42 Inches

Saturday Alyce hit a major milestone, 42 inches!  42 inches?  3 1/2 feet?  What's the big deal with that?  Well 42 inches is the height one needs to be in order to ride the majority of the rides at Six Flags.  Before 42 inches and you are relegated to the more mundane rides like the Ferris Wheel, antique cars, and kid rides.

Saturday after handing over the deposit to the builder we thought a trip to Six Flags would be a nice diversion from all the craziness of the past few weeks.  Mom and I had talked in the past about Alyce getting close to 42 inches and thought now would be a good time to check her height.  After a ride on the Fog Horn Leg Horn train we stood Alyce next to a height check stick and behold she was 42 inches on the money!

You'd think the first thing we'd do is to get her on a roller coaster but that was not the case, in fact we took her to go ride down the slide.  For some odd ball reason the slide in the kid's playground has a height limitation of 42 inches.  You can run, jump, and play on anything else on the playground but there is a Six Flags employee at the very top making sure you are of proper height before going down a slide.  Proof positive that insurance companies are sucking the fun out of childhood.  Alyce in the past wanted to ride the slide and we thought this would be a great way to celebrate the accomplishment.  For the next 20 minutes she'd circuit down the slide, back around, up the steps, and back down again.

After that Mom wanted to take Alyce on her first roller coaster ride.  The two of them then stood in line for 45 minutes to ride the Tony Hawk's Big Spin roller coaster.  This roller coaster is pretty tame if only based on height, however, as the cars go around the track they spin.  For the 45 minutes I took Luke on a few kid rides but was back in time to catch a video of the two of them on the coaster.


Catching back up with Mom and Alyce I asked Alyce what she thought of the coaster. Her response was an unenthusiastic "that was really NOT very much fun".  She wasn't traumatized from the experience but wasn't jumping for joy.  Next we rode the carousel and that seemed to wipe any memory from the coaster from her mind.  We showed her a different less exciting coaster later and she said that she would ride that the next time we go to "Sfix Flags".

We're Moving

Our family has big big news!  We're moving!  The story leading up to this point is a long one.  I haven't commented on any aspect of it up to this point because we weren't sure it was going to happen.

All of this started last February.  Mom and I decided that it was time to look for a bigger house.  We were fitting into the one we had well enough but there were certain aspects of our current house that we wanted to change.  So we put in a contract to build a house, however there was one problem we hadn't sold our house.  So we quickly got our house on the market with the hopes of it selling quickly.  We had showings, and showings, and showings, and showings but no contracts.  Then in early September we finally got a contract and so began the process of moving out of our house.  Last weekend we moved out.

While the new house is being built we need a place to live.  For the next five months the family is living in a 2+ bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor without a fenced in yard.  By 2+ the kids have bedrooms but Mom and I are living in the loft of the apartment.  Being on the 3rd floor without a fenced in yard at the moment is annoying but taking the dog out at 7:00 a.m. mid January will be brutal.

Today we cleared the final contingency and gave our deposit to the builder.  Ground will be broken sometime this week and our new home will be completed hopefully by the end of January.

House

Alyce and Luke have discovered that cabinets make fun houses especially now that they're almost empty!

New Hat

Here is a picture of Alyce in her new hat from Grandma. She loves it!

Siblings and Friends

Luke is growing up.  No longer is he a blank slate just learning the world.  He is now his own person with his own personality and it is a good one.  One neat aspect of him growing up is that he is now able to play with Alyce.  At first it started off with Alyce and Luke fighting over the toy the other person had at the time.  Then it advanced to Luke taking whatever Alyce was focused on and running through the house keeping it away and giggling.  Recently we pulled out an old toy of Alyce's that has gotten the two of them to play together, the cardboard bricks.

We gave them to Alyce for her 1st birthday and they were very helpful teaching her gross motor skills like picking up and stacking things.  Luke is quickly learning the same.  What is neat is that at times they work together to build up a tower, that they then knock down, and having a great time in the process.

A few weeks ago while we were out at Sam's Wholesale getting cases of green beans and discount pizza Alyce and Luke showed me siblings don't always have to be at each others throats.  While eating pizza and hot dogs Alyce and Luke shared a set of cute sibling hugs.  In the pictures we took it looks more like Alyce is strangling Luke but he was definitely giving her some "lovies" too.

Seeing the initial glimpses of what brother and sister life looks like gives me hope that Alyce and Luke will be friends as well as siblings.

Who Needs Expensive Toys?

A while ago I took this picture of Alyce playing with her laundry hamper.  She was crawling inside of it, closing the top, and jumping out of it like a birthday cake.  Some of the time instead of jumping out she'd just fall over into pile of giggling little girl.  Who needs to buy expensive toys when a laundry basket is tons of fun.

Shopping on a Rocket Ship

This afternoon I needed to go shopping for a few things and Alyce wanted to come along.  Now that Alyce is potty trained and in a big girl car seat traveling with her is easy.  No more diaper bags, backup outfits, or juice boxes to tow along.

Because I was also picking up a pizza I went to a different store than normal.  Walking into the store there was a special shopping cart for kids in the form of a space ship.  Alyce immediately took a shine to the cart and rode it the entire time in the store.  Obviously we played up the whole rocket ship theme where we were flying around the store.  She would turn the wheel as we changed aisles and dodged obstacles.

After taking Alyce out of the cart and exiting the store she asked if she could come back to ride in the cart again.  It was very nice to go on a trip without any stress or drama.

Dance Class

Here is a picture of Alyce on her first day of class at the Dance Academy. She is now going where Mommy used to go and she has the same teacher. I'm so excited for her.

Things Kids Say

At least once a week Alyce astonishes us with some comment or new word that we have no clue where it came from.  It happens so often you don't think to write them down but you do remember some of the gems and here are a few of them.

This past weekend we asked Alyce what month her birthday was in.  She promptly responded with "October".  Of course we were dumbstruck because we had never taught her any of the months.  We should probably do that at some point, but I don't think we have to.  We asked her where she learned that her birthday was in October and her answer was "school".  Look at that, they actually do teach kids things in school.

A while ago when we got back home from a trip the sky was dark and the moon was up.  Alyce asked if she could go look at the moon.  We take her and Luke out of the car, walk down to the end of the driveway, and look at the moon.  Mom asks Alyce what shape the moon was and Alyce responded with "a crescent".  I was dumbstruck but Mom explained that they talked about crescents in one of her TV shows.  You can learn something from TV.  Later on Alyce said that the moon looked like a banana which seemed a bit more in line with what I'd expect from a 3 year old.

Sometimes Alyce says what she sees and even though it is truthful it may not be tactful.  Today while taking her to school she was sitting in her car seat in the back of my car.  My car isn't the cleanest place in the world as I have the remnants of lots of projects on the floor.  Alyce pipes up and says "Dad, you've got lots of stuff in your car".  I respond back with "yes my car is kind of messy isn't it".  Her reply "yeah, it is really messy".  This coming from the kid with toys scattered all across her room.

Bubble Picnic

Last weekend we attended the annual Bubble Picnic at the Early Childhood Development Center for our local school district.  Alyce has attended it on previous occasions but this year Luke also got to enjoy it.

The Bubble Picnic is an open house at the center where they have sensory stations setup for the kids to use.  A lot of them focus on bubbles because bubbles are fun, cheap, and easy to clean.  On top of bubbles they have lots of other stations inside and out focusing on some developmental or sensory concept.

We got a late start on the day and didn’t get to the picnic until 12:00; one hour before closing.  One hour was just enough time to get it all done.  The first thing we did was to play with the bubble wands and making some big bubbles.  Alyce would chase after and pop them while Luke would reach out for them as we held them on the bubble wands.  After the bubbles Alyce and I took some egg beaters to a big tub of soapy water churning up even more bubbles.

Next we went inside for some crafts and to play on the kids play equipment.  While Alyce was busy making a sun catcher with our Parent Educator Ms. Cathy Luke was focused on running beads along wire paths.  After both of those Alyce and Luke played on the kids playground.  The indoor squishy blocks are a perfect environment for Luke.  They provide just enough obstacle to keep his attention on climbing but with everything being squishy there is no penalty for failure if the falls off something.  Alyce and Luke both seemed to enjoy the tunnel and slide the most.

After a few more crafts it was time to leave but before we left Alyce wanted to go down the big twisty slide a few times so we headed back outside for a few turns on the slide.  About that time both kids were running empty on food and were starting to show.

 

The Bubble Picnic is always a blast and when the weather cooperates it is even more fun.