The messiest game of peek-a-boo

Zoë had refried beans and avocado for dinner, which made quite the mess! When she was finished eating she decided she wanted to play peek-a-boo with everyone who was still eating (who can resist a captive audience?), which only made things messier.

Where's Zoë? I have no idea because she's such a good hider!

Neighbourhood Easter Egg Hunt

We went to our neighbourhood Easter egg hunt this morning. In years past it's seemed like the entire neighbourhood has shown up and the eggs disappear within seconds of releasing the kids on the hunt, so this year the event planners sent out multiple emails warning everyone to arrive on time (or be left out).

But this morning it was, relatively speaking, rather chilly, and that must have frightened all our neighbours away because by the time we walked to the park (we got there with four minutes to spare) there weren't very many people there. We'd only brought little brown paper bag baskets that we'd made during breakfast but the guy in charge had brought along a bunch of grocery bags (just in case) so Rachel and Miriam grabbed one of those to fill up, too, because apparently they hid 1200 eggs for the kids to find—and there weren't that many kids to find them!

The toddler zone cleared out pretty quickly:

Pullen Park: Another perspective

We've been meaning to visit Pullen Park for the past three years or so but somehow we haven't managed to make it down there. Miriam loved the carousel at Disney World (we went in the summer of 2013) so we figured we'd take her for her fourth birthday that year. But Grandma Sharon unexpectedly passed away and Andrew ended up spending Miriam's birthday in Utah, which meant that the rest of us just stayed home (since Mommy doesn't drive to Raleigh). And then we kept meaning to make it...and kept not doing it...until today when Grandma suggested we just go do it.

So we did.

Pullen Park

Hi! I have not written a post on here before so...here goes nothing!  So, today we wanted to go somewhere, and grandma asked me if we had been to Pullen Park yet. I said "nope". And Grandma said "seriously! You haven't been to Pullen Park yet?!" I said "nope". I asked Mom,who was writing a blog post, if we could go to Pullen Park. Mom said "maybe". So I went to go play with Miriam. After a while Miriam told me to go to Moms chair. Mom told me to look up Pullen Park.I did,and this is what I found:

• 408 Ashe Ave,Raleigh,NC
• 72 acres in area
• open 10 AM- 6 PM
• opened March 22 1887
• Rides:Carousel,Kiddie and pedal boats,Train

So we packed up,got in the car, and drove away.
   When we got to Pullen Park,we got tickets and rode on the Carousel.I chose a horse that was chestnut brown and  went up and down. (Miriam and grandma accidentally chose ones that didn't) so after we got off, grandma said we would go again because of that. After, we went to the playground and played for a while. Then we went to the train.Benji really liked it,and so did Zoe.(I did to)
We got off  the train and rode the Kiddie boats.They were boring.Then we rode the Carousel again.We went to the park to play. Miriam and I were playing,and I was speed walking down a play hill they have when BAM I tripped and fell!On my face (well chin) and hands and knees!One lady asked if I was okay and I said yes and ran away to Mom. Then we left and went to Chick-fil-A.

Andrew in action

One of Andrew's friends is also attending the ISA conference in Atlanta and snapped this photo of Andrew presenting one of his papers (he's doing another one later today):

Grandma's here!

Miriam wrote this story about clocks at school on Tuesday and was so proud when her teacher read it aloud during math time (I guess they're learning about time right now):

Clocks help us tell time. Time is when something is going to happen. Like today my grandma is coming. In the morning it was only 8 hours until 4:30. That is when...

Bad dog

My list of things to do a couple of weeks ago was killing me. I had to...

• make a dog costume for the stake musical
• find other costume things for the stake musical
• make a fruit/vegetable costume for the 1st grade musical
• chaperone a field trip
• get my house ready for my mother-in-law to visit

But then we ended up with a nasty stomach virus and I gave up trying to get the house ready for my mother-in-law. Miriam's school musical was postponed until the end of April—after even the stake musical is over—so I have plenty of time to figure out a costume for that. The field trip came and went and I chaperoned it just fine. And I managed to finish that dog mask Rachel and I had been working on.

These are the guidelines we were given:

We are asking parents to supply a dog costume for their child. They can be any variety/breed of dog. They can be homemade or store bought; an older and loved dress up or Halloween costume or brand new from the store or online. Please do have a puppy costume that you can be proud to have worn on stage and not a “thrown together at the last minute for Cow Appreciation day” style costume. If you want any clarifications about your costume ideas please email me. If you cannot supply your puppy costume due to financial reasons please also contact XXX personally, and she can supply you with something. 

First of all, the Chick-fil-A love is a little strong in these parts. That cow shows up everywhere—school breakfasts, grad parent Christmas parties, just everywhere—and I've never heard of so many people eating at that establishment.

The girls got gift certificates to Chick-fil-A for Christmas, though, so I guess we'll have to figure out where the place is. We've never eaten there (though we did have their ice cream at that one grad parent event).

Anyway, Chick-fil-A hosts a cow appreciation day every once in a while and I guess the deal is that if you dress up as a cow and go to the restaurant you get something free. People dress up in white and tape black paper splotches to their clothes in order to get...whatever is free...I guess. They're rarely very good costumes, usually thrown together at the last minute when you remember it's cow appreciation day.

I, uh, don't celebrate cow appreciation day.

But I did make an adorable dog mask that I figured was nice enough to not to be categorized on a cow appreciation level. Here it is on not-the-right child (since Rachel's a puppy, not Miriam):

A three-hour tour, a three-hour tour!

Rachel's class had an outdoor field trip scheduled for September 21st. They got rained out and the trip was rescheduled for October 28th, but then had to be postponed because of Boosterthon something-or-other (a pep rally, it seems). Finally, it was (once again) rescheduled for today, but on Saturday the teachers went to check out the trail and found that the big storm we had a couple of weeks ago downed so many trees on the path that it made for rather treacherous hiking.

We got an email saying the trip was cancelled again, but a few minutes later got another saying they'd found a way past the bulk of the damage and the trip would proceed as planned.

The kids were so excited!

Rachel really wanted me to be a chaperone, so I said that I would because I missed her zoo trip last year. She really wanted me to go on that but I was far too pregnant to consider herding a bunch of seven-year-olds through a zoo on a hot day.

Helping herd fifty eight-year-olds on a six-mile hike with a nine-month-old baby strapped to my chest somehow seemed like a fine idea, though. Of course, when I signed up for the job I didn't realize it was going to be a six-mile hike. Not that there's anything wrong with taking a six-mile hike, even with a baby strapped to your chest. I simply wish there had been a post-script of sorts revealing this little truth to me. Something like, "Beeteedubs, when we say 'walk with the kids from the school to the park' we really mean 'a six-mile hike, roundtrip.'" Because then I could have brought, like, the hiking backpack/baby carrier rather than the mei-tai/diaper bag combo I had going on today.

No sane person hikes six miles hauling a diaper bag!

But we all survived.

Award assemblies

Both Rachel and Miriam were presented with certificates during their award assemblies this Friday, which meant we got to go to the K–2 assembly and then the 3–5 assembly. It was a bit long for Benjamin to have to sit through two whole assemblies ("I don't want another assemble! I want to go to recess with Mimi's class!") but it was lovely to see our girls walk across the stage.

Miriam got the "Effort Award" for showing good effort during the past quarter. It's quite an honour since only one student in each class gets chosen each quarter, even though lots of students are putting forth all the effort they can muster.

A better day

No one threw up on me in the middle of the night.

Both girls went to school and each had a happy day.

I ignored the laundry and dishes and took Benjamin and Zoë on an outing just for fun.

Andrew finished one of his papers and submitted it, which means I found time to finish editing it.

He came home and made dinner, which was not peanut butter and jelly.

Benjamin didn't drive me quite so crazy.

Zoë still didn't nap well...and it's 1:30 and she's still awake.

But I'm feeling a lot better about life today than I was yesterday.

Andrew and I even joked about that one time we flew from Utah to Egypt and Rachel fell asleep as we were coming in to land...in Cairo. It was not a direct flight and took well over 24 hours. Oh, and there was that one time we flew from Egypt to Spain and she didn't fall asleep until we'd made it to the train station in Madrid. And also the time she stayed awake from Cairo to Athens. I don't remember when she fell asleep, but I think it was as I was carrying her through the airport (some kind man let me cut ahead of him in the passport line; Andrew wasn't with me and I was pregnant with Miriam and the man probably watched me wrestle with Rachel the entire overnight flight and felt sorry for me).

We've done monster-baby before, but somehow it's more tiring now that we're old and grey.