Greetings From Bufordsburg

Happy New Year!

Can you believe it's 2012? Time is going way too fast!

Here's hoping for a quick return to warm weather.

Be back soon to complete the 2011 recap.

2011 - A Recap Pt. 2

So now we've moved on to April. The weather here got warm quickly, and the girls started their softball season early in the month. Both of them love to play, thankfully, and this year they really started building their skills.

For spring break, we made our first visit to Atlantis in the Bahamas. It was gorgeous and warm. While there, we chartered a fishing boat and took the kids fishing 'for real'. Or so I'm told. Demonboy loved it. The girls enjoyed it, but B decided that she's not terribly fond of boats. Whatever the verdict, we couldn't beat the weather.

 

We arrived home the day before Easter, but luckily the Easter bunny didn't miss us.Lots of eggs to color and then hunt for. A nice, relaxing day.

May:

Demonboy made his Holy Communion. Grandma Barb came to visit for the ceremony and was able to stay for a few days. Demonboy wasn't thrilled with the whole experience, and once again, a picture with tears. At least he's wearing real pants, and not his usual sweats. Maybe that's why he's crying...

Shortly thereafter, Mom escaped to Vegas with a couple of good friends. Too much eating and gambling. A great weekend.

The end of the month brought the annual Memorial Day parade. All three kids participated - Demonboy with Cub Scouts, and the girls with their softball team. The girls even got to ride in their coach's old convertible. They were so happy that only a few girls showed up so they didn't have to walk!

Every year when I attend this parade it reminds me of how fortunate I am to live in such a nice town. Everyone in town for the weekend attends, and it seems that we know everyone. And then there's the candy. What's a parade without candy?

June:

In April, the girls joined a group at school called "Girls On The Run", which trained them for a 5k run, while promoting positive self-esteem and character building. After training for 2 months, their 5k was the first week in June. The whole family participated - even me, with NO training. I beat the girls, thankyouverymuch.

That's a friend of Db's. I told his mom I'd keep him in my sights the whole time. What I didn't know is the kid is a jackrabbit. He ran the WHOLE RACE, and I had to keep up with him. No amount of begging would make him walk or slow down. Something about needing to go to the bathroom. I even contemplated asking one of the homeowners along the route to borrow their bathroom, but I was unable to form words by that point.

Next up in June was moving up day! The girls were so psyched to be moving to middle school. Now they're cool. And let's not forget that school was out for the summer. Win-win!

That same weekend, John & Vic came to visit. The girls did a bit of this:

While the boys allegedly golfed in obnoxiously loud outfits. I have no proof of this, however, except for this photo:

There was something mentioned about winning, but I can't be sure. If John sends me the photos, I'll be happy to include those right here:

**

2011 - A Recap

Since we've been conspicuously absent for this year, I thought a little year-end recap might be in order. For all 3 of you still reading, that is...

January:

The year started with a bang for Terry, who, with the assistance of his good friend Mr. Jack Daniels, had an 'incident' involving a climbing pole during an Adventure Guides camping trip. This fun weekend was followed by 4 days in the local hospital. He was very happy to have a few nights away from home, as you can see.

Later in the month, Eileen and I did the Romp To Stomp Breast Cancer 5k Snowshoe event. It was cold, but fun.

A very quiet month, thankfully.

February:

After a lifetime of avoiding it, the Travis family finally learned to ski. The kids and T absolutely loved it. As for me, my most memorable moment was during my lesson, where I skidded down the hill on my backside while screaming like a banshee because I couldn't stop. I was 'rescued' by our 17 year-old instructor who could barely hide his laughter. Not one of my finer moments.

Our first Pinewood Derby. Terry Demonboy worked tirelessly on that car, but victory was not ours. Yes, that's Demonboy crying because he didn't win. We really need to work on that kid.

Demonboy continued with hockey.

And the girls attended their last grade school Father/Daughter dance.

March:

We enrolled the girls in swim lessons at Lifetime, to try and get them ready for summer swim season. And because we needed to get out of the house a little.

The Lowdon's got Ripley, an adorable golden doodle. This event has spurred more conversation in our house than almost any other in 2011. The kids AND T want a dog. Mom doesn't want another kid. Regggie the fat attitudnal cat will just have to do for now.

It snowed. And the kids discovered that mom was a great snowball target while waiting for the bus.

One evening we returned from dinner out to discover 2 of our 3 CO2 alarms going off. They're 7 years old, so I assumed they were bad. I called a contractor friend to ask what I should do. He called the fire department, who ordered us out of the house. They came down the street with sirens blaring and lights blazing, and went into the house in full hazmat gear. My house, of course, was a total mess. And they went into every room. I was beyond mortified. After 20 minutes, they declared that my CO2 detectors were dead.Thankyouverylittle.  At least we provided some entertainment for our volunteer fire department members. You're welcome.

After that, I was glad to see March come to an end.

Yes! We're alive!

Sorry it's been so long!

The Crazy that is 9

 
 
During dinner last night, I told K that she didn't have to finish her steak, as mommy had (as usual) turned it into a substance slightly resembling shoe leather. She begged me not to throw it in the garbage, since "people in Japan don't have food". I explained that we couldn't send our cooked steaks to Japan, but she insisted that we not waste it, hoping that maybe daddy would like to finish it for her when he got home.

Nice kid, no?

This morning, she came into my bathroom while I was brushing my teeth to do the annual almost-spring begging ritual. "Mommy it's going to be 60 degrees today. Can I PLEAAAAAAASE wear these? (holding up a very wrinkled pair of white capris). I explained that it might be 60 degrees at 2pm, but at waiting-for-the-bus-time it was going to be 42. So no go on the capris.

The next three minutes or so sounded like this: "But IT"S NOT FAIR! Waah Waah Waah. IT'S NOT FAIR! Waah Waah Waah!  IT'S NOT FAIR! Waah Waah Waah! Waah Waah Waahhhhhhhhhh! I had to push her out of my bathroom and point her in the direction of her bedroom. I could her her wailing all the way back to her room.

Ten minutes later I walked by the kids' bedrooms to get them downstairs for breakfast, and noticed K sitting cross-legged on her bed, still wearing her pj bottoms and crazy unbrushed hair. She told me she simply wasn't going to school, because IT"S NOT FAIR!  I calmly explained that if she didn't get her butt dressed, she was going to be the only kid on the school bus in pj bottoms and crazy hair. In the end I had to push her over to the dresser and find her a pair of pants to wear. Which she complained about.

Parenting is such a fun rollercoaster some days.

 

Welcome 2011

 

Wishing you and yours a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011.  May all your dreams come true.

History

 

T's Bushe, circa 1940. She's about 22 here.

When she came to visit us for Christmas, my MIL kindly brought with her a stack of old pictures for me to scan. Most of the photos were older ones, featuring grandparents and great grandparents. I scanned all 100 or so of them, with the intent to put them into an album for my kids. And their kids.

Recently I offered to take a family photo for a friend. She was happy to let me take the kids' photos, but said she didn't want to be in the picture, because she is never happy with the way she looks in photos. That response bothered me as a mom. As I told her, when I look back at old family photos and see my relatives and ancestors, I'm not being critical. I may be making fun of some of the 'fashions' (1970s and 80s anyone?), but I'm always thrilled to see the history. And fascinated to see people I only knew/know as elderly as young, vibrant and happily smiling at the camera. I told her our children want to see us in their photos. They want to look back at their history and see us as younger versions of ourselves. I mean, who of us actually remembers how our parents looked when we were 2?

Then I started looking at my year of photos for 2010. I took a lot of pictures. Mostly of my kids and their activities. I tried to cover it all - all the highlights and interesting things we did this year. But there is something very obviously missing in most of the photos. Me. And I think that's terrible. I need to do a much better job of walking the talk.

So for 2011, my first resolution is to take more pictures of my kids. This time, however, I'm going to hand the camera to someone else and be in a few of the photos. I think they'll thank me for it when they're older. Or not. You know how kids are...

One of the funnier photos my MIL shared with me:

 

T's grandfather. Sometime in the 70s?

Merry Belated Christmas

               

Waiting patiently to open gifts. Its pretty much the only time of the year they'll do whatever I say.

So my goal was to blog every day in December. Then I decided that I'd just post the highlights. Now I'm just happy to get a few shots up of the holiday events. And I can't figure out why I'm not losing weight...

Lots of things going on here. A visit from Grandma, a trip into the city to see the Rockettes. A snowstorm that delayed poor Grandma from returning home on time.

I'll post more photos in the near future. For now, I'll leave you with one of my favorite things from this Christmas.

 

Dec. 1st

 
This is Eddie the elf, sent to watch over our family for Santa.

Today we were joined by Eddie the Elf. If you've read "Elf on a Shelf", you know that Eddie is a not-so-secret spy for Santa, who flies home to the big guy every night to report on our nices and naughties.

A few weeks ago, K told me that there was no such thing as Santa. She was certain because she saw gifts in my closet that she believed she had received. I informed her that while she did get those same games, the boxes on my shelf were gifts for her cousins. She was still quite dubious after my explanation, but made her Christmas list for Santa anyway. I really thought she'd lost her belief.

I was bummed.

This morning, we spotted Eddie sitting on a light near the kitchen. K was so excited - screaming "we got an elf! We got an elf!" She was actually jumping up and down, she was so happy. She hadn't read the book/rules yet, but she knew that somehow, that little guy sitting on the light was a GOOD thing. From SANTA himself. And that thrilled her.

I told them all that I would find the book during the day, and we'd read it together after school. That wasn't enough for her, so when I stopped at Starbucks while driving them to school, K wouldn't let me get out of the car until I promised to ask the Sbux folks if they knew the rules for the visiting elf. I came back with a little more info, but apparently she spent the whole school day asking everyone if they had an elf, and what the rules were.

As soon as they could get their coats and backpacks off after school, Demonboy read us the book. We learned that you must name the elf right away. K suggested a few names, but we had to have Daddy's opinion too, to be fair. She immediately called him at work, but he was too busy to talk to her. Undaunted, K barely let him get in the door at dinner time before she began excitedly explaining the situation and asking for his vote.

I noticed both K and B staring at the elf several times today. (B swears he moved his legs.) I can't figure out if they're telling him their Christmas list, or just checking him out, but they're psyched about him being here.

And that joy makes mommy really really happy.

 

Polish Day

 

In their Social Studies classes, the girls are currently working on "heritage reports", which are simply a presentation of information on a country their ancestors hail from. K chose England and B chose Poland. Both are completing 99% of the work in school, including their presentation materials. (This makes mommy very happy indeed.)

About 5:30 yesterday evening, B informed me that her presentation was scheduled for today, and that she'd like to bring in kolackys for the class. Kolackys, if you don't know, are polish cookies filled with fruit preserves and dusted with powdered sugar. Very yummy, but not something I have sitting around the house. So when she told me that she wanted the cookies, I did what every great mom does - I rolled my eyes and explained that I would go to the grocery store when Dad got home from work, but not to expect anything. When she didn't give up on the idea, I called T to see if there might be a polish bakery on his way home. Given the time of day, we both knew that wasn't going to happen. So I also asked him to stop at the store and see if they might have some (saving me the trip) (another nomination for Mother of the Year).

When T arrived home, he didn't have any kolackys. Instead, he had all the ingredients to make them. I went to run an errand, fully expecting to be pressed into cookie-making duty when I returned. 20 minutes later I got home to find him working up a storm in the kitchen. He had found a recipe, made the dough, and called his mom to verify the recipe's accuracy. He then proceeded to roll dough, fill cookies, and bake them. He even made 4 different varieties. Without burning or ruining a single cookie.

T missed dinner, and missed his scheduled workout. But B had freshly-baked kolackys for her Poland report.

How many kids can say their dad stayed up late to make cookies for their class report?  What a great guy.