Lately

William:

• Told me the other day that all they do at school is work, work, work!  and that zac is lucky cause preschool was fun.
• is completely addicted to xbox games. it seems the less i let him play the more he wants it.  I was hoping he would forget.
• He really loves new clothes.  Lucky we have a box of "new" clothes that I got from yard sales last year so he can dive in and get whatever he wants out.

Isaac:

• thanks me daily for letting him go to preschool and not mummy school
• asks me if he got smarter after we finish reading a book
• continues to ask me questions then correct me when my answer isn't the right one
• sings while grocery shopping

Elise:

• has moved to her crib! the first night was awful but now she is only getting up 3 times a night and I'm really hoping she will continue to improve on that
• she takes 5 steps, falls down, starts to crawl, stands up and repeats the cycle
• has been dragging batman round the house by his cape
• plays peek a boo very well
• is eating everything but baby food, it seems she likes to chomp on things with her 3 teeth

Mummy:

• is trying not to kill Will whenever we have to to homework.  really if I had to home school him I'd be in the psych hospital.
• joined a gym
• been listening to audio books.  I don't know why i never did this before because i can get so much done when I'm distracted by a book.  I actually like folding laundry now  I don't avoid housework so much anymore, I mean if the book is good and I'm at a good part.
• is going through a coconut eating faze.  really send me your coconut recipes. 

dad:

• has been away all week learning more about eyes.  apparently they didn't teach him everything.  nice to know our mountain of student debt just paid for an education that is already in need of updating.

food

Dear Mommy Bloggers, Jessica Seinfeld and various authors who have written books on fussy eaters,

Thank you for all your wonderful tips, tricks and recipes.  They don't work.  You should have just let your fussy eater watch kung fu panda and ratatouille over and over and over again.  Really!  I've tried all the other stuff you said like no snacking, get your kids to help, take them shopping, hide it in other dishes, blah, blah, blah.  All I had to do was let them watch kung fu panda twice a day for about a week and guess what? they ate chicken noodle soup with vegetables! And then they watched ratatouille.  I made ratatouille and guess what? they at that too! do you know what that is made of?  it was very shocking.  So instead of writing books maybe you could start writing movies that have subliminal messages to eat good food.

from a mother

Victory!

So I didn't know much about the American revolutionary war until yesterday because we went to the Yorktown Victory center and learnt all about the revolutionary war and how people lived then.  First stop was the farm

 

 inside the farmhouse

to the right is the farmhouse and the left is the kitchen, they had dried everything in there.

it reminded me a lot of nauvoo because they had people walking around in costume telling you what you'd be doing and how they did everything back in the day.  I am always very grateful for my washing machine, dishwasher and air conditioning whenever I come home.

 

now for the museum

as usually I think we got to read about 2 paragraphs but the boys enjoyed dressing up.

We couldn't take any pictures of the exhibits because they had some pretty sweet old stuff.

 Isaac, George and William

 William a pant less revolutionary

and they didn't have much that fit little zac but he didn't mind.

Next stop was the encampment.

 

 Everyone got to hold the very heavy musket and then she loaded it and shot at a tree.  It takes about 15 seconds to load and is not very accurate.  So I'm thinking that if this was the kind of arms the founding fathers were talking about when they wrote the right to arms part then I'm all for it. 

 Isaac writing a letter to his mummy from the battlefield

 this is an important guys bed because he has a tent to himself and he actually has a bed instead of hay and sharing the same size tent with 6 other dudes.

the boys trying to figure out the old map.

I didn't get a picture of the surgeons tent but they had some pretty intense surgical instruments and a high death rate from just living in a camp with all those dirty men drinking dirty water and bad food.

 

It is so fun to live close to so many historical sites.  Next week if the weather is nice we are going to drive up to Jamestown and see Pocahontas, john smith and friends.

Pre-K

At the very last minute I decided to sign Isaac up for preschool. 

He is so excited to be going to real school and tells me everything they do.  He goes three times a week for 3 hours so it has been wonderful to have some time with just Elise. 

Busch Gardens

Saturday we cashed in free ticket for a seaworld park and went to Busch Gardens. Thank you big companies for thinking its good PR to give military free stuff. Busch Gardens had a European theme

so we started off in England

 

 

 

 Baby E was so lovely the entire day. She didn't moan once about being stuck in a stroller while the boys got to do lots of fun stuff.

 Here at the forest of fun Zac and Will got to go on one roller coaster before Zac wet his pants and we had to decide what to do.  In the end we just wet his shorts more and let him walk around to dry off.

Next stop was Ireland

most of Ireland and France for that matter was covered in Halloween decorations.  I wonder if they actually celebrate Halloween there.

 this little boat ride was part of a dragon themed place in Germany

 off to Italy for a pirate ride

 In France they had little gliders and balloons that were really cute.

 then back to Germany for some flying action

 and bumper cars that were stopped every 2 seconds because some kid couldn't figure out how to drive.

That's all the pictures I took.  I always think I take tons of pictures.  Anyway, other memorable moments were William being more relaxed than me on the log flume ride, Zac loving getting soaked on a rapids ride that he asked to go on again, William being 47.9 inches when you had to be 48 inches to go on the bigger roller coasters, Sean taking the boys on a ride called the dark castle and me sitting outside trying to send messages to Sean to turn around and take them out of there because it was probably going to be scary, Sean actually complaining about spending money on fast food, seeing souvenirs being sold for countries you aren't actually in, Sean not being able to go on any of the big kid roller coasters because he got sick on the little ones, and this probably is the prettiest theme park I've ever been too and probably the most amount of hills in a theme park ever.

East Coast

We got a four day Labor (in america so i'm spelling it americanly) day weekend! Thank you Air Force! We decided that we would make the most of a Friday off and headed to the outer banks.  I was really excited to get to go to a North or South Carolina beach.  I know that may sound strange since I grew up by the best beaches in the world but Jenny Han, Sarah Dessen,  and (sad/embarrassed to admit) Nicholas Sparks haven't written any novels set in Queensland.  Yes, most of my travel dreams are directly related to books or movies.  Even though we couldn't afford a sweet beach house for the summer, no one has cancer, I didn't see liam hemsworth at the aquarium and my step mother doesn't own a cool boutique on the boardwalk, we had lots of fun.  You get a prize if you can name all those books/movies in the comments.

the drive was about two hours long and had at least 16 little farmers market side of the road fruit/veggie/whatever else tourists will buy shops.  By the 4th one Sean got the hint and we stopped for some yummy fruit and a ride on the tractors.

Our first stop was at the Roanoke Island aquarium.  We have a membership to a museum that is friends with them so we got in free and I was glad because the sharks were pretty much the coolest thing there.



digging for fossils.  Did you know that Roanoke Island was the birthplace of the first English baby way back in 1587 and it is home to the lost colony, yet another group of people who disappeared.

nest stop the beach! Swim Atlantic ocean. Check.

Elise loves sand. really loves sand.

 The next stop was the Wright brothers memorial.
I started out hiking up the hill with elise while sean was going to bring the boys up.  much to his dismay (screams of stay on the path) the boys decided that they would run up the hill through the bushes and not on the path.  they didn't make it very far.  Zac screams were heard all the way to the top, he had stepped on a thorn and Will had prickles all over him.  I have to say that I really had no sympathy (does that make me a bad mother?) for them at all, it was a great be obedient and you wont get hurt lesson. 

The boys finally made it to the top.

because of the bushy hill adventures we didn't bother with the museum there, I'm sure we'll get back someday. 
last stop was a pizza place...

 Elise and her awesome beach hair

Zac actually eating his pizza.
Yes mummy is taking pictures while everyone is eating because they are all watching the TV.
I should have known!!  even when we were dating Sean would watch whatever sports was on the TV at a restaurant....why do they put TVs in restaurants?!? really people. I might just be a snob but I like some dinner conversation!!

Anyway, next year I am going to stay in a beach house! want to come?
 

Kindergarten

It is Williams first day of kindergarten today.  He was very brave and got on the bus without any coaxing. Isaac promptly burst into tears.  Elise was hungry.  Mummy was a mix of emotions.  here are some of my thoughts...

• holy cow, how am I old enough to have a kid in school?
• Yay! Will gets to ride a yellow school bus!!  I wonder how many Americans will think its weird that I'm so excited about yellow school buses. 
• what am i going to do with only 2 children all day?
• i hope Will makes some friends
• what if he gets bullied?
• or even worse what if he is the bully?
• have a taught him enough to be sent out into the world?

and it goes on and on.

Will didn't want anymore pictures so i had to get one of the bus just imagine him on it

Finally 3:30 rolled around and I waited for his bus to come back so i could hear all about his first day.  He finally gets home 20 minutes late, takes his shoes and backpack off, I go to make a snack and come back to this

 

Poor thing was so tired I couldn't even bribe him with M&Ms to wake up. Elise even crawled all over him and he didn't move at all.

 

 

***He has finished his first week and those first couple of days were really rough.  Will was very, very tired so it made for some interesting tantrums but he is slowly getting used to being gone all day.