Eighteen to Life: Life In The New Home.

I haven't been updating my blog for some time because a few months ago, as I was writing a new (and long) entry about our summer, my computer crashed just as I was getting ready to publish it. For some reason, the posting hadn't been saving drafts and it all got erased. Since then, I really haven't been motivated to write another long entry. Still, I'm going to try again, this time writing another long recap of the past few months.

Last summer my friend and I participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K race in Central Park.

Julia entered creative movement / ballet class which she loved so much at first, but her interest waned until, by the end of the classes, she refused to go.

Last summer David kept begging us to take the training wheels off Julia's bike. (The bicycle we had previously purchased was a bit too big for him and not suited for learning how to ride with two wheels.) Once we got to it, he jumped on the bike and rode it if he's been doing so forever. Soon afterwards, we purchased him his own bike - one that wasn't pink and decorated with princesses - at a garage sale, so Julia could have her bicycle back.

David was enrolled in soccer class this fall. He loved the class, and would get so excited about scoring a goal (even if it was for the other team!)

Since he likes soccer so much, and because of the space outside of our new home, he received an early Christmas present -- a soccer net.

Ever since moving to our new house, David's been asking every day to have his friends over.

With a bigger house comes bigger responsibilities. The kids learned quickly that they are expected to help out. They didn't mind it ... for about week or so.

Bigger house -- more rooms that don't get furnished right away and are used as either reading rooms, racing tracks or dancing floors. The kids make the best of it with their makeshift furniture.

Julia loves her school, mostly because they do a lot of art and crafts there.

At home, we still do a zillion of arts and crafts projects. David, however, usually isn't on the same page with me and Julia, and does his own arts and crafts projects.

Once I come up/look up a project, Julia will follow every single of my directions whereas David takes all the materials and creates something on his own ... every single time. Of course, this personality trait extends into other aspects of his life which needless to say makes it tough to parent him sometimes.

For example, here's Julia and me...

...and here's David.

One morning, I gave the kids printouts which had cutouts that could be combined to make a dinosaur. David took one look at it and set out to do it for himself.

This is Julia's dinosaur made with my print outs.

Julia's Native American hat.

And David's ... hat.

One of my activities that David doesn't actually mind doing, but rather expresses an enthusiasm in it is placing letter stickers next to the words I have written and then reading them. I have him do it while I'm cooking a dinner, so I can help him with a word if it's too difficult for him to read. Sure... I could have him just write the words, but he wouldn't be as enthusiastic about doing it every single evening. In addition, he practices his letter writing when he is not drawing. Julia does a similar activity with numbers where I put small stickers on one side and then after counting them, she places number stickers on the other side. It actually creates a quiet time at the end of the day which we all need (not to mention a good reading and counting exercise.)

So what is David up to nowadays? Excercising his creativity, whether it's making drawings or simply making things out of anything he can get his hands on. I can't get him out of the house to take Julia to school because he is in the middle of "making steam" for the steamboat he's been putting together since 6:30 am, or we are late for his school because he's been making a rocket ship and the cone-shaped tip of a ship is not staying on. He makes me necklaces out of paper, clocks and masks out of paper plates, flowers and monster truck wheels out of towel paper holder and he draws non-stop.

Meanwhile Julia is happy to sit on a floor and "read" to us for up to an hour. In fact, the library is her second home. Additionally, she loves - absolutely loves - jigsaw puzzles! In fact, once she steps into the house, this is where she'll head, completing one puzzle after another and laying them side by side on the family room floor. She is up for anything as long as it's an indoor activity. She's not fond much of outdoors.

For Halloween, the kids were Minnie Mouse and Spiderman. Julia had been talking about dressing up as a bird for a year until her friend handed down this costume. David insisted on being Spiderman, even though we're not entirely sure how he knew about this character.