The Other Cross Family

For Memorial Day we got to visit Mike's older brother Tim and his family in Iowa. Eliza was graduating from high school and we wanted to be there to support her. Plus, they have lived there for like 10 yrs and we have never gone to visit. It was about time! So we all piled into the car and drove forever. That is another blog post in itself! Here, we will just talk about the time we spent there.
Eliza was very busy doing high school senior stuff, so we didn't see her too much except for the important stuff which was what mattered. We did get to spend some time with Amanda. Her room was a fun place for Becca to hide from the dog and for Lenna to book shop. Andrew was impressed with her drumming in the high school band- they talked about their drum sets and how he hopes to play drums in the band as well. Lenna enjoyed tagging along on a shopping trip to the mall with Amanda, Aunt Tammy, and Heather. She found out she can shop in the juniors dept (so much cooler than little girls!) and even talked Aunt Tammy into buying everyone a book to read on the ride home. Andrew really loved playing with their dog and spent a lot of time throwing a ball for her to fetch, over and over and over again! Rebecca is still scared of dogs and the poor girl spent the summer sitting with her feet up on her chair. It seems everyone we visited this summer had a dog or two for her to run from.
The kids especially enjoyed going to the graduation. We didn't get to go to Zan's last year because you had to have a ticket, so this was their first time. It was such a fun ceremony! There are definite advantages to having less than 20 people in your graduating class! They were talked about by name in speeches from teachers and each other, the passing out of diplomas took about 15 minutes, and then they had time and resources leftover to do a fun slide show of pictures of the kids from K to 12th grade and all the things they did together!
At least, I think that is what they did. Elizabeth started crying and flopping and trying to run around just after they walked in (past her bed time, darn time zones) so I spent the entire time walking the empty halls and listening through open doors. But the kids thought is was awesome and have high hopes for their own graduation ceremonies in a few years. Hopefully GA will deliver, although with a class size of 500 or more, I am not too sure it will be quite so personal!
Lenna also started planning her own graduation party as soon as she saw what a wonderful job Aunt Steph did for Eliza. A slide show, tables of photos and awards and school memories, lots of yummy food, and fun decorations and a dance floor. I think their favorite part was the brownie ice cream sundae bar!
It was great to be able to see our family members that we don't cross paths with very often (living on opposite sides of the country makes it hard) and are excited to see them at the upcoming family reunion.

Cookies

How to make cookies, By Becca, age 3.

1. Drop some eggs in the bowl, try not to crush the shells too small or mom won't be able to get them out.
2. Mash them up with the whisker until the yellow mixes up with the clear. Don't taste it, or mom will make you spit and wash your hands.
3. Get a new bowl and plop in the butter sticks. Taste when no one is looking. Mom likes the little finger prints in it.
4. Dump in lots of sugar, the white sandy kind and the brown sticky kind. This part is good for tasting.
5. Cover your ears while mom uses the beaters, but don't leave the room so you can have one to lick when she is done.
6. Plop in the eggs. Taste first, because now mom wont let you anymore. Help stir the slimy stuff with the good stuff.
7. Keep stirring while mom puts in lots of spoons of white stuff. Don't taste, most of them are yucky.
8. Help scoop and dump in the flour. Not too high or it will make dust. Stick your hands in the canister while she is busy wiping the dust off. It is fun to squeeze and pat and makes the floor really slippery for ice skating.
9. Help stir until your arms get tired, then let mom do it. Play in the four dust until she is done.
10. Help drop in the chocolate chips. See how many you can grab and stick in your mouth before they disappear into the cookie dough.
11. Watch mom scoop balls onto the flat pans.
12. Wait, and wait, and wait some more. Keep looking through the oven window to see if they are done.
13. Yell really loud when the timer rings so your mom doesn't forget to take them out. Wait longer for them to not burn your fingers.
14. Eat with milk.

End of School Activities

We moved our kids across five states exactly one month before the school year ended. Completely against every good advice book we read that told us to leave them in until the end of the year to avoid the trauma of having to change classes. But I figured I could pull a "mom knows best" card on this one. Here is why.

1.We needed to be together as a family. I am a lousy single parent. We needed to all live together in the same state and to have daddy in our lives. Involuntary separation is one this, but doing it when you have the option not to seems silly.
2. Summer is a lonely time when  no one knows you are there. We don't have a lot of kids in our neighborhood, so play dates have to be planned with at least a phone call. if no one knew we were back and no one had our number, and we had no way to get in touch with anyone, no one would get to play. The few weeks they had in the new school gave them just enough time to make some friends and trade phone numbers so we could play over the summer. Its also a good way to get noticed- no one notices the new kid on the first day of school. But everyone knows the new kid who comes in the middle. People are interested in meeting and befriending the new kid.
3. My kids are smart. They won't suffer academically from having to change curriculum or text books or miss a few end of year lessons. It was easy for them to just jump right in here.
3. No one is at the school during the summer. At least where we live, you can't get a single person on the phone until the few days before school starts. If your kids need special services, like nursing or gifted testing or special class placement, you won't get it. You will show up in the middle of the start of school rush, be put off until things calm down, and told to test with the rest of the school mid-year for next years stuff. So your kid gets to suffer all year because no one knew they were coming. We had three weeks to make appointments, take placement tests, meet with the nursing staff, and make our case for whatever services we wanted for the upcoming year and it worked fine. And it just three weeks they had to go without those services in the new school instead of a semester or two.
4. We got an to start summer vacation a month earlier here. It would have seemed wrong to go to school there until mid-June, then start school here the first of August, after only a 6 week break. Moving got them out of school mid May, so we could have more of a summer break.

So after we decided to move, it was a bit of a whirl wind. Most kids would start to slack off because they know they are leaving, but not mine. In fact, I was encouraging Lenna to let homework slide and do other stuff like packing her room the last week she was there because I already had the transfer papers filled out with her current grades, but she refused. I guess I am proud and not annoyed, sort of.

Anyway, the night before we moved my kids were at the school showing off their science fair projects. Lenna worked with a partner to do a taste test experiment on their class, trying to decide if the kids could tell the difference between regular, low fat, and sugar free ice cream. Her classmates were happy to help with their part and subject themselves to eating three different kinds of ice cream in the name of scientific research. In case you were wondering, the low fat stuff bombed but they liked the sugar free stuff just fine.
Andrew really wanted to make a scale model of the solar system. His project was titled, "If the sun was the size of a pizza, how big would the other planets be?" We made a little display with string showing how far the distances would be, and used some household objects as planets. Earth is a pea, btw, and Jupiter is half a tennis ball. Here they are with their displays.




We also arrived at our new school just in time for all of the end of year fun. Andrew was cast as a flipping beetle in the school play with a whole two days to learn his part. Lenna went to one gifted lesson and then was able to participate in the end of year celebration dressed as a Greek goddess. For her part she learned to tell her mother to make spanikopita and we all tried Greek yogurt and baklava. Then they went on a field trip or two, had field day, class parties, and were finished with first and fourth grade!

Because they finished so early, they were able to skype chat with their classrooms back in MD to say goodbye. I love technology, and technology-focused schools that have web cams and smart screens and other things in place that let kids talk to each other from five states away.

Moving back to GA

In May of 2012 we concluded our Maryland adventure and headed back down south to our house in GA. Mike had already been in GA for two months working, so he came up for a long weekend to help load the truck and drive it home. We were supposed to have everything ready to go so when he arrived Friday we could load the van, empty the storage shed, clean the apartment, and drive away by Saturday night. We had thrown away all of our moving boxes form our move to MD so I was really starting from scratch, but managed through a few facebook pleas, to gather enough cast off boxes and packing supplies that I never had to dumpster dive behind Walmart or buy boxes.

Looking back I really have no idea how I managed to do all of that packing and getting ready to go by myself. Actually, I do know. I didn't do it by myself. I spent a lot of late nights sorting and throwing things away and filling boxes. The kids a long playdate with Aunt Jessie and Carson one day so I could clear out the storage shed, organize it all, and repack it to make room for lots of future loads. Lauri, Tammy, Mel, and Megan came and spent a long Saturday helping pack up the kids' room and most of the upstairs closets, then drove every packed box and tote to the storage shed before my kids could unpack it, where Matt unloaded the cars and filled up our little unit. A few days later the girls had a long playdate with Kim Farrow and her kids while I worked on finishing the upstairs. Our ward family, who could have just said goodbye on Sunday and then forgot about us, brought meals and babysat. We got to spend a fun evening with the Wilhelms to say goodbye and have one last day of fun. And the Tuesday before Mike came two friends, Sharon and Letty, came over and spent an entire day packing up the last of the kitchen and living room stuff while the girls spent the  day with Aunt Jessie and Carson. Just as my helpers were leaving Nana, Julie, Uncle Don, Aunt Jenni, and Zach and Syra came for one last visit and to say goodbye.

Mike arrived Thursday and got to work early Friday loading the truck, despite little helpers running around and having some other family problems to deal with right in the middle of it. Friday afternoon I picked up the kids from school (what a tear-filled hour that was! We really loved that school!) and we went to a hotel to play and stay out of the way while Mike worked with the missionaries to load everything from the apartment, then two friends from the ward came and they went and loaded everything from storage. Saturday Tammy and Wayne came and played with the kids at the hotel while Mike and I finished up at the apartment loading the last things and cleaning carpets. Then they helped us with the last clean up and emptying closets and getting things ready to go.

I am so grateful to everyone who managed to take time out of their busy schedules to help us pack and move. It was hard but we are happy to be together as a family again! We of course miss all of our family that we left behind. Thankfully, modern technology can keep us in touch and we are really only a day's drive away when it is time to go visiting!

And of course, I have sworn off moving ever again. At least until the next assignment, where I will insist that Mike's employers pay for movers to come do the packing and loading!

Little Swimmers

We have managed to survive the intense heat and humidity of another Georgia summer! We spent most of the hottest afternoons here, at the YMCA pool. These pictures are from our first two visits while the kids were taking swimming lessons. We would start out every day with a lesson and a few hours to play at the pool.
On our second day there, I was busy putting sunscreen on the the kids and was approached by a visiting news anchor. She asked if she could interview me and the kids about sunscreen for a story on the news. Of course we said yes! So Lenna got to be on the evening news as I smeared her with sunscreen and she ran off and jumped in the pool. It was fun see her so relaxed and happy in front of the camera- no stage fright at all! And a little sad that out of all the families there, ours was the only one stopping to put sunscreen on. I wish everyone would use it!
Anyway, Andy and Lenna are great swimmers now, Becca loves the water and thinks she is a mermaid, and Elizabeth loves the run around in the splash pool.  Rebecca learned the hard way that she isn't a mermaid-on-demand. Our first trip of the season, she walked right out and stuck her head under the water. Didn't close her eyes, nose, or mouth. She thought she would just turn into a mermaid and be able to breath and talk under water like her favorite cartoon mermaids. She came up sputtering and gasping and SO disappointed! She is still a little upset that even after a summer of lessons she can't talk under water, but is getting better at keeping her mouth shut when she does her dog paddle and back float.

Baby Book Worm

Elizabeth has discovered books! She has spent so much time this summer turning pages and emptying bookshelves. Finally she learned that there are words to go along with the pictures and loves being read to. The above book was her favorite. "Peek a Boo Baby." She read it all the time! Then we lost it right before our summer road trips and had to find a new one. I'm going to give it one more hunt and then will just go get a new copy.
She now reads "Pete the Cat" in "I love my White Shoes" over and over and over and over. Until we can't stand it any more and hide it, then she reads something else until it shows up again.
I have to admit it makes me happy that all of my kids love books so much. Reassuring somehow that no matter how odd they may turn out as they grow, we will at least have that in common!

A new smile

After an entire of year of waiting and enduring four different orthodontic consults, Lenna finally got her braces! She is so excited to begin the process of getting her new smile.
She has pretty severe crowding on the top and bottom, as well as a crossbite, and overbite, and a very narrow upper palate. She started with an upper jaw expander called a hi-rax, and braces on her top teeth. Lower braces will be put on at the end of this year after those last few baby teeth wiggle out. She should be into a retainer and out of braces in 18 months! One of the advantages of starting treatment when she is this young instead of when she is a teen is that her facial bones are still pretty flexible, so they move quickly to where the orthodontist wants them to be, so it doesn't take nearly as long as it would if we waited. It has been amazing to me to see the difference in her teeth in just under two months. She started with her two front teeth overlapping but they moved apart a little each day until they were side by side and now even have a space between so when the rest of her top teeth grow in they will all fit in a nice little row.
The first week was really hard for as she adjusted to speaking and eating with all that stuff in her mouth, but she is doing great with it now. Our biggest hurdle is sending her to bed early enough that she has enough time to spend 20 minutes brushing and flossing all those purple brackets before bed time.
It makes her look so much older now than she did at the end of the school year. Still my beautiful girl though!

Andrew's mini tv spot

Lenna's contest

Lenna's entry into the cover art contest for local builder's assoc. won first place! Here is a link with the contest entries.

http://www.hbaofwashingtoncounty.org/homeshow/home-show-2012-art-contest/