Tamara

Spring Break: Tuesday

Today was all about school! It was 100 Day for the half day kinders, so Jude and Bradley spent their morning putting the final touches on Jude’s 100 Day Pokemon project. The kid drew and named around 60 Pokemon- we helped him with the rest. I was impressed at his endurance! I went for a run in the morning, during which I finally found my running legs again. It was a great, confidence building run! Then we were off to the schools where I ate lunch with Gigi and volunteered in Jude’s classroom for a few hours. We topped the day off with the fourth grade music performance. This day was exhausting but incredibly satisfying.

Posted on 04.08.14 to Tamara. Grab the feed. No comments yet. Comment or trackback from your own site.

Tamara

Spring Break: Monday

Today started out with a trip to the school to drop off the girl, then off to a friend’s house (where we lost our Jude to an unplanned play date, lucky boy!), and finally off to Costco and Target. Scintillating, I know. From there, the afternoon looked like this:

We ran three and walked one mile, we climbed a giant hill, hot tubbed then collected the babies from their classrooms. After some playground time, we came home to fire up the barbecue for the first night we could dine outdoors in the magical sunshine this year! Still, the sunshine called to us again, after dinner, so around the block we went again. It was a beautiful day for which I am incredibly grateful. Sunshine is so healing! We finished the day with a marathon drawing session to finish up Jude’s 100 Pokemon drawings for hundred day!
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Posted on 04.07.14 to Tamara. Grab the feed. No comments yet. Comment or trackback from your own site.

Tamara

Spring Break: Sunday

When I get to the end of a vacation/break, I always feel like it whipped by and I can’t even remember what I did. This week I have spring break while my kids still are in class. I’m determined to document my week on Littlejohnesque so that when it is time to head back to work I’ll be able to take stock and feel satisfied!

Our kids were at a sleepover last night, so Bradley and I had the morning and afternoon to ourselves. We took a run and climbed the big hill, totaling a little over four miles. We headed to a plant sale and the store before the kids came home and we had concentrated snuggle time while I started playing Tomb Raider again. I haven’t played since I was about 24, but I used to just loooove Lara Croft and I’m excited about rekindling my relationship with her and her adventures. Except the scary parts. Bradley is responsible for taking out all the wildlife that seems determined to destroy Ms. Croft (meaning: I freak out and hurriedly shove the wii-mote in his hands and he takes care of all the messy stuff).

Posted on 04.06.14 to Tamara. Grab the feed. No comments yet. Comment or trackback from your own site.

Tamara

Kiddie Cart

Methinks we may be a wee but too big for the kiddie shopping cart anymore. Me? I’m thrilled. Those things are the absolute worst to maneuver around the store. It’s like driving a semi-truck on a country road! But, the kids are only little for so long so we let them ride in them, but on the day we bought Boy’s first ever school birthday cupcakes, we saw that the little carts hold only one Lj anymore.

Try as she might, she could not get those long, grasshopper legs to cram into that tiny, little car!

The whole thing had me in stitches. I love that girl, and thanks to the boy who got out and waited patiently while she tried every which way to get in. >

Posted on 03.24.14 to Tamara. Grab the feed. No comments yet. Comment or trackback from your own site.

Emerson Jude, Tamara

Party

The Skylanders threw down at our house yesterday by way of a big, awesome party for Jude. While we have had events in the past for him and they have been parties, I count this as Jude’s first real party. He had a theme, he had a party, but more than anything, he had friends. This is Jude’s first year where he participated regularly with the same group of kids. He was very selective with his guest list and kept his party small, but I’m telling you, it was with good reason. Jude has managed to find the nicest, sweetest group of boys to surround himself with. The kind of boys who know how to play with light sabers and no one really gets hurt. The kind of boys who run and yell and get obnoxious, but never say mean or teasing things that could hurt someone’s feelings. The kind of boys who gave their parents affectionate goodbyes as their parents left. Those kinds of boys. You know, the ones I would gladly have over for play dates in the future because I like them and I want to get to know them better. As a mom, it was great to know that my son really seems to choose friends based on their character; as a party thrower, it was great to know I wasn’t going to have my house turned to rubble and no one would cry by the end of he party.
To be fair, there were girls there as well and they were all sweethearts too. They just spent most of their time in Guinevere’s room twirling around to the Frozen soundtrack, putting on dresses and applying make-up so we didn’t see them as much.

The party was pretty easy. We planned it a little long so we could allow for some free play in the mix. As soon as all the kids arrived they were sucked into the joy of another kid’s toys. We dumped the Star Wars on the ground and there were many battles had in our rumpus room. Eventually the imaginative play with figures was not enough and they needed to get more kinetic. Before I knew it, we had a cadre characters from Star Wars all brandishing light sabers making their way through our house and yard. It was pretty epic.

This was a silly, but fun, game. We flung sticky hands at Skylanders ‘elements’. For every one you collected you got a gold coin, plus, a sticky hand to fling all around your house. We also had a water element game that was like survivor. The kids had to fill up squirters from the hot tub and run back across the patio and squirt the water into a bucket. The first to fill the bucket won. It doesn’t sound particularly creative, but I’m telling you, the kids were so excited to play that game! We will do that one again. The funniest thing to me was that Jude insisted that every kid at the party get a ‘lipstick’ (Chapstick), and the only way to get it was by popping it out of the balloon. So we did that too. We had little kids running around the patio sitting on balloons to pop them. Ha ha!

After Jude opened his presents, and right before the parents arrived, we played pass the present. It’s a lot like a piñata except that instead of stuffing the swag into a hunk of cardboard, then avoiding the bat (harder than it looks, trust me) you wrap a little gift with layers and layers and layers of wrapping paper. In between each layer, you tuck a little prize. The game is played with music and when the music stops, that person gets to unwrap a layer. I love this game because every kid wants to open a present and this game allows for them to be saturated by the time it’s over.

All in all it was a great party. I love that boy of mine and I’m proud of the kid he’s turning into.
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This is Sophie and Gigi. They met at the library when they were both newly two year olds. It’s amazing to see these two beautiful little women. It’s unbelievable to see how much they have grown up!
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For reference: Sophie and Gigi the night before kindergarten in 2009

Posted on 03.23.14 to Emerson Jude, Tamara. Grab the feed. One comment. Comment or trackback from your own site.