Kids' Minds

It's funny - I don't remember having such a creative imagination when I was little. But, I mean, surely I did, right?  Surely that even though I have grown up to be an accountant, I have at least one imaginative bone in my body??? 

Well, even if I don't, the big Al Man does.  He is too funny.  As with all younger siblings (I would assume), he is continuously attempting to compete with her for time and attention.  For those of you who know her, Avery commands (and most of the time receives) a lot of attention, so this is no small feat for A Man.  So...in order to do this, he will a lot of times just kind of make stories up.  We will be talking about something and he will all of a sudden bust out with a similar story, but one that is completely made up.  For example...

The other night, we were talking about the field day that Avery is having at school today.  They are going to spend the whole day outside playing, etc.  And, all of a sudden, Alex busts out with...

Alex:  "Well, mom.  We went on a field trip today at school."

Mom: (not realizing that he was making this up and feeling like a horrible parent that I missed a field trip!), "Really?  Where did you go?"

Alex:  "W. Point (abbreviated name of a beach near us)"

Mom: "Really?? (now clearly realizing that this is a story) Well, how did you get there?"

Alex:  "Well....we took a plane!"

Mom: "Wow!  Did you have to pack luggage?"

Alex: "Yep!"

Mom: "Well, what did you pack?"

Alex:  "Well...we didn't have to pack our pillow pets because, they already had them there for us."

Mom:  "Wow!  That is a nice beach!"

Alex:  "Yep!"

And, then..I'm sure Avery interrupted with something like, "Mom!  He obviously didn't fly to WP today!"  and the story stopped.  But, man - it was funny while it lasted.  And, fun to know that he has such a vivid imagination.  Ah...to be a kid again...

Happy 6th Birthday, Munch!

Yes, I call Avery "Munch."  I have no idea when or how this started.  When she was little, I called her Munchy Moo, which I still call her, but most days, it has been shortened to Munch.  So...it was Munch's 6th Birthday a couple of weeks ago! 

In keeping with their annual tradition (starting with the year she was born), Opa and Grandma made an appearance to join in the festivities!  

They arrived the night before Avery's birthday and stayed with Al Man the next day while Avery went to school to bring in her ice cream sandwiches and to celebrate with her class.  She had a great day, as the birthday girl gets to be the "Lucky Duck," which entails being the line leader and assisting in various errands throughout the day (which, as you can imagine, is right up Avery's alley). She also got to wear this crown all day just to make sure everyone knew it was her big day...

 

That night, we went to a Japanese Steakhouse for her birthday dinner.  I'll be honest - this was somewhat of a selfish move on my part because, well, I love Japanese Steakhouses.  But, I also thought that it would be a fun place to eat for a 6-year-old's bday.  I just chose to forget about the fact that the last time we went to one?  Both she and Alex totally freaked.  Turns out, Avery has outgrown her fear of crazy Japanese men flinging knives, yelling at you while cooking, setting fire to the food and then putting it out with a rubber little guy who looks like he is peeing on your meal, all while yelling "pee pee!!!  pee pee!!!"  (yes, this really happens - I can't make this up...).  Al Man?  Hasn't really overcome this fear.  But, whatever.  Avery had fun.  Alex just sat on my lap most of the time, but was fine when it was all said and done.

 

And, if you look very closely, this was the beginning of the Al meltdown...

 

The next day was her "friend party," which consisted of approximately 16 girls at our house for a "build a bear" extravaganza!  I have to say, this company is great - www.wishkers.com - they come to your house with about 15 animals to choose from and then play games with all of the kids.  Highly recommend them if you are in the area.  And, not to toot my own horn, but I also managed to come up with a pretty creative idea to go along with the theme.  I got a collar for each one of the girls and then gave them all a piece of shrinky dink paper that I had cut in a circle so that they could all make their own ID tags for their animals.  They loved it and I am not obsessed with shrinky dink paper - the stuff is truly a miracle.  Another miracle is Lindsey's insane ability to make the coolest cakes...

 

 Avery's friend, M showed up with the same dress!  :)

 

The next day was the family party, which also happens to fall on Mother's Day every year.  I will admit - it's a nice way to combine two parties in one.  However, unfortunately, as the hostess, I never get to fully participate in the "It's Mother's Day, so you should get to spend the day relaxing, Mom!" theory.  Then again, unfortunately, Grandma doesn't either, as she spends most of the day helping as well and of course, partaking in crafts approximately 30 seconds after waking up...

Although, I will say that we were treated to some of Opa's famous waffles for Mother's Day breakfast, which was a nice treat!

Everyone showed up around 4:30 and we had a very nice dinner, cake (an ice cream cake, per request of the bday girl - I'm afraid my days of fun cakes may be over as I've finally come to admit, much to my dismay, that neither one of my kids likes cakes...really?????), and of course, Avery's 3rd round of presents...

It was a busy weekend, but I think that we can all agree that it was a fun one!

Happy Birthday, Miss Avery!  I hope that you enjoyed it as much as the rest of us!

 

 

 

Growing Up

It's funny.  I grew up with a very strict schedule.  And, by strict schedule, I'm referring to things like getting my ears pierced (not allowed until the age of 16), shaving my legs (not allowed until I don't remember when, but after all of my friends started), not wearing makeup until again, I don't remember when, but after I wanted to start.  In looking back, there was a reason that my parents did this.  Becuase there was just no need to grow up too fast (well, that and my mom was the only one out of the two of us who really knew that once you start shaving?  You can't stop because it comes on in full force.  And, really?  I had blonde hair, so was there really a need anyway?).  So, while I swore at the time that I had the only parents on the planet who actually stuck to the whole "not until you are 16 thing" when all of my friends' parents had said it at one point, but then switched to the "if you get straight A's you can..." thing and I remember how annoyed I was, I am afraid that I am that mom! 

Well, ok, I'm in between the "Not until you are 16..." and "If you get straight A's, you can..." kind of mom.  I SWORE that I wouldn't spend money on a professional haircut or a professional pedicure for Avery.  I mean, really?  Why does a 5 year old with perfectly straight hair need a professional haircut when her mom can do it in the bathroom for free?  And, why does a 5-year-old need a professional pedicure when she is perfectly content having her mom paint her toes while she sits in front of the TV and watches Doc McStuffins?  Well, because, even 5-year-olds like to be pampered!  And, probably more importantly, like to feel grown up.  So, she got both (not in the same day...let's not go too far.  These pictures were about 2 months apart from one another)...

 Ok, ok, so maybe I couldn't do that flower...

She had a great time and it was so much fun watching her enjoy everything so much.  But, kind of hard to swallow the fact that my little baby girl is growing up...

Happy 6th Birthday, Miss Avery Norris!  We love you!!!

 

(oh, and if you want us to be able to afford to pay for any of your college education, your next professional haircut will have to be at Super Cuts.  And...you're still waiting until 16 to get your ears pierced...)

 

 

Winter Update

I seriously think that I went through some sort of seasonal depression disorder (or whatever it is called) this year.  Not that I was depressed or anything, but just unmotivated.  As you may know, our family is a beach family.  And, part of being a beach family means that starting around approximately June 1st of every year, the rule is that we do nothing around the house unless it is absolutely necessary (like cleaning, mowing the lawn, etc).  All other hours of the day? Spent at the beach.  So, because of that, I try to make it my goal to get house projects done during the winter.  Because, if we don't do them then, they aren't getting done....which is the case this year.  I don't know what happened, but every time a weekend would roll around, I found it impossible to get organized enough to get out the door and be productive.  Very strange.  That said, we didn't sit around and do nothing ALL winter. 

January started off with our traditional Holland Super Bowl party (aka, make appetizers and have a picnic in the family room while watching the game). The kids love doing this...

And, the rest of January...I don't know what we did.  I was depressed.  I told you.

February?  February was the mother-load of activities.  Both for the kids and for mama. 

The first two weeks were pretty normal.  Other than the fact that I was crazy busy at work because I was getting prepared to....start my new job!!!  Yep - after nearly 5 years with my previous company, I took a job back in the big city of PVD.  While it has been great, it was definitely a bit stressful/challenging at first.  It didn't help that the weekend before my first day, we were hit with a blizzard that resulted in no electricity from Saturday morning through Monday evening.  We tried to stick it out for a while on Saturday, but once the house hit 55 degrees, we decided that it was time to move to Grammy and Grampy's. 

They were smart and bought one of those fancy shmancy generators that kick on as soon a the electricity goes off.  Little did they know that it would serve as an open invite whenever we lost power!  So, off we went....me, Josh, the kids, Deacon and later that day....Kristen, Randal and then even later that day....Shakespear and Hamlet, K and R's two black labs!  Fun times in the (eldest) Holland household. 

Of course, when you live in a place like LC that is in the middle of nowhere, the electricity people tend to think that we aren't as important as the rest of the state, so we didn't get our electricity back until Monday night.  Which meant, the last 2 days at my old job were anything but relaxing and organized. 

Then, I started my new job on Wednesday of that week and Valentine's Day was Thursday of that week.  Thank the lord that the new office is connected to the mall, which gave me the opportunity to get the kids something before heading home.

The next couple of weeks were filled with late nights for me in the office (like, midnight late), which was an adjustment for everyone.  But, we did manage to find time to have fun...

And, yes, you are seeing that right - yet again, we were unprepared for the winter season and Alex had to wear his sister's old snowpants.  He doesn't seem to mind, so until he does, we may just continue with this routine.  I mean, really?  Why buy snowpants every year when they will only be worn once or twice?  That's me.  Thrifty Mom (well, when it comes to the kids....and not really even then)...

Sleep (or lack thereof)

Kind of ironic that I'm posting about a lack of sleep after bragging in my last post about getting lots of it, but this just can't go without posting...

So I have this problem where, if I get woken up in the middle of the night, my mind starts racing and I can't go back to sleep...like, for hours. You know me- I'm a thinker like that. Actually, I think I'd chalk it up to some weird anxiety issue, but that's a story for another post. Anyway...Alex woke up with nightmares at approximately 2 am on both Tuesday and Wednesday night of this week, which subsequently resulted in me being wide awake from approximately 2-4 or 5 am. So, Thursday night, because we were leaving for Florida on Friday morning (sans children!), we had shipped the kids off to Grammy and Grampy's and had shipped Deacon off to "camp." As you can imagine, I was thrilled at the thought of having an entire night of uninterrupted sleep. No nightmares. No snoring dog. Just silence. Until....at 12 am.....Hoot! hoot! Hoot! What's that youask????? A *^#%*ing OWL!!!!! Yes, An owl decided to make his presence known for nearly 30 mins at midnight. It was so bizarre that at first I didn't even ow what it was. I had set the alarm on my iPad that night for the first time and thought that maybe it was the freaking alarm making some weird noise. But, nope. I opened the window and sure enough. It was an owl. So then of course, not only do I start to have anxiety about 50000 things that don't even matter, but now I'm having anxiety that this thing has a nest in our trees and a) will wake me up every night or worse yet, b) swoop down and take one of my children. I swear! They have been known to do that. I can see it now. I will be getting no sleep for the rest of the summer and will be forced to stay indoors at all times for fear of the swooping owl. Awesome.

We have reached that amazing point in our lives...

What amazing point, you may be asking yourself?  Well, the amazing point that on Saturday mornings, these kids...

Are letting these kids...

sleep in on Saturday and Sunday mornings!  How is this possible, you ask?  Well, because, they (well, Avery) are finally old enough and capable enough to go downstairs on their own, turn on the tv, and watch it by themselves without waking us!  It is insanely wonderful.  Not only that?  But, they are even in training to take this big guy out AND to feed him...

We are still perfecting this part.  So far, we have had a weekend where we let him out, but forgot to let him back in and another weekend where we let him out, let him back in, but failed to notice his muddy paws that then tracked mud throughout the house and we are slowly running out of weekends where they are able to feed him because the bag of food is getting too low and they can no longer reach it (I guess I'll have to forgive them for that). 

Regardless - it is still insanely wonderful.  Granted, we are most likely not winning parents of the year given that our kids are now watching a good hour - 90 mins of tv every morning on the weekends. But, really?  What's more important?  Our kids brain cells or Mom and Dad's sanity?