Inner Mom vs Inner Child

A difficult thing for me as a Mom is to balance being overprotective and allowing my children to do the things that I enjoyed as a child! I dread the age when they can really climb a tree. Today we went to Lake Johnson with friends. My kids wanted to put their feet in the lake. Which I was fine with since they had their crocs on. But a small putting your feet in the water turned into a swimming adventure. Before I know it they are both wet up to their waste and having a blast. The ducks that we were feeding had split since Ryan was chasing them deeper and deeper into the water. I tried not to think of the poop infested water and the distant threat of "bird flu". I don't know how my parents did it. How do you let them experience childhood and yet not worry about their safety and wellbeing? Oh well, I try to trust God and let them be kids. Ringworm is treatable:)

They enjoyed feeding the ducks and geese.

Tired kids enjoying ice pops!

Teachable Moments

I love the curiousity of children. Yesterday we were outside playing and Ari found a bug on the wall. She starts by counting the legs, then she checked to see if it had antennas, a segmented body and wings. She then declares "That's an insect Mommy. It has six legs, 2 antenna, a 3 body parts and wings. What kind of insect is it". I had no idea what kind it was so we grabbed the 2 field guides that I checked out from the library. We started comparing the different insects to the one on the wall. We discovered that it was a Crane Fly. It was cool using so many different critical thinking skills to discover that it was an insect and what kind of insect it was. This led into many more discoveries. We found a fire ant, 4 tent caterpillars and the crane fly.

The caterpillars quickly became the kids' friends. Ari actually kissed her caterpillar goodbye. She named it Daniella and Ryan named his Ryan. Ryan gathered leaves to feed to his caterpillar since we learned that they love to eat. He didn't understand why it didn't goble down the leaf. I was amazed that he thought of the leaf all on his own. They both put their caterpillars on the Diego truck and gave them rides down the driveway. They spent over an hour playing with the caterpillars.

NCSU Farm Days

This made me laugh...they see the cow, they hug and give the cow high fives and then they both turn around in unison and say cheese...all without any prompting. That's two kids who know the routine. I guess the 20+ character greetings at Disney taught them something!

Ryan loves animals (much like his Mommy). He seems to "feel" them. I love watching him look them in the eyes and just observe them. He was so excited to get to hold the chicks at Farm Days. I think he could stay there all day and just pet the chicks.

Joseph, Arianna and Ryan petting the calf.

Ryan again looking into the eyes of the goat

My two adorable kids!

Arianna is my intense thinker. She wants to know why they have tags in their ears, why there is a stamp on the cows behind with the numbers 203, why why why. She also loves animals though not with the same intensity as Ryan. I guess she has no choice with me as her Mommy!

I think I enjoy going to Farm Days as much as the kids. I want to be there petting the animals as much as they do. Though I try to control my impulses to push past the gazillion school kids pushing past me to get to the animals. I'm bigger and stronger and I want to pet them MORE than them. But I don't, I just try to be patient and keep them from pushing my kids out of the way. Nothing like pushing my kids out of the way to make me have a VERY difficult time controlling those impulses:)

Arianna was a pro at holding the chicks. This chick curled up in her hand and went to sleep.

I am so grateful that NCSU has this activity every year. I grew up on the farm and really want my kids to have those experiences. I remember sitting in the small pen with all of the chicks. That was the best feeling with all of those little soft chicks peeping all around me. They would crawl in my lap and we would snuggle. I remember going in the cow pasture and petting the cows. Those are some of my favorite childhood memories. I wish my kids could have the same kind of experiences without the crowds and gates but unfortunately my grandparents and Chris' no longer have the large farms. So we go and enjoy what we can get thanks to NCSU!

Window on Our World

This is our first documentation panel! Ari and I worked on it while Ryan was napping. We have been discussing insects and they have been very interested in the Life Cycle of the Butterfly. So we made a poster for the school room. I think it is important to reflect on what they are learning and this is one way to do that. We also make books of our experiences so that they can go back through them and reflect on their experiences. Just yesterday we were reading a book we made exactly one year ago of our trip last year to Farm Days. Ari said "Can we make another book from our time tomorrow at Farm Days" My reply was "I would love to!" I am so excited that Ari and Ryan love to learn and get excited about these things as well!

Best Buddies

Daniella and Arianna have known each other since they were 3 months old. They were born one day apart. They love to spend time with one another. Today we went to Pullen Park and as always when it was time to go home, Ari didn't want to leave her buddy.

Because the girls are such great friends, the boys have no choice but to be friends:) Funny thing is that the girls favor each other and the boys favor each other. Steph and I could trade kids and it would be like having 2 sets of fraternal twins. Ari's expression below sums up how I feel about the Pereras:)

Life Cycle of a Butterfly

We have been discussing Insects the last couple of weeks in school. Today we talked about the life cycle of a butterfly. We read one of my favorite books "Charlie the Caterpillar" by Dom Deluise. The kids enjoyed pretending to be first caterpillars... Then they entered their cocoons...

Then they were beautiful butterflies:

For the Love of...

Chris proposed to Ari yesterday that if she would vacuum the stairs that he would give her 2 quarters which was 50 cents. She looked at him thought for a moment and said will you give me 4 M&Ms instead?

"I Superman"

Ryan is getting into dressing up and pretend play. He will come up point to his chest and say "I Superman" or "I Mickey Mouse". He likes to pretend to be Diego, Mickey, Buzz Lightyear, Spiderman, Superman and Mickey Mouse. I am glad to see him wanting to be boy characters as he has his sister's constant Princess influence. I pulled down a bin from the attic yesterday and Ryan was so excited about the boy costumes. Now I have a princess and a superhero running around:)

Patience of a 4 Year Old

I walked up to the playroom today to what seemed like a scene from Toy Story. The animals were lined up so perfectly it looked like they were intently listening to someone.

I called Ari up and asked if she did it. She said "They were listening to Snow White tell a story." I was amazed at the patience it must have taken to sit each animal up so nicely.

Arianna's Loving Sacrifice

Ryan was told to go to the bathroom to get a spanking because he wasn't listening. Arianna suddenly said"I will go to the bathroom instead. Give me Ryan's spanking." Chris and I turned and looked at her. I asked her if she was serious. She said "yes, please don't spank Ryan, spank me instead". Because of her love and sacrifice for her brother, he didn't get a spanking. (We didn't spank her either).

It is amazing and encouraging when they really get the life lessons that we try so hard to teach. Over 2 weeks ago when we were talking about Easter, we talked a lot about Jesus dying and taking our punishment for us. Good to see that she was listening and really took it to heart!

Visiting Family

We went to visit "Mema's Farm". Mema is Ryan and Arianna's great Grandma. I love goint to visit and sharing a part of my history with the kids. Both of my Grandparents live in the farm house. My Dad lives on one corner of the farm and my 2 aunts live on the back of the farm.

Ryan, Ari and Lorian (3rd Cousin)

Ari and Lorian are 3 weeks apart in age

Jackson loved to smell Arianna

Ryan loved seeing

Jackson the horse

Asheboro Zoo

We recently went to the zoo with some of our friends Dina, Matthew and Thomas.

My two monkeys

The kids enjoyed playing in the Mud Cafe most:) All of the cool animals and they love the dirt:)

Warning: Small Shopping Carts May Be Dangerous

I thought I was doing something nice by letting the kids have their own shopping cart when we went to pick up a few things from the grocery store. Ari has always wanted to push one of those little "Customer In Training" carts. Since it was a "short" trip I thought we would give it a try. But WARNING these things are dangerous...:)

First Ari runs over the back of my foot then Ryan runs smack into the end of an aisle. They ran into or almost into multiple people. Ryan's flag caught the Wine bottles on an end cap and almost knocked them over. They were like two line defensemen blocking other shoppers from getting by.

We finally made it to self checkout (with no major injuries) and we almost ended up buying ear mite medicine for a cat. We don't even have a cat. Ryan picked it out, put it in his cart at some point and then while I was bagging the strawberries he scanned it. Goes to show that they do learn things when they are at the grocery store. He was upset that we didn't buy the little qtips for ear mites but I couldn't justify the $6.99:) While I am checking out, they both lost their carts because they were fighting over whose was whose (they were exactly the same).

Take my advice and wait until they are older to try this one:)

Who needs to be adventerous? Every second is an adventure with a 2 and 4 year old!!

Girls Night Out

Last night Arianna and I had a girl's night out. We went to see a play put on by the Christian Youth Theatre entitled The Wizard of Oz. Arianna was so excited to go out with just Mommy and she really likes the Wizard of Oz.

When we arrived she being her little observant self asked questions about everything from lights, screen projectors, why the doors were closed at the beginning to what were the lattices on either side of the stage. She wanted to know where was the Wicked Witch. She wanted to know why the lights went low, when will they come back on. Why was there a tree on stage. What were those things on the ceiling. She wondered why there was a box of tissue on the floor in front of us. It is amazing how much she notices.

The intermission came after one and a half hours (8:30) and since she is normally in bed by 8, I thought she would be ready to go home. But she really wanted to stay and so we did. The show ended at 10pm. She loved every minute of it! She got home and stayed up until well past 11, lying in her bed. Maybe it was the M&Ms or maybe it was the excitement of a special time with Mom.

She informed as we left the theatre that when she gets older she will do her own show of The Wizard of Oz. The only differences is that her Dorothy would wear the blue dress and high heeled ruby slippers. She would also open the doors so that people wouldn't have to wait to get in. She would have a rest in the middle just like this show though. She thought it was cool to take a break and buy some M&Ms during the intermission. She said she would be Dorothy and she would drag Ryan on stage to be the Tin Man. Mommy and Daddy couldn't be in the show because they had to sit in the chairs off stage.

It is so exciting as Ari gets older to start to do the Mommy and Daughter times. We both LOVED spending time together and look forward to the next time!

Ryan and Daddy had fun too! They cleaned up debris in the yard and then played Broom Hockey. Ryan woke up telling and first thing started talking all about how he and Daddy went outside and hit a ball with a stick into a net. Then he said it got dark.