60 Year Anniversary

I love seeing these two together.

After six decades of marriage, they still seem to like each other an awful lot.

I find it both inspiring and reassuring that they've been married nearly twice as long as I've been alive.

Happy Anniversary, Bears!

Airplane Party

I don't know what happened. One minute I was all, "aw, get on outta here with that Martha Stewart crap" and the next I was feverishly browing Pinterest and cheerfully chirping to my husband about scrapbook paper and spray paint.  I think it's the eyelashes.  When Micah blinked up at me through them and said, "Mommy, I want a pwane party," the practical part of my brain sort of dissolved into a puddle of goo.



I mean, come on. Do you see those things? You'd fall for it too.
Instead of "sure, maybe" the words that left my mouth were, "Okay, baby, we'll do that." And so we did.

I wanted to keep it simple and fairly cheap, and something we could put together in our limited free time. I didn't want it to be too fussy, but I wanted to go with the airplane theme. And most of all, I wanted the kids to have something to do OUTSIDE.

We spent the preceding week assembling all the various bits and pieces in the evenings. For a while there, it felt like every night was arts and crafts night in our house. We were either cutting, painting, taping, or gluing SOMETHING. But I think it was worth it, because Micah had a blast.
























Sunday night, as I was bathing Micah, he told me, "Mommy, I wish we could have my party EVERY weekend."

You can't ask for a better endorsement than that.

Birthday Celebration

Micah's birthday fell on Wednesday this year. I didn't want to do too much since his party was set for Saturday, but I still wanted to celebrate. A while back I'd seen a post on Oh Happy Day where the author had made tiny party hats for her kid's miniature animal collection. That gave me the idea to make little hats for Micah's stuffed animals. I grabbed a couple sheets of scapbook paper and spent a couple of nights after the kids went to bed cutting and taping and tying everything together, the sofa littered with tiny scraps of paper and tissue and string.

(The best part of making the hats? Trying them on the cats.)

On Tuesday night, Todd slipped by the store and grabbed a GIANT Cars balloon. When Micah woke up on his birthday morning, his animals were all lined up on our stairs waiting for him and he had a huge balloon in his spot at the kitchen table, right next to his favorite breakfast of cinnamon rolls.

Micah loved it.









You should have seen me sneaking all these guys out of his room while he slept.
I was like a ninja. I needed theme music or something.

The Annual Rocking Chair Photo

Apparently he's alternating between smiling and not smiling. Also, MY BABY, WHERE DID HE GO?

Pre-K, Week 3

This morning, Todd signed Micah up for soccer.  It's a program called SoccerShots and it's held Wednesday afternoons in the gym at his daycare for the next 14 weeks.  He's been asking to play for a while now. Several of his daycare friends are enrolled, and his cousin Daniel, who is in first grade this year, plays with a local group.  Daniel is actually really talented at soccer, and I think Micah's been paying attention whenever we're talking about how Daniel's games or practices are going.

I would have preferred karate, since that doesn't lead to a life without Saturdays, but we'll see what happens.  Today's the first day (yeah, nothing like waiting until the very last minute), and Micah seemed excited when I dropped him off this morning.

This is our third week of Pre-K.  I wish I could say that I have some sense of how things are going but I really don't.  Micah's already writing more clearly.  He's gotten better at recognizing words.  He's been drawing a lot more.  But he's also been more defiant at home and less happy about going to school.  He occasionally asks to go back to his old class. He told me the other day he sat in the window and watched his old friends playing outside without him. 

I can't really get a sense of his teacher or of what the class is doing.  She seems nice, but the only time I see her is in the morning, when things are completely crazy in the classroom.  She leaves at 3:30 and another teacher takes over, one who never has any information on how Micah's doing, what his day was like, or if there were any problems.  I ask Micah what he did, but I rarely get much more than, "I built a big tower."  Three-year-olds, man.

Right now I'm just waiting.  It's only been three weeks and it's been a huge change for him (and for me).  I hope I'll get to know his teacher and his classmates a little better, or at least get a feel for how the class is structured.  I'm trying to accept the transition from Preschool to a class with more organization and less feedback.  Next week they're supposed to start sending home "classroom connection" folders that cover what the kids are doing and include activities for us to do at home.  I'm hoping that will help me, because right now I feel like I'm dropping my kid off at a black box.  I have no idea what goes on inside or how it works.