Drive in Movie

Last night the kids and I along with Linda and Jay traveled to Jackson to see a movie....a drive in movie!
I had told the kids we were going to a movie, and later when I was putting the girls in their pj's there was bit of confusion.
Yahaira wondered if we were going to watch a movie in the park again. I explained that no we would be watching it in our van, which of course made them think of the DVD player we have in the van. Once again I tried to explain, miserably they had no idea what we were doing. This theater just opened a few weeks ago, all I could find on Google were newspaper stories about it's opening. No address, no phone number. Not deterred after all we had quite good directions, drive south on 71, it's at the junction of County Road 9 and 71, you won't be able to miss it. Easy enough. Getting to Jackson was a breeze, driving thru Jackson no problem...going south again fairly simple for this direction challenged person, and then we drove and drove, and drove. Looking for this place "we couldn't miss" soon we were in Iowa, and I'm looking at Linda and asking "did we miss it?" So Linda tries information in an attempt to locate a number to the theater, the phone keeps dropping calls, stopping somewhere wasn't an option, there were only fields, corn everywhere you looked. Finally success the phone call goes thru and as the operator explains there is no listing for a drive in movie theater, we glance up and there it is.
Larger than life, yep it is pretty safe to say "you won't miss it" The lot was pretty empty when we arrived, which was cool, it gave the kids a chance to run and stretch their legs. After they stood and stared at the screen for 10 minutes in shock. As we waited for dark to descend we chatted with people around us, so different from an indoor movie theater, where chatting is frowned on. There was a grandmother with her grandchildren, there from Cherokee Iowa, who was so excited to be at a drive in movie theater, something she had grown up with. I remember attending a movie once at the drive in theater in Mankato. Years later we went to one in the Wisconsin Dells, just so the kids could experience it. So when my cousin was telling us about this drive in opening, I knew I wanted to go and to take the little ones, so they too could experience the magic of watching a movie outdoors under a starlight sky, surrounded by corn fields. How amazing that it is less than an hour away. At one point during the movie as Linda and I were talking and the girls were being themselves and moving and giggling Jay said "I love watching a movie at the drive in" "Oh? why is that" Linda asked, "because no one is telling you to be quite and you can get up and walk around" he said. As I traveled back to the van during intermission I noticed Rosie was lagging behind, as I glanced back at her there she stood staring up at the sky..."look at all the stars Mommy" and there we stood for the longest time doing just that. We watched Kung Foo Panda and Iron Man., ate popcorn and chips, laughed and talked, and arrived back on our doorstep at 1:15am. Can't wait to go again.

Today

was her birthday!
she rivaled the three year old in excitement about this approaching day.
Her one request was to go to Bergen for dinner. So tonight, my dad, Josh, Betty, and Naomi joined Beckie and I on a trip to Bergen where we met my cousin Paulette and her family. Great food, lots' of laughter and one injury (more on that later, poor Josh)

wind power

traveling in the country south of town you encounter more and more of these windmills.
they are massive in size, and the sound they make as the wind turns them is so calming.
I love seeing them, love using the wind as an energy source, love the picture they create as you drive along a gravel road with cornfields all around you.

nature table

my kids pick up every rock and stick they find, no matter where we go, a rock or two or three makes it into their hands and into our home. Often I had no idea what to do with this massive collection, often parts and pieces would make it's way back outdoors when the wee wonders were not looking. Then one day while reading the most incredible book (I know I say that about almost every book I read) I read a suggestion on how to bring the outdoors indoors. Well how novel I thought, what a concept, and then that light bulb moment occurred and I realized we had been doing that very thing, imagine that. The author suggested setting up a small table somewhere in your home, a place where your child could place the treasures he or she found, (treasures? who knew?) and then could play with them whenever they wished. What an idea....right? Thus our nature table was born.....
The Creative Family by: Amanda Blake Soule her blog is: http://www.amandasoule.com/

Our version of a nature table, it's portable to assure that several little fingers can play at the same time.
and when not in use it does actually hang out on a table.

and for a bit of an eye spy game...can you find all the teeny tiny fairies that are currently hanging out in our nature area.
how about a dragon tear or two...a seahorse, pinecones, and acorns and let's not forget those rocks.

playing in the rain

last night brought much needed rain, as the kids sat at the table coloring Yahaira looked up and noticed the rain. "I should walk in the rain" she said. "you should" I replied. So after they dug out their mud boots and grabbed an umbrella it was out in the rain they went, joined by Beckie. Rosie lasted until the first round of thunder and then she headed to the garage. Lot's of giggles and laughter as they splashed and jumped in the puddles. Into warm baths as soon as they went inside and wondered when it might rain again. As Yahaira fell asleep last night she said to me "I liked walking in the rain" and with that simple statement she reminded me of how important the simply ordinary is in a child's life.

mud boots

Rosie has a mud boot buddy. One of my daycare kids has these adorable frog boots, he wore them one day and I tried to get a picture of the two of them together, Miss Rose of course was having no part of it, imagine that. Yesterday the frog boots came back to daycare and as you can see she was quite willing. These two start preschool together next week, they will be in the same class, for as big as they think they are, in the picture above I'm reminded of just how little they are.

birthday cake

do you see that cake in the picture?
not only is it absolutely adorable, it tastes amazing too.
This mom reminds me every year (on each of her children's birthdays) just how untalented I am. :)
She has no idea how wonderful her creations are, it's just something she likes to do, she says. A note: the reason I feel so inept each time I see one of these cakes, years and years ago I went down the cake decoration road, after a couple of years of no sleep for days before each birthday, late night frosting and more frosting, and even more frosting disasters Beckie said to me one day before her 6th birthday, when I had asked the inevitable question of what would you like you cake to look like? Beckie replied with,
did you know you can get cakes at the bakery?" Her friend had had one at her birthday party a few weeks earlier. "mom it tastes really good" she said. That was all it took, I picked up the phone and made the call and life has certainly been simpler since. I quickly realized that there had been no joy in my attempts at creating the perfect birthday cake, just stress and fear. Fear that the darn thing would fall apart before the requisite picture of birthday child grinning over birthday cake, or fear that someone would quite simply go into shock after one bite of the sugary confection. When it wasn't working the way I envisioned I just used more frosting. Immediate medical attention was always a part of each and every bite. Of course there was always the wondering if I would simply survive the cake making drama each birthday created, me reduced to babbling in the corner was always just a frosting swipe away. So back to this mom and her amazing cakes, the first time she arrived with a decorated masterpiece, I wanted to hate her, after all it was amazing. Then I took a bite, and seriously tried to not like her but I couldn't because I recalled all to well just how much I had hated the process of creating each cake. When you do not have the talent, sometimes it doesn't matter how much you practice, you quite simply are never going to have it. Which is ok, I am very talented at ordering the most amazing cakes from other people. This way everyone is happy, and twice a year one of these amazingly decorated, and wonderfully delicious pieces of art arrive with two of my daycare kids.

Preschool open house

Monday night was the big night...preschool open house at Mrs Burman's
Rosie went first from 6-6:30 her walk to the door was slow and cautious. I think she was wondering just what this Mrs Burman was all about. We have spent many moments this summer discussing school and her new teacher. I admit a few times I threw into the conversation a "Mrs. Burman won't like that" comment, and we did use Mrs. Burman as a reason to kick start potty training. (the Mrs. Burman doesn't change diapers so you really need to start wearing big girl panties) so perhaps her apprehension was warranted. We walked into chaos, (picture 9 other three year old and their parents) loud, busy and to a lesser person frightening. She looked at Mrs. Burman decided she was going to be ok, and headed to the play-dough table where she stayed for the remainder of our stay. When it was time to leave...she didn't want to go of course. Yahaira went after and for her this was old school having been a seasoned veteran at the mature age of 4 (in other words she did this last year) Beckie stepped up and took her since I had a meeting at 7....and as you can see I got the requested picture, one picture. It is all I asked for, sigh. Later last night we were putting their new folders into their backpacks. Both are quite excited about the beginning of preschool and going back to Mrs. Burman's.

the second

one to head back to school. Rosie helped Josh move in and get settled in his new dorm room, she was perhaps a bit more excited than he was by this adventure.

life in my neighborhood

this was my afternoon entertainment and no it isn't this man's backside that generated my interest, well it could have but really that isn't the point of this post... now if you look closely you may notice a few things that shouldn't be there...oh like say the gun leaning up against the house, there's a knife too I'm afraid I just didn't get it in the picture (have I mentioned I love the zoom on my camera I took all these from a very safe distance away) What cued me in was the scene when the woman (not in the pictures) was throwing that knife up to the roof where this man was sitting, seriously I could not make this stuff up if I tried. I then watched this man remove the screen and poke at the blinds numerous times all the while jumping away from the window in fear (well I don't know if it was fear since I couldn't see his face but his movements said fear so I'm going with it) meanwhile I am receiving texts from concerned people (I did send a text or two how could I not share what I was watching unfold just across the street?) asking if I had called the police, oh! and Beckie asked me to be sure to protect her dog. I didn't call the police as far as I could tell he wasn't doing anything wrong, I was ready to call an ambulance when he fell off the roof tho, I am a good neighbor that way. Alas nothing emerged from the window, no woolly mammoth, or rodent or flying icky thing, not even a spider I'm sure. Well actually I'm not sure since my zoom isn't quite that great and perhaps I should be alarmed if this person went to all this trouble for a spider. Did you notice the rubber gloves? I did too. Life around here is never dull.

riding on a space craft

in order to do so Anthony needed shoes that were closed toe, his sandals didn't cut it. Darren was kind enough to borrow his shoes to Anthony which quite simply made his day. Ok so the kid could hardly move forward because they were just a wee bit too big, but apparently that wasn't a safety issue.