Tiny Humans

, ,

December Wrap Up

, ,

One more December post.

We really had so much fun this month. Both Tom and I were off for the entire week of Christmas and we were able to do so many fun things. Even the rest of the month was filled with activies ever weekend. Some I’ve already written about, but there were enough other things I just wanted to get down in a post.

First up, for the first time ever we attended our town’s tree lighting! I’m always a little confused as to what you’re supposed to do leading up to the event. I think the real answer is have more friends and spend your time chatting with them, but we just stood around and waited. It was worth it though, because when the trees lit up, it was one of the coolest things we’ve ever seen. All the towns around here light up every tree on the common, not just one tree, so it’s super pretty and dramatic.

, ,

Disney on Ice!

, ,

We did a thing!

I’m not sure if it was more for us or more for the kids (okay it was definitely more for us), but we decided to try out Disney on Ice. Hands down my favorite part of Christmas.

Disney magic is always wonderful and immediately made me tear up, but maybe part of it was also the privilege to bring my children such joy at a time when our world seems to falling apart - it was a nice break for sure. I’ve also learned that anytime you can show a child something completely new is pretty amazing. Watching them take in something they didn’t know existed is honestly one of my favorite parts of being a parent. It’s a little sad knowing that if we do this again, it might not be as amazing, but this time was worth it.

,

A Baa Baa Birthday Party

,

Somehow we managed to pull off a small celebration for G again, just days before Christmas. It’s such a hard thing - in the middle of getting ready for Christmas and wrapping presents and figuring all that out, we suddenly have to double decorate and make a cake and have him feel special.

For months he’d been asking for another train birthday cake, like he had for his birthday last year, but then suddenly with a month to go he asked if he could have a baa baa birthday again. I told him that surprisingly he’d actually never had a baa baa birthday before, at which point he demanded it.

,

Christmas Morning

,

Whew this year really exhausted me! I swear I need to start prepping and wrapping gifts now to get ready for next year. By the time Christmas morning was here, I could barely keep my eyes open. But we did it - and I think it went well. We numbered the presents again this year, which is working for us. Not only slows down the rush, but keeps them opening presents in the order we want, and if they all got the same thing, they open it at the same time.

We did our usual cinnamon buns for breakfast, chinese food for lunch, candy canes on the trees and so much candy all day long. We watched a few movies, stayed in our PJs, and stayed home. The kids were sad there was no snow, but I think that’s going to be a normal thing here on Christmas.

,

FIVE

,

Five seems like a big number. Five means kindergarten is coming. More and more I look at pictures of him and realize that he has gotten so big. Everything about him looks older and not like the little kid he used to be. He’s calmer than he was, his outbursts (while still epic) are less frequent and easier controlled. It’s hard knowing that the upcoming year is going to be both hard and exciting for him (any mentions of kindergarten leads to an immediate meltdown), and that he’ll grow even more.

He’s been working to pick up new skills - how to get himself dressed every day, and put his dishes away after a meal. His drawing skills are also getting really good and are so impressive. Pictures he draws have gone from cute and funny to almost shockingly good.

, ,

Last Fall Shoutout

, ,

Time to dump a bunch of pictures and maybe some memories tied to them. I wasn’t kidding when I said the fall was non stop events, to the point I forgot we even did some of these things until I saw the pictures.

We checked out a new local farm for pumpkins, hay rides, and to E’s excitement - a corn maze! We also later went to our local farm stand to do their corn maze, which is much more my speed - and F’s too. They open at 7am, so we like to go early in the morning and let the kids run through the maze for an hour until they’re tired.

,

Thanksgiving 2023

,

The fall holiday season is moving right along.

As much as I’d love to hit pause, it’s not going to happen, so let’s just jump right in.

As always, I tried to make Thanksgiving as low key as possible. I had bought some pies and a pumpkin roll from a fund raiser at the elementary school, and figured that would be good enough for Thanksgiving, and then was told that we NEEDED a pumpkin pie. Which is fine, I love pumpkin pies too, so the kids made one on the Wednesday they were out of school. Turns out F is really into baking and loved the whole process. And everyone loved the pie.

We Lost a Tooth Today!

It happened!

At 6 and a half, we finally have our first lost tooth!

It has been loose for months, and really ramped up the last few weeks. Tom wiggled it at Thanksgiving and declared it lose enough he would have pulled it as a child. However it seems like E takes after his mama a bit, and had no interest in pulling it. He was wiggling it a bunch with his tongue, and when he woke up this morning it was half falling out of his mouth.

, ,

Halloween 2023

, ,

It’s currently after Thanksgiving and I still haven’t loaded Halloween pictures on my computer yet, which shows you how behind on everything I am. I have 7 Christmas trees up in my house, at least, so some priorities are in tact.

Like the rest of the year has been, October was super rainy. We missed out on a couple Halloween events because it was raining, which was too bad. We still managed to have fun and dress in costumes a few times, and I’m not sure the kids misses anything since we added a few new events.

,

Crazy Fall Life

,

There’s something about fall that is non stop crazy every year. More so than summer when we’re dealing with vacations and no school and camps. More so than spring when we’re dealing with non stop birthdays and big holidays. September through December just fly by.

This year is no exception. We’re still getting used to a new elementary school with a new teacher, new administration, new rules and bus routes and everything that goes with it. It’s involving a lot more phone calls and meetings than I expected, but hopefully things will settle down soon.

, ,

Birthday Meow

, ,

From ladybugs to kitty cats.

Mostly I’m just picking themes that seem fun based on random things she likes, and since I didn’t feel like throwing a baby doll birthday party, cats it is! So we decorated the whole house with cats with party hats and E helped me by blowing up a lot of balloons. He was home one day with me and bored, so I threw some balloons at him and told him to figure out how to blow them up! It was actually pretty cool watching him figure out what he needed to do.

Our cats didn’t love it, though. Every night you’d find them staring with wide eyes at the stuff hanging from the ceiling. Which to be fair, did look like we’d cut a head off a cat and hung it from a string…

,

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED

,

I can’t even make this up.

If you read my end of summer post recently, you know that my kids had one request at the beginning of this summer: get ice cream from an ice cream truck. How hard could that be? I pinky promised.

I don’t even know how many weekends we arranged our plans around finding an ice cream truck. We’d go to a playground we don’t usually go to because we’d heard that the truck goes there. Or we’d take the long way around and drive by a few schools or soccer fields to see if we could find it. We always promised ice cream, so we’d end up at a local place at the end, which kept everyone happy, but no ice cream truck.

,

End of Summer

,

We just finished the craziest week of the summer in case you were wondering why F’s birthday post was late. I started it early but nothing was accomplished this week. I’ve been trying to do laundry for days, but just surviving is about where we ended up.

The end of summer means we’re at the start of a new school year. I think we were mostly successful, despite the fact that daycare decided to close for a few days while school was starting. The worst time of the year for them to close? Possibly.

, ,

TWO

, ,

You are an amazing TWO year old. So clever, I find you figuring out problems with ease. Can’t reach something? Next thing I know you’ve grabbed a step stool and grabbed whatever you needed. You watch your siblings and learn from them all the time.

You have no fear (a little fear once in a while might be a good thing, you know? Maybe a few less black eyes?) and literally dive into everything head first. You’ll jump off anything, tackle anyone, and everyone who meets you uses the word “bruiser” to describe you. However you’re also super nurturing. You always “make drinks” for everyone and can also be found taking care of your babies. If your older siblings look sad, you’ll give up your own toys to try and cheer them up.

, ,

Another Adventure

, ,

Did I go overboard this summer? Yes, I definitely did.

But let me explain my thinking: E needed to do something this summer. The other two are in daycare, but we needed to find a care option for E, and that meant paying money for camps. So my first plan was to find a way to pay for less weeks of camps. This was also around the time that my employer was calling us back into the office at regular intervals, which is not something I enjoy.

So I figured if there was a way to not go into the office, not pay for camp, and also go on vacations I’ve always dreamed of going on with my children, it would be win-win-win! Part of this is the pandemics fault, because we’ve been trapped at home for so long that we’ve been dreaming up quite a list of places we wanted to go.

,

Car Convos

,

I’ve been spending a lot of time solo with E in the car, which means we’ve been having some good conversations. A few days ago I had my GPS on (which isn’t unusual for me - with so many distractions in my life I like the reminders on where to go) and he was telling me how he likes to hold up fingers for G, so G knows how many minutes until we arrive at our destination.

I told him that was really nice, and that it must be hard being little and not knowing how long we’d be in the car for or where we were going. Following that thought, I decided to ask him a question I’ve seen a lot of people asking their kids lately: “What’s the hardest part of being a kid?”

, ,

More Vacation Fun

, ,

While I knew I wanted to go to Santa’s Village this summer, it seemed like a long distance to go for just one day. So we decided to take a couple, and explore some more areas of New Hampshire. One of the first things we did was play mini golf, since it was right across the street from our hotel. It went about as crazy as you’d expect. One kid was really into it, one was very frustrated that they weren’t better, and one loved to pick up every ball they saw and take off running with it.

I could have done with 9 holes instead of 18, but I’m pretty sure we succeeded in making some good memories, which is really all I’m looking for with things like this. Somehow I even managed to make two holes in one without even looking! I’d hit my ball quickly and then grab a child only to have Tom let me know my ball had gone in the cup. I actually did worse when I paid attention to it.

,

Santa's Village

,

I go back and forth about how I want to spend our summers. Relaxing and lazy summers spent outside by the water? Or action packed and seeing all the things? Maybe I’ll alternate - rent a house one year for a slow paced vacation and the next year spend the summer going all over and seeing everything I want to see. Or maybe it’s a result of feeling so locked down the past few years due to the pandemic and getting used to being a family of five.

But as I’ve stated before, I’ve been itching to do more lately. So this summer I planned a few things that’ve I’ve been dreaming about. Number one? Santa’s Village!

I actually wasn’t sure if we’d do Storyland or Santa’s Village - I didn’t really feel strongly one way or another, but eventually I leaned towards Santa’s Village. I felt like our family likes Christmas more than fairy tales, and I heard the park had more shade for hot and sunny days.

, ,

Celebrating the 4th of July

, ,

The 4th of July has never been my holiday, even before our country started attacking my rights so bad that I’m embarrassed to be a citizen, but it means that I don’t have a lot of experience celebrating it. Sure when I was in Boston I went to the fireworks a few time, mostly because it was easy - all you had to do was be outside at a certain time. But I’ve never done the parades and parties and whatever else you do on the 4th.

The first mistake I made was not realizing I should have picked out red, white and blue clothing for everyone. Because apparently that’s thing number one you do when celebrating this holiday. We definitely own a lot of things that could have passed, and I specifically know that G has patriotic PJs. Which would have helped since G pretty much only wears PJs when he can, and also means I should have thought about what PJs he got into the night of the 3rd. But I didn’t, which means he ended up wearing Halloween PJs all day on the 4th haha. It totally doesn’t matter and actually made me laugh all day.