Promotion Days

Maggie and another girl opening the ceremony with a prayer.

Yes that is a dress on me

Max dressed for his promotion day performance.

Max with his diploma and certificates for Best Mathematician and Overall Achievement. And yes I wore another dress with a necklace that he picked out at Kohls for me to buy for myself.

Okay so I could keep this wordless out side of the captions but I won't.  So for the life of me, I can't remember ever ever having these sort of days at my schools growing up. I don't remember parents coming for these type of performances. Don't get me wrong, I think the performances that the kids did were great.  Both performances included the star spangled banner. And the little kids sang songs that I didn't know and they had an awesome performance done by one little girl who is half japanese. She was dressed traditionally and everything. I would show the picture but don't feel really confident about doing that. 

The lower and upper elementary did an around the world type of performance. The did all the continents and about 4 kids at a time talked about different things.  If you haven't already guessed, Max talked about China and counted to ten in Mandarin (his grandma taught him.) Then they sang 'We are the World'. And Max sang it with feeling and emotion. It was a great performance and fun to listen to and learn from. But still not sure about the promotion day certificates. It seems like it is expected now that kids need these things to determine their self worth. That and the goody bags kill me. I still shake my head at those.

Off my rant, regardless I am proud of both kids because they made huge strides this year. Maggie came home everyday telling me that she had different friends depending on who she played with. She was constructing 4 letter words by the end and learning how to write lowercase letters. She is stubborn so we are still faced with the dilemma of not knowing how much she can do or knows until she busts out with something. I am pretty sure she is good at addition.  Max had a fantastic year. He learned so much this year and I think it really wetted his appetite to learn even more. I will miss his teacher who is returning to CA after being here for two years. She was great. She didn't put up with nonsense and she really knew how to direct him and bring him down a notch or two when needed. Hopefully next year will go just as well. 

I climbed back on the horse

Well actually the treadmill. I am not a big fan and I am going to have to figure out how to the treadmill better situated in my room so I can watch tv and run.

What do you all do? Do you listen to the tv or watch it and listen to music or just listen to music? I am thinking that I would like to do the close captioning but listen to music. I need to figure something out. Because even though I got on, it still felt like torture.  And I am totally behind on getting to 500 by the end of the year so I need to do a lot of catching up.

My exercise mojo

I have lost it :( I set my alarm on my phone. I got out clothes to wear this morning to boot camp. And then...
I started tossing probably around 5. Krismon  heard the pool 'burping' (meaning we need to fill it up some more) and then I got up too around 5:30 but just couldn't do it. I just didn't want to go.

Let's be honest I have found it harder and harder to want to exercise since the weather started getting warmer. The 5k at the beginning of May, I made it into an ending instead of a beginning. And then Germany disrupted as well. I walked a ton there just didn't record it. And then there was a groupon coupon for a boot camp. I signed up and went once and ended up getting surgery the next day. It wasn't related to the boot camp but it set me back from doing boot camp. And then Krismon was gone for a week as well the next week. I had no desire to try and get the kids out the door early to walk the dog.

I need help getting my mojo back.

Shark Reef

The kids didn't have violin yesterday so after the US lost in soccer, we headed out to Mandalay Bay. It is the first time we have gone. It was pretty cool and it is not a huge facility which was good with Harry. He was in the stroller so he couldn't see everything as easily. Makes me feel like I should have put him in the beco so he could be up high. Max and Maggie enjoyed it all. Max really enjoyed listening to the wand with its explanation of each fish and area there. There is a shipwreck area where you can see below and above. The sharks were huge here and scared Max a bit. Maggie really liked it all. The touching of the stingrays was pretty cool. And this just wets my desire to get back  to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with the kids. But I would really like Harry to be even just a year older.
It was a great introduction though to sea life. And it wasn't too big and my parents enjoyed it as well. It was a win win since there was a locals discount. YAY!
Afterwards we decided to head over to town square. We hit the kids play area but I swear it was 10 degrees warmer because of the rubber surface and we didn't bring extra clothes so they couldn't play on the splash pad. So we ducked out of there quickly. We had an early dinner at the yardhouse. I really like that restaurant.  By the way, Sam Adams summer ale... good.  Harry ate plenty of bread, asparagus, some edamame, mashed potatoes.  Then we got some yogurtland frozen yogurt and he shared mine with me. It was fun afternoon. It was nice to get out despite the heat.

And even nicer to have Krismon home with us.

I miss Krismon

The kids miss Krismon. We all miss Krismon.

Well maybe you don't, but we do.

I survived today

Krismon left yesterday for a conference in San Jose. Harry got a fever yesterday which woke him up around 2am. Poor kid, we hung out for about a half hour so the medicine could start working and then I nursed him and put him back to bed. (side note, we are starting the weaning process and the thought of not having the boobies to help with middle of the night things kind of scares me even though I am looking forward to losing a few cup sizes.). The kids were up at their normal time before 6 and so was Harry, unfortunately.

We made it through the morning. Thanks mythbusters, today you saved me from problems. And thanks leftover spring rolls, you made Max's lunch. And thanks Costco trip on Saturday for supplying cheese for his lunch. And blueberries that fed him lunch and the rest of us for breakfast. The morning just went well. We set ground rules and I was mellow so I made breakfast and lunch for the kids. They got to skype with Krismon and their grandma which was nice. And then it was off to school and naptime. whew. I took Harry to his pediatrician to get checked out. No I don't usually go when the fever is barely 12 hours old but my parents are coming tomorrow and my mom is imunocompromised. If he had an infection I wanted to get him on medicine 24 hours in advance. It's probably a virus but they wrote me a script just in case.

Then Harry and I had some time to kill before getting Maggie from school. We stopped in at Starbucks. I initiated Harry into the goodness called lemon loaf. He, thoroughly, enjoyed his experience. And then we were off to school. Maggie ate lunch and decided today was a nap day. Ah.... though as much as I wanted her to sleep and sleep and sleep I tried to keep it under 2 hours. She was wanting to continue sleeping, darn girl. lol. We got Max from school and boogied home. After eating and eating and eating and eating goldfish crackers. Ah yes I think at one point they were all double fisting it. And then Max decided to head outside to draw with chalk.

We all ended up outside and then all three kids ended up wet. They enjoyed it. At some point, Max decided that he needed another dose of mythbusters. I grabbed Harry and just put him in a clothie while the other two decided they wanted to remain toga style with their towels.

Krismon, thankfully, made chicken leg adobo a few days ago.That, some rice and veges with dip and cantaloupe made for an easy dinner. Bed time went pretty well.

So we have been reading a chapter every night of Pippi Longstocking,. The kids are enjoying it.  I remember enjoying it as a child. She is definitely a larger than life character. And there are only a few pictures. It's great to get Maggie engaged in using her imagination to play out the story instead of having pictures act as a guide.

I almost feel like I should go to sleep now just in case........

Greek Yogurt

I love love love it. It is so creamy and yummy. And if I am eating it and Harry sees me eating it, he hunts me down and hounds me until I feed it to him too. Yes that would be my 1 yo who gets this amazing grin on his face as soon as I stick the spoon in his mouth. He likes his yogurt but he loves my yogurt. The only problem is that mine has 0 fat and his is the full fat variety. I want him to have the biggest brains around and my yogurt won't cut it. lol

I am just saying if you haven't tried it yet, you must. Max, also, loves it. I was able to find some low fat variety. Maggie hasn't asked for any... yet.

My friend suggested using it to make dip. Ah yes that sounds like a good plan. The kids are getting good about eating their veges and dip so this would be a better way for them to eat dip then the store brand.

And yogurt with graham crackers.... just a little bit of heaven.

Swimming a HAAAA

So the kids are in swimming lessons and they looooovvveee it! As soon as we get home, they want to go straight to the back yard and jump in our pool.  It is absolutely thrilling to be able to have them be in the water and enjoy it.

I am hoping by the end of summer, they will be true swimmers. I will probably need to sign them up for more lessons but then hopefully I can take some with Harry at the same time.

Thank You Pandora

I can not say enough of how much I love love Pandora Radio and the Glee Channel right now.  This morning instead of asking for the tv to be turned on, Maggie brought me the remote and the vudu remote so that I would turn on the music!

Okay so I started this Friday but it is really great to have the kids on board with listening to music and dancing and enjoying. I get to hear from Max how singing is one of his favorite things to do. And listening to the music just makes me want to open up the world for them. I want them to see all the great musicals whether on tv or live. shh we are going to take them to see 'The Lion King' in a few weeks. Thank you locals appreciation discount! Krismon and I haven't seen it and we can't wait to experience it with the kids. I, kind of, wish that we could watch the movie a head of time so they can know the story somewhat.  I am so excited to see what they think. We haven't done a huge amount of these type of shows but I think now with the kids getting older (and yes I know that Harry is getting the shaft at this point.) I want to get out more with them.

 And I am just itching to show the kids 'Rent'. Though I think I may have to watch it first to see if it will be okay. I just love the music and the kids are already starting to sing the music.

Okay I am getting side tracked yet again so I will end this and tell you that by the end of summer, Journey is going to be more than a favorite for my kids and Queen! lol

Chafing

huh?

Summer for my kids doesn't start until the 30th of June but I know if I don't want a repeat of some of the 'tude from last year that I probably should come up with some sort of schedule.  That is what I chafe at. I like to schedule going places and I kind of live by a schedule but I can't imagine making more of one in the house. And the funny thing is that I feel like I am a habit type of person. So even though I pretty much do the same things every day I still don't want to make a schedule. I don't I don't I don't I don't you can't make me.

Yay I guess I just need to make myself.  The kids will probably have an easier time of it if I do. See well you can't but I switched away from this page because even the idea of writing it down, makes me crazy.

I have this feeling that we need to have exercise time. an art period,  a board game time,. reading time, swimming pool time, cooking dinner time (did I mention that I have told the kids that I want them to help me cook more this summer from our cook books.)  I know that we will have playgroup and playdates but I am still scared. I tell you I wonder how did my mom did that when I was a kid. Except that I could go outside and not die of the heat like here.

Any other ideas?

I am here really

Life here has been hectic. My mother in law and sister in law left Friday morning. And somehow I don't think a lot has happened but none of us has been sleeping well and we have sickies in the hizouse. Well, anyway I have not felt like writing or I keep meaning to put up pictures and that hasn't happened.

We are going through the summer has hit and my kids don't want to go to sleep or stay asleep in their bed and want to get up at the buttcrack of dawn which means not much time alone with the man and a desire to sleep and be listless. Couple that with the desire to do stuff but feeling overwhelmed by the task at hand. That seems to be my outlook right now. I know it is tiredness talking but wow. I need a good night's sleep.

So while I was gone I read a sample of the happiness project and decided I wanted to read the whole book.  I don't know if I mentioned it on here already but I am enjoying it. And I want to put her ideas into play.   So my plan is to start purging purging purging and deciding what to do with things that I think I want to have but can't figure out what to do with it or them. I am feeling in a brutal mood. I know we aren't hoarders but our house feels pretty pack ratty at the moment. Now I am sure if I had lots of built ins or dressers or say a basement, it wouldn't seem like we have so much because it could be packed away more neatly and probably easier to get to. But we have fallen into the convenience of bins, bins and more bins. I guess I should just be thankful that we don't have a storage unit.

Well since I didn't post this last night. I am going to cut it off there and post it. Yeah I have been bad about not being totally coherent in my posts. Sorry. Hoping to rectify that soon with enough sleep and exercise.

He can walk... Ahhhhhhh. And the choir sings

So we got back Sunday night. And I suggest reading the signs in the international terminal baggage claim and not turn your cell phone on. Oops. Good thing I didn't get hauled off. But I did feel duly chastised.
Harry slept for about 6 hours on the plane after having to finally put him in the carrier and bouncing him back and forth. He just didn't want to settle down. And then I got 3-4 hours sleep which was needed. It was a 10 hr flight. He woke up once we had landed. We got Jules to the other terminal. And then it was home. HOME SWEET HOME!  We got to eat some dinner and then off to bed.

The next day, Harry decided that he could walk! It was great that he waited. I wanted Krismon to see it and experience his walking. And Krismon's cousin and husband were in town. They got to see it which was nice as well. After his nap though, he woke up with a fever. That was my greatest fear while we were gone that he would get sick more than just a cold. I was glad he waited til we got here especially since Krismon's sister is a nurse. We will hopefully get through the jetlag soon.  And he doesn't have the fever anymore! Yay!

And today is his Birthday! He is a big 1 year old. And my last so I do feel a sniffly about it.

Harry,

 You are a happy kid who loves his siblings.  You enjoy playing with them. And you are a great eater. We all enjoy your company. You have this crazy natural mohawk going. I love you little man. lots and lots and lots!

Mom

Germany Photos

And they aren't mine. I still need to upload mine.

This is across from our apartment.

A used book store. We love the sculpture

This is outside the Jewish Museum.

So I am falling asleep so I will have to post more later.