Baby It's Cold Outside! A Sledding Tale

Most likely, the only reason for that title is because I just came in from outside and my fingers are still numb :)

Yup, here in Michigan, winter has truly arrived. Cold, cold cold. I always laugh because so many people complain ( present company included) about how cold it is, but it's not like we live somewhere where it's a surprise. You can't really say, "Wow, I can't believe it's actually below freezing outside!" It happens every year.

Yet, we still say it...time after time again. And yup, it's cold tonight.

I am a self proclaimed wimp when it comes to cold. I want to enjoy outside activities, but I still dread the thought of getting cold.

By the way, Happy New Year! We had planned to spend New Year's Eve with my brother's family in Illinois, but the morning of New Year's Eve arrived, and so did a walloping stomach flu. So rather than heading out for three fun days away, I spent the time in bed. When I wasn't running in and out of the bathroom, that is.

Thankfully, Steve had taken the day off for our little mini-vacation, so he was home with kids during my illness.

Now, how does Kristi intend to weave those two seemingly unrelated stories together?

Like this:

Steve HAD to get the kids out of the house after about three hours of listening to some nasty noises come out of Sick Mommy in the bathroom. So he bundled them up to go sledding. We had been sledding already that week, but Steve had heard of another hill nearby that was HUGE and decided to take the boys.

After about an hour, they came home. Noah wasn't feeling well by now and proceeded to throw up all over the front porch as they came inside, followed by another trip to the bathroom immediately afterward.

The next morning, I was starting to feel better and we thought about heading to my brother's. But since I had told them definitely we would wait until Saturday to come, we settled in for another day to find stuff to do around the house.

As I still wasn't feeling all that great, Aaron was begging, pleading, nagging, whining, DEMANDING that Steve take them to the "big hill" again.

So for day two in a row, Steve bundled up, bundled up the boys and headed out. I think he was a little annoyed that I didn't want to come with them but sub zero wind chills, plus a lingering stomach ache, didn't make it seem too appealing to this momma.

TWO HOURS LATER, I started worrying that something had happened to them, given the size of the hill and the freezing temps. Right about the same time, my phone rings. Steve tells me they're having the time of their life and they ended up staying for at least another hour. CRAZY!!

So comes Saturday morning, the coldest one yet. We bundled up the fam and finally headed out for the now abbreviated, but much anticipated trip to Illinois.

After a somewhat challenging but not too terrible drive, we arrived there and got settled. After a little while, my SIL put my youngest nephew down for a nap and we bundled up all of the cousins for YET ANOTHER trip outside. This time, to attack the sledding hill left over from construction crews making my brother's new house. It was sooooooo cold that I figured everyone would be in within ten minutes.

Noah immediately started trying to sled down the side of the house when my SIL told us that the kids had been sledding on the other side. So we headed over there. To their dismay, rather than snow, we found a great hill, but almost all sand rather than snow. So the boys, led by the biggest kid of all (my hubby) set forth trying to create other hills to sled down.

After awhile, Steve headed down to a more tree filled area to create a slide. And they finally succeeded.

Lots and lots and lots of trees took a beating in the name of fun, and after lots and lots of bumping, crashing, veering off course, laughter, and unfortunately pain, a very cold group of people headed inside to warm up.

So arrives Sunday morning. We are ready to pack up and head home. With Steve complaining about his painful buttocks from three straight days of sledding and my poor brother sitting on a heating pad from the trauma to his back from our sledding adventure, what are some of Aaron's first words?

Daddy, can we go sledding?

Sorry Baby, we need a day off.

Three more months of winter to go. I sit here with STILL freezing fingers and yet wonder if I could ever live a place where it never snowed.

I don't think so.

Weekend Top Five

A good weekend. Each day started out cold and rainy, and ended up beautiful.

Here are my top five:





5. MIL visit and Noah's field day
My MIL came for a short visit Friday afternoon. I was originally supposed to have a garage sale and she was coming down to take Aaron for a few hours, but I ended up moving the sale and she came down anyway. After some grocery shopping due to a huge sale on meat, we went out to a park by Noah's school to pick him up from his "walk-a-thon" (kind of like his schools' version of a field day).

No surprise, Noah spent the entire half hour walk with the girl from his class.

Noah's on the left
4. Baseball game
For Noah's second game, he and I rode our bikes to the ball park, which was a fun change. Noah finally got to play "catcher" for one of the innings. He struggled a little because the pads kept falling off of him and he seemed a little scared of the ball at first, but it was much more fun than hanging in the outfield, which he did all three of the other innings.





3. Meijer Gardens
My brother and his family were here for the weekend. So after a very rainy beginning to Saturday, we decided to take the kids out to Mejijer Gardens.

The butterfly exhibit was supposed to close at the end of April, but there were still quite a few flying around. We were fascinated by one big African moth. It was bigger than our hands and the volunteer there was very knowledgeable about all of the butterflies.








There is also an arboretum and sculpture park. I will be sharing my favorite sculpture later in the week.


Here's Aaron and the bear sculpture















The kids had fun playing in the children's garden, including a HUGE treehouse with different rooms and rope bridges, but my favorite part was the nature trail they have. It runs along a river and ends up at an old farmhouse and barn.















The major event of the nature trail was "turtle spotting". They were everywhere. The turtles were very active and we saw a ton of them. My sister in law won the award for being the expert frog spotter.










I even got a cute picture of all five cousins peeking out of the little kids' gate










2. Mother's Day Gifts
Steve got out of bed early Sunday morning to make a pancake breakfast for us before church, and I opened my presents from the boys. Steve had taken the boys to one of the Michael's craft nights to make me cards and had also helped them to paint trivets for me. Noah was also proud to have made a stepping stone for me. I can't wait to find the perfect place to put it in the yard.






1. Mother's Day Afternoon
We had a nice relaxing visit at my parents' after church for Mother's Day. My brother's family was still there as well as one of my stepbrothers and his family. We came home mid-afternoon and it finally got warm outside so Steve took the boys outside to play for a little while.








The Week Ahead:
We have baseball games Monday, Wednesday, AND Friday this week, and Noah's Spring concert Thursday night. Top it all off with my student recital on Saturday afternoon. Should be a busy week. I can't believe there are only three more Mondays to deal with before summer vacation. Woo Hoo!

Have a great Monday.

Weekend Top Five

Sitting here emotionally exhausted (see #1) and sunburned to a crisp on my cheeks(#5), I write my weekend top five. I feel my stress level rising each day again and I am hoping to use this week to get it back under control. Here's my Weekend Top Five:




5. Impromptu Garage Sale
Deb and I were planning to hold our annual garage sale next weekend, but with funds being extremely low for groceries and a forecast for rain for next week, I was driving Noah to school Friday morning and decided to try it this weekend instead. It turned out to be a good idea. I made enough to make a purchase for Noah (see below) and some groceries as well.

Unfortunately, I got a VERY sunburned face along the way.



4. "New" Bikes
Going into this spring, Aaron was still riding a little 12 inch bike and Noah had learned to ride his 16 inch last summer without training wheels. Aaron REALLY needed to move up, which also meant we needed to move Noah up as well.

The bike debacle lasted several days. We had taken the trainers off of Noah's 16 inch when he learned to ride it lat summer. Along the way, a piece was lost and Steve spent several days and visited EIGHT different stores before finding a replica that would work to put the trainers back on for Aaron. He was so excited, and took off way better than he ever did ion the little 12 inch.






Taking Noah for a new bike was a little more challenging. 20 inch bikes are quite large and none of the floor models would fit him. After leaving one store and heading to Toys R Us, it was worth the $10 assembly fee since an employee took the one we found back three different times to adjust it to fit him, including putting a brand new tire on it since it was a floor model.

When we got home, we took a family bike ride for the first time. It is going to make for a very fun summer of riding.

3. Good News On The School Front
Anyone who follows my facebook page knows already, but I am still shouting it from the mountaintops that we finally have an answer for Aaron for school next year. As I've mentioned before, I really don't feel like he is ready for kindergarten this fall, being a late October birthday, so I had started researching other options. Our local district doesn't have young fives so I had been entered into a lottery at one of the local charter schools and was wait listed. I had also applied for spots in three other local school and wouldn't have heard until June or July.

No more waiting! We got a letter on Saturday in the mail saying we got into our first choice school. The Y5's teacher has a wonderful reputation and now I can go into the summer knowing what we're going to do for him in the fall.

2. Superhero Birthday Party
My nephew turned five so we headed to their house after church. After an hour and a half drive, we were all ready to start partying. My SIL invited the boys to wear superhero costumes for the party. Of course, any chances to dress up in costumes is a dream for my boys, and they were so excited. Aaron is in the Mr. Incredible costume on the far right and Noah is in back with a Batman mask. This is their super hero muscle pose.




1. Fireproof
Not sure what to say about this movie. I saw some on and off reviews when it came out, but didn't pay a whole lot of attention, due to its title. I have had an irrational fear of fire my whole life and I have purposely avoided this movie, even after I read and heard SO many people talk about it.

Steve finally borrowed it a few weeks ago and watched it, and borrowed it again this weekend. He had suggested I sit and watch it with him several times, so on Sunday night, I stopped writing this post, curled up under a blanket in my hubby's arms, and watched a movie about a husband and wife who have basically lost love for each other, and while the husband (played by an adult Kirk Cameron) finds a relationship with Christ, he also works to save his marriage.

Steve was generous enough to fast forward through the only real fire scene while I hid my eyes, and by the end, I was sobbing uncontrollably the entire last fifteen minutes. I had been having a bit of a pity party the previous couple of hours prior to this movie, so it was a good reminder, once again, of where to keep my priorities.

If you choose to watch this movie, be prepared for cheesy acting with a wonderful message. Also, don't skip past the Behind The Scenes. They had me crying all over again when you realize that the people making this movie are The Real Deal.

The Week Ahead:
Now that we have a place for Aaron to go to school next year, I have two weeks to get all of the registration stuff in or we lose our spot. So tomorrow, it's off to get his shots that we never got around to doing in October, as well as getting his paperwork in and also a copy of his birth certificate to the school. We also have yet another field trip for Noah this week and Noah's first baseball game, with uniforms and "opposing teams". Still not sure if we'll put the garage sale together again next weekend or not. We'll see how the week goes.

Have a great Monday and let em know if you posted your weekend.

Thursday Thirteen: Our Last Night of Vacation T13 Style

After all these vacation posts the last two weeks, was there any doubt that there had to be one about the castle/parade?

I tried for 13 cool pictures of the castle, but I just didn't get good enough shots, so I thought I'd tell a story instead.


1. I didn't know that the castle started changing colors at dusk so I was amazed when we were finding our spot for the parade and found the castle turning pink




I don't know the lady on the cell one out front but my photo editing program was lost when my computer had to be stripped a few months ago.









2. I thought it was even more fun to watch as the colors kept changing, both to deep blue, and then a vibrant purple.

















3. We started lining up early, which was a good thing because the crowd got heavy very quickly.
I mentioned earlier this week that we brought a stroller with us for Noah on our marathon day at Magic Kingdom, which ended up being a very good idea.

Notice how big he is for it, but he was thankful to be able to sit while we were waiting for the parade to start.

I can't believe he was actually surprised when the strap wouldn't fit him!

4. Luckily, my brother and his family were able to find us in the crowd so the kids could all watch together. My youngest nephew loved playing with our balloon stroller identifier during the wait.


Can you see his cute little smile through the balloon?





5. This is one of my favorite "kid" shots from our vacation. The four older cousins lined up ready for the parade. I love how happy all four of them look, even after a VERY crazy week away from home.

This is how I choose to remember the week, even with all of its ups and downs.






6. And yes, the parade did actually start eventually. I had quite a challenging time trying to get good shots of the floats but I will try share some of the ones I did capture.










7.













8.













9. Everyone got excited when Ursula came strolling down the street. The way she spun and moved was really cool and I still would like to know how they did it.










10. During the entire parade, Aaron held his usual pose...hands over his ears












11. My niece, the only girl in the group, got the sweetest smiles when the princesses started coming down the street.


Nope, no clue why Aaron's mouth is wide open.








12. I didn't get any pictures of the fireworks since I was videotaping it, but is was spectacular. Afterward, we waited around for awhile to let the crowds thin out before heading back to the monorail. After about twenty minutes, I looked down at Aaron to head toward the exit, and was surprised to find him completely asleep.



















13. I was even MORE surprised though when I looked at Noah's stroller.

At almost seven year's old, my "grown up" first grader had also FALLEN ASLEEP!

He was hanging completely off the poor stroller, but he didn't really move much at all on the way back to the car.

The people on the monorail were nice enough to allow us one without collapsing the strollers so both boys could continue their snooze.









So, I know this wasn't your typical T13 post, but when have I ever been typical?

Have a great Thursday!

Friday Photo Story: Our Marathon Day at Magic Kingdom

After a long week of "vacationing", there were still quite a few rides at the Magic Kingdom that we had wanted to experience with the kids but had not had a chance to. So, like you read about here, we had a character dinner with my family scheduled on Friday, our last day at 4:00. We were planning to go to dinner and then hang around the park for the rest of the night to watch the night parade and fireworks.

Steve and I decided that since it was our last day, we would make it count and do a marathon day, from the time the park opened until after the fireworks ended at night.

We knew it was going to be a long and exhausting day, but we are SO glad that we chose to do it. It was the most fun day we had in the parks by far. There were lots of things that we didn't even know about that we got to experience since we got there at opening.

We started out bright and early at 7:00, hoping to get to the parks before it actually opened at 9:00. We got into the outside gate around 8:15 and waited among the crowds (remember this picture from Wednesday?).

The first surprise came at about five minutes to 9. A "welcome show" was held right outside the entrance and all of the characters arrived by train to open the park. It was exciting...you could feel the energy. I didn't get any pictures because we were looking right into the sun, but we did get some video of it. Noah passed some time by taking silly pictures of Steve with my camera.



















When we first walked into the park, we headed right to the "lands" that we wanted to do.

The first thing we came to was Aladdin's Magic Carpet. No line! Cool!

The boys and I jumped right on while Steve went to get fastpasses for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.








After riding it once, the ride operator told us we could go again if we wanted since there were no people. After two more times, Steve came back, got on and we went yet one MORE time.














Hyped up from our good luck, we headed to Pirates of the Carri bean. Again, NO WAIT. Walked right through and onto a boat. We were even more amazed when we discovered the operator of the ride was a student at the school my taught at before he retired. What a small world! Although the ride was dark and eerie, the kids handled it quite well and we were off to more stuff.





We moved on to Splash Mountain (again, no wait) but as we loaded, the ride broke down and we had to get off...first broken ride of the day.

So off to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Our fastpass was for 10:15 and it was 10:00 with a five minute wait. Let's go ahead and go...

Here came our first glimpse of the day of Noah's "demons" from the Everest ride two days previous (which I mentioned in this post). The kid who LOVED every roller coaster he had ever been on in his life, started crying uncontrollably because he was so scared to go on the ride. Steve and I struggled between one of us taking Aaron and the other sitting off with Noah or just biting the bullet and doing it.

Yup, the bad parents that we are, we just moved him along. I kind of felt that if he was going to get over this issue, we needed to just do it. The part that he was scared of was because that DARN Yeti jumped out at him. It took a lot of convincing that nothing would jump out at him on this ride.

We got through it one time and our fastpass was ready so we just turned around and rode it again. I still can't believe we were able to ride that ride TWICE in a row.

So off we headed to Haunted Mansion. Once again, NO WAIT. We walked right in again.

Noah had recuperated a little from his "trauma" and we loaded into the cars. The spooky music kind of freaked them both out a little but they were fine...
UNTIL..
Oh yes, yet another ride broke down. And where should it break down? The spooky graveyard with loud creepy music and ghosts continually popping out at them from behind gravestones. We sat there for a good 8 or 9 minutes before we went again. No one was interested in doing this one again.


So it was now around 11:00 and we had done most of the rides we had wanted to tackle the entire day. So we headed to Dumbo and waited in a line (still only 30 minutes) and checked that ride off the list.



















We did actually get back to Splash Mountain, where Noah started in on his minor panic attack again, but he got over it when we told him to just watch the story of Brer Rabbit which we had read at home. Once again, the ride was still not quite working properly, and there were major "log jams" and we kept ramming into the logs in front of us while the ones behind us kept ramming into us. The good thing was that I didn't get wet, which was good because everyone else was coming off it soaked and I really didn't feel like being wet for the rest of the evening.

Then it was off to re-ride Space Ranger Spin, which had been the favorite on Monday. My score, sad to say, did NOT improve. I still don't understand how Aaron can get 1000 points, Noah can get 1400 points, I can get 4000 points and my STINKER of a husband can get 50,000 POINTS.














While over there, we took in the people mover through Space Mountain and the Monsters, Inc. Show (which was very funny).



















We stopped to eat our sandwiches we had brought for lunch and were starting to get tired so we headed up to ride a few spins around the park on the railroad. By that point, it was time to start gathering for the afternoon parade, and then head over to dinner with the family.














We also were caught by surprise by a neat character show right out front of the castle that even included it's own little firework show. Aaron was talking about seeing "the REAL Peter Pan" for days afterward.














After dinner, we needed to actually WAIT for rides since the fastpasses were gone, but we didn't mind. We made it to the jungle cruise, where Aaron was invited to drive the boat for a little while














I thought it was kind of neat that every time there was a crowd waiting for a parade, a Disney "cast member" would put out fun activities in the streets for kids to do. Noah is quite the hula hooper!














Are you exhausted reading this? I am again just writing about it. But it really was a good thing that we did it. I was glad we did it on the last day so that the "grumpies" from being tired the next day were spent in the car on the ride toward home.

My T13 for next week will be the images from the evening from this long and eventful day. But for now, I need to go take a shower, get dressed, and take Aaron to the park.

Have a great Friday!