Princess Pat

Don't worry, we're still here.  We've just been sick and then in recovery mode.  Also, now that I'm back to work, it feels like I have weeks during which we're doing stuff, and then weeks I blog about doing stuff.

Anyway, here's a couple of then and now videos for your viewing enjoyment.  It's one of my favorite songs from Girl Scout camp, and I've been singing it to Sarah since she was teensy-weensy.  Despite the sideways video and colicky 2-month-old Will in the background, Sarah's got some pretty sweet moves.

Now, she's singing along with me.

Matroyshkas!

We have a few new people we'd like for you to meet...


A family of nesting doll dopplegangers!

Eight is enough.

Mike requested a Florida State shirt this time and I put him in some cargo shorts and flip-flops.

Sarah wanted a bird shirt, red cowgirl boots, and the obligatory tutu.

Will and I are the plain Janes, but that's ok.

Will sleeps with his Will peg doll, and since it's nap time, I wasn't about to run the risk of waking him up to get it.

The kids have already been playing with our new wooden family, and I got to thinking of matroyshka-related Christmas presents.  More to come on that.  I'm going outside to enjoy some of this autumn teaser-weather.  Do Svedanya!

T is for Thomas

Today, we had our day out with Thomas the Train!  Everybody was super-excited, and, of course we had a "how many sleeps until ___" countdown.

DD came in town Friday night, and we were up bright and early Saturday (some of us earlier than others. Ahem, Sarah.)  Even though it was drizzly and dreary, spirits were high.  And anyway, the tickets were "Rain or Shine".

Sarah asked for pigtails.  I checked outside for pigs flying around.

 Girlfriend has some big hair, so she was done with the tails after about an hour.  But, she agreed to pose for a few million pictures before we took them out.

Once we parked and completed the 10 mile hike to the venue, sans stroller, the critters wanted to hit the links.

Just look at that beautiful form.

Hole in 9!

There were so many things to do and see: bounce houses, miniature donkey petting zoo, train tables, tattoo parlor, and pictures with Sir Topham Hatt and Mike the Knight.  After playing at the train tables and getting tatted up, we made the obligatory trip to the potty.  Port-A-Potty, that is.

Then we were corralled into a line to wait for boarding.

 Some of us got restless, but it was nothing a fun sized Kit-Kat couldn't handle.

Cattle Call

Boarding

 We had to walk through an inch or two of water to get to the train, so the wet shoes came off once we were settled inside.

Happy girl.

 Train cars are cozy for snuggles and kisses.

 And pictures of the two of us.

 Even though we were only going about 2 miles an hour, the peeps enjoyed the view.

More snuggles and kisses.

Once we disembarked, we decided against standing in yet another line to get an official picture with Thomas.  So, we opted for close enough is well enough.  Will got to talk to him, which is what he does best.

 Will wouldn't pose with this backdrop of Rosie and Thomas, but Sis was game.

Mike the Knight!

 Oh, yeah, since Will's shoes were soaked and he refused to put them on, he immersed himself in hillbilly culture and went barefoot.

I actually think the kids enjoyed put-putting around in the little train that ran in a circle just as much as they did the big train.  

Our resident mountain goat climbed the huge inflatable slide like a trooper.  Though many others turned back in fear, she pressed on to the top.

 And whooshed down again!

Such a feat was deserving of a treat, so DD bought a round of Italian Ices.

 Mango for Sarah.
Lemon for Will.

 They even shared with each other.

No meltdowns + no tantrums + LOTS of sharing and patient waiting = a whole bunch of marbles added to the jar.

We had such fun that we're already planning our next day out with Thomas!

Marble Jars and Chuck E. Cheese's

 My peeps have caught a serious case of the Gimmies lately.  As in, they think that toys and stuff should just be purchased for them every day of the week for no other reason than that they are alive and breathing.  Now, at 4 and 2, I think they're a tad too young for an allowance, but they're not too little to grasp the concept that you must work for what you want.  Combine that principle with a few behaviors we would like to POSITIVELY reinforce, and I decided to give the Marble Jar a try.

I picked up this particular behavior management technique while student teaching in a first grade classroom.  Any time the class as a whole did something deemed particularly worthy, one (or a few) student(s) would get to put a marble in the jar.  There was something satisfyingly concrete about that clink, and it let everybody know that they were on the right track.  I thought my two guys could use the same type of reassurance (plus marbles are super-fun to collect), so I hauled out a spaghetti sauce jar and let them plunk a few marbles in there for being especially cooperative during clean-up.

This marble jar has kind of helped me, too.  I've gotten into a rut lately of punishing the bad behaviors without recognizing the good behaviors.  Needless to say, that wasn't a very successful approach.  Now we have a goal.

We want to earn a trip to the Parthenon of Pizza, the Temple of Skee Ball: Chuck E. Cheese's.  Sarah and Will decided on this goal over the weekend, and, lo and behold, Delia Creates is giving away a $100 gift card!  We could take some friends with us and really make it rain in that preschooler's paradise. 

I think we might need a slightly smaller jar or run the risk of losing our focus...

She prefers to worship Chuck from afar.

I know I've blogged about our first-ever trip to Mr. Cheese's here, and I can't wait to do a follow-up, now that my guys are seasoned pros.

Labor Day Tour de Loo

This weekend was a washout.  We had such high hopes, so many plans, and almost none of them materialized.  Too stormy for the pool, to crummy for picnics, and too yucky for fishing.

The kids had plans of their own, it seems.  Evidently, they were hired to conduct  Zagat surveys of every public restroom in the city of Nashville, because that's where we spent the bulk of our time this weekend.  Target, Home Depot, MacDougal's, Newk's: you name it, we checked out their bathrooms.

We started out strong, hitting the Main library for snacks.  Oh, and a puppet show (the puppet theater has a Pavlovian effect on our children).  Next, we stopped at MacDougal's to clog our arteries and fill our bellies, letting Sarah visit the Elvis statue and inform anyone within a 5 mile radius that Elvis died in Memphis. 

From Saturday afternoon on, it was pure sloth.  I blame the rain.

 A feud began because Sarah blames Mike for not "taking the stink out of her red cowgirl boots".  But all was forgiven with this picture of Daddy with our favorite Kung Fu Panda. 
 

Sarah poked Will's eyes until he woke up from nap on Saturday, and Mike found them like this:

reading.

One of the funnier side-effects of cabin fever emerged on Sunday morning when Sarah decided to change her name to Pam and Will, not one to be left out, told us to call him "Ham".

That afternoon, Sarah came out looking for some mail to read to her stuffed animals.  Mike offered her a medical journal with a picture of the intestinal tract on the front.  She asked what it was about, and he said, "Oh, just IBS, depression, and heart disease."  "And octopuses?" was her saucer-eyed reply.

We did get an extra day of hand-holding.

And we finally emerged on Monday for some more retail therapy and a much-needed pit stop at the park.

Swings!

Silliness.

Sweetness.

Randomness.