We love Knoebels!

 

 

 

Going to various amusement parks over the years is one of my favorite memories from my childhood. Kings Dominion in Virginia was one of my most favorite parks when I was a child. Since I moved to PA in 1996, Knoebels has been my favorite amusement park. Yesterday was our third time at the park this year, and we'll be spending a little time there on Friday as the local Christian radio station will be hosting several free concerts there on Friday. My parents spent the night on Sunday night after Oliver's birthday party and joined us for about two hours at Knoebels before they drove home. We stayed for another 4.5 hours after they left. It was a gorgeous day. Since my parents were there Paul and I got the chance to ride the Phoenix once together (our favorite roller coaster). I was surprised to learn that Nadia is tall enough to ride that one. I think we'll wait until 2014 to let her try that one out. Both Ian and Nadia really enjoyed the two water rides (Skloosh and Flume). They rode both of them twice yesterday.
You definitely get a LOT wetter on the Skloosh so Paul opted out of riding the Skloosh yesterday. My parents took the kids on that once, and I took them once. We used to spend all our time in the kiddie rides area. We did spend some time there, but certainly not all our time. We got the kids handstamps and then bought a book of tickets for the four adults to share. We had brought food from home for our lunches, bought some ice cream for a snack in the afternoon, and shared a large pizza for dinner in the park. We had a wonderful day. I can't wait until Oliver is big enough to also enjoy riding rides! I'm hoping our trips to amusement parks will also be a fond memory for our kids when they are older. This year we've ridden rides at Knoebels (Friday will be our 4th trip), Sesame Place, Sea World, the Lycoming Fair, Del Grosso's, and the Magic Kingdom!

First Birthday Party!

Although Oliver's birthday isn't until Wednesday, we celebrated it this afternoon. Our kids' four grandparents and one Great Gram came to celebrate his first year of life. Paul's family arrived around 2:30pm and the kids enjoyed doing puzzles with Gram, hearing one of Pop Pop's many original stories, and being read to by each of them. As you can see from the photo below, Pop Pop and Oliver also took an afternoon nap. My parents arrived around 4:30pm and soon after we sat down to have dinner. I made lasagna, beef noodle bake, a fresh fruit salad, green beans, and garlic bread for dinner. After that we let Oliver have his birthday cake. Ian didn't have any cake until he was almost 3 years old so I have no "cake smash" photos of him. Nadia dug into the cake more than Oliver did. I could have left his shirt on as he didn't get very messy. I'm going to make brownies and serve them on his actual birthday and see if he digs into that a bit more vigorously. Then the rest of us had dessert. I made banana bread and Aunt Millie made cupcakes, chocolate cake with peanut butter icing, and cookies.

 After dessert, it was time for Oliver to open his three presents.  As expected he was too young to understand what to do with wrapping paper so his brother and sister unwrapped his gifts. He got a new swing for our swing set from my parents, a new toy (that Ian has really been enjoying) from Great Gram, and some new clothes from Paul's parents. Oliver was most interested in eating the envelopes, cards, and wrapping paper. We are very thankful for our little Oliver!

 

Nap Time

One of the reasons I am glad that theatre camp is over is because it meant Ian and Oliver's afternoon naps were in the van and Nadia didn't have a nap or quiet time. I love my kids dearly, but that little break from them is good for me also, and I didn't get that the past 6 days due to Seussical and Theatre Camp. Oliver's morning naps have been pathetic - 15 to 25 minutes long every day. I tried letting him cry it out one morning for almost 3 hours to no avail. I was determined to help him have a longer afternoon nap today to try to break this 15-25 minute nap habit that he's gotten into. I let him sleep on me, but he still had a short nap. I gave him a little milk and got him back to sleep again and that time he slept much longer on me. We went to the pool this afternoon. I've had to modify my "rule" and make the minimum temperature 75 degrees otherwise we wouldn't have gone swimming the past two weeks. I normally love it when the weather is in the 70's, but I'd like it to be a bit warmer when we swim. The water temperature was 84 degrees three weeks ago and now it's down to 74 degrees. Below you will find the 8 minute video of yesterday's performance. Enjoy!

Jack and the Beanstalk

 
 

Today was the last day of Nadia's theatre camp. I am breathing a sigh of relief. Ian and Oliver enjoyed playing in the Treasure Castle Playland three days this week during Nadia's camp. Ian made HUGE progress with his ability to climb this week. At first he was too scared to even want to try, then he could only do it with a little help, and by Thursday afternoon he could do it all by himself very easily. He was proud of his accomplishment, and so was I! The Kindle didn't arrive before we left yesterday so I brought my laptop instead. Today I brought my Kindle. I love it! The Kindle Paperwhite is really, really easy on the eyes, which was one of the reasons I resisted buying an e-reader for so long. It's so small, which makes it really handy to take places and for a person like me who dislikes clutter, that's another added benefit as you can store hundreds of books on a small device. Now I'll be keeping my eyes open for books that Amazon has for free for the Kindle. I know that ereadergirl.com will be at least one of the sites I'll use to find out when Amazon temporarily has a book for free. Buying the Kindle inspired me to start using some other technology for the first time. Today I set up my phone so that I can answer it in a hands-free fashion using the steering wheel of the van. My next project will be to synchronize the garage door opener with one of the buttons in the van. Since we've owned the van for 11 months it's about time we started using these features, ha ha!

Nadia really enjoyed theatre camp. She wants to do it again next year. She kept talking about two other kids in the camp, one of which was Abby. Abby is 6 years old but is much taller than Nadia so it looks like there is far more than one year age difference between them. On Thursday Abby wrote in crayon on a piece of green construction paper what she said was her phone number (although it didn't really have enough numbers to be a valid phone number). Today I heard Abby reminding Nadia that she should call her. How sweet. Abby told me she wanted to come home with us. Paul left work early to be able to join his parents in coming up to see this little production. He made a video of it, which I am going to upload to YouTube, but it's a big file so it's going to take a very long time for that to be complete. I'll hopefully be able to share it here tomorrow.

 

 

All Shopped Out!

I took the boys shopping with me during Nadia's theatre camp on Tuesday and Wednesday. Over the course of those two days we shopped at two consignment shops (both were having a 50% off sale of almost everything in the store), Staples, Target, Michael's, Kohl's, Payless, JCP, and Aldi's. Those are just the stores where I bought at least one thing. We were in several other stores in the mall trying to find a swim shirt for Paul. I was able to cross quite a few things off of a list that had been growing for many months that included a variety of random things such as new pillows (a few of ours were in awful shape), frames for Paul's degrees so he can display them in his office at BU, a new briefcase type bag for Paul as the backpack he's used for more than 10 years was falling apart, a few new frames for displaying pics of the kids in our bedroom, and a new bath towel. Today I bought myself a top and a necklace at JCP for $25.58 total. I am going to wear those with a skirt I've had a very long time for our family photo in 9 days. I am definitely taking the boys to the playland today and tomorrow because I have zero desire to do any more shopping with them aside from the grocery store. I wish Aldi's was closer to our home. On Tuesday I got a gallon of skim milk for 99 cents and two pints of blueberries for $1.70 each at that store. Wow! I also stocked up on their 99 cent boxes of animal crackers as all three kids have been wanting to eat a lot of those lately.

I also did a little online shopping on Tuesday night because our Amazon Prime subscription was ending that day. I bought a new swing for Oliver for our swingset in the backyard because the one I got Nadia almost 5 years ago is falling apart. I also bought myself a Kindle. I received a $100 gift card from Snapfish a few weeks ago for giving them feedback on their photo books, and I kept going back and forth in my mind how to spend it. First, I put two dresses in my shopping cart at Chadwicks.com, but then I decided I'd rather have a Kindle. I have been dragging my heels regarding getting an e-reader because I prefer to read books and magazines on paper rather than electronically, but sometimes I've really wanted to read a book that I can get for free electronically (through Amazon or the local library) that I can't get a print copy of for free. I've used the Kindle app on my laptop several times, but my laptop is not exactly easy to lug around just to read a book. My brother-in-law Drayton's job involves working with tablets and e-readers so I took his advice and got a Kindle Paperwhite.

I'm hoping the UPS man delivers it before we leave for theatre camp today so I can use it while we spend almost 3 hours at the playland this afternoon. I am also sensing my resistance toward smart phones going down as well. I think that when we renew our cell phone plan in two years, I will probably go that route even though it will mean a significant increase in our monthly bill. I guess at some point I'll have to join the modern culture of texting and apps and going on the internet on one's phone. At some point I do want to get a tablet, as I know there are many very wonderful educational apps that the kids would enjoy and benefit from using, but I'm holding off on that now as I am trying to limit their screen time while they are so young. Since our television won't work some days, it has been very easy to eliminate all screen time for the kids some days!

More Milk

Our milk consumption lately has been less than usual because I stopped having cereal for breakfast a month ago and because Nadia has been on an apple juice kick lately. We are down to Ian's last two cans of EleCare. They have lasted us a lot longer because I have been giving him a very diluted version of it since he's been doing a pretty good job of eating. I had decided once we got near the end of our supply that I would work on transitioning him to skim milk. A few days ago I started putting a little EleCare into a glass of skim milk rather than water. My plan is to keep putting in less and less EleCare until he's just drinking skim milk. I also am going to start reducing how many seconds I microwave his cup until I get him used to drinking cold milk. I am so very grateful that his allergies seem to be a thing of the past. PTL! Oliver will be turning 1 in 7 days, and I will be switching him to whole milk. With Ian and Oliver starting to drink cow's milk we will be going through a lot more milk in this house each week! Milk is a lot cheaper than formula; I am not complaining!

All of these photos are from at the Treasure Castle Playland on Monday afternoon. Both boys had a lot of fun there. Ian spent 99% of the time playing with the toys and only went down the slide two times. The first time he only climbed up half-way, but the second time he did climb all the way up to the highest tunnels. Yesterday I took the boys shopping during her camp. I plan to take them shopping again today, but I think I'll take the boys back to the Castle on Thursday and Friday as the McDonald's in that city doesn't have a playland. Nadia went to her first camp the week she turned 3 years old (ballet) so I think it's nice if Ian gets to go to the castle as his special thing this week since he's not doing a camp. I am so glad that we won't have any daily commitments (like VBS, swimming lessons, or theatre camp) until next summer because it's exhausting for me. Yesterday we were gone from 12:30pm to 6:45pm as the kids had t-ball at 5:30 after Theatre Camp. Next week the kids will be using bats and mitts for the first time. Last night they worked on learning about the bases in addition to working on their throwing and catching skills.

Theatre Camp!

Today Nadia has her first afternoon of Folk Tales and Fairy Stories theatre camp! It's for kids entering kindergarten or first grade, and is from 1-4 pm this week. On Friday they will do a little performance at 3:45pm. If I had known we weren't moving, I would have signed her up for the same camp taking place from 9:30-12:30 next week, but I'm sure the boys will survive 5 days of this schedule even though it interferes with their afternoon naps. Most of the days I am planning to go shopping with the boys during her camp, but today I am planning to take them to the Treasure Castle Playland. After an early dinner, I am planning on taking the kids to our swimming pool. It should be a fun day!

On our date last weekend Paul and I discussed what positions to apply for (that start next August). For now we are sticking with states east of the Mississippi River with the exception of those states in the northeast (not NY, MA, RI, CT, NH, ME, or VT) and those schools located in large cities (not Philadelphia, Baltimore, Atlanta, etc.). We're also not bothering to apply at any schools that make any mention of a post doctorate. Hopefully we can wait until at least September to start submitting applications so he can list profs at Bloomsburg as his references. Of the tenure track openings for August 2014 that have already been posted, only one has been added to our list thus far. It's a small private college in South Carolina, and the application is due the end of September. We don't know Paul's full teaching schedule yet, but we do know he'll be teaching a mass lecture (about 120 students) on Wednesday nights from 6-9pm and will have three general chemistry labs. We also know he will not be teaching on Mondays or Fridays, which is ideal for interviewing elsewhere.