Tea for three

After the said slumber party, my girls and I went to local restaurant (Bruce says it is a "woman's restaurant". You know, it doesn't have dark wood, peanut shells on the floor, animals on the wall and/or paper napkins.) that is also a tea room for lunch.

I had been thinking about those who live in a larger town/city who can participate in things like tea parties with their daughters. I thought about the tea parties at the Grand Floridian at Disney World (for around $200 a pop. No, don't worry. We did not participate in one while we were there.). And, I was sad because my girls cannot do something like that. (Okay, I'll be honest, sad because I cannot participate in that with my girls.) Then, I thought about this restaurant and thought we could do our own. So, we did.

I have to set up the scenario a little before we went. Cara wanted to wear her Cinderella outfit that she wore at Disney World. Earlier in the week, Adriana declared that she was not going to wear her Sleeping Beauty outfit, but she would wear a dress. On Saturday morning, she tried to get out of the tea party by saying, we could have it at home, and that she was getting too big for things like that. (Can I admit I shed a few tears over that?) She finally relented, and agreed to wear casual, but nice, pants and a top to the luncheon. Cara still wore her Cinderella outfit, and I dressed up in a casual outfit.

When we arrived, Adriana's introverted side immediately came out and Cara's extroverted side did, too. Adriana wanted to sit in my lap at first (what happened to the big girl?) and would not speak to anyone. Cara was enjoying the attention she was getting for being in her outfit.

The owner of the restaurant came and brought us scones because I had told her we were probably coming. The girls liked them. Cara said they tasted like Cracker Barrel biscuits. (That's Bruce's side coming out.) Adriana started warming up and coming out more.

At the end, we ordered hot tea and tried to sit there like three ladies. The tea was raspberry herbal, and it was very good. The owner also brought us little shells filled with homemade whipped cream. Cara declared it the best restaurant in the whole world because they have homemade whipped cream.

Here are a few pictures from our time.



One from my budding photographer, Adriana.

And, one from my other budding photographer, Cara.

The owner gave the girls a sugar stick to put in the tea. You see how they really were used.



Note, real china cups. And, not one was broken. Whew!

Backside of the slumber party

The big slumber party was this weekend, and I survived. Seven girls in the house, seven and under, and I can say I survived.

It really wasn't all that bad. Actually, we all had a good time. We kicked the boys out. Okay, they were more than glad to leave, so they high-tailed it to Nanny's for the night. The girls were well-mannered and the last went to sleep around midnight. The theme was "High School Musical", so we popped both HSM 1 and 2 in, and they had a fun time dancing and singing.

The house was decent and Adriana even thanked me for the party. So, all in all, it was good.

I was going to post a picture of my two, but apparently I have not downloaded them yet. I will soon.

Found a few pictures for you

A few did download. Here they are. Enjoy!

Notice it's not the two front teeth, but one front toot and the tooth to the side of it.

The girls don't understand the concept of "Slip and Slide", so we pulled out the Little Mermaid pool later.

The Best Daddy in the World with his three

Everyone had fun at VBS

Quick Jonah funny

Like mentioned previously, I have been cleaning like a mad woman trying to get ready for Adriana's party next week. I have even been cleaning areas the girls will not see because I just feel better about it, and well, they needed it.

One of the areas that I worked on Thursday was the basement. We still had all our leftover stuff from the garage sale back in Oct. in there and had talked about doing another one this spring or summer.

Well, I decided that we were not going to do a garage sale and that I wanted to just donate all the stuff, so I sorted through the clothes to pick out some things for a cousin that I thought might want them and pack up the rest for the local resale shop.

The items also included a few toys that I was going to try to sell. One of the toys was a ride on that we used to keep in the house. Jonah loves ride on toys, and we have not had any in the house since about the yard sale time.

He saw the ride on downstairs while Bruce was down there moving something around. Jonah told me he wanted it, so I yelled down to Bruce to get it.

You have to understand that Jonah is going through this phase of renaming everyone (see previous Doodlebops post) and is really observing how we talk to and treat each other.

"Daddy, will you get that ride on toy?" I said.

To which Jonah replied, "You mean 'Honey'?"

We are sorry to interupt your regularly scheduled programming

I promise to get back up to speed soon. We had VBS last week, and you know that line in the marriage vows of a pastor's wife includes "other duties as assigned", which evidently means VBS director (just say, no!). We have been going nonstop since.

Father's Day was great. I would post pics, but I have now filled my laptop up with too many pictures and videos and cannot download anymore. I have an external hard drive, but my obsessive self cannot let that be enough backup. I can't copy them onto a cd because, once again I do not have enough memory right now. I am planning on getting some flash drives and then I will be able to get some memory back. Too bad that doesn't work with the human brain.

To get up to date, though, Cara had her last ball game this weekend. Her team had a perfect season (they lost every game). She declared she liked soccer better and wished it were all year.

On the same day, we attended a local festival and had the best barbecue chicken cooked by some great volunteer firefighters. We then went to another festival put on by a local church that will be having VBS next week the girls will attend.

Needless to say, they went to bed fast that night after Bruce opened his Father's Day gifts. He wasn't really surprised by any of them, which was kind of a shame. We had him a big surprise, but I forgot and left it in the van VBS week, so he saw it one night.

On the tooth front, Adriana has now lost another tooth, bringing the grand total to seven. And, she put her Tooth Fairy pillow on the dresser this time, which I think made the fairy very happy.

Now, we have a youth beach retreat this weekend and Adriana's birthday party next week.

I am cleaning like mad and filling up landfills in preparation for the big day. So, I may not be back for a while.

Please pray for Adriana. She has been asking a lot of faith questions since VBS. Bruce told her how she could pray to become a Christian. She seems to be getting ready, but is not quite there yet. She almost had me the next morning after Bruce told her about the sinner's prayer. She told me she had prayed it, and after I hugged her and asked her what she had said, she said she was only practicing. She keeps saying maybe when she is seven, which is on July 5.

And, today, she brought up something about not wanting to die. For those who don't know, last year she became very obsessed with the thought of dying to the point that she would cry uncontrollably for about 30 minutes or so at a time. That was definitely a hard time for us, but she seems much, much better about it. I think this time it was another step in her faith process.

Hopefully, I will have good news to share in that regards soon.

End of the school year!!!

What time is it? Summer time! It's our vacation!

Yay!!!!!!!!We made it. School is finally over for this year, and yes, first grade flew by.

Now, I have to let you know how our girls delighted my soul this week.

We have struggled with Adriana and homework this year as I think I have written about before. Everything we have tried has seemed not to work. As mentioned before, she had to do her homework when she wanted to and not a moment sooner.

Well, Wednesday she came home from school with a bunch of workbooks and notebooks from the year. Her teacher had asked all the students to clean out their desks and cubbies. I told Adriana that we would continue to work this summer in her books and she willingly obliged. She then proceeded to sit down and complete three pages in one of the workbooks. She asked me to play the teacher and grade them for her. Without any arguing.

Now, this would have been great a few months ago. Even a month a ago, I would have taken it, but this was on her own, without an assignment, two days before school was over.

Ugh! I mean, isn't that so great?

By the way, Adriana did not go her last day. From what we had been told, the students were not doing any work, it was a half day, the students were not doing any work and attendance was not even being taken the last few days. She told Bruce on Thursday night that she didn't want to go on Friday. Since Bruce is the one who takes her to school, he said he was not going to get her up and I didn't argue. She actually ended up with a fever that afternoon and went to the doctor, so she shouldn't have been at school anyway.

On a funny side note, I asked Cara the other day if she wanted to get her teacher and teacher assistant an end of the year present. Her response?

"Why? They put me in the Watching Chair."

To which I replied, "That is the very reason they need a present."

Girl Scouts ceremony and school Awards Day

Adriana had her end of the year awards ceremony for Girl Scouts this week. She received several badges and pins for her work this year. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, after the ceremony she played one game and then wanted to go home soon after. She obviously was not feeling well.

A couple of days later, she had her awards day at school for this nine weeks. She received a couple of awards and was recognized for her academic work this year. (Sorry, I slipped in that Mommy brag without warning.)

Oops, I haven't downloaded those pics yet, so those will have to come later.

Cara the athlete

Cara finally got on base last week during a t-ball game and even came in safe to home plate.

She was kind of confused when she got on first base. She is so used to getting almost to first and then being called out that when she got to first base, she automatically started walking towards the dugout.

All of us had to tell her to turn around and go back to base. How priceless.

She even stuck with her team the other night in the high heat. She does not like to get hot at all and usually wants to quit playing as soon as she gets hot, but she stayed right with the game in spite of the heat.

Yeah, Cara.

Field Day

Adriana and Cara had Field Day at school this week. Even though Cara was already out of school, she was allowed to come back to participate.

The whole day was spent outside except for lunch time. The weather was pretty hot, but the children had a good time.

I was amazed at Adriana's ability in handling the big inflatables now.

On her first Field Day three years ago, she was scared to try to climb the ladder to enjoy the bounce houses/slides/etc. She was much slower than other children and didn't want to even try.

After the other children left the room (it was inside that year), the teachers would let Adriana play a little by herself.

This time, she had no problem go up the ladder and coming back down by herself. She pretty much kept up with everyone.

She certainly has come a long way.

Cara enjoyed her first Field Day, but she did get cold after getting sprayed with water and then going back inside.

She didn't even try the slide. She did try an inflatable tunnel, but told me it was scary.

Four down, one to go

We have four in our house who are sick. Bruce is excluded.

Jonah ended up with a very, very bad ear infection according to our pediatrician. Bruce took him last Saturday to the doctor.

Adriana has been fighting something all week. She has had a cough and has been very, very tired. She is normally tired a good bit, but she has been more so this week. She didn't even want to stick around after her Girl Scout awards ceremony earlier this week.

Cara has been coughing some. So, they both went off to the doctor today. Results-Adriana upper respiratory infection and Cara-ear infection.

And, I have not been feeling the best in the world, but I don't have time to get checked out right now. Maybe mine will go away.

Nose adventures

Although you can't tell it by the previous picture, the morning before I took the picture, Jonah had a fever. For a brief period of time, Jonah and Cara both felt fine and I took the picture.

Then, Cara had a fever that afternoon which wiped her out. She was supposed to have a ball game, but she missed it. I put her to bed early because she didn't feel like doing anything else. She was out cold for the whole night. She woke up feeling much, much better the next morning.

So much better that the next day she proceeded to peel something off her shoe (something rubber off the bottom) and stick it up her nose. That prompted a call to the doctor's office because I could not get it out. Off to the doctor's office we went.

The doctor looked all in her nose and even tried to suction it a few times, but did not find anything. We think she sneezed it out before we arrived there.

Poor Cara. She made it sound like we were torturing her. I did tell the doctor that whatever she needed to do to get the point across that she should not be sticking things up her nose, to do it. The doctor reassured me that once children have to go through what she did at the doctor's office, they usually do not have to come back.

We shall see. I am afraid a nursing student may have given her an idea of something new to try when she told me about a little boy who stuck a popcorn kernel up his nose.

Look what I found last week in one of the toy tubs

I couldn't find any instructions for them, so what shall I do with them?

Our card-carrying member of AARP is now 51

Bruce's birthday was on Memorial Day this year.

We went to a nearby city the Saturday before to take him out to eat. We went to a new place and tried out some great burgers and other offerings. We will definitely go back there, but next time we will split a plate.

I dropped Bruce and the children off at Chick Fil-A (or as Jonah calls it, Fick Fil-A) to play and eat ice dream while I finished a little gift shopping.

Bruce celebrated his birthday by cleaning house. Adriana had school, and the house really needed a good cleaning, so we stayed home.

That evening, we had grilled steak, corn on the cob and potatoes for our meal. Afterwards, Bruce and a few helpers blew out the candles on his homemade turtle cheesecake birthday cake.

By the way, he really is a card-carrying member of the AARP.

Lessons in the crumbs

I made some cookies for Cara's class picnic. I gave her a choice of what kind I would make, and she chose M&M cookies. Of course, I made too many because for some reason children don't care too much about food when playground equipment is nearby.

I had plenty left over and had planned to take them to a Bible study we were going to that night.

When we arrived back at the school, we saw Adriana at recess and she came over to give me a hug. I gave her a couple of cookies for a snack and told her I would see her in a few minutes.

I had the cookies in a cupcake carrier that is attached on the sides and has handles on the top. So, the top detaches from the bottom and takes some maneuvering to make a good fit.

When school was dismissed, Cara and I picked up Adriana and were leaving. Adriana said she wanted a cookie and I told her she needed to wait.

I am not sure if I was able to get any words out of my mouth, but I was at least getting ready to say wait when all of a sudden all the cookies spilled out of the container.

Apparently, Adriana had reached up to get a cookie out of the container. I was holding the handles, so the top separated from the bottom before I had an opportunity to stop them.

We were on the covered walkway, right at the pick-up line for car riders. The teachers were starting to get in place to help with the pick-up line, and we had cookies to pick up fast.

I thought for a quick second about how I was going to respond and then I quickly thought about what had taken place that week (this was a couple of days after Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter's death). Then, I thought again that this was one of those life lesson's that both of us were going to learn from.

Adriana looked rather surprised and looked at me for my reaction. I asked her to go into the office and ask for a bag. She did, and we picked up the cookies. One of the teachers stopped to ask, and she asked me if we were going to observe the three second rule. Although, I think she mentioned a 30 second rule. I told her, not since we were outside. So, after picking up the cookies, we stood up and left a few crumbs for the birds.

I did tell Adriana she should have waited for my answer before reaching, but that I didn't need the temptation of those cookies around anyway.

Later that day, she was a big help as she helped me get food ready for the Bible study.

At one time, I would have reacted a lot different from the way I did and the result would not have been as good.

So, thank you, Lord, for the lessons in the crumbs.

Cara goes out with a bang!

Cara finished a week ago, and did so with a bang. Her last week of school, she was placed in the Watching Chair not one, not two, but three times.

In her defense, the teacher assistant had been out of the class helping with standard testing. The TA said that the whole class seemed to be taking advantage of the teacher while she was out.

Cara's class took a field trip for a picnic on her last day. We went to a park/playground about 30 minutes away and had a great time.

The weather was nice, but maybe a little too hot. Cara doesn't do hot weather too well, so she did as well as she could.

The big hit seemed to be the water balloon fight at the end. Oh, yeah, and the chalk. Cara loved the sidewalk chalk. In fact, she decided to wear it on most of her body.

Now for some happy news,

after approximately six years, Adriana no longer has to have any therapies. Woohoo!

I met with her educational team at school for the annual IEP (Individualized Education Plan) review and her occupational and physical therapists both said that she was doing fine and had met her goals set for this year. Basically, this means that she is up to date with her peers for the most part.

To be honest, I had mixed emotions about the therapies ending. I am so glad she is now like any other student in her class, but I am going to miss having someone watching her progress to ensure that she is on task.

Her occupational therapist said that Adriana is not in danger of regressing and that she was going to give us some information on age appropriate milestones to watch for in the future.

Adriana's classroom teacher gave me some insight into Adriana's behavior about delaying her work. She said that just about every preemie she had ever taught acted pretty much the same way as Adriana. She can do the work, and does it well, but the work has to be done on her timetable, which frustrates everyone around her.

Thankfully, she only has five more days of school. One day of those five is a field day, and two are half days, so I think we can make it.

Yeah!