What to expect from a group of 3, 4, and 5 year old kids? One of Travis's friends who has a son that goes to the same pre-school said that the program from the previous year was so funny that he laughed through most of it. I think the thing that set him off was a little boy who fell over when he got too close to the edge of the step he was standing on. You'd have to know Brandon to understand.
I had no idea that the kids were going to have costumes, and even though it is hard to tell from the pictures, Kyle got to be a camel. Yup, a proud, happy camel came marching down the aisle, stayed nicely in line and sang like his daddy does ~ missing about half the words, but singing his little heart out none-the-less.
There must be something about pre-school Christmas programs that just invites moments that make you want to laugh, but leave you feeling like you will be forever damned if you do since you are in a church when they happen. You may have noticed that "Mary" is missing from the last picture. That is because she also had an accident, just not the kind that the little boy had that Brandon laughed at last year. That's all I will say about that.... poor thing.
Last year we celebrated Christmas in the Mandan House. Grannie came over
to make the traditional pfefferneuse cookies that I love, and the
triple batch of cappuccino crinkles that papa and Uncle Mark enjoy.
When a 2 year old scoops cookie dough, regular sized cookies morph into dunker tookies, a.k.a. monster cookies.
This year found us repeating the tradition, with slightly different results. Instead of putting Ky in charge of scooping the cookie dough, we let him roll the pfefferneuse in the powdered sugar. We'll just say it is going to be a very long time until all the traces of his handy work are cleaned up.
Last year my itty bitties were, well, still so itty bitty
This year my itty bitties are not so itty bitty.
Great grandma's buns make me happy too, Emmie!
As hard as it is to believe, we had the first decent snow fall of the year this weekend. While Grannie and I finished baking and tackled the clean up, Travis took the kids out for some winter fun.
There were many exclamations of sadness as the afternoon wore on and the snowman slowly lost his face as he melted back into ordinary piles of snow. It is amazing how quickly sad itty bitties bounce back when offered freshly baked cookies!
Halloween in ND can be a tricky prospect to manage. More times than not
there has been at least one major snow storm by the time October 31st
rolls around, or the weather is cold enough to require hats, gloves,
heavy coats/snow suits or any combination of the above. Even if the
weather has remained relatively "nice", any one who has lived here knows
that we can go from "Indian Summer" to "frozen tundra" in the matter of
hours, and so spending any amount of money on an amazingly cute
halloween costume just doesn't pay, not even for the sake of super fun
photographic opportunities. However, this year the weather has been
amazingly wonderful, warm and sunny. One of the churches in town was hosting a party where kids could go begging trick-or-treating in the parking lot, where people had bags and bags of candy stashed in their trunks. Many of them had themes and were dressed in costumes and decorated their vehicles, adding to the fun.
Apparently "Butt-man!"is more appealing to 3 year old than the itsy bitsy spider costume that I had bought for Kyle.
Earlier this week poor Emmie had broken out in cold sores all over her mouth and throat, so unfortunately instead of the cute tutu princess she was meant to be, she was banished to her stroller to keep her from spreading the love.
By the time the evening had ended, all three kids had more than their weight in candy. Luckily they are still at the age when out-of-sight-out-of-mind works miracles, making it easy to stash away a majority of the goods and within a few days the candy had been forgotten.
Daddy was gone out of town this weekend, so we headed to the park for a little fun to end the week. The weather was beautiful, the kids enjoyed swinging and running.
Kyle managed to stay on his feet when he didn't move out of the way quickly enough after giving Emily a "big, big, BIG" push. After a minor mishap in which the little Mr. got stuck on the climbing wall for a brief period, Kyle made it his mission to help Elowee down the slide as many times as possible before we left.
Kyle loves going to preschool 3 times a week. According to his teacher, Miss Nola, he is nothing short of brilliant. Ok, my words, not hers, but she does say that he is a great little student and a whiz at learning his letters. Tonight he wrote his name for the first time all by himself, and the look on his face says it all!
Emily wanted in on the action too, she's his biggest cheerleader!
All the other marks on the page? Apparently he's developing his own written language. Pure genius, I tell ya!
A weekend in Minot to celebrate Sam and Steph getting married.We had lots of fun, and only a few additional gray hairs by the end of the weekend. We decided to make a full weekend out of the trip so that we could take the kids swimming at the hotel pool. Kyle absolutely loved it.
If you cover Travis up in this picture it looks like Kyle has
super long, hairy legs hee hee. Go ahead, try it.
Emily enjoyed the pool for a while, but then she was all about practicing for a future career as a swimsuit model
Hoping the fun and excitement from the trip and new adventure in the pool would wear the kids out so that they would go to sleep at a decent hour ~ wishful thinking. One hotel room + two beds + one pack and play + two tired adults hoping two excited kids would be asleep by 9:30 = epic fail.
Here are a couple of photos from budding photographer, Kyle Livesay. You'll notice the unique perspective he presents with his photojournalistic style. With that I present to you "Wedding in a Small Norwegian Church: A 3 Year Old's Perspective".
We made it through less than 1/3 of the ceremony before the itty bitties decided that it was time to head outside. When the wedding was over we tried to get some family shots. I have resigned myself to the fact that family photos will not be fantastic for the next couple of years as evidenced by the lack of success in capturing one picture in which all of us are looking in the same direction, smiling, at the same time. These are the two best options for this year's picture. I have decided that kids are just cute when they are little, so as long as Travis and I look good, we'll go with it.
The reception was a lot of fun. Kyle made friends with the flower girl and for lack of a better word, he pretty much stalked her all night. To the point of following her into the girl's room. Multiple times. The kids danced, Emily played with cups, and Kyle discovered how much fun standing right in front of the speakers could really be.
Five. Yup that's how many days we enjoyed at the lake this year. Five. Amazing. Beautiful. Days. We usually wind up bringing some pretty awful weather with us whenever we attempt to vacation at Auntie Cheryl's lake cabin. In fact last time we were there we experienced sustained winds over 40 mph for pretty much 2 days straight, even through the night. Joyful. We couldn't have asked for better weather this year.
The trip down last summer was kind of rough. Neither of the kids particularly enjoyed being in their carseats longer than an hour or two, so much of the time found Mama squished in the back seat between the itty bitties, desperately trying to keep them both from fussing/crying/threatening mutiny. This year, much more entertaining for all, well maybe not for Ky!
Some of the highlights from this year's festivities include:
Daddy and Kyle time
Trips to the lake bring a million first time experiences to the lives of our itty bitties, not all of them pleasant. Our little mister had his first
dose of heat exhaustion and was sick for one evening. Not even a brief
episode of dehydration and the pukes held him back for long though. Not when there are so many pish to be caught! It's not hard to smile when you outfish every one else on the dock!
A HUGE change from last year's reaction to catching those pish:
Yes, the favorite wellow hat survived the previous year to make a return trip to the lake!
Babies in sun hats (kinda makes me wish we lived some where tropical, sigh)
Helping Papa man the boat.....
and scout for icebergs!
No trip to the lake would be right if we didn't have at least a little bad weather. Fortunately this year the icky stuff came at night. Auntie Cheryl decided that at 3 years old, Kyle was more than man enough to help clean up after the storm and earn his keep!
You might not guess this to be true, but being related to a dinosaur genius (a.k.a. Cousin Heidi) comes in handy at the most random times. One might think that the discovery of a small stash of dinosaur toys would delight a 3 year old boy to no end, but alas just doing the "dinoswar stomp" with his new found treasures was not enough for Kylesaurus Rex. BTW, when little boys who love to watch "Dinosaur Train" on PBS ask you to name the dinosaurs, they are not impressed when you tell them Larry, Moe, and Curly. I quickly uploaded a picture of the dinos in question to Facebook, hoping that Heidi would see it, and behold, within 1 minute the following conversation ensued:
Kyle has joined the world of big time athletes! The YMCA offers sports programs for kids 3-5 years old and this month Kyle is exploring a future career as a soccer player or a baseball player. The life lessons I learned from this experience include:
1. Even if your Daddy and Papa are both well over 6' tall, at 3 years old you still may be one of the smallest kids on the team
2. While Kyle may have unbelievable coordination and balance for his age, some other skills have much room for improvement ie: standing in line, waiting his turn (I think the coaches had to draw straws every session to see who needed to keep one hand on Kyle at all times to keep him semi restrained attentive)
3. It is possible for a child to "do their own thing" and not really interfere with any one else's fun
4. Teen age girl coaches take their jobs much more seriously than teen age boy coaches. I feel comfortable stating this as pure fact due to many (ok, mainly 2) factors. Firstly, I was a teen age girl who worked with teen age boys. And lastly, in typical teen boy fashion, 2 of the coaches not only laughed at Kyle as took laps around the gym kicking a soccer ball/running the bases while the other kids patiently waited their turns, they gave him high 5s and threw/kicked the ball back to him 95% of the time. While I failed to catch the instigators in the act, I'll leave this picture up to your interpretation.
5. If your child is small, but super fast, takes 10 turns at hitting/kicking/throwing the ball/running the bases for every one turn the rest of the kids take, and super-cute, all 5 teen aged coaches will remember his name after the first practice.
6. Kyle's belly button either contains magical powers, or else is the residing place of the little elf that told him to run like a wild man
At first Miss Em was not impressed with the talent displayed by this particular group of preschoolers
However after a reminder that many of these athletes were just learning the basics of the sport, she quickly turned from critic to cheerleader
The one thing I can say about Kyle is that when he plays, he gives it all he's got. Ever since he learned that running was fun, even if it is just a 3 foot sprint to get the cheerio off the floor before Emily, he has run like this:
Arms pumping, knees high and almost always with a face of pure determination!
Here is a video clip in which Kyle and his accomplices demonstrate pretty much everything mentioned above and encompasses the Spring Session 2011 of Itty Bitty Sports for little Kyle:
In the end fun was had by all. We'll see if Kyle gets to break in a whole new set of coaches next Spring.
