School photos are in! We had a transitions lenses fail, but these photos are a true snapshot of Steven, Sammy and Amaya at this moment in time.
I got some nice view of Fall on Cheltenham this week. First is a view from my work desk and the 2nd is a view from our back deck. It sounds like the earliest we’ll get back to a semi-regular schedule in the office is after Memorial Day so I’ll have another few seasons out out this window and, then, likely a continuation of a few days/week from this spot.
On Monday evening, 4/5 of the Clines had an appointment for flu shots. Jason got his a few weeks ago. Oh, boy. I was planning to go on my own but I’m glad Jason and I were both there because we did not have happy or cooperative kids. We had panicked and desperate kids, including one who tried to escape the room (Sammy) in a last ditch effort to escape his fat. But preventative health care prevailed.
Always with her signature style.
Tuesday morning we had a BIG FIRST. Steven lost a tooth! Last to get one, first to lose one. One down, fifty nine to go!
Steven told Amaya by showing her the tooth in a bag and giving her a big smile. She ran over to him and exclaimed, “Steven! You lost a tooth!” He’ll tell you that he gave a long hug. It was really sweet.
Sharing the news with Nana.
Sharing the news with Grandma Sunshine.
The Tooth Fairy came. 🙂
Some random pictures…
Cuddling with daddy and using the label maker.
Steven and Sammy have some coins they really like and had a difficult time keeping track of them so I got them each a coin collecting book. Both Poppy Steven and Saba Bob collected coins. (My dad had a bunch of pennies in cook books that I rolled and took the bank when I was in middle school. 🙁 )
Our Halloween season started on Wednesday afternoon with a class Trunk or Treat. I hate event planning but I wanted to be sure that COVID didn’t totally ruin the holiday season for SSA so planned an after school Trunk or Treat with their virtual class. They had 14 or 15 families of 24 participate, including another 12 or 13 siblings. It was really nice to see the kids with their classmates.
A little time at the playground afterward.
The kids have an “About the Author” all-about-me style assignment for school.
I love that Sammy included “cooking” as a hobby.
We need to work with Steven on his handwriting lol. He’s got a lot to say and he’s used to speaking so quickly that he rushes to get it all out.
Steven says his hobbies are legos, coin collecting and ???. He likes writing about “fun things that happen to me.”
SSA love to record shows on their tablets that they can also watch at any time on their tables via Netflix, Disney, Amazon Prime, etc. A quick check of my FB friends tells me this is normal (but still bizarre) behavior for kids their age.
Steven invented a game called “Go Money” which is the same as Go Fish but you play with his pretend money and make sets with like denominations.
Holiday gift catalogs are arriving and Steven, Sammy and Amaya are totally here for it.
Swimming! I can’t believe how much the kids are improving and how much progress they’ve made in just one month. On Thursday I saw both boys put their heads under water multiple times. I was so proud! And Amaya has developed tremendous control of her strokes. She’s learned to breath on every 5th stroke in crawl and has learned the backstroke.
Check out Amaya’s progress card. For her first few lessons she had 0 stars. Once her card is filled, someone will test her to see if she’s ready for Level 6. She’ll be there a lot faster than I anticipated. (And then we’ll have to figure out what to do about their schedule because right now they all swim at the same time.)
Steven, Sammy and Amaya got to wear their costumes “to” school on Friday. At the end of the day Sammy told me, “We didn’t have to learn anything in our last zoom meeting! We just played Halloween bingo and made a bat!”
Not needing her cat mask, we got to have fun with Amaya’s make up.
By absolute change, both Amaya and I were cats for Halloween at 6 years old. I love this so much. (Also, can you believe how much more mature Amaya looks than I did?)
On Monday the kids turn in their 2nd Small Moment Stories.
Amaya wrote, “My Birthday at Chuck E Cheese!”
“First I played at game. Me, Steven and Sammy are at Chuck E. Cheese. My cousin came, too! I love my cousin. I have two cousins. [4 actually; 2 are adults.] My cousins are older than me. Next it is time to eat our cake after we eat our pizza. I like pizza. Next we got to get our prize. I was happy! And I got a giant lollipop and I i also got cotton candy. The cotton candy tasted good. Yum. I had fun. Next we got to open our presents! I love presents! I got a LOL! The end.”
(This is a story about Amaya’s 6th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.)
Sammy wrote: “I Love the Beach”
“I got to the beach. I buried myself in the sand. It was hot. The sand tickled. I pushed myself into the sand. I fell into a whole that a person dug. It was hot. I felt like I was melting. I finally got up!”
(This is a story about visiting the beach in NY in August 2020.)
Steven’s story is: “The Joker” at Legoland
“I waited for someone to talk. I waited and waited. Someone finally said something. I asked my mom for fruit. The fruit was good but now I will tell you the joke. It was, ‘Why did the cookie to go the doctor?” And another and another. And another and another. The joke people left but it was night so me and my mom went to bed. One minute after that my mom fell asleep and twenty minutes after that I fell asleep.”
(This is a story about a kids’ joke contest our first night at Legoland in Feb 2019.)
Plus, a note from Steven:
“Dear Mommy – I love you so much. You are the best mom in the world. I also love you a lot – to Daddy.”
Sammy spent the week planning how to scare Jason with his Spooky Skeleton costume so we plotted and planned and Friday night was the night. The key was charging up his glowing costume and making sure it was dark enough. It took a few different times getting in and out of his costume but he got his chance! He went out the garage and came around to the front door and rang the bell. We turned off the porch light for extra effect. 🙂 Seeing Sammy excited and happy is pure joy.
On Saturday morning I panicked that the signature on my absentee ballot didn’t match my drivers license and my ballot would not be counted so the kids and I made a quick trip to the Clerk’s Office where I was assured that I would have received a call if that was an issue and that seeing my ballot receipt tracked meant that it would count.
It was a good civics lesson for the kids who asked why it mattered if my vote was counted. I asked them to raise their hand if they want us to buy a family rocket ship. All three kids (obviously) raised their hands. Then I told them that Daddy and I voted no. What would happen if Sammy’s vote didn’t count. Instead of winning the vote, it would be a tie. And then we talked about how we can’t buy a rocket ship even if the family votes for it lol. And that our house isn’t a democracy and sometimes mommy and daddy just get to decide. But, they got the point. They can help influence outcomes that they care about if they vote and if their vote is counted.
In the afternoon we went to a Halloween event at Maybury Farm. It was ticketed, with reserved times, and I was needlessly worried about crowds. The farm did an amazing job limiting the number of entries per hour to allow for more than ample distancing. The weather was absolutely perfect.
Jason was watching the Michigan/Michigan State game and we had an extra ticket so we took Amaya’s friend Maia with us. This was a first for us and I was really glad to be able to do it. Maia is very sweet and likes to spend time with Steven and Sammy, too.
The farm had a scavenger hunt, animals in costumes, games and a take-home craft. You can see just how few people were are the farm during our time slot.
Sushi and hot dog sheep!
The last activity was trick or treating where all of the volunteers used candy chutes to deliver the candy to the kids.
A little fall yard work with Daddy between Halloween events. Such a pretty day.
Our neighborhood sucks for trick or treating and we didn’t want to be ringing doorbells right now, so we headed to a neighborhood near downtown Northville where my colleague Lisa lives. She’s always talked about how great it is at Halloween and said that, this year, the neighbors all decided to put out tables so they could hand out candy safely.
Trick or treating hours by us are from 6- 8pm which gave us a bit of daylight to get started. You can’t tell in the pictures because I stopped taking them after a while but this area is absolutely hopping. The houses are all decorated in creative ways. The streets are packed – with most people in masks this year. Lisa said she usually busy 1500 pieces of candy. This year she bought 600 but bagged them in 2s and 3s and ran out in less than an hour. One house was completely done up as a Wizard of Oz theme. Another house had a keg and was handing out beers to adults. Lisa said that, in normal times, they close down the streets because there are so many people.
It got much, much busier.
The Wizard of Oz house.
Steven’s favorite house! You can see how the table is at the end of their steps. That was pretty common. The homeowners stayed on their porch and the candy was on a table at the bottom of the steps.
Doing some eenie-meenie-miney-moe to pick his candy for the night.
We had a lazy Sunday. In fact, I think we need to be sure we have ways to get the kids out of the house on the weekends in the winter during a pandemic. They get restless and don’t have the benefit of leaving the house for school in the morning. (It’s probably good for me, too. I get restless and don’t have the benefit of leaving the house for work in the morning. 😉 In fact, if I didn’t take the kids to swim on Thursdays I could go the entire week without leaving the house. Winter is going to be rough.)
For lunch, Steven and I made some carrot soup via a recipe from his religious school teacher, Ms. Amy. Thumbs up all around.
Amaya took some pictures of us cooking together. 🙂
Then at dinner time, Sammy helped out with the green onions and sauteed all of the chicken for us. He and Steven are both getting so good at the stove. They’re learning really good safety habits while they cook.
That’s it for us! Have a great week!