February 18, 2009 Crazy Croc Kid

A couple of weeks ago the girls got new crocs for next summer that Grandma found on clearance. Well - Sam the boy who wouldn't go anywhere last summer without his crocs got a "tad bit" upset, if you can call it that. Trying to figure out how to resolve this issue, I remembered that he is wearing about the same size shoe as Allison wore last summer. Allison had both a pink pair and a red, white and blue pair last year. Being that red, white and blue can be gender neutral I headed to garage to look for them. When found, Sam was thrilled.
A little too thrilled shall we say, this is how he goes to bed now...

He wears his crocs all the time....including to bed!!!

February 13-14, 2009 Trip to Chicago

The long awaited time finally arrived and we were off to Legoland. We rigged up a way for the kids to watch movies on my laptop on the way down and that pacified them for a while - but the last hour or so was still getting to be a bit much. They are not used to be in the car that long and we were trying to put off lunch until we got there.

Once we arrived in Schaumburg, IL we stopped for lunch and Wendy's - only to have our mini-vacation begin with Allison getting sick in the restaurant. It's one thing to clean up after a sick child at home, but having it happen in a public place where others were trying to eat doesn't bode well. Paul took her out to the car and we weren't quite sure what to do next. However, she quickly recovered and we feel she was just suffering from a bit of motion sickness.

We arrived at Legoland to find that the Dragon Ride that the kids had been talking about for weeks was closed for "remodeling". BUMMER! They quickly got over it and we ventured into MiniLand. We had a great time at Legoland. It wasn't quite what we were expecting - a few disappointments here and there but we had a lot of fun.

After spending about 3 hours at Legoland we headed to the hotel and check in. Then we let the kids go swimming and headed off to dinner before the Friday night crowds on Valentine's weekend began. Our hotel was only 5 minutes from Legoland and we could see Woodfield Mall from our window.

Once we got back to the hotel and settled in for the night - the real adventure began. Sam refused to go to sleep and I was quickly wishing for a dose of Benadryl. Every time he started to nod off, he would pop up and say he wanted to sleep with Papa. (Papa was sleeping with Nicholas -closest to the door, the girls were together and I was with Sam). He would walk over there, say 'Hi' to Paul and come back to my bed. We watched Baby Einstein's about 3 times hoping he would finally nod off, but the more tired he got, he started asking to go home. Over and over again -- "home". He wanted nothing to do with this hotel room that had seemed so fun in the afternoon. I finally got him to fall asleep around 11pm (our time) after Paul came and layed in our bed with us. However, Sam woke up around 1:30am and got out of bed, walked over to the window and started repeating "home, home". Thankfully, when I brought him back to bed he did fall back to sleep and slept until 6:30am. Needless to say, he was pretty cranky the rest of the day. We did beat the crowds for breakfast downstairs, but we had to keep distracting Sam until the mall opened at 10:00am - as he was still fixated on going home and not wanting to be in this hotel room anymore.

Once we finally made it to the mall, we waiting a few minutes for Build-A-Bear to open. The kids had a great time building their stuffed animals, picking out clothes, and printing out their birth certificates.

We made a quick stop at the Disney Store and then headed to the Lego store in the mall. This Lego store had a lot more inventory than Legoland and we finally found the girl lego the girls had been hoping for.

After some more Lego purchases, we headed to Rainforest Cafe' for lunch - only to be disappointed as the wait was already more than 30 minutes and these kids were not going to make it. So, we got snacks, loaded up and headed home - stopping for lunch in Michigan City.

We had a great time in Legoland and at Build A Bear and the kids will be talking about it for quite some time.

Click To Play
This video clip is a bit lengthy, as there was so much to include and the video I'm posting also serves as our "home video" for the kids to remember their trip by.

February 11, 2009 From Fits to Fun!

Wednesday morning started out normal. I got Nicholas off to school in the morning and watched him walk to the bus stop as I always do. Well, before he got all the way down there one of the neighbors let us know there was a 2 hour delay due to fog. (I normally do not have the news on in the morning and had no idea it was foggy). So, Nicholas came home - perfectly content to wait the 2 hours to go to school. It was a big day for him at school they were having special celebrations in the morning to celebrate the 100th day of school and then Valentine's Parties in the afternoon AND Grandma was going to babysit so I could be in his class ALL DAY long.

However, the joy did not last long as we found out about an hour later than school was CLOSED for the day. Someone had punctured all the tires on all the buses and they would not be able to get them up on running on time.

Several minutes of true crocodile tears were to follow by both Nicholas and Gabrielle. They had been waiting for this special day for a long time.

The day was redeemed however by a trip to the book fair at school before they closed it up followed by a visit from Grandma (even though she didn't need to babysit). We made it a special day with heart shaped homemade pizzas and heart shaped rice krispie treats. They ended up having a great day.

Sam had to use the teddy cookie cutter for his pizza.
He continued to go into the drawer for his "teddy" even a day later.

Grandma helps them cut and shape the dough. Gabrielle spreads the pizza sauce.

Nicholas made a dinosaur and a rocket - and Allison made a bell.

One of the finished products.

Enjoying their creations.

Heart Shaped Rice Krispie treats - they used baggies to keep
their hands from sticking.

Adding Sprinkles

After using the baggies to make their special treat -
Sam walked around with his baggie for about 30 minutes.
He had to carry his Rice Krispy treat in his bag.

What a great day it turned out to be - we are yet to find out if their Valentine Parties will be rescheduled. Thanks for coming out Grandma - you really saved the day!

February 10, 2009 Great Conferences!

Tonight I had conferences for Nicholas and Gabrielle. I was a proud mama.

Gabrielle is "mastering" all of the skills expected of her and I have been told that she is going have no trouble at all transitioning into Kindergarten. She helps her fellow students and is not afraid to try anything. The "not afraid to try anything" is a change from the beginning of the year and show me that she is maturing. It also affirms to me that we made the right decision in sending her to Young 5's this year rather than jumping straight into Kindergarten.

On a sad note, her teacher indicated that right now it looks like funding may be lost to support a Young 5's program in the future. We had planned on sending Allison to this program in 2 years. If I had known the program might not exist we would have made a different decision and sent her to 3 year old preschool this year. We'll have to see how this plays out.

Nicholas is also doing very well. He is particularly excelling in both math and reading and his teacher asked my permission to put him in a GIFTED program for these two subjects. They have about 6 kids in the first grade that they would like to spend in this program. The program involves being pulled out of class 2 days a week for math and 2 days a week for reading. He will be enrolled in both programs. (where some of the students will only be pulled out for one or the other). I was very proud of him, but also glad to hear that the teachers and school are sensitive to the needs of each child and realize when some of the kids need to be a little more challenged. It is important to me that he stay challenged because I believe his study habits are forming now and if everything comes too easily right now, I am afraid he will not have formed the study habits he needs when things start to get more difficult.

I love both of their teachers and had an excellent time hearing that both of our children are doing well.

February 9, 2008 - "A Terror in the middle of the night!"

No I'm not talking about a scary event, or even a child's nightmare. Anyone who knows Sam realizes why he can be referred to as a little terror....

(O.K> rewind >Sam got a great big Tonka dump truck from his aunts and uncles for his birthday. He LOVES to put things in it and tear around the house pushing it. )

Now fast forward>> Sam has been fighting a bad cold and cough and has been sleeping ALOT. Yesterday he took a 4 1/2 hour nap but still went to bed without a problem at night. However, he apparently woke up at 1:30 in the morning, and came downstairs. Paul and I are sound asleep and all of the sudden you hear the pitter patter of little feet and whir of dump truck wheels...

Sam had come downstairs, lovingly placed his blankets in the bed of the dump truck and came tearing into our room pushing it. What a rude awakening!

Thankfully, he was very cooperative about going back to bed and we didn't hear from him the rest of the night.

I obviously did not have my camera out at 1:30am, but here is some footage of Sam when he first got his dump truck at his birthday party.

February 7, 2009 - Sickness, Sickness go away ----

So this week has been full of colds and fevers in the Van Wesep house. The kids have been struggling with colds for the most part, but up and down fevers have been thrown into the mix to make things unpredictable and very difficult to plan what was going on.

In the middle of the night, Sam coughed so hard that he threw up. Well, I think it was about 2 am. So I picked him up, changed his clothes and brought him downstairs and put him in our bed with Paul. I then went up, stripped the bed and brought it into the basement and started a load of laundry. At this point, I just wanted to go back to bed and did not really wish to put the clean sheets on so we just left Sam sleep in our bed.

Once the other kids started to get up, Paul got out of bed and Allison climbed in. This is the sight I saw when I got out of bed as well.



So on that note..... how many parents out there have had that moment when you wish your child/children could just put themselves to bed??


Well, tonight we had that such event. Since Sam has been feeling under the weather the past few days he has actually been asking to take a "napper". To which we willingly obliged. However, tonight we were watching a movie as a family and all of the sudden he just picked up his blankie and teddy and left the room. After a couple of minutes I asked Paul where Sam went, and he thought he may have mumbled "napper" as he left the room. So upon investigating I found my 2 year old son having put himself to bed. Apparently, he was tired....

Speaking of tired....

The other day, I went to tuck the kids in before we went to bed. I couldn't find Sam, but I could hear him breathing. After about 30 seconds or so of investigating I found him.... sound asleep UNDER Nicholas's bed. Silly kid!