Mothers.....

Me:  Ben, did you know that you came home 10 years ago today?  Look at how cute you were in this picture with you and Daddy in Chicago.
Ben: 
Me:  I know, I'm too sentimental
Ben:  That's OK Mum, all mothers are sentimental.....

Yes, it's been that long.....

In some ways, it seems like for ever; in others, it's no time at all. Sam & Ben landed in Chicago 10 years ago after a long and difficult time in Ukraine. I hadn't seen either of them for 5 weeks and when they came off the plane, I burst into tears. It was such a relief to see them both again. I was giving up hope of ever seeing Ben (and maybe never seeing Sam) again. That seems so silly now, but such a possibility back then.

Just looking at this picture, you can tell they had spent a lot of time together and had bonded with each other quite successfully.
What a wild ride the last 10 years has been. Parenthood is definitely not for the faint of heart, but who would have it any other way???!!!!

My first run....

Even though I've done two runs before, this was the first one that was really official and I was determined that I would not stop and walk at all.  Sam ran with me the whole way, he was brilliant about keeping me going.  I finished 3 miles in 30:56.  I am really happy with the result

http://onlineraceresults.com/race/view_individual.php?make_printable=1&bib_num=2102&race_id=23038&type=result

Parent-Teacher conferences

Well, every now and then you get a surprise when it comes to your kids and we got one today (maybe two?) when we did our parent-teacher conferences.  The regular conference dates were last week when we were away, but the teachers were great about meeting with us this week instead. 
Maggie's was our first meeting.  Her teacher is phenomenal, the same teacher that had Daniel in First Grade and worked so hard with him.  She is aware of Maggie's limitations and so she cuts back the work to Maggie's level so that she feels like she is achieving something and is not failing at everything.  At one point, she showed us a picture Maggie had drawn and pointed out that the picture is a reflection of where Maggie's level really is (it's pretty much the type of picture that a preschooler would draw).  It was a very insightful comment.  The good news is that Maggie works consistently hard with everyone and is doing as well as she can.  Everybody (kids and teachers) absolutely love her.  Of course, she is always so happy and enthusiastic about everything.
Ben is doing well too.  This was the first report card where he gets letter grades.  He got Bs and Cs on everything.  Honestly, I was expecting worse.  I think he did really well.  His teacher says that he is working very hard most of the time.  It's a huge improvement over last year.  His teacher is great and he loves being in her class.
I am so proud of both of them.  All we can ask is that they try their hardest & they are apparently doing that.....

It's a tough life......

No need for any dialog really. The pictures say it all. We drove to Stillwater so that the kids could spend the day on the beach. When I lived in England, I was 90 miles from the beach and I swore I would never live that far from the sea again. Now I live about as far away from the sea as you can get-how did that happen? We went to the beach every year when I was growing up and I wanted Ben and Maggie to get the experience for themselves. Maggie had never been to the beach before.
It was amazing. I have never seen such fine sand in my life, it was like flour!!! Ben and Maggie spent ages playing in the sand, swimming in the sea and collecting shells. Another perfect day.....

The Best Day EVER!!!!!

To steal a phrase from Ben, this was mum's best day in a long time. I could not go to Orlando and not see Harry Potter World at Universal Studios!!!! This is on the bridge over to Hogsmeade, you can see the roofs behind Ben and Maggie.

Some of the shop fronts.....

The Three Broomsticks-I want a pub called this!!!!

Puking pastilles display in shop window.  Oh, with Ben in front!!!!

We did not go on the ride inside the castle (no way am I going on a ride where you have to leave everything in your pockets in lockers!!), but the kids loved the Hippogriff ride, they went on 5 or 6 times in a row-thank goodness we bought express passes!!!!

Took this picture to use as our Christmas card this year

Ben and Maggie eating lunch in the Three Broomsticks.  Ben is drinking butterbeer and Maggie has pumpkin juice.....

Picture of Hogwarts through the trees.....

Universal Studios

The highlight of our trip was Universal Studios. I wanted to go because I wanted to see Harry Potter World (whole post will be devoted to that!!). Maggie wanted to go to see Spider Man. Ben just wanted to go on the rides.
It was a perfect day, sunny and not too warm.   The kids were excited just walking up to the place!!!

The first thing we did was go on the Spider Man ride.  That was pretty much it for me.  Too much shaking around and reality in 3D.  Of course, everyone else loved it!!!  After that, we went on a water ride.  The warnings said "you may get wet".  What they meant was "you may get absolutely drenched, you might as well get in a bath of cold water".  There was no way you could avoid the tidal waves coming over the side or the people above us shooting water canons!!!  We had to stand in a drying box to try to dry off a bit.  After we were somewhat drier, Sam and the kids went on another water ride., Yeah, it's vacation and reason has no place in our day!!!!  They are on here (you can just see Sam).  Believe me, they were a lot drier on this ride than the last one....

We loved Jurassic Park.

This was just like the movie!!!!

We went on the Pteranodon ride.  We had to wait a while and it wasn't that long a ride, but it was worth it

Even though Ben insisted that he didn't want to go to Dr Seuss land, we probably went on more rides here than anything else!!!!

When everyone else was on the Spider Man ride, the Super Heroes got on their bikes and left.  Maggie would have loved to have seen them,

especially Spider Man!!!!

Of course, you can't end the day without face painting!!!!  Aren't they great?

Our hotel in Florida

The reason that we decided to take the whole family to Orlando was because of the hotel that I was staying in for my meeting. It was very close to Sea World and very family-friendly and I couldn't see not taking everyone with me. The hotel did not disappoint us. This was the view from our room-no wonder Ben called it Paradise!!!!

There were 3 pools in the hotel.  I think they were all heated, but the kids pool was definitely warmer than the others & the kids spent most of their time in that one

As soon as we arrived, the kids immediately had to get in the pool.  This was them about 30 minutes after we arrived!!!

Had to take this picture of Maggie, she looked so cute sitting on the bed, procrastinating about putting her shoes on

The hotel had all kinds of things for the kids to do.  There was someone there full time that would do things with them and there were all kinds of games around for them to do.  They weren't too interested in the table football, but they loved the oversized chess board.  Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, they were playing "wizard's chess" and demolishing the pieces as they took them!!!!

Ben's ring routine

Ben's team had an intrasquad meet today. It's really a practice for the boys more than anything, but the level 5 boys in his team came second, so they did pretty well. You can check out the videos on you tube:
This is his rings routine-always my favourite
http://www.youtube.com/user/ben041701#p/a/u/2/ZS1nYq0a7Pw

He did really well on his high bar routine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_nnYQzvu5w

He did his best with the parallel bar-I think this is his favourite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJOj4tlXBys&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Our trip to Florida

Janhavi and I went to the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando last week. It was too good an opportunity not to take some time and enjoy ourselves. We were staying in a very family-orientated hotel, so the whole family went with me. However, before I post a whole bunch of pictures of us enjoying ourselves, I thought I'd better post some proof that we were at the meeting!!!! This is Janhavi standing in front of her poster

And this is her standing by the AHA logo

And me, not wanting to be outdone!!!!!

Wow-what a long time!!!!

I can't believe that we are in the 3rd week of November and I haven't posted since Hallowe'en!!!!  I think it's a sign that my blog isn't read that much any more because I used to get worried emails when I haven't posted for a few days.  This time, I haven't heard anything, although I appreciate that many of my blog readers are also my facebook friends and so they know what I have been doing anyway.  We were in Florida almost all of the past week, so we have lived through multiple temperatures in the past week as Fall has finally arrived in St Louis.
I will try to get caught up and post some of the many pictures that I have taken in the past couple of weeks.  I found a couple of pictures that I took of Ben & Maggie during their parade at school.  I was roped into doing the Fall parties this year and this was the first year that I had seen the parade.  We were still having nice weather back then and I had organized a scavenger hunt for the fifth grade kids.  They played outside for the rest of the time, so it was a pretty easy party.

The kids were off school for one day at the beginning of November (it's the worst month of the year for days off school, excluding Christmas and Spring Break, of course).  Ben decided that he wanted to go ice skating and I took them to Brentwood rink.  He taught Maggie to skate without using the chair.

Happy Hallowe'en

We had our usual Hallowe'en dinner this year-the puff pastry mummy, devilled eggs, witch's fingers, etc....

Our Hallowe'en dinner is getting as big an event as Thanksgiving and Christmas, we even had crackers this year that had masks and jokes inside them.

Jan and Julie came over as usual and the kids went out Trick-or-Treating in the neighbourhood. They got a mountain of candy and we have sorted it out so I can get rid of a bunch of it. We have had so much of it at work everyone seems to be bringing it in to get rid of it!!!

Ghouls in the Garden

Well, we managed to do one of our Hallowe'en traditions this year(although this is only its second year, so hardly a tradition yet). We went to Ghouls in the Garden on Sunday afternoon.  Don't you love Ben's scar?  He did it himself!!!

They have coloured the water red in the fountain at the entrance. Everyone is making the most of the big Cardinals win this year.....

The Adams Family exhibit was once again the best one this year, they have some really cool (yukky?) stuff on their table

They had a photo section at the end and I managed to snap a couple of good pictures of the kiddos...

I particularly liked this one

Even though Ghouls in the Garden was great, this juvenile red tailed hawk stole the show.  He was just sitting in the grass eating and wasn't prepared to leave his kill no matter how close people walked towards him!!!!  Isn't he beautiful?

They also did "putting the Children's Garden to bed" this weekend and we did that before Ghouls in the Garden.  One of the events they had was making a bouquet from the last of the flowers.  I thought it made a great dead flower bouquet for Hallowe'en.

It looked pretty good when Ben put it together, but didn't last too long

All-in-all, it was a pretty fun day for everyone

our own carving party

We had our own pumpkin carving party on Saturday afternoon. Ben chose a haunted house design and etched it out on the pumpkin ready for Sam to carve. It was a beautiful day and so nice to be able to do it outside.

Maggie thought she'd see if she could etch something onto herself, luckily it didn't work!!

We bought a new decoration at World Market this year because our ghost finally died.  I rather like him so he might be on the porch for a while.

We had quite the collection of pumpkins this year, especially small ones....

Here's Dad's haunted house carving.  I think it turned out great

Unfortunately, the pumpkin didn't make it until the Big Day, the squirrels got to it on Sunday and ate the house out of the front of it. Sam had to carve a new pumpkin on Sunday afternoon!!!!!