm had the largest pony, but was also about the biggest kid on this particular run.


After pony rides, we headed in for hot cider and doughnuts.  Yum!  Since Kevin couldn't come with us, we headed to the store next and bought cider and doughnuts to take home with us.  Yum, again!  Then it was time to pick our apples.  Since it was a holiday weekend, we couldn't drive back to the orchard.  They had wagons to take us back there, but they wouldn't let me bring my little wagon with us.  I learned the hard way that it is impossible to wrangle two kids and full baskets of apples, so I usually bring a wagon to make hauling easier, especially when I'm the only adult.  This year, each kid got their own basket to fill up, so we hopped on the wagon and headed out to the orchard.

 Carrying her own basket.  It was much easier before there were any apples in it.

 Getting heavier with red delicious apples.  It's a good things she has freakish upper body strength.

 I was having a hard time getting a picture of both of them together, but perched on a ladder, they had to be close to each other.

 A bit closer.  I wish his eyes were more open, but this is the only other one where she was looking at me.

 Of course, Malcolm had to climb the ladder to pick apples because the ones up high are obviously better than the ones he could reach from the ground.  He made me a little nervous, but did just fine.

 Dorothy had to try the ladder too, but it was (thankfully) too big for her to climb.

 The kids with their haul.  The red delicious apples are on the bottom and the golden delicious are on the top.

 See, sometimes they really like each other.  Actually, they get along surprisingly well, and  I hope they can keep that closeness as they get older.

 On the wagon, ready to head back.  They were both completely over me trying to take photos.  One was simply silly, while the other refused to look in my direction at all.

 At home, they had to count out how many apples they picked (92).  Here they are dancing amongst their bounty.

Playing with the apples is almost as much fun as picking them.  They laid them all out in a pattern line.

If the orchard was closer, we would go more than once during the Fall.  It is such a nice day out.

Retro Video Game Birthday Party

In November, we went to a local retro video arcade for Kevin's birthday.  Ever since then, Malcolm has insisted that he wanted to have his birthday party there.  This place doesn't usually do parties for kids under 8, but agreed to host us if we had a one-to-one parent/child ratio.  I had a lot of really cute ideas for video game themed accessories and decorations, but May is a crazy month, and most of it did not get done.  What I did get finished, was painting video game characters onto folding stools for the kids.  Most of them were not quite tall enough to reach the games comfortably, so everyone got a stool to use then take home.

I stopped in the arcade last week to let them know how many people were coming and discovered that they had quite a bit of water damage from some recent rains.  They had a good portion of the main floor fenced off and had moved games into the party room area.  We decided to go ahead and have the party anyway and it turned out great.  

Dorothy really went for Kangaroo, though she didn't quite have the coordination to move, jump, and dodge projectiles.  It didn't seem to bother her though.   Those are little space invaders on her skirt, and there is a big one on her shirt.  I also made Malcolm a Space Invaders shirt, but didn't get any good pictures of them.  I'll get some photos and show them on my sewing blog soon.

Lots of friends and their parents playing games for the first time.  At first, the parents had to help a lot, but after a while, the kids had it figured out and were playing mostly on their own.


I loved how many dads came to this party.  I think they had as much fun as the kids.

 Emma loves Galaga.  Actually, I think her favorite thing was the five steps that divided the main level and where the party room had been.

Malcolm was pretty good at centipede and managed to clear a couple of levels.  It was one of my favorites as a kid too.

Malcolm and Addie (the only girl who could make it) playing centipede and millipede.  The stools got them up to just the right height.  

Malcolm and Dorothy playing Samurai Showdown together.  She beat him at least once thanks to her button mashing. 

Pizza break!  The chain link is blocking off the water damaged part of the facility.  Not perfect, but it worked out fine.

We had a little trouble getting (and keeping ) the candles lit since fans were on to try to keep things cooler.

Things got quite once the cupcakes came out.

I was really nervous when I saw the damage to the building and that several of their games were not back yet (no room), but I'm glad we went ahead and had the party there anyway.  I think the kids had a good time, and it was a little different than some of the other parties we have done.  It was a great group of kids and parents, and everyone played very well.