The Cloisters

With a day to spend in the city on our own, we decided to head to a museum we hadn't been to before, the Cloisters up in Ft. Tryon Park (around the GWBridge). The museum boasts a few thousand artifacts from the middle ages, a collection from the Met Museum. It was really fascinating to see their collection. Over the last 60 years, they have acquired pieces of chapels and churches from Spain, France and Germany and rebuilt them on a hill overlooking the Hudson and NYC. Beautiful views of NJ (it's possible!) and really cool things to see.

This door is from 1120!

Bowl O Rama

After a night of drinking in the city to celebrate Kevin's 30th birthday, we returned back to NJ to meet up with the little ones and we decided to hit up the bowling lanes to take our Wii skills out of the house. Thank god the bumpers were there because we would have all been throwing a LOT of gutter balls! Olivia and Luke really loved to bowl. They didn't have a lot of push behind the ball, so it often took about a minute to get down the lane. But, Olivia did get herself a strike! She was a pretty good bowler. They even had shoes in her size!

The kids had a lot of time to burn while the balls were making their way SLOWLY down the aisle, so Luke showed off a lot of dance moves.

Dinosaurs in Connecticut!

We hit the Dinosaur museum in Rocky Hilll today. Brad took the kids there last weekend while I was out of town (my one day... in like a year!) and they liked it so much they wanted to take me with them. It was really cool! I had a great time trying to learn about the dinosaurs...trying because the kids couldn't stop to let me read anything! There was a lot to do there, buttons to press (Luke couldn't help himself...pressing them over and over and over...) then there is the walk over the fossils. As you are walking over a walkway, sensors pick up your movements and all kinds of dinosaurs start making noise and thunder storms happen...it's pretty cool. But, a bit scary for the kids. Olivia plugged her ears and Luke just ran.

Then we got to touch a "hissing cockroach". I didn't participate in that one, but Olivia did!

We took a hike after that and hit up all the puddles for Luke to throw rocks in. He loves to throw rocks.

Yay for Olivia Day

Today was my first parent/teacher conference for Olivia. I was pretty nervous because you never know what they're doing when they are away from you...but I was really happy with her report!

Olivia's teachers told me that Olivia has a lot of friends in class, in fact, they say she'll play with anyone. She doesn't like to play alone and often invites herself into other groups to play if she sees something she wants to be part of. She also "waits her turn" (What?) and cleans up (what?) with the class. I was really happy with that because it's a rarity at home!

She is ahead of the class academically because she can write her name and knows all her letters (though sometimes her name isn't quite in order). And they told me some ideas on getting her ready for Kindergarten, even though she still has to do the 4 program next year.

They told me that she is very "adaptable" in all class situations...they sort of indicated that some of the kids aren't always very good at sharing, but she moves on to something else (totally not what happens at home!...maybe that's why!)

It was a great report (I'm so totally gloating over this right now....sorry)

And in her afternoon class, I walk in and the teacher yells out "Olivia just zipped her coat by herself!!!" I didn't have the heart to tell the teacher she's done it a few times over the past few weeks because she was so excited about it! It was a good day for Olivia!

Shannon's Shower

I went down to NJ on Sunday for my friend Shannon's shower. It's her third, but she's having a girl this time! It was a lot of fun (read: wow, no kids with me for a whole day! Whoo hooooooo!) to catch up with my girl friends (and I no one spilled food on me!). It was a lot of driving, but it was worth it!

Down with the New Dora

Why in the world would anyone want to mess with success? If Dora has gotten this far on her chubby belly sticking out of her t-shirt over her shorts (that are an appropriate length) why change her?? Do they really need to appeal to older children who have this drilled in notion that girlier is better? So what if Dora is a little more boy than girl sometimes, she's marketed towards little CHILDREN not to be some sort of sex symbol for sickos out there. Leave Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake as the tarts out there and leave Dora alone!
This is the new image of Dora.

Apparently the company feels that kids are growing out of Dora (duh, are we all walking around with My Little Ponies in our 20's?) so they want her to grow up with them and send her to middle school. How many middle school students are going to be interested in a girl and her monkey who go on scavenger hunts? I just hope boots doesn't get a tatoo. (because apparently Barbie is!!)

Parenting 101...I need it.

What is in the air this week? The kids are out of control! Luke ran away from me in the store the other day and I couldn't find him (clothing was obstructing my view). Luckily a sales clerk found him (literally, about 20 seconds had gone by, not much, but enough to really make me mad)...he was in big trouble!
I know the weather has been keeping us in a lot this winter...too cold for us to go out and play, and the melting snow isn't fun to play with (though once Luke wakes up from his nap, we're all going out to play in the wet snow...we need air!). But, last night was awful.
Brad was out so I had the 'brilliant' idea to take the kids to Friendly's...we got there at 5:20 fully aware that it would be old people and kids. More old people than kids unfortunately. And too bad for the old couple across the partition from us as Luke spent the whole time watching them eat. I got a few sympathy glances from a woman with three kids across from me (she had that 'husband out of town' look too), but it didn't make the fact that the kids were going from one side of the table to the other by crawling on the floor any better! They 'ate' some of their food, but they were so anty-pants that we couldn't stay for ice cream (really the only reason to eat at Friendly's is for the ice cream isn't it??). So, I got it to go, fully intending on not giving it to them until they were better behaved, but of course, I'm a sucker for the pouty face (and Luke's incessant crying was just grating at this point), so they got to eat it last night. Luckily they were both in bed, lights out by 7:30 because there wasn't enough wine in the house to cure that whine.
I think I need the super nanny to teach me to shop with my kids (though I can see why everyone used to give me the eyebrow up when I told them that I still shopped with my kids...and didn't take the stroller). Luke loves to make me chase him (across the grocery store, Target, you name it, he's always in for a chase) and Olivia is always in her own shopping world (though she is WAY better than her stinky brother).
So, I'm back to my Discipline books and bad behavior books to find a solution...or at least read about kids worse than mine!!