Hat Day

The kids' preschool is celebrating the week of the young child. Monday was Pajama Day and Sam took them in, so there are no pictures :) Wednesday was Hat Day & today is  Show and Tell. James chose a flashlight, though he keeps holding it up to his eye and calling it a telescope (or maybe a periscope, he's not totally clear). Amelie chose the nightlight that projects the planets onto the ceiling. I'm not sure that they'll be able to see it in class (maybe with the lights off?)

Anyway - here they are in their hats:

James called the sombrero a "pirate princess" hat, which offended Amelie, but honestly it does look somewhat pirate-y and princess-y. 

Updated to add: Amelie says they went into the bathroom in Ms. Annika's room to see the night light.

Swim Lessons

It's that time of year again! The kids (yes, James too this time) are signed up for swim lessons through the ARC.

Warm-up is important.

This is the only picture I have of James! Sam gets in with him for the parent-child class & they're across the pool.

Amelia is so excited about all of it, she can barely contain herself.

Steppin' Out Saturday

Sam & I went out last night to the wedding of one of his co-workers. It was at the Tiger Hotel downtown, which I hadn't been in since the renovation, and it was lovely. We sat at a table with the folks from the office, and they kept the conversation interesting to the (very few!) non-lawyers in the bunch.

They had a fun photo booth. Thanks to Casey & Trisha for letting us be a part of the celebration.

And thank you to the grandparents Buffaloe for babysitting!

James Says / Amelie Says

The first thing James says in the morning is usually, "Is it daytime?" 

When he wore shorts for the first time this spring, he ran his hands over his shins and said, "Where my pants go? They no here. They cutted them off."

James wanted up at the computer with me and I said I needed to order a present for my friend who was getting married first. Sensing a present-getting opportunity, he said, "I GETTING MARRIED!" 

Out of nowhere, he walked up to me and asked, "We go to Tiger Bounce with Hattie today?" That makes sense, because we've been once (several months ago) and hadn't said anything about it since.

If James gets to play with another kid, he'll often say, "He my friend. He my cousin." 

When we are stopped at a red light, the rear-facing backseat driver will yell, "Go! Go! It green!" 

We met 6-week old Baby Ellory and James said, "Dis baby belongs to ME." 

At the park today, I overheard Amelie telling another girl that, "Birds aren't mammals. They lay eggs." A little bit after that she displayed a few more social graces and asked, "Have you heard of Jake and the Neverland Pirates?" Then later James told an 8-year old, "Big boy! You can't go in my hideout!" 

I haven't been good about keeping track of the funny things Amelie says recently - maybe in part because now what's funny about them is long and complicated. I should try to make a video of her telling a story.

Updated with: Just now, Amelie came to get me and said, "Mom, would you like to see how many branches I collected for the giraffe feeding box?" 

Easter II

 I got several pictures of the kids squinting at me on Easter.

My friend Miranda passed me this outfit (and the one James wore last Easter, too! Ha!)

I saw a ton of family photos in my facebook feed, but this is the best we got! (We were running behind, as usual.)

Eggs

The kids took turns sitting on the table while we dyed eggs.

I had the brilliant idea to put their tie-dyed shirts on in case of spills.

They ate all 13 eggs (okay, egg whites) within 24 hours. Apparently the pretty ones taste better!

Easter I

We did Easter dinner (& an egg hunt) a week early with the Buffaloes, which means I was able to get the post up for "Easter Day," as James calls it.

It was much nicer than we thought it would be outside.

Here the kids are getting instructions.

As always, Ellie had her game face on and a strategy to get the most eggs. 

At first, I thought Amelie was gleefully reaching for the change bowl, but if you look closely, you'll see there is an egg there.

There were dyed eggs to eat with dinner & when I told James he could have an "Easter egg," he thought I meant the plastic ones with the chocolate inside. I'd have been disappointed, too.

James might have been a little confused about the point of the egg hunt. Look! A chicken leg!

What a haul!

Happy Easter!

Guest Post

Some stories from Grandma Mary about the kids spending the night with the Buffaloes a little bit ago: 

1. I came out of our bedroom at 5:30 Monday morning. Just as I entered the hall, the kids' door opened and out walks James. He looks up at me, takes out his binky, grins, and says "hey!"

2. James enjoyed playing cars with Pearl. He'd take a couple of cars over to Pearl, get down on the floor, and drive the cars around her. One time I heard him ask her, "Do you want to play with the fire truck?" Pearl didn't answer, darn it.

3. Monday morning, right after James came out to greet me, I put him in our bed. Buffaloe was just getting up to get ready for work. I found a braided keychain and gave it to James to play with. He loved it. Later, when I was getting their suitcase ready to go, I saw the keychain in the suitcase. I asked, "James, did you pack the keychain in the suitcase?" He looked at me and grinned and quietly said "yes." Of course I left it in the suitcase.

4. Buffaloe and I know a whole lot more about "switch hyenas" now. Apparently, they are omnivores. But special omnivores. I could go on and on.

Fun with Nana

Nana Jana fits in the playhouse!

James kept calling it a bath. "We taking a bath!" 

The photos posted in reverse order, but it's kind of funny this way, isn't it? Look who all can squeeze in there! 

Amelie's Silhouette

Amelie's turn:

It's more pixelated than the one I did for James, so now I'd like to do it over, but I've lost a little of the momentum I had for the project. Sam was confused about the way her hair looked, because it's usually in pigtails & it was! Probably they should have been more even for a silhouette.

Silhouette

Isn't this neat?

I got such a nice profile picture of James when I was taking the photos of his hair, I decided to try a silhouette even though you're supposed to use a plain background (which would have made it easier!) It looks like I took a little creative license on the curls in the back, but it was hard to see up close with the background color being so similar.

Now I'd like to do one of Amelie, but I think getting her to cooperate for the profile photo may be harder than tracing the outline in Paint (yes, I traced the outline in Paint).

Young Sam

Does this look like anyone we know? 

Sam downloaded this photo & James walked up to the computer and said, "That James!"

I took some photos of the glorious head of hair on James when we were in the bootheel. Can you get over this? It looks like he has a perm. 

Happy Birthday

James and Great-grandma Doris pose with an ice cream cake.

All weekend long, Amelie had been angling for Aunt Tara to give her an extra dessert - I think she must be going through a growth spurt. The ice cream cake was so rich, Tara couldn't finish it, and she offered the rest of her piece to Amelie who said, "But I'm all full of cake, too!" 

Papaw Leroy

We went down to the bootheel last weekend for my Grandma Doris's birthday. We got a text on the way down that the hospice worker said Grandpa Leroy wouldn't last much longer. He ended up passing away on Saturday night.

February 12th, 1928 - March 14, 2015 

I'm glad that so many of us were able to be there. 

My Aunt Lana's good friend had written a nice piece about Grandpa on her blog a few years ago, but I just read it: http://writecreateclick.com/2012/04/16/home-again/

He lived a long, full life. 

My best memories are of when he let me drive his truck - very slowly, going the back way - from church to the grocery store on Sundays when I was 14 and 15 and learning to drive, and of course him being there at every volleyball game when Holly and I were playing. I remember how surprisingly empathetic he was when I was in 6th grade and got contacts - I had to wear these huge, red "Sally Jessie" glasses for the week or two before the contacts came in and I was vainly upset about it and Papaw was upset right along with me (not that he came out and said it in so many words!) 

LegoLand

Two weeks ago, we went to Kansas City to sell a drum kit to a friend of mine from college, buy another drum kit from a friend of Sam's from high school, eat at Fritz's with Jen, and take the kids to LegoLand. 

Fritz's had nifty conductor hats. 

We ordered our burgers using the telephone at the booth and everything.

Sam didn't tell me how crooked my hat was. I hadn't  yet adjusted it to my adult-sized head.

Amelie was fascinated with the train that delivered our food and the apparatus that lowered it down to the table.

But anyway, enough about food.

We killed some time, then walked across the street to LegoLand.

It would probably be ideal for an 8-10 year old, but the kids certainly had a grand time, and could have stayed longer than we did.

Amelie and I built things out of various-sized legos at different stations (send the car you built down the racetrack, build a tower & then turn on the earthquake simulation, etc.), but the kids really probably could have played the whole time in the big play structure. Another big hit (not that you can tell from this picture) was the 4D movie. (The "4" meaning it snowed on us when it snowed in the 15-minute movie & wind blew on us when the racers went around the track. It was neat.)

Waiting on the show to start.

Don't let her too-cool posture fool you. (This was before the movie started.)

We had frozen custard afterward, of course.