The Blizzard of 2015

Well...the Blizzard of 2015 was a bust for Central Maryland.

We only got 3" or so.  Just enough for a day off of school and some decent sledding.

We went down to the Udvar-Hazy Center on Saturday because Jim had to make a trip to Dulles.  Unbeknownst to us, it was Open House Day there - so there was all sorts of extra things to do.  The kids did a scavenger hunt and earned a badge when then found planes named after animals.  Thinking we were going to Story Time under the space shuttle, we happened upon a presentation on one of the planes that is currently under restoration called "Flak-Bait".  Sam and Caroline sat through the 40 minute presentation on the B26 Marauder, mesmerized.  Sam was so interested that he declared he wanted to do his project for the Social Studies Fair on "Flak-Bait".  This is a good thing, he had previously wanted to know where his great-grandfathers went when they were in the army in WWII, but that's a lot for a 1st grader to handle - so we're making it into a family project.  Sam has spent the last few days watching training videos and documentaries and looking in the WWII books he has got out of the library to learn what he can about Flak-Bait.  It's pretty cool stuff.

Caroline has got some cool books out of the library on Marie Curie and radioactivity.  Thanks to some NRC videos aimed at kids, I'm pretty sure she understands enough about radioactive elements to explain the what and why.  She is way more interested in Marie Curie and plans to dress up as her to present to her class.  Guess I'll be breaking in the sewing machine very soon.  Nothing like working on a deadline!

Oh  - I forgot to mention.  Benjamin was nominated for an Academy Award in the "Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor" category for his epic performance at Mass on Sunday morning.  It started off with him just being a little more rambunctious than usual.  It ended with Benjamin dropping himself prone on the church floor in a most dramatic fashion and then flipping to yell "I. Don't. Want. To. Be. Quuuuiiiiieeeettt!!!" during the Consecration.  At the end of Mass, Monsignor made a special effort to welcome everyone to the community - even those that don't want to be quiet.
I'll be honest - three years ago I would have been praying to be swallowed into the ground with an episode like that, but by that point in the Mass on Sunday, I was so done that I couldn't even manage a blush.   I am doing the best I can with what I have.  If people can't figure that out...oh, well.  Maybe more people will bring their kids to Mass because they figure it's not a problem to get them to behave better than ours.  That's worth something, right?

On a snow day last week, the Youngers put together birdhouses.  It took me a while to convince Nate that we were not going to have a bird living in the house.  He got over his disappointment quickly once he saw that he got to use a hammer.  The sight of Benjamin with a hammer was enough to make me break out in hives - but they built their houses.  Nate did a lot on his own.  He was pleased. 

This morning, Caroline was up at 5 and the rest up soon after so they could build a lego village.  Yes, that is Sam wearing his winter jacket and Caroline wearing a hat indoors.
What's a Mama to do?  They were happy.  I wasn't going to change anything!

Wednesday

It's a snowy, grey, dreary Wednesday afternoon.
The kids are in school today, amazingly enough.
Hopefully they can go out and earn a little extra coin this afternoon by shoveling driveways.  :)

It's not as grey and dreary as the picture would lead you to believe, though. 
Someone changed the setting os on my camera to black & white. 
I can't figure out how to change them back. 

Benjamin in sleeping.  Finally.  And it will be time to wake him up to get the kids as soon as he enters deep sleep, I'm sure. 
But sitting is a welcome respite after last week.
Jim was in Texas and the kids were wicked out of sorts. 
Usually, I do a very good job carving out time that I have just to myself.
I have my  morning exercises, Nate goes to school in the afternoon while Benjamin naps and there is a little time after the kids go to bed.
Last week NONE of that happened. 
It was rough. 
I had one morning when I worked out by myself.   Benjamin took NO naps and at 9pm there would be at least one urchin attempting to crawl into my bed. 
Stuff got done, but my mood suffered for lack of alone time.
I know it will get better as we get more seasoned and used to Jim traveling more.  It's a learning process.  I need to protect my time and learn to work more efficiently when I can.  But still. 
Yikes. 

It's Science Fair time!!!
The Science Fair is evil.  As in the Fruits of the Devil.
Thankfully for the boys it's optional, but not for Caroline.
 She has decided to do a project on Marie Curie and radioactivity.
We told her she can do anything she wants as long as no radioactive waves are involved.
Oy.

Sam has been decidedly anti-school lately.
He has had a lot of trouble paying attention and has got in trouble more than a few times for it.
He also says school is boring and they don't talk about things that are interesting to him.
Ugh.
So we're taking the opportunity of the Social Studies Fair for him to explore WWII and D-Day.  We'll see how that goes.
He is fascinated by that stuff.  He remembers what armies landed on what beaches and where they were going to and what was in their way. 
Hopefully this will re-charge his interest in school.

I think we will excuse Nate from the Science Fair this year.  Mama can't handle it!

But here's Benjamin - cute as can be.
He is a sharp dressed boy!

Happy Birthday to Caroline!

Hard to believe this little girl is already 9.
She came into this world on her own terms and has been changing it for the better ever since. 
Happy Birthday DoodleBug!

At CJ's request, we went into DC to the Museum of the American Indian yesterday.   Don't know if it was the cold weather, the impending Raven's loss or the events this past week in Paris, but DC was devoid of tourists and there was the most significant security presence we have witnessed.  We also traipsed around The Castle.  Caroline brought a friend and when we got home we had a Southern dinner of fried chicken.  An excellent day was had by all. 

Here's to the next wonderful trip around the sun for Caroline.  :)

So now we're relaxing before the week starts.  The Christmas tree is down and we're cleaning up the last of the aftermath from the Holidays.  Meals are planned, lunches are made and we're all cleaned up from dinner.  There is laundry to be done and much to be picked up so we can get a clean start for the week.
See?  I'm not joking...because, obviously the best place to make bracelets is in the middle of the stairs. 

Legos?  Anyone want to play with Legos?

On another note, here's a picture of one of the many reasons that I love my Friend Tribe.
Thursday was a challenging day here.  We missed the bus and a certain 1st grader had some behavior problems that resulted in him needing to sit in the corner for classroom discipline.  After discussion, Jim and I have some plans in place to try to get things back on track.  With Jim traveling more than we're used to, any change in routine can be challenging simply because when he's gone, I have to be "on" all day.  There isn't down time.  That's okay and once we're in the groove, things work well.  It will take a few times crashing and burning before we figure things out though, I'm sure. 
After commiserating with my Tribe, *this* showed up at the front door accompanied by a hug and some much needed encouragement. 
Can't tell you if it was the kibbutzing, the hug or the rum...but it helped a lot. 
And I am so very grateful.

Nate and Ben's brotherly relationship is progressing along to the appropriate developmental schedule. 
They go from best friends to beating the tar out of each other with alarming rapidity and frequency. 
We had to pull out the old "hold hands while in time out" trick.
That always makes for good entertainment.  

Here's to an excellent week and none of the ice and snow they're calling for.
One snow day last week was enough! 

My Super Power

As a Mom, I have many Super Powers.  They include:
Hugs, cuddles, tickles, snuggles, bandaging boo-boos, positioning small children in head locks to facilitate haircuts, performing any household duty efficiently with a toddler firmly attached to my hip, chopping veggies with children crawling up my legs, making dinner while braiding hair and helping with homework, ascertaining who hit who without use of a rear-view mirror in the car, being able to determine which of my children is most full of malarkey by the way they look at me and reading "SkippyJon Jones" completely from memory.
Today I focused my MommyPowers to battle the Villain Entropy
 Yep - I purged and organized the boy's closets.  
Both Nate and Ben are in the same room now.
For the first time in nine years (with a couple months off for good behavior here and there), Jim and I have our room to ourselves. 
Once we get Ben's dresser out, we are thinking of putting in a cozy chair and making a reading corner for us. 
At some point Sam's bed will need to become Nate's bed so that Benjamin can fit under better.  Sam is vehemently opposed to this, but we'll figure on ways to sweeten the deal to make it happen.
Still lots to do and every time we do something, we find something else to do (I got some lecturing today about "limiting the scope" of my projects) but this house is shaping up to be what we want it to be.

And to thank us for all our hard work, Nate picked out his own clothes today.
Keep in mind it was all of 30 degrees.

Happy New Year

Forever Friends are wonderful. 
They're those friends that, despite distance and years, you feel are always there.
All from various parts of life -  high school, college, color guard, the different places we've lived...
All so special and all exactly perfect for the time of life that we met. 
And perfect now, too.
By sheer coincidence, my friend Heather that I marched SAC with, was visiting her family in Florida when we were seeing Patrick.
Close to 20 years after a season of adventures and mishaps on a Casablanca themed tarp, we picked up where we left off.
I hope it won't be another 5 years before we see each other again, but if it is, it will be wonderful.  

More Adventure

Our adventures in Florida continue.
We went to Dusty's, a total hole-in-the-wall dive bar with dollar bills stapled to every permeable surface and the feel that the building will fall over if more than a stiff breeze blows through.
I had heard people rave about it, but after seeing it, I had serious doubts.
I was glad it wasn't too upscale, since we wouldn't fit in anywhere "nice" with Nate singing "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" in the bathroom while taking a dump.  Very classy.  
Two hours, some 75 cent drafts, lots of old ladies in Packers shirts and the best seafood we have had in years later, I am a believer.

 We had more fun at the beach after lunch.  Being so close to the eastern edge of Central Time, it gets dark so early here.  Even though it's only an hour, it's throwing everything for a loop - especially since depending on where we are in the City, our cell phones pick up the feed from Tallahassee, which is in Eastern time - so the times switch.  Totally confusing. So we ended up going on Beach Time. Can't go wrong that way.

Uncle Patrick said he was going to throw Nate in the Gulf.  Caroline decided to protest.  They all ended up in the drink.

"Okay.  I can't go in the ocean...they said nothing about the big puddles..."

Requisite family beach picture.  I kind of like being the tallest!

Karma continues.   The kid has swallowed more sand in the past 3 days than anyone rightfully should. 

S'mores with Uncle Patrick and Chrissy.  It was chilly enough that the fire was much appreciated.

Everybody in the Tubby!!!

This is what happens when Caroline is left alone for 2 minutes with bubble making potential.

Benjamin hanging with his new favorite person. 

Adventure.

We enjoy adventure.
So when we discovered we had a week off to burn as a family between Christmas and New Years, it was the subject of much discussion.
Graciously, Uncle Patrick and Chrissy offered to let us stay with them for a few days down in Florida.
Since flying is a logistical nightmare with four children still in car seats , we decided we would brave the 950 mile, 16+ hour drive.
The trip down was good.  Better then we could have ever asked for.  Caroline got a little punchy in Roanoke, VA; the traffic in Atlanta was indescribable, Alabama back roads are way too fast and Florida seemed endless but we MADE it.

After taking a few hours to settle down last night, everyone was up early and raring to go today.
We got to Mass.  Mostly bluehairs in the congregation, but that was to be expected.  The church was ornate and there was almost too much to look at, resulting in Nate and Ben wanting to be anywhere but the pew.  Our experience culminated in Benjamin picking up prayer cards, pretending they were guns and making "pow pow pow!!!" sounds at the old couple behind us.
Oy.
We were able to venture to get donuts and then to run around the beach with Chrissy to work them off.
The water was rough and too cold to get in, but that didn't stop the kids from getting wet.
And sandy.
It will be a long while before we get all the sand out of the car.

Making the kids they will promise to stray out of the at the beach.  It didn't work. 

Only after 12 1/2 years of marriage did we take our first selfie.  We picked a good place for it. 

Benjamin would not stop throwing sand.  We were getting nasty looks when he was in time out and the rest of us were busily building sand castles. 

The Toothless Wonder himself.  He lost one more tooth down in Florida, for a grand total of 3 gone in the past 2 weeks.  His smile is so flippin' cute.

We tried so hard to get a good picture of the kids.  Wasn't happening. 

But karma is something else.  Benjamin kept wrecking everyone's sand castles by diving into them head first.  DingleHopper forgot to close his mouth on the last dive he took resulting in a mouth full of sand.  It was priceless. 

Peek-a-boo. 

Headstands with Charlie.

This was right before a big wave came and soaked these two.  It was 60 degrees and they were absolutely joyful to be soaking wet. 

Much easier to get a picture of them when they don't have to be looking. 

Cheese!