Sunshine.

Enjoying a beautiful weather before another snow fall tomorrow.

Spring.

We felt early signs of spring before it even officially arrived and we took full advantage of it. Julia skipped her naps and instead I was doing arts and crafts with her outside (I paid for it later with her crankiness), we ate almost every single meal on our deck, we air dried our laundry outside and aired out all our comforters. Seth and I did a lot of yard cleaning while the kids played soccer, baseball, rode their bikes, scooters, skateboard and "killed" (according to them) my flowers.

I finally completed knitting the alphabet blanket I blogged about here. I don't know if I would make it again because there was too much counting involved and if (rather when) I miscalculated, there was at least 4 hours of work waisted. And did I miscalculate! Seth kept saying that he thought I took on knitting because it was supposed to be relaxing and all he heard every evening was my heavy sighs. But I do have about dozen other smaller projects in mind especially since I received a knitting book for my birthday.

Also, some time in January I mentioned I was working on a sewing project. I came across these cute valentine envelopes on my friend's blog and decided to make them for my kids and their friends and fill them up with some valentine chachkas. Of course, as if that wasn't challenging enough since I hand sewed them, I decided to make them for everyone in David's class. Sigh. Too long, too repetitive, too boring.

If I'm not here anytime soon, it means I'm busy with another knitting project. Sorry if this family blog is turning into a knitting blog.

Just the two of us.

This morning Julia and I spent some time in a park that houses a carousel, a train, a zoo and a few playgrounds (most of which were closed due to some sort of construction).

She went on a carousel, rode a train, played in a playground and then we both had a little picnic which included peanut butter sandwiches, juice and pieces of a watermelon. It is so simple to make an ordinary day into a special one when she is only 2.

Easter, Spring Break and Lots of Bunnies.

Last weekend we celebrated Ukrainian Easter. The kids colored their eggs and a few hours later we went to the church to bless babka, eggs, kovbasa, butter and salt.

Why do my kids looks so tired? We headed to the city during their nap time, were stuck in traffic for over an hour, so they fell asleep in a car 15 minutes before we arrived to the church.

Of course, Julia "woke up" as soon as we arrived to a friend's birthday party two hours later.

On Easter Sunday Seth took the kids hiking at 7:30 am, so I could get some sleep (I love sleeping in late on the weekends).

When they got back, David ran into a house telling me about 7 deer and a blue bird he saw.

Last week David was off from school for a spring break. I wonder who the breaks are for. Not for the parents and definitely not for the children. What do they need a break from -- running in the playground? David kept asking me at least twice a day when he's going back to school.
The week didn't exactly go as smoothly as the winter break did. At this point, David was bored of playing the same games over and over again. He is over mazes and connect the dots activities. He still likes to color, but not at as long intervals as a few months ago. So, there wasn't much for me to do, but to introduce him to some new activities .... like math. Well, not exactly, but I did try to teach him some adding. He finished almost two books of simple additions and wanted to proceed to subtractions. We stopped at that.

I tried not to push him to do anything that he didn't want to do. Occasionally, he would just get his notebook and start copying short words from his various board games. Julia would join him sometimes when she wasn't busy coloring.

For the past month, as I would drive David to school, he would tell me what letter craft he wanted to do when he got back from school. So, almost every afternoon, I would borrow an idea for the letter of the week project from No Time For Flashcards and the kids would do the craft project. David loves it as he thinks he came up with the project and thus he controls what we are doing. Afterwords, we would practice writing letters and do all sorts of other activities.
But I decided to try to make the last week as much fun as possible. So, instead of the letters, we were making lots of silly bunnies. I am sure that most if not all of the craft project ideas came from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman . We made some bunny ears which the kids would wear as soon as they woke up and insisted on wearing them outdoors.

David decided to draw his own bunny. He asked me to help him, but instead of drawing a bunny on his paper, I drew it on my own and then he copied it and colored it. And so did Julia although I can't find her drawing.

The kids liked making a bunny wreath since it involved splashing lots of paint all over their little fingers.

And then they made some bunnies some time between finishing their dinner and waiting for Seth to come home. I really felt like every second of that week was monitored by me because when it wasn't, all hell would break loose ... literally in my house.

I did my own craft project that week as well. I just needed to unwind at night and knitting was that kind of therapy for me. I found a few links to the beautiful pictures of knitted Easter eggs and I just couldn't get them out of my mind. I had some spare yarn from knitting my kids' blankets, so I decided to give it a try. It took me about a week to figure out a pattern since the one I worked with produced rather ostrich size eggs. Once I figured out the pattern, I realized I didn't know how to work using multiple color yarn. I was originally planning to hang them on the branches full of blooming flowers. So, every time I went for a jog, I would memorize where in our town the prettiest tree grew. Seth told me not to even think of going back and cutting the branches. Long story short, here are my knitted eggs, in a basket.

A few weeks ago Julia's furniture was delivered and assembled. They did a horrible job on putting it together. We are having someone come in this week and hopefully get it all fixed. Julia wasn't even remotely as excited with her new bed as David was with his furniture a year ago. She does love sleeping in it though and she stopped climbing into our bed in a middle of the night. We changed the dresser's pink panels to white as I figured this room already blinds me with too much bright color.

Oh, and on top of all this, both kids got a fifth disease which I wouldn't really worry about since all it really is a rash. But last week before the rash even became visible we had a few playdates, at the time when my kids were contagious. One of our friends went to Aruba afterwords, two more are going away this weekend and one is still a baby. I keep my fingers crossed that no mom was pregnant since from what I understand this disease is very harmful to a fetus.
So, that's been our week. We survived it somehow. David is again a happy camper once he went back to school and even more so because he visited a doc's office today. I think he is the only child on this planet who gets visibly upset when his sister gets a shot and he doesn't. Again, I am trying not to question this too much.

Riding in Style.

Both Julia and David graduated to the big bikes this weekend. Originally, we were planning to purchase a bike for David that he could use for at least 2 to 3 years. Of course, once in a store, Julia literally pulled a princess bike off a low shelf and started riding it all over the store. Even though she already had about 3 tricycles at home, she would keep falling off of them with only her face to cushion her fall. (Ouch!) She did great on the larger bike with the training wheels and even learned how to use the brakes by pedaling backwards.

Sunday was the kids' first test drive. (Sidewalk walkers beware!)

Of course, it is imposible to go into the town and not to bump into [no pun intended] someone we know. We ran into [really... no pun intended] one of Julia's friends (who happened to be over 30 years older than her) who was biking with her boys as well. She led us to the best (and quietest) track in the town and all our kids ended up racing for over an hour.

By the end, Julia was exhausted. I didn't mind holding her as I knew she would have to pedal the half hour back home.

Catching Up.

So what have we been up to? We've spent a lot more time outside -- at the park, riding our bikes or hiking. As soon as I pick David up from school, he'll insist on going to the park no matter how cold it might be on some days.

Once back home and I am cooking dinner, the kids are either at their craft table coloring (yes, we are still a bit obsessed with coloring -- 3-4 pages at one sitting) or turning the house upside down.

After dinner, Seth takes the kids for a walk, either along the train tracks or for a short walk in the nearby "woods." Sometimes I'll join them, but usually it is just three of them.




Back in November I was obsessed with knitting. I even received some requests from my relatives and friends to knit some things for their kids. Of course, as quickly as my knitting mojo came that's how quickly it went away. I started knitting Julia a pair of socks and never finished them even though it would probably take me another hour to complete them. Then suddenly my knitting mojo came back a few days ago. I came across this shirt and two days later my version of it for Julia was almost completed.



I ran out of yarn, so thus no straps. It is definitely too big for her right now, so I might end up unwinding it. I realized that I don't care much about the finished project, but I enjoy the process of knitting. I also want to try knitting this dress maybe even using the yarn as I knitted the shirt with.
We still do some art projects although not as many since we've been spending so much time outdoors. I plan the projects and then sometimes David comes up with his own project he would rather make. He works on his invention while Julia follows my lead every time and gets excited to see a finished project. Most of these ideas I got from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.











I've been trying to reteach David how to write his name using lower case letters as he used to write it with all capital letters. He was so frustrated at first, but I think he finally got it.
For the past few months, he also would write down 2 numbers, ask me "what number is it?" and after I would tell him, he would write 2 more and it would go on and on. That's how he taught himself how to count to 100. The problem is he reads all the numbers from right to left and he copies the words the same way. He likes us reading "Chicka, chicka, 1 2 3" book to him and on the back of it there are numbers from 0 to 100 and this is the only way he reads them right.

Julia's been saying "let me be" each time I try helping her put her clothes on or closing the games after we are done playing them. That's her way of saying "I am going to do it by myself". I kept thinking this phrase sounded so familiar and then I realized it was from Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs & Ham". She loves playing games, but now her favorites are the ones that involve numbers /letters, like Dominos, The cat in the Hat, a "Planet game" that came in with one of David's planet books, and Boggle Jr. Letters.




She always initiates playing the "I spy" game, either at the dinner table or in the car. I really don't sit down as I do with David and teach her, she's just always in the background doing her own thing (usually puzzles or looking through the books) but she quickly picks up what she overhears what I tell David. She loves doing arts and crafts although she doesn't care if it is on the paper or on the bathroom tile. She started coloring really well and it was a rare scene when we were sitting in a restaurant the other day and both kids were quietly coloring for a few minutes. I never thought a day would come when our table would be the quietest in the entire restaurant (even if it only lasted a few minutes.)
So, there will be probably less number of posts in the future, but hopefully, not as long as this one.