California, Day 1.

Our first visit back to California after almost a year of living in North Carolina.  I had a lot of feelings about this trip.  Having never lived anywhere else but California my entire life, it was weird to be a visitor.  I’ve been really happy in North Carolina, but I was kind of worried that once we arrived in California, I would miss it so much that I would want to move back.  Thankfully, that didn’t happen.  Whew.  Instead, what happened was that I was reminded of all the great things about California that I love and I feel very blessed to know that I can live where I’m happy and now have a place to visit that makes me happy too.  The best of both worlds!

Since this was such a big moment in my families life, I thought it would be best to document everything we did.  Boy, did we do a whole lot.  So here is our trip in parts.

Day 1.  Bags packed.  House cleaned (I hate returning to a messy house whenever I go anywhere).  We were ready to go.  I hated waiting for the taxi, so much anticipation.  The ride to the airport was uneventful, as was getting through security.  We were waived through and had at least an hour to hang out before boarding our flight.

Our flight boarded around 5 p.m.  The girls did great for their first flight ever.

A mouth full of snacks.

Molly was so excited to finally see her best friend again.

The worst part of the flight was during landing.  Molly began screaming in agony from ear pain.  She had made a lot of friends during the flight (such a ham!) and they were so nice.  They were offering us gum and chewy candy, but she was so afraid swallowing because of the pressure in her ear.  Luckily, it passed fairly quickly and we were off the plane and headed to the car rental.

Our shuttle to the car rental office was really fun for the kids.  The lady driving the shuttle was so great with the girls.  Funny enough she had family near where we live here in NC.  She was talking to the girls, making jokes with Molly.  Pointing out all the neat lights around the airport.  The girls loved her.

There was a dramatic contrast between the airport in Raleigh and that shuttle ride in Los Angeles.  We went from a quiet, not very busy airport to traffic, sirens, stop lights everywhere.  Welcome home, ha!

We made it to my parents around 8 p.m. (time travel is awesome!).  The kids showered/bathed and we got them into bed.  I crashed by 9 p.m.

 

 

Speech

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you know that Molly has been having a really hard time in Kindergarten.  Recently, Fish and I had a conference with her teacher.  I was stressed about the whole situation.  I couldn’t think of anything else to help Moe.  I’ve tried everything from rewards to punishments.  There didn’t seem to be a solution to her behavior problems.

Molly’s teacher has been working so hard with her.  As they have been moving further into writing, Mrs. B noticed that Molly was sounding words out with her hand over her mouth, like she was embarrassed and then confused when none of her words were like her peers.  Some typical mispronounced words for Molly would be as follows: Star is Car.  Smell is Pell.  School is Cool (HAHA, oh the irony!).  You can imagine how confusing and frustrating this would be.   It turns out, Moe needs speech therapy.

Mrs. B has started working one on one with Molly in the past two weeks and already has seen a huge improvement in Molly’s behavior.  She isn’t crying to go home, she is raising her hand to answer questions, she is much more at ease.  I’m really glad that we have found a possible solution.  I’m trying to shake the guilt I have for being so hard on her.  I’m sharing this now, in case there is anyone else in my shoes.  The answer seems so obvious now, but for the past few months I have been at a total loss.

The Tooth Fairy Story

This is a doodle for a story that the girls made up recently.  I really wish that I had the ability to draw or do some soft of graphics because, at the very least, this would make a great animated gif.  So!  If anyone out there reads this and wants to create a visual for it, feel free to do so!

The Tooth Fairy makes her round on a large elephant.  One night they are running late and they accidentally mix up each other’s wings.  So the Tooth Fairy struggles to hang on to her elephant, as her too large wings want to raise her higher into the air,  while the elephant struggles to keep flight with his too small wings.  The elephant can barely hover above surfaces so when he gets to the end of a dresser he starts to plummet to the floor as the Tooth Fairy pulls his ears and tries to keep him afloat.

Much hilarity ensues, according to my children.

1-28-2013

I tried to write every day but then SNOW happened and there was too much fun to be had.  So that’s that!

 

You can see it all HERE.  

1-22-2013

Highlights for today would be.

MAD LIBS

and

Crepes

 

Not a bad day!

1-21-2013

Today was the first day of the girls “track out”.  I’ll have them home for the next 2.5 weeks.  I’m trying to balance having fun with them, because they are my kids and they are fun, and having them keep themselves  busy.  I need to get actual work done and they need to figure out how do get along and use their creativity.  This morning there was a lot of time with Legos.  I joined in on this because Legos are just fun!

Crazy Lady on her crazy throne with her crazy saber tooth.

Audrey’s Playground

All aboard the smoothie canoe

 The rest of the day was kind of a blur of lunches, snacks, chores, work and we ended it all at Teriyakin’ where we had yummy teriyaki bowls and some bento for the kiddos.

1-20-2013

Today I started a new, uh, thing.  What’s the word when you have a plan and then do it?  That’s what I started today.  THE PLAN is that when I go to run errands, the girls will take turns accompanying me.  I started this for a few different reasons.  One, that they love to go on errands with me.  I’m not sure why?  I’m not that great of company.  Two, I don’t like taking all three girls with me because they all have their own personalities and I end up forgetting half the stuff I was supposed to get.  It’s not even that they are obnoxious or badly behaved, it’s just that sometimes when all three of them are together while I’m trying to focus on one thing or another, my brain implodes.  Three, for a while I started dashing out the door to run errands and I always felt kind of bad that I just ditched them all, at home with Fish, of course!  So now, everybody wins, and it’s a great motivation for them to do their chores and homework.  I’m actually a prize!  haha

So!  Today was Audrey’s turn to go shopping with me and boy, does she take shopping seriously!

 

She kept me on task and made sure that I didn’t forget anything on our list.

The rest of the day was spent hanging around the house and playing.  I even visited the girls new cafe out on the porch.

Try the hot dogs, they are delicious!

1-18-2013

A little bit of snow stuck around.  The girls were thrilled with this light dusting so that made me happy.  We had a 2 hour delay for school so it gave them some time to run around out back and gather up some snowballs.

Molly went back to school after being out for 3 days.  I’m glad she had a chance to see her teachers and classmates before this track out.  Now I have my kiddos for 2.5 weeks.  I love having them around most of the time, but today, when they got home they were all so fussy.  Probably all the excitement from last night.  We have a few fun things planned for their time off, so hopefully, they stop with the bad attitudes.

I’ve been going through a little slump lately.  I’m doing good with my WW points but I’m looking forward to my workouts less and less.  I think I’m just so busy when the kids when they get home that it’s hard for me to pull myself away and get my workout out done.  Not a big deal.  I’m off to knit and watch bad tv.

1-16-2013

Molly was still home with me today.  I thought she would be getting better, but she was a little bit worse today.  She fell asleep really early on the couch tonight also.  Maybe that will be the beginning of a turnaround.

She had moments of being more chipper, like this morning when she spent some time “styling” my hair.

I’ve been continuing to eat as healthy as I can, following my Weight Watchers points.  Recently, my friend Carrie told me about powdered peanut butter.  All the flavor of peanut butter for about a quarter of the calories.  Once I received my shipment she gave me a really great recipe for a Thai Peanut sauce.  I wanted to put it on everything today.

Thai Peanut Sauce

2 Tbs PB2

4 Tbs apple cider vinegar

1.5 tsp Srirachi hot sauce

3 Tbs Bragg’s aminos

1 garlic clove or few shakes of garlic salt.

When I brought Emily and Audrey home it was cold enough outside to make hot cocoa and gingerbread cookies a good treat.

Speaking of weather.  We’re all very excited as there is a good chance that we’ll be getting some snow tomorrow evening/night.  I hope it actually happens!

1-15-2013

Moe was home sick with me and Fish today.  She’ll be home with us tomorrow also.  Which means she’ll miss her school field trip.  They are going to “the zooseum”  (museum).  I feel bad for her so we’re going to go to Marbles next week when she’s tracked out from school.

I’m continuing with Yoga every night, but Saturday night.  I broke through a sort of plateau today, making a total of 5 pounds lost.  I’m heading towards a weight I haven’t been in for 10 years.  That should be fun.