Cody is 6!

Happy #6 Dude!  You are a spunky, silly, sweet, stubborn boy.  You love life and are so full of energy all the time!

Your favorites...

• Singing - you sing...all the time!  You are constant singing or humming songs - some that you've made up, others that you've learned at school (your current favorite made up song is "Drivin' through the city like a crocomole" (lol).
• Playing Legos - your "friends" birthday party was last week and you got at least 10 different Lego kits as gifts.  Every day this past week you have sat down to build Legos and have already built all but one kit one week later.  You do really well following the instructions and building the kits on your own. 
• Playing basketball - you would spend most of every recess at school playing basketball and got to do a basketball camp last week.  You are a great dribbler and are a pretty good shot too.
• You love dinosaurs, Hot Wheels, riding your bike and playing outside
• Your favorite foods are Daddy's smash burgers or Philly cheese steaks and gummy bears
• You weigh 37 pounds and are 43" tall
• You're busy with Ninja training, swimming lessons, T-ball, basketball camp, and soccer camp
• You can officially snap your fingers (and are so excited about it) and can almost whistle!
• You love rock music (especially the harder rock music...you say you love the loud guitar and drums the most) and whenever you hear rock music will start dancing, head banging
• You say some silly things such as "radic" = radical; "efic" = epic; "merote" = remote; "hostible" = hospital; "heart beeping" = heart beating; “cannonbunga” = cannonball; “riterarry” = literally 
• You love to make weird sound effects with your mouth
• You love to make people laugh, especially by doing or saying something silly - you love to pull pranks followed by saying "just kidding!"
• You are very sweet and can be very sensitive - if something makes you happy, you'll say that "it makes your heart happy"
• You're really good at counting (can count to 100+) and have some pretty good math skills already

For your birthday today you requested donuts for breakfast, a movie at the movie theater (it's your first time going to the movie theater in 2 years) where we watched "Peter Rabbit 2", lunch from McDonald's, Daddy's philly cheesesteak sandwiches have been requested for supper and birthday cake.  You got to have a friend's birthday celebration last week at Pump It Up with 14 friends! Tomorrow your sister is throwing you a surprise birthday party that she and Callie have called "Operation Donut" with a few of our close friends.  We'll wrap up your birthday celebration on Sunday with a surprise trip to Crossroads Village and Huckleberry Railroad where you'll get to ride on your first steam train (you're going to be so excited)!  What a way to celebrate turning 6!!

Happy birthday, Buster!  I hope #6 is the best year yet!

XoXoXo,

Mama

Graecyn Turns 9!

Nine years old...where has the time gone?  You are such a kind, sweet, caring soul.  You find the positive in everything and are always such an optimistic person.  You are showing great leadership skills and always make sure to include others in any situation.

You love gymnastics, reading, drawing, doing crafts, making slime, and playing American Girl and Barbies.

You love spending time with your friends, and while play dates during the continuing COVID pandemic are a little different, you make the most of it.  You have mastered Zoom for both school and for play dates...you'll spend hours playing American Girl dolls with Sammie or Callie on Zoom.

You are obsessed with dogs and ask us daily when we are going to get a dog.  You have started taking care of one of your stuffed animal puppies, "Pinky", as though it is a real dog to show us that you are responsible enough to have a pet (feeding it, grooming it, etc.).

Since many places are still closed due to the COVID restrictions and because in-person gatherings (with non-family) are also restricted, we decided not to do a full birthday party now.  Instead you had Callie spend the night and we did a home movie night in our new home movie theater.  We may try to do a friend party this summer when the COVID situation has hopefully improved.

For your "special" birthday gift, you got your ears pierced!!  You have been asking for a few years when you can get your ears pierced.  I got mine pierced when I was in 3rd grade and felt this would be a good time for you to also get yours pierced.  Daddy wasn't crazy about the idea as he felt it would make you too grown up, but I finally talked him into it.  With you wanting more responsibility now, we thought this would be a good way to give you that...you're doing a great job taking care of your new piercings.  I took you to a local tattoo shop that was recommended in our community for kids' piercings.  The piercer, AJ, was so good with you and you were a ROCK STAR!!  He used a needle for the piercing and there was no numbing done.  For the first ear, you were pretty nervous and on the verge of tears.  You held my hand and as AJ brought the needle to your ear, you kept moving away from it, afraid of what it would feel like.  AJ talked to you and got you still and the earring went in quickly.  Before the next ear, you asked him for an extra minute to get yourself ready.  You took a few big breaths and then let him know you were ready.  For the 2nd ear, you didn't even flinch or squeeze my hand...you handled it so well.  Even AJ commented how well you did!

In a few weeks, you'll get to change your earrings...you've already gone through all of Grandma's old 90's heavy, dangly earrings that she gifted to you to play with and picked out the earrings you "think" you're going to wear as soon as you can change them out.  I think it's going to be awhile before those earrings can be worn (lol).

You still dream of being a fashion designer when you grow up and were so excited to get your first sewing machine for your birthday!  You and Callie spent several hours during the birthday sleepover sewing Barbie and American Girl clothes.  As soon as things open up again after COVID, I want to sign you up for a sewing class so you can properly learn the skill.

You are still on Pre-Team for gymnastics and practice 9 hours a week (Tuesday/Thursday from 5-8:30 p.m. and Saturday from 12-2 p.m.).  You love it and are working so hard.  Your favorite is bars and you have mastered your kip; you're now working on a level 4 bar routine: "kip, squat on, jump to the high bar, kip, back hip circle, half back hip circle, swing, dismount".  You're also working hard to get your back handspring and front fly spring on the floor and on beam you're working on your bridge kickover, cartwheel, and dismount from a high beam.  You do handstands non-stop, anywhere and everywhere!

Your favorite foods are still chicken (any kind of chicken, but especially nuggets/strips and drumsticks) and pancakes!  You also love bubble gum and creme soda.  You love babies and cannot wait until you are old enough to babysit.  All of our neighbors also can't wait until you're old enough to babysit as you got a lot of supervised practice this past summer and they all know how responsible and sweet you are.  We often hear from our neighbors and the parents of your friends how sweet and polite you are.  You make Daddy and me so proud!

Happy #9 baby girl!  I can't wait to see what this year has in store for you!

xoxoxo,

Mama

North Carolina Winter Vacation

We had a few days after Christmas to clean up from the Christmas day fun and let the kids play with their new toys and then it was time for North Carolina.

We had a super early flight to Raleigh and while Eric was getting us all breakfast from McDonald's inside the airport, I was taking the kids to the bathroom to change out of their jammies; as we were walking through the airport, Graecyn started to feel sick...her face was white as a ghost.  Panic set in while we quickly scrambled to find a family restroom that was available.  Thankfully one was near by and we made it inside just in time before Graecyn got sick. :-(  She said she immediately felt better, but she definitely did not look better.  Eric and I did not know what to do...we were about 30 minutes from boarding and we had no car at the airport (our friend Warren dropped us off).  We decided to go ahead and fly to NC knowing that it is a short flight.  Graecyn slept the whole way and didn't get sick again (thank goodness).  Once we made it to the house, Graecyn slept most of the day, so we knew she was fighting something; the next morning she woke up with a sore throat, so I immediately took her to urgent care and they confirmed that she had strep throat.  12 hours of antibiotics and she was a new child!  So thankful that she bounces back so quickly and fortunately everyone else remained healthy.

Once Graecyn was feeling better we were able to enjoy the North Carolina blue skies and sunshine...checking out a few playgrounds.

We drove the kids around the University of North Carolina campus and Eric shared stories from his fire fighting days.  Kenan Stadium was open, so we showed the kids the football field and then swung by one of the fire stations to say hi to some of the guys and show the kids the blue fire trucks.

We were able to celebrate both Abbie's 13th birthday and Graecyn's 8th birthday.

We had a great time with family!

Christmas

Christmas season...one of the best times of year.  We had a busy holiday month with all of our favorite things.

We picked out our Christmas tree and the kids were big helpers this year with decorating.  

Graecyn and I marched in the Rochester Christmas parade.  It was really cold, but she had a great time cartwheeling down the street.

I got to join Cody at school for his Christmas "jammie" party.  He painted a tile and we enjoyed gingerbread cookies and hot cocoa.

Grandma and Papa came for a visit in mid-December and we got to celebrate Christmas with them a little early; we took in the Rochester downtown lights - my favorite!

Christmas eve day we decorated Christmas cookies and enjoyed the day at Chuck E Cheese.

You were both so excited about what Santa brought...Graecyn got a Barbie house with a slide, elevator, and pool.  Cody got a PJ Mask Seeker.

Fall Fun

Fall was busy and full of fun.

We celebrated Eric's 40th birthday with him flying a helicopter!

Graecyn ran in her schools "Eagle Dash" fundraiser.  She had a lot of fun with her friends and ran a lot of laps around the bus loop (each bracelet = 1 lap ran!).  She lost her 7th tooth and is becoming quite a leader at school.

Cody's enjoying pre-K and is learning to write his name.  His class mascot is the panda and each child gets a turn to bring the panda home for the night.  He was so excited when it was his turn to be "Panda of the day".  He dressed up the panda in his sister's doll clothes, read books to it, and gave it lots of hugs.

Both Cody and Graecyn performed in the GTC Fall Showcase.  Graecyn is in "Pre-Team" and Cody is in "Ninja".  This was Cody's first time performing in front of a crowd.  He was really nervous and scared at first and there were lots of tears, but once he got out on the floor, he had a blast!  We were so proud of both of them!

We crammed as much Halloween fun into the month of October as we could.  Graecyn dressed up as "JoJo Siwa" (a singer) and Cody was "Gecko" from PJ Masks (he picked Gecko because of Gecko's "super Gecko muscles".  Halloween turned out to be a cold, wet miserable night, but the kids had fun anyway (we only stayed out for about 30 minutes before they were both begging to go back home where it was warm).

We had a mild and wet fall, so the leaves hung onto the trees forever.  We finally had a chance to get outside and get the leaves up and everything put away for winter the day before an early snow storm (11" of snow on November 11!) (the pictures below were taken 24 hours apart!)

Graecyn's Brownie troop got to tour the Detroit Parade Company to learn how they make parade floats for the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade. It was amazing to see the artistic talent, engineering, and creativity that goes into making a parade float and costume.

Thanksgiving was spent in Michigan this year...our first Thanksgiving that we did not travel for.  With Graecyn and Cody in school now and Eric not having vacation days, it's hard to travel for Thanksgiving.   We missed being around family, but enjoyed our home time.

Back to School

Graecyn is so excited for school to start again.  She's in 2nd grade at University Hills with Miss Buller (the same teacher as her 1/2 split class last year); she started in a 2nd grade/3rd grade split class and was so excited about it.  Enrollment at her school was higher than expected and class sizes were larger than allowed and so a few weeks after the school year started another 3rd grade teacher was hired.  The 2nd and 3rd grade classes were shuffled around so that there could be 3 2nd grade classrooms with about 20 students per class.  Graecyn was happy she got to stay in Miss Buller's class, but was really sad to not be with her 3rd grade friends.  Fortunately she still sees several of them on the bus.

Toward the end of July we found out that a spot had opened for Cody in the University Hills full day pre-K program - for every day, but Wednesday.  We were able to arrange to have Miss Fefe (one of Graecyn's favorite former daycare teachers) come to our house on Wednesday's to be with Cody until Eric gets off work after lunch and so made the decision to finish daycare at the end of summer and transition Cody to the school based pre-K.  He was excited to be going to Graecyn's school, but a little nervous.  He and I went to an orientation day and he had no problems adjusting.  Transportation is not offered for pre-K, so Eric takes Cody and Graecyn to school every morning (but Wednesday).  Graecyn still gets to ride the bus home and then she and Eric go back to the school to pick up Cody once the car pool line has slowed down.  He is loving his new school and loves when he sees Graecyn walking in the hallway or outside at recess.  We love having them both at the same school and love his teachers.