Weekend fun

This will have to be a quick post because we have to go watch the second-to-last episode of Lost. (Noah is totally beside himself with excitement and anticipation.) Just wanted to share a few photos of our jam-packed weekend.

It started with Calvin's last soccer match of the season.



Calvin liked soccer, for the most part, this spring. Well, he liked the drills and learning the skills and playing Sharks and Minnows, but he didn't so much love the actual soccer matches. He did love keeping score though.



My favorite part of soccer is seeing all the kids in their shin guards and cleats. So sweet.



They ended the season with a little mini World Cup. Calvin's team was Italy (his pick). They beat Germany but lost to Spain. Oh well. Each kid still came home with a cool penant in Calvin's favorite color and a patch for, I don't know what, but Calvin was excited.

Showing off his goods:




Later we had some friends over and grilled in the backyard on Noah's new BBQ (an early Father's Day gift). The weather was beautiful.

The grillmaster:

Calvin and pal Lily tried out some tropical umbrella straws.


Me and V relaxing:

Hippotherapy!

This week, we had Violet's second hippotherapy session. It's a kind of therapeutic horseback riding that other families with girls with Rett syndrome have used and found somewhat helpful. So we figured we'd give it a try. We thought it might help strengthen Violet's upper body and core. And it's also supposed to help her get the rhythm of walking by feeling the horse's movement. Plus, we just thought it might be fun! She loves animals and likes to be outside and revels in the attention (don't we all?). And, it seems like she has SO many therapy appointments all the time, we just thought that she (and we) might enjoy something a little more "normal." You know, something any little girl would like.

Last week was her first session and she was a little iffy on it, at best. But this time, her helpers were ready for her and had some cute kids' music playing, which always (well, almost always) helps to calm her. I think it worked. Or maybe she just got what was going on this time. Or maybe she was just having a zen morning. Who knows? But she was all smiles, which always makes me happy, too!

Getting ready to ride Dakota, her new favorite horse:




Absorbing a few instructions for her awesome guide, Kristen:


Note that there are three people around her at any given time. They won't let me into the actual stable, or ring, or whatever you call it. (I really don't know much horse lingo, but I am trying to learn.) One person leads the horse, and two others stand on either side to hold Violet. She also has a boppy around her for extra stability and a helmet, just in case. So she's very cozy.

Strolling around the stable:



See how she loved it. She looks so proud of herself:

Mother's Day 2010

Here are a couple of pics of me (yes, I figured it out!) and my kiddos on Mother's Day weekend, 2010.

Overall, it was a lovely day that began with breakfast in bed. I LOVE breakfast in bed, mainly because I love breakfast and I love sleeping in (or at least, I kind of remember sleeping in). I love it even more when it is served by smiling little ones wearing pajamas. My cinnamon toast, tea, and banana were so delicious, I didn't even mind that it was very early (7 a.m.), and that everyone sat and stared at me while I ate. A little unnerving, but still very cute.

I then went downstairs to find some homemade goodies, like this bouquet and card Calvin made for me (see above), and a few other treats. Then I went back to bed (hooray!). Then later we went to Krispy Kreme so everyone else could eat, and I could have breakfast #2.

Later in the day I convinced everyone to go outside for a walk, even though it was freakishly cold for May. Lunch followed at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants--an oldie but a goodie. Then we visited Noah's 96-year-old grandma, who is very loving and a little forgetful (so also an oldie but a goodie, I guess you'd say:). She kept offering Calvin candy even though he'd already had more than enough. I don't think she'd remembered he'd eaten any and I didn't have the heart to remind her. So that kid was on a sugar rush by the time we left.

Back home, we BBQ'd out on Noah's new grill (an early Father's day present) and went to bed early. Lots of food and family time. What more could you want?

Is this working?

Hi! I have been thinking a lot (too much) about how to start this blog, and then I decided it was better to just start the thing, so here goes...

Welcome to our family blog, a little spot where our family of four can share details and pictures (when I figure out how to upload them!) of our daily goings-on with other friends and family (Hi, Mom!).

First, a little on the name. Yes I know it is a mouthful and even harder to spell, but there is, I promise, a little background story here. One rainy afternoon, my 5-year-old son, Calvin, came up with the idea to make books at home. I wish I could claim this project as some product of my own supermom energy and creativity (like we followed book-making with homemade granola bars and drawing Chinese characters), but it was totally his baby.

Calling them "books" may be overstating it a bit, because they were really just single sheets of paper folded in half and then divided into three sections, covered by flaps and labeled with "B" for beginning, "M" for middle, and "E" for end. Behind each flap, we wrote one part of the story. Come to think of it, a lot of modern authors could really benefit from such a literary setup. It certainly helped me stay focused.

My little "book" featured me in the opening scene making a big pot of spaghetti on the stove. In the middle scene, Ivan, our fluffy white pooch, wanted to taste the spaghetti, so he jumped up to the stove to get a lick. Under the final flap, you see Ivan knocking the pot off the stove and then, well, you the idea: One big spaghetti mess. (This also happens to be the title of the little book.)

Not much of a story, I know. The illustrations aren't much better, because I did them myself. I told Calvin I was really better with words, not pictures, and that I needed an illustrator. But he insisted we needed to just get it done. (He would make a good editor.) So I did the illustrating on my own. I will try to upload a photo once I figure out how to do so--and can bring myself to publicize them.

Anyway, the story was pretty forgettable, but the title stuck. My husband, Noah, really latched on to it, to be honest, and declared it a good catchphrase for our household and our lives. He just thought it aptly described how we are often going about our daily routines, or sometimes making plans for the future or even just the weekend, and things inevitably fall apart, or they just don't go as you expect, or they just get, well, messy--in good ways and bad. It happens a lot when you have little kids, I guess. At least it happens a lot for us.

So now when we are talking to each other and describing our days or telling a story about how we, say, started out a simple car trip to get paper towels with two clean kids, and then someone throws up or has a tantrum (not always the kids!), and we have to stop the car to calm them or change clothes, and then we realize that we don't have extra clothes or wipes or paper towels (!), so we head back home and forget why we ever left anyway.

Or the car won't start and we're pretty sure the battery is dead, and we call AAA thinking they will solve the problem, and then they show up but then can't get the hood open, and then they tell us the problem isn't the dead battery but now it's the fact that we have a stuck hood. And then we get the car towed and the guys have to literally cut through the grill to get the hood open and then rewire the hood release. And oh yeah, they replace your battery for, like, $30, but then it costs more than $1000 for the hood nonsense.

Well, these are examples of stories that often end with one of us sighing and saying that it was "one big spaghetti mess." Welcome to our world.