Bob Cassilly

Anyone who reads this regularly knows what big fans of the City Museum we are.  Unfortunately, the City Museum's founder died on Monday.  This is a huge loss for St Louis as a whole, he was a great visionary & will be missed.

It never fails.....

We took some school friends to City Museum today. Just as I was telling Mia that both Ben & Maggie had fallen in the pool on the roof, her younger son came running over to tell us he fell in. As you can see, Ben was highly entertained!!!!

He had to run over to see just how wet Julian was!!!!

It didn't seem to phase him at all and he fell in again later on!!!!

His Mum wasn't as impressed as he was. I offered to get a towel out of the car, but he dried off enough in the ball pit!!!

It never fails, they all have to fall in at least once. We have a rather nice City Museum T shirt from the time Maggie fell in.....

Walking around Seattle

Met my friend Robin in Seattle yesterday. I originally met her in St Louis and she is a fellow parent of a Ukrainian child, they adopted at the same time as us. She moved to Seattle in April and I was so glad to be able to meet up with her. I took a few pictures of Seattle, but I didn't get one of Pike Market, or the first ever Starbucks store (that should have been my #1 priority!!). Might have to go back again....Mountains & water-wonderful combination

This tree was in the sculpture garden, one of the best there was to see (I wasn't too keen on the mosquito net-looking thing

This is Seattle's Science Center

The Space Needle (no, I did not go up in that thing!!)

And Chief Seattle....

What child would not love this?

Saw this fountain in Seattle yesterday. There is a ramp down to it, so the kids can run down & get wet. I bet it's really busy in the Summer, but it was way too cold to get wet yesterday. Ben and Maggie would have loved it, but I suspect it would have been too cold even for them!!! Being in Seattle, it was accompanied by music by Nirvana (of course!!)

Brentwood Days

One of the best days of the year. First of all, free candy at the parade. However, the parade seemed much smaller than last year and the kids seemed to get a lot less candy (not that that is necessarily a bad thing from my point of view)

After the parade, free rides at the carnival. Once again, the carnival seemed smaller than usual, but the rides were still free. There were lines at everything, but they didn't last long and the kids didn't seem to notice them at all.

I don't know if you can see this or not, but the look on Maggie's face is priceless here!!!

Ben & Maggie spent a lot of time with friends from school

Maggie was determined she was going to wait in line for a ride on the horses.  Of course, that really meant that I stood in line while she played

Kids at the Botanical Gardens

Arline & I went to the botanical gardens to see the water lilies, but the kids were in a major "take a picture" mode, so I got more pictures of them than I did of the lilies!!! I wonder how many pictures I have of them standing in front of this fountain.

I thought this was a great picture of Ben looked pensively at the waterfall in the Climatron

Maggie wanted me to take a picture of her sitting on the logs in the Children's Garden

Ben still loves to climb in trees

Maggie insisted that I took her picture while she was standing behind this!!!!

I feel like they are never going to get tired of sitting on these sheep....

Water lilies

Well, we had gone to see the water lilies at the gardens, so here are a couple of pictures of them. It was worth going to see them, they are beautiful at this time of the year. Maybe I will make it a point to go to the gardens once a month through the whole of 2012.

Picture Day

I pick Ben& Maggie up from school this afternoon as usual.  It was picture day and I had told Sam to make sure they were wearing something decent.  Both are in old washed-in shirts and Ben's has a nice stain right in the the middle of it.  Driving home, this is the conversation:
Me:  I can't believe Dad let you go in those shirts today
Ben:  Oh Mum, you couldn't even see that stain
Me:  And Maggie's wearing that old boy shirt.  I'm going to buy you matching shirts for year pics
Maggie:  Uh huh, there's no way you are dressing us up like twins
Ben: And there's no way I am wearing a dress
Me:  Yeah, and you think Maggie will ever wear a dress?
Maggie:  I am NEVER wearing a dress for picture day.  Don't even think about it.

Later, I notice that Maggie is wearing one purple sock and one white one
Me:  Maggie, thank goodness they didn't take a whole body photo. Why are you wearing odd socks?
Maggie:  Well, the other purple one had a hole in it
Me:  And you decided to replace it with a white one?

Parenting lessons

I walked into Ben's room last night and Maggie was sitting in the middle of the floor with the contents of his magic kit (and there's a lot of it) strewn to the four corners.  I asked her what on earth she was doing & why she was messing with Ben's stuff. Then, I found out that Ben told her she could play with it.  I told her she'd better pick it all up when she was done.  As Ben & I walked down the stairs, I said "Ben, why did you tell her she could play with that stuff, it'll be all over the place.  You'd better make sure that it's all put away after because I am not going to do it"  Ben says "It makes her happy.  Maybe she won't copy me if I let her play with it".  Well, that made me feel really bad.  I was so wrapped up in the fact that it was going to be a mess and I'd have to pick it all up, that I didn't even consider how much she was enjoying herself.  Ben just wanted to make her happy.  Oh, and at the end of it all, they both picked everything up and put it away (almost) perfectly!!!  Yep, "Terrible Mother of the Year" award again for me.....

A regular Saturday

Ben missed gymnastics on Thursday night, so he had a make up session on Saturday. This is the first time that I have stayed and watched most of his class, he is really doing very well. After class, he was really hungry, so we went to get something to eat. Then he was so tired that he wanted to go home and take a nap. Maggie and I went to the grocery store while he was sleeping.

We met Jan and Julie at the City Museum. When we went on the roof, I realized that we hadn't been out there in the dark for a long time. It was so cool to be able to see the City lit up around us and to see the Ferris wheel with the lights on

Jan loves Ferris wheels and always wants to ride them on her birthday. Since her birthday is next week, she got an early birthday present!!!

fun with calculators

Maggie is walking around with Ben's calculator.
Maggie:  Ben, what is 4 plus 7?
Me:  11
Maggie:  No, it's 81
(I think there's some operator error somewhere)
Maggie:  How come this doesn't shut?
Me:  Because it's been Maggied
Ben:  Good one, Mum

To prove it's not only my children....

I can have entertaining conversations with the other kids too!!

Ben:  Mum, Xavier and Tariq really love being with you, they think you are really cool.
Xavier:  Yeah, I am so happy after I get my hugs from you.  You are just like my second Mum.
Me:  Yeah, Xavier, because we look so alike, don't we?
Xavier:  Yes we do, I have your nose......

Best friends for ever......

I took Tariq and Xavier with us to the City Museum on Labour Day. Tariq and Xavier are Ben's best friends, but they don't necessarily get along with each other. Still, it turned out to be OK. Of course, Maggie just gets in the middle of everyhing and goes along with whatever the boys are doing!!!! It was pretty windy up on the roof, but they still had the ferris wheel operating and they all had to go on several times

Looks like they had a good time, doesn't it???!!!

Conversations (again)

One from each of them:Maggie & I walked up to the school for her girl scout meeting
Maggie: Mum, what are we going to school for?
Me:  Girl scout meeting, actually you are a brownie now
Maggie:  I'm a brownie?  I want to be a daisy
Me:  You can't be a daisy.  You're too old for that now.  Now you're a brownie
Maggie:  Oh, I love brownies.  They are yummy!!!!!

Ben and I were talking about general things.  I pointed out that he is getting older and needs to be more responsible for things.
Me:  You've got to learn to tell Maggie when you want to be left alone and not stab her with a pencil (oh, yes, it happened)
Ben:  Well, that was when I was dealing with my anger management issues.  Everything is fine now.....

Butterfly #2

Right on time, the second butterfly hatched. This time, I was at home and got to see it. Yet another beautiful specimen.....

I am beginning to be able to tell when the butterflies are going to hatch. The chrysalises turn a darker colour, must be because you can see the dark butterfly wings through the skin. Ben wanted to take a picture of the empty chrysalis.

Ben likes to get the butterflies out of the jar by letting them climb onto his finger. We left this one on the petunias, blowing in the breeze

Maggie's camping trip

Jan sent me some pictures of Maggie's camping trip. It looks like she had a great time.

Ben went to the baseball game with the Lemleys yesterday and Maggie was still camping, so we had a child-free afternoon. Actually, Sam went on a bike ride in the morning and I had gone to get my feet done, so technically we had a child-free day!!! So, what did we do? I ran around and did all the grocery store errands and Sam cleaned up the yard.

Maggie came home around 7 pm. She had a highly successful camping trip. They were in the river most of the day on Saturday because it was so hot. Luckily, the storm that we had in St Louis had completely missed them and they didn't have any rain at all!!!

We had a huge storm come through late yesterday. Just as I was saying "wow, look at that wind", the power went out. A huge limb from the tree next door came down on the power lines at the back of us. I had just started making pizza for dinner. I had put the sauce on the base & Sam had grated the cheese. The oven was on. Everything came to a grinding halt. We waited for a couple of hours but the power didn't return, so we had to go out to dinner.  Ben was more worried about Maggie camping than anything else.  Hopefully the storm wasn't as bad where they are.

When we got home, Ben lit all the candles and we sat in the dark talking about what life would have been like back before there was electricity and all the other things we take for granted these days. It was quite soothing sitting in silence and being in the candle light.  The power came on around 3 am this morning.  Thank goodness.  I had been planning how I was going to get coffee in the morning without electricity!!!!

Maggie-free weekend

Maggie went camping with Jan & Julie this weekend.  Ben has been so excited about it and went around the whole house singing about it on Friday.  I kept telling him he was really going to miss her and he has been constantly asking me what we are going to do.  After she left, it took him only 90minutes until he said "I really miss Maggie".....

Our own conservation efforts

Our butterflies have started to hatch. We have 4 chrysalises in one jar and the first one hatched today. I wasn't expecting any for a few days, but Ben must have had ESP because he told me last night that they should be hatching now. The first one only formed a chrysalis a week ago and I thought they took 10 to 14 days. As usual, Mum doesn't know anything!!!! Ben called me all excited this morning because the first one had hatched. Luckily, they got a picture of it so that I could see it. They are so beautiful....