Special Trip

As I alluded in my previous post, Annabelle recently took a very special trip and it was all Daddy's idea!  Chris had a conference in Florida and, after researching flight options, realized that it made as much sense to fly into Tampa as to any other airport.  Well guess where we go when we fly into Tampa - Grammy and Papa's house!  So Chris proposed that he take with him a tiny tag-along, whom he would leave with Grammy for a few days while he went to his conference.  Brilliant!

My little girl was SO excited.  Honestly, it was the first time I saw her show so much excitement in her own right, for her own thing, rather than just mimicking her big brother.  She spent a few days counting down till her trip, listing the things that we would do before she would go, who was and who was not going with her.  She was mildly confused about who would be there when I told her that she'd be sleeping in Aunt Becky's bed, but I think we got that all straightened out.  And then the morning of she was literally bouncy and giggly.  I dressed her as girlie as possible for her plane ride, packed some lunches for her and her escort, and sent them on their way.

I am told she had a lovely time!  Baked cookies, had lunch with Aunt Judy, had her nails painted, etc.  I'm pretty sure she loved all of the special attention!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sam and I managed to have a very special time ourselves.  And I must say, I am over the moon proud of my boy for how well he handled the fact that he was not going to Grammy's.  He asked once why he wasn't going, and after a brief explanation, never complained or whined even once.  I told him we'd do a few things ourselves, and he was actually excited, too.

So the two of us enjoyed a dinner date, followed by his first ever baseball practice, on Tuesday night.  A bike ride to Starbucks to do his homework, just like the grown ups do, on Wednesday.  Some park time on Thursday, and then I spent most of the day at his school on Friday (Friday Readers, I brought him Wendy's for lunch, and then the party!).  Lots of one on one conversations, lots of "big kid" behavior. 

But my sometimes-sweet children DID miss each other!  As he stepped off the bus on Tuesday, at a time when Annabelle still would have been napping on a normal day, Sam declared that he missed his sister.  And the exhausted boy leaped off the couch and jumped into jammies at the suggestion of Facetiming with her.  It was a happy reunion on Friday afternoon!

You know, people were rather confused when I told them that my 2-year-old was on vacation.  A few of them asked what I was going to do with "all my free time."  They seemed to be forgetting that I still had a kid I was responsible and really only gained about 6 hours of "kid-free" time the entire time she was gone.  But a few were spot on with their responses, "Oh it must be so nice to have that time with Sam!"  And they were right.

Recently At Art Class...

Everything that Miss Debbie plans is intentional.  There are themes for the month and for the day, but the crafts are not just a craft to match.  The activities develop fine motor, large motor, verbal skills, etc.  Activities like this one where she studded her hand-molded moon surface with small jewels, are all about pincer grip coordination.
 

Squishing the clay builds strength, but is also helping my girl be more comfortable with different, shall we say messier, textures.  And then when she smashed a dinosaur into it and painted it, she also got to learn what a fossil is!

Sam got to visit class with us again when he was off school for MLK Day.  It was Dinosaur Day!

February brought us into a Wild West Candyland Adventure.  We read the story of the Gingerbread Man and feasted our eyes upon a plate of cookies, but they ran away during craft time!

I realized as we were creating these Valentine's that she no longer needed me to peel the backs off of these foam stickers for her.  She couldn't even come close to doing it herself when we started class in December!

The week that the kiddos were invited to sit around the campfire, Annabelle was expectantly hesitant.  Miss Debbie explained that it was pretend and eased her into touching the tissue paper representation of her one, true phobia.  And Miss Debbie commented that this fear of fire isn't surprising, given Annabelle's more cautious and thoughtful personality.  She did relax, and grew increasingly enthusiastic when she saw what was planned for camp fire time.  What a creative way to serve s'mores to preschoolers: each got to dip one marshmallow in chocolate sauce and then roll it in graham cracker crumbs.  Most of the class devoured them, but Annabelle sat there for at least 10 minutes, licking and enjoying her treat.  That's how I would have done it as a kid, too.

We've had a lot of fun with the large motor this month, playing with our hats and stick horses.

She has her favorite seat at the craft table now, and her favorite tree to park under, and feels totally comfortable there.  And wait till you see what we have in store with Miss Debbie next!

Happy Heart Day

I must start by saying that I feel really REALLY sorry for all of the single/dating dudes this year.  Valentine's Day happened to fall on a Saturday and I feel like that really ups the pressure.  No longer can you get away with an overpriced dinner date, but you must make your valentine feel special ALL DAY LONG because its Saturday, and what else are you going to do?  Sigh.

That was not the case in the Hunniford Household.  We set alarms, not to prepare each other some romantic breakfast in bed, but because Sam had an 8:15am basketball game, 20 minutes away, for which he needed to arrive about 10 minutes early.  Pour the coffee into travel mugs and pack some cereal for the car!  I think it was lunchtime before we remembered to wish each other a Happy Valentine's Day.

Please don't let that little anecdote lead you to believe that I had forgotten about the special day until lunchtime on said day - that would be particularly impossible when you have children in the 2-10 sect.  Especially when you had a party to plan for 96 Kindergartners.  Don't worry, it only took me about 3 house, and as many episodes of the last season of Parenthood, to assemble 96 party favors, cut apart 96 sticker sheets and organize 5 class bags full of party supplies.  It could have been a lot worse (I know, because the Winter party was!).

And I needed something to do in the evenings, anyhow, as 2 of my 3 valentines were in Florida Tue-Fri preceding the big day.  Which two?  The oldest and the youngest - more on that in a separate post.  And yes, that meant that Annabelle missed her class party.  No, that does not mean that she skipped making her first Valentine's Box, or assembling a class set of Valentine's for her friends and teachers.  My heart didn't have it in me to make her skip all that, so we prepped her stuff early this year and she returned to school to find a stuffed box of treats and cards waiting for her.

Sam also prepared a class set of Valentines - ok, so I did a lot of the work for both of them, but he DID write everyone's names, and his own name, on all 20 cards.  Yes, he wrote a card to himself.  Because when you're Valentines are awesome, you want to make sure you get one.

That was the class set, though.  Then there was the afternoon that Sam said,
 "I want to make a heart and I want to write I love you on it.  I'm going to give it to Riko." 
"Oh yeah, buddy?  Why Riko?"
"Because she's my favorite girl."
"Why is she your favorite girl?"
"Cause she rides my bus with me and she's in my class.  So can we do it?"
...and we finally got around to our project...
"I'm going to need pink sparkly paper and girlie stickers."
So there you have it.  Sam's first real Valentine for a girl of his choosing.  I was in his class for Friday Readers that morning and he pulled it out of his bag and handed it to her before he even put his coat away.  Love it.

The class party that afternoon was fun and low key.  The kiddos heard a story, ate a pure-sugar cookies, created Valentines to take home for a special someone in their life, and then spent the rest of the time digging through their treasures from their friends.  As promised by their teachers, looking through their loot was all they wanted to do and the loved it.

Back to the day of.  After that early morning basketball game, we stopped for donuts on the way home.  And we kinda ate our way through the rest of the day, because that's how this family does holidays.  After I ran a spontaneous half marathon (feel free to be proud of me, no one else was and two years ago I couldn't run two miles...), I made Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread for lunch.  You're Welcome, family.  And those kiddos seemed to remember that last year brought with it all-things-heart-shaped and were excited to see what was for dinner.  Umm...frozen pizza was the plan, since Chris and I were busy cooking adult foods, so I pulled this out of my hat.  Not bad, eh?

Adult food!  We really don't like going out to eat on Valentine's day.  Overpriced, overproduced food.  We'd rather a fancy restaurant on a regular night.  So I devised the Chocolate and Cheese Challenge.  Each player was to create one dish containing cheese and one dish containing chocolate and a winner would be declared for each round.

For the cheese round: I made Gruyere Grilled Cheese.  It had shallots sauteed in bacon fat, and the bread was toasted in bacon fat as well.  Chris made Roast Beef and Brie Sliders with a Red Pepper Relish.  Believe it or not, he won that round.  We decided my sandwiches needed thinner slices of bread and a bit of actual bacon. 

For the chocolate round: I made a Chocolate and Salted Carmel Tart.  It was a bit tedious, but my first attempt at REAL carmel was a success.  Chris made these bite sized treats that consisted of pecans wrapped in bacon then dipped in chocolate.  Unfortunately his recipe lied and told his to cook the bacon for waaaay too long, and then the bacon fat messed with his melted chocolate.  Next time, shorter bake time and drizzle the chocolate rather than dip.  I won that round.

So there you have it, our low-key, high-cal Heart Day.  What will I turn into a heart next year?!

**Chris also sent me a box of chocolate covered strawberries and I gifted him a few manly sweet treats.  Seriously, our stomachs are the paths to our hearts.