Charades

Game recommendation! We try to play a game as a family after dinner at night, and tonight I picked up University Games Kids on Stage Charades (the picture to the left is the board game, but we actually just got non-board version). It's for ages 3 to 8 and it is FANTASTIC. There are three catagories (action, object, and animal) with color coded tiles associated with each. The tiles have pictures that are easy for all ages to understand -- the three year old Bean figured them out with no problem. Plus, there was the amazing look of pride on her face and the Moo's when they were the first ones to guess the answer. I unreservedly recommend this one for everyone with children in this age group -- we had a blast. Just don't play it right before bed, as we are STILL trying to get them to settle down from all the fun they had. You can check out the game at www.areyougame.com .

Updating for the Sake of Updating

Really not that much to say but I'll say it anyway! We had a fairly uneventful weekend, the brightest spot being that Mom and Dad finally found a new babysitter so that we could enjoy a night out. The Bean's former teacher Ms. Jen came over to watch the girls, who apparently behaved very well, and Mom and Dad went out to see "The Dark Knight." For anyone who has not seen it, it is definitely worth the price of admission -- possibly even worth the $20 an hour for the babysitter, although Dad would argue that this point is highly debatable.

Three things you probably did not know about the Bean:

• She wants to be an astronaut and visit outer space. She tells me "Mommy I just want to go to outer space one time." We have not really unpacked her motivation to be an astronaut, but I suspect that there is a Rocket/Little Einsteins connection there!
• She is obsessed with Tea Parties. She has three tea sets, but her preferred set up is to grab a pile of paper plates we keep in the dining room for this specific occasion, set them out, and then set out cups and utensils. She then writes invitations for each place -- generally a series of smiley faces and slugs (she draws an AMAZING slug), although lucky guests get invitations that have a series of Hs, As, and Ns on them, in no particular order, but always two of each letter because H-A-N-N-A-H spells Hannah, as the Bean (whose secret identity has now been revealed!!!) will tell you.
• She is having a hard time accepting that she is a big girl, because she wants to still be my "little tiny baby." This translates into all babies being her mortal enemies, as they are rivals for the status of littlest and tiniest one in the room, but we are confident she will grow out of it (or she will never get to meet her new little cousin!!). She enjoys all of the new found trappings of being a good girl, however, especially riding her razor scooter (she's a pro!) and being given responsibilities to earn her allowance. She will tell me, "Mommy, I have an important job to do" as she goes to water the new plants, or pick up her toys.

Three things you probably did not know about the Moo:

• She wants to have triplets when she grows up. We went with C to see Space Chimps, and got there early. AS we were waiting for the movie to start, C's mom and I overheard her telling him, "When we are married, I will get pregnant and you will have to take me to the hospital. Then we will have three babies! Until we have the babies, we can have the Bean, but once the babies come we will give the Bean back to Mommy. I hope Mommy won't be too lonely without her baby." I think C's mother was a little bit horrified, and Mom had to talk to her afterward about letting the future take care of itself, and focusing on being five.
• She says "goodly" instead of "well" and Mom likes it so much that Mom has not yet corrected her. "I can swim and draw very goodly." And she can!
• She cantered! Oh wait, you probably knew that, as she has made it her mission to tell the whole world.
• She is the world's best bad news taker. For various reasons we have not been able to make it to the stables as often as we have in the past; when I told her that we would be going less during the summer months she said, "That's OK, it's not forever." Last week, her teacher's decided on a Monday that the kids would all wear pajamas to school the next day. The Moo does not go to school on Mondays, so we did not know. She showed up at Beantree on Tuesday in her uniform, and everyone else was in PJs. Ms. Kelly told me that the Moo looked at her and said, "Well, I'm going to movies after school today, and I couldn't be seen at the theater in pajamas - that would silly. So it's a good thing I didn't wear them to school."

Three things you probably did not know about Dad:

• He gets the girls ready for school EVERYDAY and even though he continues to struggle to grasp the basic rules of fashion and accessorizing, he does an amazing job.
• He will literally eat anything, and he hates to waste things so much that he will continue to eat it even if he doesn't like it (as evidenced by the painful grimace that accompanies each bite).
• He looks awfully cute in his new reading glasses!

Three things you probably did not know about Mom:

• Mom writes the blog, so she doesn't have to reveal a thing! :)

Anniversary Celebration and Other Goings On

Many, many exciting things took place this week, including Mom and Dad celebrating their 7th anniversary with little ones on Saturday (the actual date is not until Monday, but given every one's work schedules, we decided to celebrate early). Other exciting news before we dive into the anniversary details and pics (like the one above of Dad exiting Magnolia's): the Moo cantered for the first time this week in her riding lessons. If you did not receive a phone call relaying this exciting news consider yourself lucky, as she is so proud of herself that she has been telling everyone -- including perfect strangers--that she cantered. Most look at her like they have no idea what she is talking about, which they may not. On the Bean front, her teacher Ms. April informs us that she is ready to move up a class again, and in fact will probably skip the next class and go directly to the one above that, as she is ahead of the rest of her classmates. So, it appears that it is always feast or famine with the Bean in terms of her advancement at Beantree; Dad and I think that this will essentially put her where she should have been all along, however, so we are happy about it. One Bean quirk that I believe I have failed to report somehow in the blog before: every night she sleeps with a volume of Winston Churchill's biography in her bed. I generally find it when I check in on her at night, remove it, replace it in the book shelf, and without fail the next night I find it in bed with her. It has no pictures or anything else that might make it an attractive book to a three year old, so I leave you all to make of that what you will. Better that then my old grad school copy of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" I suppose!!!

On to the anniversary! First of all, since it is our anniversary that means it was already the Mayers' and it will soon be the Millers', so happy anniversary to all! We spent ours at the Key West Fest at Breaux Vineyards, and then having dinner at Magnolia's on the Mill in Purcellville (for those who have visited, Magnolia's is the second restaurant in the Tuscarora Mill chain; Tuskies is in Leesburg).

Magnolia's was having a beer festival when we got there for dinner, and the girls enjoyed playing in the displays as they were being dismantled!


The four of us split the chocolate chocolate-chip brownie for dessert! YUM!!!


We have a strict "no soda" for the girls, but since it was a special occasion we ordered them Shirley Temples, their first time having soda and having "big girl" drinks. They were a little put off by the fizziness, so they did not drink much, but they felt very sophisticated having them!


The Bean has been very mom focused lately and she and daddy have been having a few issues, but they really had a great time together today! The Bean is a carb queen like her mom, as you can see!

An interior shot of Magnolias.

There were several beach balls flying around the dancing tent at the Key West Fest, as all of the people who had been there drinking wine since 11 am danced to an excellent Jimmy Buffet cover band. For those who don't know, Dad is a HUGE Buffet fan, and he has converted the girls (I counterprogram them with Coldplay and Death Cab for Cutie, and so far they manage to do well with all, but I worry that some day their heads are going to explode). The girls can sign all, and I mean all, Buffet songs. They had fun dancing with around with Mom and Dad and did not seem to notice the somewhat odd behavior of some of the more intoxicated adults around them, thank goodness!

It was 96 degrees outside so we packed plenty of water to keep hydrated! Here is the Bean looking for some.

There was a clown there painting faces and tatoos, as you will notice in the pictures throughout. She did a GRRRRRREAT job with the Moo's tiger face! Thanks, Sparkle!!!

Oops, out of place pic! This is an exterior shot of Magnolias.

Breaux Vineyards is the largest winery on the east coast. It was founded by a Louisiana family and they currently harvest over 400 tons of grapes a season, at least according to Dave, our hayride driver. The girls just like them because the label has a crawdad on it!


Here's the band at work.

This older girl was thrilled that the Moo got a tiger face too and insisted on having her picture taken with her!

The Bean opted for a more understated butterfly on her arm.


Here she is trying to make up her mind if she likes it or not.

It's HOT!!!!!!

Becoming a tiger . . .


Sparkle is awesome!

The sand areas were awesome too, although the sand was very HOT!

We took a hay ride around the vineyard and got to see the whole operation -- very impressive!

A partial view of the grounds and the crowd.

Weekend Fun

Not much to report from over the weekend. We have done a lot of relandscaping of the front yard, and the girls recently started a garden in the back. The corn that they planted is coming up very nicely, although the birds have been eying it in a suspicious manner. Dad, the Moo, and the Bean decided to take matters into their own hands and built a scarecrow. I'm not sure what the neighbors think about it, but I think it's adorable and the birds are keeping their distance! Dad also worked hard to give the front yard more pizazz. We pulled out all of the detested holly bushes using a cable and the CR-V, and have replaced them with large potters filled with Canna plants, which supposedly endure direct sunlight very well and blossom into salmoney-orange blooms (see picture above). Dad built up a half moon shaped border of natural stone around the each of the planters, which flank the front steps, and filled the interior with gravel. I would take pictures and post them but it is pouring rain! We were watching TV after dinner but rain is interfering with the reception (the Bean asked, "Why is the rain antagonizing the TV?") so we are watching Bambi. It is fun to see the girls enjoy movies that were my favorites when I was little, although I wish Bambi's mom had met with a less unfortunate end.

Other than that, not much to report. We did a lot of swimming this week, twice at C's house and yesterday at pool birthday party for the one year daughter of some friends of the family. The girls have progressed in their swimming to the point where we don't even really need to be in the pool with them, although the Bean is still not quite to the point where I f eel comfortable not being there next to her. She has made tremendous progress, however, and the Moo is pretty much self sufficient in the water. They had a wonderful time at the party, and Daddy got to stay home and work on his course. He is one class short of finishing up his degree, and we are finally at the point with the girls where we think he will be able to find the time and the QUIET he needs to get the work done. It's a writing class, and Dad is a very good writer but he has convinced himself that he is not, so it is a struggle for him so far. He is doing great though, and just needs to get through the next few weeks. Go Dad!!

Our anniversary is coming up on the 21st, and Dad has made some great arrangements. We will be attending the Breaux Vineyards Key West Fest featuring (beyond the wine!) a Jimmy Buffet cover band. Dad has already indoctrinated the girls on Buffet, so they are very excited. I am surrounded by parrotheads!! After the festival we go to Magnolias on the Mill in Purcelville, a great place that is not really a kid restaurant, but when you go there at 5 pm it doesn't really matter!

I went in to work for a few hours this afternoon (fewer than I should have but longer than I wanted) but am now just enjoying the cozy feeling of being inside during a thunderstorm, watching a movie with my little family. Hope everyone had a weekend as nice as ours, that all the pregnant ladies are doing well, and that Great Grandma and Uncle Daymond are doing well and recuperating nicely.

More Bug Ickiness

So today we had another milestone -we got our first official notice of lice from one of the girl's classrooms. In this case it is the Moo's JK room; there was one case documented so they are inspecting all of the children and letting the parents know. The Moo was clean, thank goodness, but she was curious about lice and what they are. I explained that they are little bugs and they are found on your scalp. The whole idea horrified her but she was apparently thrown by some of the new vocabulary, as she told me very passionately, "Mommy, I don't want to have Lysol on my scallop!!!"

4th of July Weekend Musings

It suddenly occurred to me that I have not updated this blog in awhile, so I am taking a not very well deserved break from "spring" cleaning (a few months late and I have not gotten very far) to post. We have had a very busy last few weeks since returning from vacation, and I was out of town for work for a few days, so I haven't been very vigilant at checking my email or the blogs. There has been a flurry of news, both good and bad, during my online absence, and I apologize to everyone for not responding as quickly as I could have. I really appreciate everyone's efforts to keep us in the loop. Hopefully both Uncle Daymond and Great Grandma are continuing to recover -- they are part of the girls' prayers every night, as are all of you. It has been a bittersweet last two weeks for the Moo as her fiancee C has stopped attending Beantree (his mother has decided to stay home for awhile and they have a million things planned for the summer) so we have had several playdates to try and compensate. These pictures are from our trip to see Wall-E, which the Moo and C enjoyed but the Bean was less than enthralled by (five seems to be a pretty good cut off age -- it is an adorable but slightly dark movie, and the themes are a little too sophisticated for a three year old mind -- at least, the Bean's three year old mind). We also went and played miniature golf with C on Friday. Of course I forgot the camera, which is a shame, as the results were quite
hilarious. Both girls wanted to use their clubs more as croquet mallets, and the Bean would hit the ball once or twice, and then pick it up and throw it in the hole. We had a lot of fun though!
Yesterday was supposed to be our big cleaning day but I ended up going into work for a few hours -- usually there are two of us in my office who do what I do, but my coworker is off on language training (she is pregnant with twins and moving to Japan!) and her replacement won't come until the end of the August, so I am trying to pick up a lot of slack on a part time schedule. I have actually toyed with the idea of going back to work full time as I have been struggling to make sure everything is done and done well. When I called Grandpa D and Grandma L on my way into work to check on them, though, Grandpa D reminded me that you only get so many weekends with your children, especially when they are little. So, I will try to suck it up and get through August, and hopefully things will calm down after school starts up again.

The Bean seems to have completely recovered from her tic trauma and is finally done with all of her medicine. Her teachers noted that she was extremely and uncharacteristically quiet over the past few weeks, but she has since recovered and is back to her bubbly self. She is chatting more and more now, and is starting to demand the attention that her older sister is usually able to usurp. The upside of that is that she is starting to reveal that she has absorbed a lot more knowledge than we previously realized, so it has been nice to see her give the Moo a run for her money, despite the fact that the jockeying for attention is not always pleasant. We went on our family walk yesterday and she pointed out a flower to me. I noted that there was a bug on the flower, and she looked me and said "Of course, Mommy. That's because he wants the delicious nectar."

Dad is doing great, and recently got a glowing performance appraisal and nice raise. Yeah, Dad! Not much else to report on other members of the family: Ruby the crested gecko and Hani & Pizza the fish are still alive by some miracle and we remain a dog free household despite the girl's best efforts and pleading. I just do not feel capable of being responsible for one more living thing at this point in my life. Maybe once the fish finally pass on . . . but don't tell the girls that, as I don't want to have little piscine assassins on my hands!