I Didn't Fall Off the Face of The Planet...

Just moved our family several hundred miles...

Yes, you read that right.  We have moved - to a new state no less.  It has been a whirlwind.

There has been so much that has happened in our lives since the last time that I posted and I have so many feelings and things that I want to share with anyone who may still be reading this (rarely updated) blog.

But I guess rather that backdating and trying to get the space caught up, I should start with the most recent and biggest things.

Towards the end of 2013, Derek started being "courted" by some recruiters.  This had happened several times during our lives in Michigan, but this time Derek was ready for a career change.

After a couple of grueling months of interviews and a couple of very stressful weeks with 3 on site interviews in 3 different states (and the stress of the timing of the offers that followed), Derek accepted a position with a company in Wisconsin.  (Sorry, MG, Cali didn't win...)

The next weekend, we went on a house hunting trip and found a house we fell in love with.  And after downsizing from our house in GA to fit into our house in MI, we somehow decided to buy an even smaller house in WI - but it has some really cool features and it is in an awesome neighborhood with a great school district, so I feel like it was the right move for us.

Days later, we had our house in show ready condition (which was a HUGE success considering the fact that Carder was living in the house during the time we were preparing to list).  We priced ourselves competitively as we knew we didn't want to sit on the market indefinitely.  The house hit the market and we had a TON of interest - 15 or so showings in the first few days.  2 offers in the first 48 hours. 

And before I knew it, Derek had left for Wisconsin and Carder and I were left to pack up the rest of our lives in Michigan over the next 2 weeks.  We had a few play dates and also got to spend some quality time together having fun.  I spent naps and after bedtime sorting through boxes and rounding up things to be donated and posting things that wouldn't be making the cut onto Craigslist.  The movers arrived last Monday to pack up our belongings in to boxes, the truck was loaded on Tuesday.  By last Wednesday, we were all in Wisconsin.

We are currently living in a hotel and won't be moving into our house until mid-May.  That kind of stinks, but it could be worse I suppose.

During the last week, we have spent time finding our way around our new city and doing some fun things.  I have spent nap time getting the things done that you have to do when you move to a new state and buy a new house.

I will probably try to do some updates over the next week or so (before I am back to spending naps and after bedtime getting settled into our new house).  Please check back to see the other things that have been happening in our lives lately.

Pumpkins 2013

Last year, October was a cold and rainy month and it was hard for us to find the right weekend to go to a pumpkin patch.  This year, the weather has been much more cooperative!  Saturday would have been a gorgeous day (over 70 degrees and sunny) to have gone, but we were having a garage sale and were tied to the house. 

 

Instead, we chose to go on Sunday.  The weather was cooler and much more fall-like.  It was overcast, so I missed the sunshine, but we still had a great time.

 

We went to one of the local Pumpkin Patches that advertised pumpkins, apples, a farm stand, a corn maze, and a petting zoo.  They had lambs, pigs, and chickens for the kids to attempt to pet, so we knew there would be at least one activity that Carder would love.  After a couple of visits to the sheep pen, Carder got to pet the lambs.  The pigs were quite lazy and spent most of their time snoring, although they did get up and route in the mud for some apples before we left.  But the real prize of the day was the chickens.  This was the first time Carder had seen chickens that were not in a pen.  After watching another little boy try, he spent the longest time chasing the chickens around the yard trying to catch them.  I wowed him with my ability to get close to the chickens by showing him to stand very still and hold an empty corn cob.  He was amazed that the chickens came right up to try to peck off the corn.  But apparently tricking the chickens isn't as fun as catching them because he went right back to running after them.

 

After seeing the animals for a while, Derek decided that it was time to try out the fresh pumpkin donuts and hot apple cider.  Delicious.

 

And then we tried to get Carder to pose for pictures in the pumpkins.  He was much more interested in the donuts and cider than in smiling at the camera.  So we I finally gave up on the perfect pumpkin picture and instead we searched for the perfect pumpkins.  We gave Carder free reign in picking out the ones he wanted and ended up with 4 pumpkins - a couple of really big ones, a medium one, and a small one.

 

Carder wasn't the biggest fan of the "scarecrows" - life sized hay stuffed clothing with milk jug heads...he eyed them suspiciously for quite a while and never got too close to them.  Those painted on smiles didn't fool him for one second.  He finally did get close enough to inspect that they were really stuffed with hay.

 

Another super fun activity that we didn't expect was a maze out of square hay bales for the smaller kids.  Carder was still a little young to understand the concept of thinking his way through the maze, so I quickly abandoned that idea and just let him play as he saw fit.  This consisted of climbing up onto the hay, jumping from bale to bale, jumping off the hay...He would throw his arms in the air and victoriously shout "I MADE IT" and other times he would tell us he was "working on his house"...

  

We were able to get this great family picture in the hay maze.  It is probably one of my favorite pictures of the 3 of us together.  

 

Since Carder is now my "little helper", I knew that carving pumpkins would be a challenge this year as I was sure he would want to have his turn to cut the pumpkins.  I found a great set of stickers at the dollar store that I thought might be a good solution.  When I first bought them, I thought that we would still carve a pumpkin and just let Carder help to clean out the inside.  But the stickers were such a success that I decided to just let him do all 4 pumpkins in stickers and we won't be carving one this year.  (We have the Styrofoam one that I carved last year that we will light up on Halloween night so I am totally fine with this plan.)

Here is Carder with his pumpkins.  And yes, he has a "mustache".  He had done Face Time with Grandpa earlier and had to have one...

Wordless Wednesday - Shawshank Edition

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - Shawshank Edition

 

I am sure you have seen Shawshank Redemption, right?  If not, you should.  Great movie...

Well, we are beginning to think that Carder is like Andy Dufresne, but instead of trying to break out of jail, it is apparently the day care.

His favorite hobby is totin' sand out of the exercise yard a handful at a time.  Only he seems to end up with it in his shoes.  

And brings it home.

And dumps it out all over the couch or the floor...

Here is photographic evidence:

My God at the sand!  Seriously, do they have any left at the play ground?

One of these days the warden will call is and tell us he vanished like a fart in the wind and that they found a big hole in the wall behind a Sesame Street poster...

Wordless Wednesday - Sleeping With Daddy Edition

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - Sleeping with Daddy Edition

 

Since I get up before the boys, I often get to marvel at the two of them sleeping.  I find it really interesting that they are often in similar positions...here are just a couple of recent examples...

 

 

(Also, you may or may not have noticed that I posted quite a few backdated posts yesterday...I am trying my hardest to get this space caught up!)

 

 

 

 

Cherry Picking Is So Much Fun

Among his other ventures, my boss owns quite a bit of farmland and he has a few cherry orchards.  Since he is a super nice guy, he sets a date each year there is a cherry crop and allows us to come pick cherries with our families.

There weren't any cherries last year, so we were pretty excited to get to pick cherries this year.

Carder was quite excited to get to pick cherries, too.  He was a very good cherry picker.  He loved climbing the ladder to get the ones that were very high up and he really didn't want to stop picking even when we had more than enough!

The farm manager even drove his tractor up so that Carder could ride on it.  I think he prefers the John Deere tractors with the cabs (like his Grandpa's) because he refused to ride on the tractor.  He did sit on our laps and pretend to drive, though.

Eatin' Watermelon

It's Watermelon Season!!!  OK, so it is too early for local watermelons, but the grocery store melons are starting to look pretty good.

We bought one today and I sliced it up while Carder napped.  We went outside after naptime and I let him have his very first slice of melon.

He wasn't quite sure what he thought of it at first, but it didn't take him too long to get the hang of it and to be burying his face up to his ears in sweet, sticky, juicy goodness.

A Trip to The Zoo

After battling the crowds of the festival for days, we had finally had enough.  On Saturday morning, we decided that we were going to head out of town and go to the zoo in Grand Rapids.  It was a very last minute decision, but in retrospect it was the best decision we could have made.

We called Derek's parents to see if they minded if we crashed at their house that night and invited them to go to the zoo with us.  And then we invited Derek' sister (who currently has a foster child) to drive up from Indiana to join us.  Amazingly, it worked out great.

We swung by to pick up Derek's parents and drop off the dogs.  Although we thought Carder would nap in the car, he slept all of 20 minutes.  Oh well.

We got to the zoo late in the afternoon but it was well worth the trip.  Carder was much more animated watching the animals this year.  I am not sure what his favorite animal was - but the penguins, monkeys, birds, and bears were all very interesting. 

The heat did make some of the animals lethargic and sleepy.  There were several times that Carder would call out to one of the animals to request that they wake up.

After the zoo we all went out to dinner together and the boys enjoyed jumping around in the backseat of my van while they waited for the adults to finish dinner.

Watching the Bears swimming in the pool and wishing we had a place to swim, too!




Family Photo on the Bear Statue

"Monkey. Come Down Monkey!"



 

4th of July

As I mentioned before, we live in a town where there is a huge festival around the 4th of July.  This makes getting around our town challenging to say the least.

We spent the morning of the 4th checking out a new beach close to our house and just hanging around.  After lunch and nap, we drove out to a local lighthouse.  Our intention was to hike through the woods, but we ended up playing on the shore in the rocks and the muck.  Carder even took off his shoes and waded in with us.

 

 

We had thought we would head downtown to have a beer at a local open air restaurant and then to watch a parade.  We fought the crowds on our bicycles to get to the restaurant and when we got there Carder wanted NOTHING to do with any of our plans.  He refused to eat dinner and didn't want to sit still for us to have dinner or our (much deserved after battling the crowds to get there) beer.  With about 30 minutes to go before the parade was scheduled to start, we decided that perhaps and event which required Carder sitting still was not going to happen.  We asked if he wanted to stay and see fire trucks and police cars and floats or if he wanted to go home and he decided he wanted to go home.

 

So, back through the parade crowd we went.

 

Once home, Carder played with the our next door neighbor's friends child (A) for a long time.  And then he ate his dinner, took a bath, and went to bed.

 

We listened to the booms of firecrackers being set off by our neighbors and patted Carder back to sleep a couple of times when he woke up from the noise.  Once it was dark, Derek and I settled in at the front window to watch the real fireworks that are shot off over the bay downtown (which we can see most of from our house).  As we listened to the child next door ooh and aah over the first few explosions, I looked at Derek and said "Does hearing A next door make you want to wake Carder up?"

 

So, we went in and gently woke Carder up.  We brought him out and he sat in my lap at the front window covered in a blanket and watched his first fireworks show.  We did try to walk next door to watch the show with our neighbors, but A had fallen and hit his head and was crying and I think it upset Carder a little bit.  A was fine, though, and kept coming over during the show to say Hi to Carder through our window.

 

Carder loved the fireworks and has talked about how loud they were and the shape of them for days.  There are more fireworks on the closing day of the festival, so we may have to wake him up for those, as well!

Air Show

We live in a town that has a large festival around the 4th of July.  We live downtown, so we have the blessing (or curse?) of being involved in festival activities whether we want to be or not.  And, things that are part of our normal routine are wildly upset by the location of the festival and the large influx of people.

One of the normal activities is an Air Show.  The planes normally practice the Friday before the festival begins.  Lucky us - the planes fly RIGHT OVER OUR HOUSE during their practice and during the show.  We can see quite a bit of the activity from our yard.  And, loud planes buzzing around overhead tend to wake up sleeping children.  (As do the not one but TWO fireworks shows in the festival, but that is a post for another day...)

I wasn't a bit surprised when the practice flights woke Carder up this year.  The difference was that this year, he knew what an airplane was and he was very excited to see the planes.  As the planes would fly near us, he would just giggle in excitement.

Watching the Planes Practice on Friday Afternoon

For the real deal Air Show on Saturday, we planned on waking him up from his nap in time to walk towards Lake Michigan to see the actual Air Show.  Although there was a grandstand set up for this type of activity, we skipped that and opted to throw out a blanket on the grass a few blocks from our house.  There was a road separating us from the action (FAA rules and all) but it was still a wonderful place to watch the show and we didn't have to arrive hours early to get a seat!

Carder was super excited to watch the planes flying even closer and in formation.  There were a couple of different types of planes that flew in the Air Show.  I believe his favorites were the smaller planes as they weren't quite as loud and there were more of them to watch.  The planes performed loops and dives and even had colored smoke that was turned on and off at specific times during the performance.

The larger planes were a bit louder than the smaller ones and the sound reverberated over the water making it seem even louder.  When they started performing, he began to get a little apprehensive, but still seemed to enjoy the show.

Carder and I as we watch planes flying towards us over Lake Michigan

One of the Formations by the Smaller Planes

Even though he was a bit timid about the larger planes, he still loved them.



Our Air Show Viewing Area on the Lawn

Counting

Carder has this game he likes to play - he likes to count to 3 and then we are supposed to fake cry.  For a long time, he skipped the "one" and would just say "2 3, Mommy".  I am sure we perpetuated this dropping of the one because we would pretend to cry and then say "2 3, Carder".

We began making an effort to always say "1 2 3, Carder".  And we began making him say his one if he wanted us to cry and this has resulted in consistent use of the number one.

The week befor last, when my parents were here, we were stacking blocks and counting them.  When it came time for "6 7 8", he said the numbers in the right order with us (not after us).

This Monday, during his bath time, he decided to stick all of his bath toys down my shirt.  We took them out one at a time and counted them.  He counted to 3 and then stopped.  I said 4 and prompted for the next number.  We ran out of toys from my shirt at 7, but I still asked what came next.  And from there, he counted all the way to 10.

His pediatrician said that by age 3 children can typically count to 3.  I understand he skipped 4 so this doesn't count as all the way to 10.  And he wasn't "counting objects" for every single number  - he was just reciting the numbers.  But still, I am one proud Mommy and I think I have one smart little boy!

Edited on 7/7/13 to add:
Tonight Carder was having Quesadillas for dinner.  At one point, he began actually counting individual pieces of quesadilla (using a correct one to one ratio).  He counted all the way up to 8 before he decided that he needed to take another bite.  And he included 4.  We are super proud!

And Then We Spent the Night in the ER

A while back, Carder began to protest his high chair.  We moved him into a booster seat at the table.

Also, call me a bad parent if you will, but I think it is next to impossible to sit right next to him the entire time he is at the table.  If he wants second helpings or needs his hands wiped or drops his drink and you need to wipe it up or if you need to grab ketchup from the fridge...you just can't ALWAYS be right next to him.  And he often eats better if you ignore him while he eats.  And in our open floor plan home I am only a couple of steps away if I am in the kitchen.

This new seating arrangement has been working fine - except he has learned that he can use his hands and feet to push himself away from the table.  Our chairs are pretty heavy, so typically this just results in pushing back.  But sometimes, the front legs of the chair would lift off the floor.

After repeatedly telling him that he needs to stop because his chair would flip, he finally flipped it over.  As we were getting ready to sit down to a meal, Carder was in his seat and I had walked into the kitchen to grab something else.  I saw it happening and couldn't do anything to stop it.  There was a huge thud as the chair hit the floor. 

I was (and still am) fairly certain that he didn't hit is head on anything.  He cried for a minute tops and said he was OK and then went on his merry way of playing and acting completely normal.  I wasn't really all that worried at that point.  We called the pediatrician just to be safe and his advice was to waken him a couple of times to make sure he wasn't too hard to arouse and that he knew who we were.

When we tried to wake him up before we went to bed, he was very groggy and hard to waken.  And then he didn't want to tell us that Derek was Daddy or who any people in pictures were or who our dogs were.  How much of this was because he was tired and 2 and what could be attributed to a concussion we weren't sure.  So off to the ER we went.  And I was in a panic.

We got checked in around midnight.  After we were escorted into a room and got settled in, the nurse brought him a toy and a book.  And within 5 minutes he was fully awake and telling us all about everything and was obviously fine.

3 hours later we saw the doctor (who confirmed he was fine) and were sent on our way.

Luckily he slept until 10 the next morning because we all needed the extra sleep!

The moral of this story is - if you have a child who is getting to be a daredevil, wake them up in the middle of the night so that you can have a baseline to compare it should you ever need to waken your child from a deep sleep to check for a concussion!

Putt Putt & Family Fun

My family was here visiting from Georgia for a few days.  As seems to be par for the course, Carder got sick as they were on their way.  The first couple of days were spent trying to keep his fever under control (at times it was 102 even after fever reducer).

We spent the time that he was feeling up to it just hanging around the house and playing.  There was an afternoon that we spent a couple of hours decorating our backyard with sidewalk chalk.  Or, perhaps you could say we decorated Carder's pants with sidewalk chalk as his pants ended up being multi colored by the end of the activity.

When he finally felt a bit better, we decided to venture out to play putt putt.  This was Carder's first time on a course and we weren't quite sure what to expect.  We also got a later start than I had intended, so I was anticipating a meltdown fairly early in our course.

 

Carder decided that instead of putting from the tee, it was much more fun just to start his putt from right next to the cup.  And instead of taking one turn per hole, he took as many as 4 or 5.  Who can blame him, though?  Aren't the best putts the ones that go in?

 

He did really well with taking turns and letting everyone take their shots.  He did begin to meldown a bit on the 17th hole, but did wonderfully otherwise.

 

It really was a great deal of fun.  I would highly recommend Miniature Golf as an activity with a toddler.

Carder Starting His Putt - from right next to the cup

Another fine starting point for Carder

Oh, and since the course was pirate themed, Carder got a bag of pirate booty and a pirate hat as well.  Inside the booty was this little eye patch that has been quite a bit of entertainment for the toddler and adults alike.

Arghhhh!  Walk the Plank, Matey!

A Blossoming Imagination

It's funny how things happen all of the sudden.  Or maybe it is because you suddenly realize it.

 

Carder's imagination is blossoming.  In retrospect, it probably started out with pieces of food that were pushed around and sounded like a car.  Or flew through the air like a plane.

 

But all of the sudden, we can see his imagination. 

 

We were at the park when another child gave him an imaginary ice cream cone and he carried that cone all over the playground.  He even asked his Daddy to hold it while he climbed up and needed both hands.

 

He started making us imaginary ice cream cones and feeding them to us.

 

And then, this morning, he decided his penguin needed to have a drink during breakfast time.

 

 

 

It really is cute to see him begin to play pretend.

2nd Birthday Party

 

Carder's birthday party was a great success.  All of the preplanning I had done really paid off as the days before the party weren't slammed with things to do.  Except to finish that darned cupcake stand.  And those Oreo pops that I had grand plans for (which could have been posted on the Pin.terest Fa.il website because I think I bought the wrong kind of chocolate to dip them in).

 

I used a computer program to make 2 pictures into a panoramic one.  I didn't realize until after the fact that it photo-shopped the "R" out of birthday.  Oh well.  You get the idea...

 

We did the grocery shopping on Friday, so Saturday we only had to get balloons and put out all the goodies.  And run a 5K first thing in the morning...

We have a fenced in back yard and beautiful (sunny but not too hot) weather, so we planned to have most of the party outdoors.  I wanted to make sure the kids had fun and organized games are a bit hard for this age group. 

There was a bubble station with several different types of bubbles set up on a table (which was covered with a plastic tablecloth for easy cleanup).  This was a very popular station for all the kids.  I had anticipated it's popularity and placed the table in a shady spot.

There was an art easel with both paper and a chalkboard and plenty of markers and sidewalk chalk.

There was Carder's basketball goal and a plethora of balls.

There were trucks and cars and every riding toy we own in the backyard.

Party guests (well, except for Derek's family as they were already there before party time) started arriving right on time at 4:00.  We had used ballons staked to the ground with golf tees to mark our house and I think everyone found the place fairly easily.

The house and the yard filled up fast.  Even though we invited guests from several different areas of our lives, everyone seemed to mingle well.  The adults had fun relaxing in the backyard while the kids ran all over the place and had a blast.

Carder shared his toys incredibly well and the only altercation between kids seemed to be a slight spat over the Co.zy Cou.pe.

We sang the birthday song and Carder blew out a candle on his cupcake.  And then refused to eat the cupcake.  (Don't worry, I ate it.  We don't waste cupcakes at our house.)

When it came time for opening presents, we brought them all out into the yard so that none of the kids had to stop playing to watch another kid open his presents.  I also brought out the gift bags at that time so that there would be something for everyone to open.

 

It went so much better than I could have ever imagined.  I even had one mom tell me I should write a book on how to throw kids parties, so I will call it a win!