Camera Dump

I feel like I should start this post with a disclaimer, so here goes.  I have no idea where I'm going with this post.  This is what happens when I go weeks in between posts.  I am at the mercy of my camera and whatever things might happen to be captured therein.  And then, when I start to write about what I find there, it's hard to tell which rabbit trail I'm going to get going down.  So brace yourselves.

 

For the dead of winter, I honestly expect to be more bored than we are.  You know, the winter dread of just being stuck at home, wanting desperately to get out and do something.  But there has been no such cabin fever for us lately.  I feel like we're spinning at an even more feverish pace than normal.  And folks, that's not good.  Thankfully, although we've had a tough winter with little annoying snow storms, there haven't been too many big ones that have slowed us down or wrecked any major plans.

 



 

On Friday the 24th, Jason and I got to spend the morning observing Lauren's nursery school class.  While the big kids do their parent visitation day in one big (chaotic) mess early in the year, the preschool classes do it in a more organized fashion, assigning one or two sets of parents to attend class with their child later in the year.  This apparently helps with separation anxiety issues and crowd control issues.  And let's face it, with 3 and 4 year olds, anything you can do to mitigate those two problems is well worth it.  So it was just us and one other set of parents, and we got a chance to watch Lauren in action.  She was so proud of herself, and so happy that we were there.  I left with a great appreciation for how well she's doing, how kind she is to the other kids, and how much of a saint her teachers are to do the things that they do every day.

I could probably do a whole post about this fire truck tent and the millions and millions of things it has been over the years that we've owned it.  If I were smarter, I would link back to some pictures of the kids doing things with it.  But lately it has been making it's appearance over and over and over again.  On this particular day, Mara had turned it into her own little home for her babies.  Mara's obsession with her baby dolls is really something to see.  She wakes up looking for "purple baby" and plays with her for the majority of the day and night.  She gives her tubs, walks her around in the stroller, feeds her, changes her and wraps her up over and over again in her blanket.  It makes me so excited to see her as a Mom herself one day.  She's so maternal, and so caring.  (Seems odd to say given her intense nature, but she is so loving and sweet to her baby dolls.)

 Joshua's favorite time of the year has finally come--- BASKETBALL!  He has been so excited to get back to playing again, especially after practicing literally for hours on end all spring/summer/fall at home.  Josh has been doing pretty well, and the improvement since the beginning of last season is remarkable.  It's still tough for kids this age to work together as a team, so there is a whole lot of dribbling and shooting by one person rather than passing to teammates in any kind of an organized fashion, but it's still fun to watch.  Joshua has made a few baskets in each of his games so far, and his dribbling has really improved.  Jason is coaching his team again this year, and seems to be having a great time sharing this with Joshua again.  The girls and I love watching the games on Saturdays--- well, I do.  Lauren and Mara mostly like getting a snack from the concession stand and making a complete mess of the stage area while the game is going on.

Here we are with the baby again.  This time, she was showing Daddy how she helps her purple baby go to sleep.  I'm telling you.  All. Day. Long.

The last few weeks of January, Jason has been taking a course for his Haz Mat certification for the fire department during quite a few evenings.  It's forced the kids and I to get pretty creative with our evening time, which is typically the most challenging of the day.  On one night, the kids got really excited about having a movie night and quickly got into their pajamas and toted their sleeping bags downstairs.  We made popcorn and had a relatively calm night.  And this mama counts it a success.  Needless to say, we're thrilled that Daddy's all done with that class and that our long nights without him are done at least for now.

And we're back to the baby.  I took this picture to send to my Mom because I thought it was funny that Mara carries purple baby around in a Longaberger basket.  I'm pretty sure that's not its intended use, but it works for Mara and it works for Purple Baby.  And I guess that's all that matters.

 

 

And that's the end of the camera dump for today.  If the past is any kind of a predictor of the future, we'll meet here again for the same kind of post in a week or so.  Or longer than that.  I always have such a good intentions and then life gets nuts.

 

See you all soon!