Taking the Scenic Route

Cody turned 5!

He had a pirate theme party with pirate hats, a pirate ship pinata, and a cute cake.  Zane did a pretty good job of listening and playing without problems.  *happy mama dance*

Carefully carrying the present he helped wrap to the car to go to the party

His turn at the pinata.  He counted out his swings as he counted to 5.  (what Cody had done right before). 

Pinata booty…a tootsie roll pop

Excited because Cody was opening the present he helped wrap.  Cody has been really into Star Wars for several years and ended up with all Star Wars gifts.  Several of us were holding our breath because there were a number of packages the exact same shape…Star Wars Action Figures…and were all relieved we got him different ones.  We got him an Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader one, he also got R2D2 and Obi Wan.  There was a big battle droid and something else that I am not remembering right now.

Eating his cake

And there is another pirate picture on Zach’s site.

The only thing that really stinks about parties like this is the sugar.  Zane reacts very severely to sugar.  I only let him have 1/2 a piece of cake (from the center…one side of frosting) and was teased by the other parents about being a mean mama.  He only had one sucker (thank goodness that was the only thing left after all the older kids raided the pinata goodies…I was not looking forward to prying chocolate out of his hands…that seems to be even worse for him).   I was happy when Robert jumped in to defend us…he had witnessed Zane and agreed that we were not exaggerating his reaction.  That helped shut up the other parents.  I was very proud of Zane though…he did not go around trying to take other people’s cake or candy, and he left the cake (on the table) alone when we asked him to.  I was proud of his self control and his growing understanding of socially acceptable behavior. 

Some comments about “The Great Sugar Battle”.

When I say he does not handle sugar well, I am not kidding.  The week of Easter made it abundantly clear.

Day 1, Easter:  Let him have a small chocolate bunny, some small marshmallow eggs, some whoppers in the Easter eggs, and a peep (which I don’t think he finished) .   He was up for 22 hours of insanity.

Day 2:  Only slept 5 hours and got up grumpy, but still in high gear.  He ran from the bedroom to his candy…he got in 2 marshmallow eggs before we made if from the bedroom ourselves.  We decided to remove everything except a few of the whoppers out of his reach…major drama and lots of climbing to try and retrieve the candy.  Up 20 hours.  Including behaviors like walking down the hallway banging his head against the wall every step, overturning furniture, and throwing kid’s furniture.

Day 3:  Again, up after only 4.5 hours of sleep.  We removed all the candy from sight and threw away anything that wasn’t something we wanted to eat ourselves.  He was still crazy and totally out of control.  We were tired beyond reason at this point and started sleeping in shifts to keep up with him and keep him from killing himself.  In the evening he came from his room smelling like chocolate with brown gunk all over himself.  Discovered the wrappings to a caramel Cadbury egg in his room and chocolate smears everywhere.  We searched his room and looked for any other candy he might have hidden (and wondered if that was why day 2 was so horrible).  Up 22 hours

Day 4:  5 hours of sleep.  How the heck does he do this!?!  By this point, everything is just a blur of him out of control and bad tempered.  Zero sugar today…we didn’t even let him have his green juice (apple juice base), grapes, or yogurt (which has sugar in it)  Up 20 hours again.

Day 5:  Awake after a whole 6 hours of sleep this time.  We were able to get him down for a nap finally.  It only lasted 45 minutes, but it was better than nothing.  He ‘only’ up for 18 hours this day.  Still wild, but better by comparison.

Day 6:  Slept 8 hours the night before.  Nap time back to 1.5 hours.  Still grumpy, but resembling a more normal reaction to things.  Schedule is wayyyyyy of by now, but at least he was only up 12 hours. 

Then we went out to the farm and he had some sugar, although we REALLY limited the amount.  By this point we are SO tired of the behavior problems, and my folk understood so they didn’t push.  It was still too much sugar. 

Spent the intervening time trying to get his bedtime, now completely screwed up, from 6 am back to 10-11 pm.  We had it on track for a total of 1, count ‘em ONE night, then we had the party.  Despite the fact he woke up at 8 am,  had his nap on time (12:30-2pm) he was up until 5 am….21 hours minus the nap.  *sigh*   Back to the struggle for regaining the proper bedtime.

Oh, and Alex’s party is next Sunday.  Oh Joy.   

Adventures in dressing.

I am so proud of him to be dressing himself.  I did have to stiffle giggles at the outfit though.  Everything he has on is backwards.  The shorts (not undershorts, just normal shorts) that he put the pants over have both legs through one leg of the shorts. 

He is so proud of himself…as he should be. 

Our Vows

As God enables me, from this day forward, I choose you, my beloved Zachary (Jennifer), to be my husband (wife).

To live with you and laugh with you

To stand by your side and sleep in your arms 

To be joy to your heart and food to your soul. 

To bring out the best in you always, and for you, to be the most that I can.

To laugh with you in the good times,

To struggle with you in the bad. 

To solace you when you are downhearted,

To share with you in the joys,

To nourish you with my gentleness

and to uphold you with my strength.

As our lives unfold together I promise to be faithful. 

To stand by your side in sickness and in health, and for richer and for poorer, and to always express my emotional truth and embrace you as both teacher and student as we do what God calls us to do, individually and in relationship.

I promise you this from my heart, with my soul, for all the days of my life and, if God wills, beyond the walls of life, and beyond the bounds of time.

10 years ago

more later, getting ready to go to a movie right now. 

10 years ago, about now, Zach and I had just returned from Kinkos and were folding our wedding programs. 

Playing at the park

He really isn’t a toddler any more, is he.  *sigh*

Zane loved the train.  He kept trying to dislodge the fence and crawl under it.  I actually had to disentagle him from the fence this time because he wedged himself under the fence almost to his waist between the taking of this photo and running to him to keep him from getting under the fence.  lol.

He was pretty sober after thwarting his fence jumping.

Playing his “Dora the Explorer” Game

He has actually figured out how to start the game up from the desktop and plays it quite a bit.  He amazes us.

MCC Sale

We went to the MCC Sale today.   My folks were some of the people in charge of the “Feed the Multitude” event, so we waited to go until a bit later, so we would have more chance of being able to eat with them.  It worked.  When we came, we hardly had to wait at all.  As usual, I couldn’t walk 5 feet without knowing somebody. lol.  The guy manning the line was the dad of 2 kids I went to high school with, and I recognized a few people serving the food and taking the money.  My mom had a table in mind that was more out of the way, so we were able to enjoy our meal a bit more since Zane isn’t very good at sitting most of the time.  lol

 He tried everything, but he was more interested in my parents and the view than the food.  It was really good food too!

After eating, we went to look around at the stuff.  As we were walking back to the Quilt and crafts buildings, we ran into Dori nursing Eilysh sitting right outside.  Not long after, the barrel train thing came by with Robert, Alex and Cody riding (the boys are the ones in orange shirts) 

The funny thing was that the driver saw me, and decided to have a little fun.  The ‘end point’ is the white trailer you see in the background of the photo.  Instead of finishing the ride as usual, he turned around and literally ran circles around Zach, Zane and I.  The boys were all cheering, the adults were laughing heartily.  It was really funny. 

Afterwards, the boys ran circles around us and were generally big ole goofballs enjoying each other.  Zane did take a break to say hi to Elysh when she was done with lunch.  It was very sweet. 

We didn’t really get to see much in the buildings.  They were crowded and loud and Zane was too wound up to listen well, so we ended up leaving.   We couldn’t really afford to purchase anything, so it seemed like a waste of energy to try and focus him at that point.

During lunch, mom gave us a check to help out with some summer clothes for Zane, so we took advantage of the Old Navy Outlet in town and picked up some clothes.  Most of his shirts are showing his belly button and he has problems getting his head through the hole, so it was nice to get some new things for him.  He was very psyched about the shopping and kept dumping things into our cart. lol.  We had to be very careful to not end up with any extras.  When we got home, he kept trying to change his clothes over and over again to try everything on.  I would like to have a dressier outfit for him, but we got two polo shirts that will work for church and other dressy things if we aren’t able to get anything else.  The only thing we need is shoes, so we will be getting some sometime in the next couple of weeks.  He is at the end of his sandals he currently owns, but they aren’t too small yet, so we have some time. 

Very good day.  Fun.  Productive.  Wow am I tired!

Frugal parent alert:  land’s end has kid’s down jackets on sale for $11.99 

Guess what Zane is wearing next winter.    cheaper than consignment!

Some more old photos

I was a flower girl for my babysitter, Bonnie.  I don’t really remember the wedding itself all that well, but I remember trying on the dress and veil at home and wanting to play with it.  My biggest memory of Bonnie is visiting her after she had kids and playing on a sit and spin toy at her house.  Isn’t that a weird little memory.  lol.  One of the favorite family stories is of me at this wedding.  Evidently at some point in the ceremony I got bored, sat down on the steps in front of the church (facing the congregation) and ate the flowers from my basket.  I think that basket is still around someplace.

This was taken around Christmas of 1978, so I would have been a month shy of 9 years old.  Got the Farrah Flip thing going on.   I am also wearing a bell bottom red polyester jumpsuit with giant bell sleeves and a front tie that I thought was the greatest thing ever. 

My first formal dress.  This was 8th grade graduation.  I still love this dress.  The funny thing that you can’t see is that  the shoes I wore didn’t fit very well.  I couldn’t find shoes that were wide enough in the right length (did not have different widths as available back then), so I got some that were really long and I could barely keep them on when I walked.  (well, that and I wasn’t used to pumps yet, even if they were only an inch high or so).  I felt like a princess that day.  My big gift was a set of luggage that I used later for camp and when I went to Philadelphia for my service work.

This photo only got posted because of the building behind my brother and I.  That is the house that Laura actually lived in during “Little House on the Prairie”  (located near Independence, KS if I remember right)  I was thinking the house on TV seemed pretty big from what I was remembering.  This was probably taken the summer of 1985. 

This weekend (Friday & Saturday)

For any of you that are somewhat local, this is a fabulous event.  We will probably go on Saturday, since the “Feed the Multitude” tends to be a lot more croweded on Friday evening.  (My folks are in charge of a part of that and they can’t stop and eat with us if they are slammed).

Here is a link to the MCC Sale