Fall Williamsburg Weekend

 

Last week, we drove to Williamsburg, VA to Bean and Poppy's house for a fun-filled long weekend.  Mark and Poppy took L&L to Busch Gardens on Friday and they had a wonderful time exploring the park and rides.  Leah showed a big change from this summer (when she was scared of many of the rides at Funland) and loved riding many different attractions.  Here are a couple of my favorite pictures of my happy family at Busch Gardens:

Ladybug kids.

One of Leah's favorite words right now is "Ah-meen!" for airplane.  She LOVES them!

I can't stop laughing at this one.  Mark assures me that Leah was big enough for this ride and loved it, but her expression here is priceless!

 

On Saturday, we went to Colonial Williamsburg and visited the neigh-neighs (another of Peanut's very favorite things!), historical Village, and Farmer's Market: 

 

 

Our little pumpkin!

The kids also had fun playing at Bean and Poppy's house, which is always filled with new and different toys.  Leah was especially thrilled with Bean's collection of "pretties" and modeled these for everyone:

 

Luke called his grandparents the day before our trip to ask if Poppy would take him to the "Jellybean Store", which is a special tradition that these buddies have.  Luke also loved the huge assortment of cars and trucks, the "Bubble Dragon" (pictured below), Poppy's sandbox, and watching new videos during Quiet Time (surrounded by his adoring fans, of course!): 

 

 

Another highlight of the weekend was a special family gathering to celebrate a milestone birthday of Mimi's. My aunts, uncles, and cousins on my mom's side met in Williamsburg and helped us to plan a party and dinner to honor our birthday girl. It is a rare treat for us to be able to spend time with both sides of our family in one weekend, and we were thankful for the baby-sitting and flexibility of everyone that allowed us to make the most of our time together. Mark and I were so excited about going out for an child-free dinner and grown-up birthday party that we didn't take any pictures together, but had a great time.

 

I also had the chance to do some shopping at the outlets and at the Childrens' Consignment Sale at church, where I consigned for the first time (and am hoping to make as much money as I spent).  We always look forward to these trips to see our family, as it means that our children create wonderful memories with their grandparents, we have a change from our routine at home, and have the opportunity to do fun activities in different places.   

 

Here is a slide show of more pictures from our weekend in Williamsburg:

 

The childrens' joyful expressions here sum up how we all felt about our weekend: Such great fun!!

Pirates, Builders, & Superheroes: Oh My!!

Ahoy there, Mates!  Pirate Luke has been entertaining us lately with stories about imaginary pirate ship games that he and his preschool friends play on the playground.  It all sounds very complicated, with Captain Hook, good and bad pirates, and lots of sound effects and mean pirate faces: 

"Arrggghh!"

 

Luckily, we have a pirate hat and eye patch at home, so we are able to see some of these routines re-enacted, and even Leah gets in on the action:

Of course, Luke is so cute and charming that we have a hard time being too frightened when he dons his pirate attire:

 

 

Luke also enjoys the role of Mr. Fix It around the house, and is such a handy little guy to have around:

Last week, Luke told me about his favorite station at preschool, during center time: 

"Mommy, I like Rescue Heroes the best," he reported.   "There's Captain 'Miracle, The 'Credible Hulk, and Jokey from Batman." 

"Do you mean Captain America, the Incredible Hulk, and Joker?"  I inquired, pretty impressed with myself for my recently-acquired Superhero knowledge (yet another way that I am growing as a parent of a boy!). 

"No, Mommy, it's Jokey," Luke retorted, and I smiled, deciding that his sweet, innocent nicknames for all of the superheros didn't need to be corrected quite yet.

"And Mommy, the girls like Home Living and Sewing Centers the best, but they are not my favorites," my son told me.      

And I thought how interesting it must be to be a preschool teacher and observe these obvious differences between boys and girls at such a young age.

Here are a couple pictures of Luke and his best buds from preschool at the class picnic last Friday.  The boys ran relay races, were filthy from the dirt and sap, and had a wonderful, sweaty time while most of the girls played quietly on the swings or sat at the picnic tables with their parents:

 

What energy and enthusiasm for life our little pirate/builder/superhero has!  He brings us so much joy each day with his imagination and stories! 

Sweet Potato

 

Our little Sweet Potato, Leah, has had quite an eventful week.  On Friday, she underwent a procedure to determine the cause of her raspy, hoarse voice and she had to have general anesthesia.  Although I was extremely anxious leading up to Leah's surgery, she had no idea that it was happening, and I was very thankful for that.  All went well with Leah's procedure, and she was completely unphased by the anesthesia.  She played and acted normally all day afterward, despite the doctor warning me that she may be sleepy and disoriented.  We are relieved that Leah's procedure is over now, and that we have some answers to our questions about her voice.   

 

You can see in the above picture that Leah is becoming quite a girly-girl.  She refers to her jewelry as her "pretties" and is a little drama queen at times.  In fact, earlier this week she decided to have a temper tantrum while she was wearing her sparkly shoes and necklaces.  She paused in mid-cry, looked up to see if anyone was paying attention to her antics, and I told her, "I can't take you seriously while you look like such a diva..."  

 

While Leah is always girly, sweet, and loving, she can also be tough!  Some of her favorite toys are her brother's 'struction vehicles and cars, and this picture says it all.  Here is my pink girl wearing a construction hat and playing happily with a race car ramp.  She is the only girl in her Kindermusik class again this semester, and can hang with the boys with no problem!

 

Leah has recently had one of those phases where she has literally changed overnight.  I remember these stages with Luke, where you put your toddler to bed at night, and when you get them in the morning, you notice a visible growth and change.  Leah looks like such a big girl now, and although she will be 21 months this week, I continue to think of and refer to her as an 18-month old (to preserve any part of her baby-hood that I can).  Thinking that Leah will turn 2 soon is overwhelming to me!  She is talking very clearly in sentences, has a word and label for everything, and some very cute nicknames for things.  She calls herself "Yee-Yee", (because we often call her Lee-Lee), loves Minnie Mouse, and has started to be interested in Elmo. 

A few months ago, I saw that Sesame Street Live was coming to Greenville this weekend, and remembered how much fun I had going with Luke last fall.  I was hesitant to pay lots of $ to buy tickets this year, because I wasn't sure if Leah was old enough to be able to sit through the show, and also wondered if Luke had outgrown his Sesame Street days.  However, thanks to winning a free Family 4-pack of tickets, we had the opportunity to go yesterday, and it was wonderful.    It was adorable to see how excited Leah was to see Elmo and his friends live and in person, and she happily posed for pictures in the Play Zone at Sesame Street Live before the show:

 

 

Leah's favorite person continues to be "Bubba".  When we drop Luke off at preschool in the mornings, Leah cries for her brother and wants him to stay with us.  I thought she'd be so excited to have some 1:1 time with Mommy, but she asks me repeatedly each day, "Bubba, School?"  and I have to reassure her that we will pick him up soon!

 

True to her sweet, affectionate personality, Leah snuggles up next to her big brother, plays with his hair, and loves him to pieces.  Here she is, watching Saturday morning cartoons with her favorite guy:

 

 Leah and I are doing some fun things together in the mornings while Luke is at school.  We've gone to the zoo, the park, jumping places, and have done some shopping, shopping, and more shopping!  Here she is, enjoying a picnic with Mommy on the back porch:

Leah is starting to enjoy drawing and paint with water pictures, too, and this gives me hope that I may have a child who enjoys crafts in the future:

What a fun age my little Sweet Potato is right now, full of love and joy and smiles!

WFU Homecoming

We went to Wake Forest this weekend for Mark's 10-year Homecoming, and loved returning to our old stomping grounds.  Mark attended his class reunion party on Friday night, we caught up with friends from college, ate at our favorite restaurant, and tailgated before the football game yesterday.  The children had lots of fun at the Festival on the Quad on Saturday morning, which had games, family activities, and lots of photo opportunities.  We had a wonderful time at our dear alma mater, and wanted to share a few of our favorite pictures from our Wake Forest weekend!  

Family picture on the quad.

 

Our little Demon Deacons.

Luke in front of Daddy's fraternity house = Future Sigma Pi in the making?!

Luke tried all of the sports and games offered...

Beautiful morning on campus.

Leah added her own pink flair to her WFU attire.

Go Deacs!  (Cheering with her pom pom)

Demon Deacon Corn Hole.

 

Future Cheerleader.

 

 

Future Quarterback.

This one is just too funny.



Posing with the Deacon statue at the stadium.

Front row tailgate seats to see the marching band! 

Picturesque Wait Chapel.

 

Happy travelers on the car ride home!

Apple Time

A few weeks ago, we went to Skytop Apple Orchard on our annual apple picking adventure.  Each year, our day at the apple orchard seems to fall a little earlier, and this time it arrived in August due to the hot summer, early crop, and orchards picking 3 weeks ahead of their usual schedule.  Mark teases me that pretty soon, we'll be picking apples on Independence Day!  But since Skytop is up in the mountains of NC, it's about 10 degrees cooler than Greenville, so our morning wasn't too hot, and it was another gorgeous day at the orchard.  Each year, it gets a little easier to pick apples with young children (or maybe we just get a little smarter about timing/logistics), and our apple orchard day is one of our favorite family traditions.  One of the best parts are the fresh apple donuts that we scarf down after tromping through the orchards, which we crave all year!  The hayride is always a special time where we marvel at God's beautiful creation with picturesque views of the mountains and apple trees (and Luke marvels at the tractor,wagon, and farm equipment!).  This year was also special because it was the first time that Leah really was able to pick apples and be an active part of the process (vs. riding along in the Baby Bjorn last fall!).  She wore an adorable apple dress and it was so much fun for us to listen to her tell us, "Right here!" when she wanted to pick apples from a specific tree.  Here are some of our favorite pictures from our day at the orchard:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More of our photos can be found in our Winterhoff Family Photo Albums or by viewing the slide show below:
  

Dinosaur Disaster

Those of you who are loyal blog followers may remember the red play-dough incident of 2011, where I had quite a time trying to make homemade play-dough for Luke's preschool class.  Well, we may have topped that one with what is now referred to as the Great Dinosaur Disaster of 2012. 

 

Today is Luke’s VIP (Very Important Preschooler) Day at school.  He gets to be line leader, the teacher’s helper, brings in snack, and shares a “Me” bag of his favorite items from home with his class for his own private show-and-tell.  I wanted Luke’s snack to be special and unique, and had the brilliant idea to make Green Dinosaur Rice Krispie treats.  Modeled after the heart-shaped pink Rice-Krispie treats that we shared with Luke’s preschool class last year for Valentine’s Day, I thought this project would be pretty simple.  We even have a stegosaurus-shaped cookie cutter that is perfect for this snack idea.

Enter the complications:  2 sick children with fevers the day before VIP day.   For awhile it was touch and go whether or not Luke would even make it to school.  He would have been DEVASTATED to miss his special day of honor and I’m honestly not sure I could have handled his disappointment.  But after a day of rest at home yesterday, all systems were a go for Luke’s return to school. 

 

After a VERY early 4:10 a.m. start to the day on Wednesday from one sick preschooler and an unplanned afternoon trip to the grocery store with two snotty, miserable children in tow (to buy the ingredients for the snack),  an exhausted Mama started making the Rice-Krispie treats after the kids were finally tucked into bed last night.   I mixed together the margarine and marshmallows, added the green food coloring, and stirred in the Rice Krispies.  My fleeting thought was, “Hmm, this doesn’t look as green as I had imagined…” but I kept persevering.  I rolled out the sticky mixture and began cutting out the treats into dinosaur shapes using my cookie cutter, but somehow they looked like amorphous, moldy blobs.  And the greenish tint was now beginning to resemble blue cheese.  A faint sense of panic welled up in my chest as I realized I didn’t have a back-up plan.  I called Mark over to look at my creations:

 

 

“What do you think?”  I asked him.

“What are they supposed to be?”  Mark cautiously inquired. 

“Green dinosaurs, of course…” I wailed.

“Um, No,” he replied.  “You can’t serve those to children.   They don’t look right.” 

My worst suspicions were confirmed.  Reaching for my inner Martha Stewart, I tried to salvage the situation.  We grabbed leaf-shaped cookie cutters and attempted to transform the treats into “trees”, which was a no-go.  We even got out our Lightning McQueen pancake mold in hopes that we could make some sort of race car shape, which was equally disastrous. 

 “What would MARTHA do?”  I shrieked.  I glanced at the clock.  How in the world was I going to figure out another snack in the middle of the night before VIP day?  Should I start making sugar cookie dough from scratch and stay up all night baking stegosaurus-shaped cookies?

I surrendered to my failure and pulled out a jumbo snack sack of individual bags of (gasp) store-bought mini-pretzels.  This would go along with the cut-up apple slices that we were bringing for the class, too.  I climbed into bed, weary from my long day, and praying that Luke wouldn’t remember that I had promised that his VIP snack would be special green dinosaurs.

As we walked into school today, I told him, “Buddy, we have apples AND pretzels for your friends.  Isn’t that exciting?”

And my precious little man looked up at me with big eyes and said, “Mommy, everyone will LOVE them.  Those are 2 of my favorite things!”

And I thanked my lucky stars for the gift of earnest, sweet little boys who know exactly what their Mamas need to hear, and for a wonderful little company called Snyders of Hanover.

Conversations with a Preschooler

1.  Lunchtime at our H-O-U-S-E:

Mommy asks Daddy:  "What F-R-U-I-T do we have to serve with lunch?"  (My reason for spelling this was so that Luke and Leah, my little fruit monsters, wouldn't have melt-downs if they heard the word "fruit" and requested something that we didn't have).

Luke replies, without missing a beat:  "I would like an A-P-P-L-E please."

I guess our days of spelling words as parents are coming to an end soon.  Maybe we'll resort to speaking Italian next.

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2.   A discussion about monsters:

Luke:  "Mommy, monsters are real."

Mommy:  "No honey, they are just imaginary creatures that are in books or on tv."

Luke:  "But Elmo is real, and he is a nice monster.  We saw him at Sesame Street Live last year, in person."

Mommy (stumped):  "Ok, maybe just nice monsters are real." (I'm not yet willing to explain to a preschooler that there are people under mascot costumes, thus ruining Luke's belief in magic, the Easter Bunny, etc.).  But now I have falsely confirmed Luke's thoughts that monsters are real.  How did I get outsmarted by a 4-year-old?!

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3.  Hopefully a hyperbole:

Luke (calling from the bathroom):  "I went poo-poo! Who would like to wipe my bottom?!"

Mommy (losing the virtual coin toss with Daddy):  "I would be honored, son.  Here I come!"

Luke, bending over, hands on the floor, hiney sticking straight up in the air:  "Mommy, maybe when I am 50 or 60, I will wipe my own bottom."

Mommy (sighing):  "Let's hope so, buddy!  Let's really hope so!"