I know it's been a while since I've blogged. It's been a busy Christmas season for us - busier than previous years, but I'm sure that's just going to increase each year as the boys get older. This year we've had decorating, gift buying, cookie baking, preschool programs, church programs (which Coulson refused to participate in, but thankfully his cousin Lauren did a great job as a last minute stand-in wiseman!), bell-ringing for Salvation Army, cookie swaps and preschool parties. We've had a great time preparing to celebrate Christ's birthday.
I hope you all have a blessed and joyful Christmas or Hannukah!
If you remember my New Year's resolutions from the past 2 years, you'll laugh with me at this link.
I guess it's a hopeless endeavor, but at least I'm not alone.
At Disney World, we went to the Lego store at Downtown Disney. This was a very deliberate and much anticipated shopping trip, as we used the occassion to make the official transition from Duplo to regular Legos for Coulson (and as it turn out, for Charlie also, because now he's not at all interested in his Duplos, but loves to take the hair and hats off the little Lego men). So we got Coulson's first set of Legos there, and now that we're home, my husband has found the urgent need to expand our arsenal of Legos a couple times already. We are having a great time building cars and trucks and buildings - if only the kids would stop getting in the way...
On a related note, Casey and I have also been having fun playing the Lego Batman video game that we rented. Coulson and Charlie are very excited simply to be allowed to watch us play, so I can tell that today isn't going to score strong in the field of excellent parenting :-)
On the passage of time:
What if instead of countries, there were years and I swam to winter so my birthday would come faster.
It took me a while to figure out what he was thinking, but eventually it did make sense.
It's been a while since I've posted, but I thought I'd post some pictures from our recent trip to Disney World (DW).
We spent a few days at DW on our honeymoon and from our observations of the families at the parks and on the buses coming home, we resolved to follow 2 principles for our future family vacations to DW. 1) Don't leave home without a grandparent and 2) Don't take a vacation until the kids are done with afternoon naps. But due to the generosity of my brother, we were able to take a trip to DW that allowed us to follow principle 1, but we would have to abandon principle 2. So yeah, we totally jumped on that opportunity! (Thanks a bunch brother #2!)
We were apprehensive about taking a 2 year old and 4 year old, but overall they did great. No public meltdowns - that's our definition of success!
I'd like to write more about our favorite rides, talking to trash cans, using the "line eraser," Epcot's Food and Wine festival, meeting up with my roommate from college, running into friends from residency, terrifying the kids on rides we thought would be fine (ok, some of the rides we knew were questionable), squishing pennies and so much more, but I don't have the time. Bottom line - we all had a great time!
We had to wait in line for over an hour, with Charlie jumping all over the place (Coulson was in preschool), but we went ahead and voted early. I'll be traveling on Tuesday and Casey might have to be in court (don't get all crazy, it's not malpractice, he treated the victim of a robbery), and we didn't want something to keep us from the polls during this exciting election. (Did I mention that NC is considered a swing state? I've heard reports from NC not only on national news programs, but also on the British news. I love the attention!)
Anyway, early voting is great! If you can't early vote, don't forget to vote on Tuesday. (As if anyone could forget with all the signs and TV commercials;-)
So we went to our church's "Trunk or Treat" the other night. (If you don't know about trunk or treat, click here for some examples, although our church wasn't so elaborate) As I was setting up our stuff, Charlie kept asking for candy and I told him it wasn't time for candy yet.
He replied, "Oh, do we have to sing 'Happy Birthday' first?"
Now that fall has arrived, the boys have been making the transition from flip-flops and sandals to sneakers and socks. Wearing socks of course means washing socks and of course each load of laundry always had a few lonely socks without partners. I figured the other sock got put in another washbasket or, more likely, was still on the floor waiting to be picked up for the next wash day. Slowly my pile of socks-waiting-for-a-partner got bigger and I was noticing that the boys supply of socks was dwindling.
This is where I joke and say that my washing machine must be eating my socks - But it's true!
The other day Coulson was playing around in the laundry room, held up a sock and said "Ewww, look at this icky sock!" Without looking up I replied, "MHmmm, that's nice, Coulson. Put it back in the washer." Later that night, as I was finishing a load of whites, I saw the sock that Coulson had called "icky" and it was still icky. I don't quite remember how I thought to pull back the rubber that surrounds the drum, but I found 15 socks stuck in there! Sadly, not all of them survived my resusitation efforts. So if you have a front-loading washing machine and small feet in your household, please be careful, or it could happen to you!
I got jury summons in the mail today. Unfortunately, it's from my old county of residence, not my new one, so I won't be able to serve. I'm probably the only person in America that is disappointed to be excused from jury duty. The last time I was summoned, I was still nursing Charlie full-time and he never took a bottle. I offered to bring the baby and my mom with me, but they excused me from service. I did get a chance to serve when I lived in Pennsylvania and I thought the whole process was fascinating. In NC, you only have to serve for one day and you only have to go in if they will definitely use you for a trial (you call in the night before for confirmation). In PA, you had to go in for a whole week and wait around until you got chosen for a trial, and some people never got chosen at all. I waited most of the week and then on Thurs morning, I was chosen for a trial that lasted less than a day and a half, including deliberations. (We found the defendant "not guilty.") I loved being in a real courtroom and witnessing a real trial (and now I'm a Law & Order junkie!) It was interesting to see how our justice system works. My father-in-law got to serve on a grand jury once and I was jealous, because that just sounds so important. Sometimes I think I should be a lawyer...
Speaking of civic duties, are you registered to vote? Many states close voter registration this week, so make sure your name is on the list. If you're not sure, you can probably check online. In NC, you can look up your registration here. If you're a NC resident and not already registered in NC (or need to update an address change), you can register and vote at any of the "one-stop" voting sites up to three days before the election.
Today we took the boys to see Thomas. For those of you without preschool aged children, Thomas, as we know him today, is the creation of some marketing genius-turned-millionaire. It's incredible how much Thomas merchandise there is out there - It far surpasses SpongeBob or Dora! You can't simply get a Thomas train and expect it will be the right one. There are at least 5 different Thomas train systems and none of them are compatible with the other systems. And it doesn't stop at train toys. Today I saw hats, lunchboxes, silverware, bed sheets, pillows, games, cups, plates, clothes, etc. And Day Out with Thomas is another scheme they have devised to separate loving families from their hard-earned cash. (Well, this is how I felt when I bought the tickets, but now we are planning a trip to Disney World in a couple weeks and Disney's plan to suck all the money from our wallets is much more devious and greedy, so now Thomas seems almost well priced.) Basically, there is a real train designed as Thomas and it goes around the country (both here in the U.S. and in England) to various railroads and you can buy tickets to ride in one of Thomas' passenger cars. They make it a big thing with other activities to do, complete with a super large gift shop full of Thomas merchandise. This particular Day Out was held at the NC Transportation museum and the Thomas event probably brings in 50 times their usual annual attendance. We've been a couple times before and it's a very interesting museum, not specifically geared towards young children, but interesting enough to hold Coulson's attention if you don't linger too long.
So yes, we forked over the money and we had a great time! Coulson is a mild fan of Thomas - he likes watching the show on rare occasions (it's only on once a week and at 8am, so we're not usually watching TV then) and he can identify Thomas as "the blue one", but we're not really sure about all those other characters. But he enjoys trains in general and has a few Thomas trains for his train table, which we mix and match with trains and tracks from other generic sets. We have a couple Thomas books that he really likes too. And since anything that's on TV is amazingly cool, I knew that Coulson would really dig a Thomas train ride. When I told him this morning what we were doing, he ran around the room jumping up and down, which is really why parents do this stuff, right?
Even Charlie got really into it, which I didn't expect. I told him that we were going to ride on Thomas the train and he responded in his simple "oh" and I assumed he didn't get it. But when we stopped the car to briefly check out a local church's craft bazaar and yard sale, he asked, "I ride with Thomas now?" and then when we got to the parking lot at the railroad an hour later, he asked again. It's funny because he asks these questions with no emotion and always responds to whatever answer I give with his simple "oh." But just the fact that he's asking shows that he has been thinking about it and must be interested. And he's mentioned it a lot since then with cute phrases like, "I ride Domas da tain" and "Domas da tain go dugga dugga too too" (translation: Thomas the train goes chugga chugga choo choo). They also had a 15 minute show with Bob the Builder and Charlie told me "I dance wit Bob da Bidder like dis" and then kicks his feet back and forth (he was sitting in his car seat at the time.) So he had a great time as well.
We also met up our friends from Charlotte since the transportation museum is located half way between Winston and Charlotte (yes, it's near the park where we went camping!) So Coulson and Charlie got to play with their friends. Note the strange anomaly in the picture of all four kids in front of Thomas. For anyone who has every tried to take a picture of more than one child at a time, it won't take you long to marvel at the fact that all four kids are not only looking in the same direction, but also smiling. And we only took 2 shots! For comparison, when I tried to get pictures of the cousins, I took over 30 shots and never got one good shot.
We rode the train and had a nice picnic on the grass under the tree. All the kids got to squish some pennies (a great souvenir for only $0.51, we look for penny squishers anywhere we do something special!) In all, it was a great day. Coulson has already asked to do it again.
