Give me a G!

We have tried many activities with Gretchen in hopes of finding some kind of sport that she enjoys doing.  I was never much of a team sport kind of kid preferring to ride my bike, roller skate or swim.  Gretchen picked cheer leading so she could be with her best friend (who does not go to her school).  I was never a cheer leader so I don't quite get it but it seems to be VERY popular in suburbia.  I don't remember it being like this growing up in the city but perhaps I never noticed.  Anyway, she seems to like it.  They practiced three times a week until school started and have had their first game.  It is a huge commitment of time and effort so I hope she likes it.  If not, there is always archery.....

First Day of School

The boys are still in Early Childhood so preschoolers again.  Gretchen is a big 2nd grader....

An End to A Summer

This summer has been crazy!  We didn't do any birthday parties but yet we seemed to be busy a lot!  A family of five makes it difficult to do anything on the cheap so we have several passes this year that we did our best to maximize:  Six Flags (of course), Brookfield Zoo, MSI and Field Museum.  So, almost every weekend, we went to one of those places!  We also went to Six Flags St Louis and camping.  One of our last (or second to last) outings before school started was our annual Cubs game with the kids.  They are getting better and better at tolerating the whole weird atmosphere (sitting in the nosebleed section) and at honing in on their taste for junk food.  Gretchen has a list of food she "needed" to eat at the park which included:  hot dog, ice cream, cotton candy and peanuts.  The boys were not as bad but they did enjoy quite a bit of cotton candy!  We have one more day off before school start so we may have one more outing left in us though I am not sure I will survive it!

Enough Said

Camping

We survived another camping trip with the kids this year!  It was quite a trip - we went to Devils Lake State Park like we do every year.  We spent the first day at the Circus World Museum and all three kids were in the show.  Gretchen told me before we got there that this year she was going to be the ringmaster in the kids Interactive Circus that they do.  And she was right!  In fact, she was in every show:  the clown show, the magic show (with Sean) and the Interactive Circus.  What a ham!  She seemed to really enjoy the spotlight so we may have a theater bug going on there.  There a lot of pictures here if you're interested (both camping and the circus)! 

My baby turned 7!

Gretchen has been through a lot in the last few years with occupational therapy and the such.  A few therapists have told me that sometimes it's a maturity thing that resolves itself around age seven.  I am hoping for my little bunny's sake that SEVEN is her year.  We gave her a scooter for her birthday back in March so she could practice riding and she has gotten really good on it.  Maybe seven is the luckiest number!

Summer Camp

This year Gretchen is doing a YMCA camp.  We wanted to try something where she would be swimming a lot, trying new things (like boating, archery, etc) so we sent her to a camp that some friends recommended.  She was nervous about it and excited.  She worried that she wouldn't have any friends there (which in truth she doesn't have any existing friends there but she's making new ones).  Like most camps, they have a theme every day and so she feels involved, I am making extra effort to have stuff for the theme.  So far she has done archery and a lot of swimming!

Happiness is a Warm Pool

June hasn't proved to be hot quite yet but the pool we had at our hotel in St Louis was warm.  We gave the kids a choice of going back to Six Flags or stay in the pool.  The pool won hands down... Hee

This is a Roller Coaster Summer

Gretchen has moved up in the world - she can now ride a lot more interesting rides including the Viper and the American Eagle at Six Flags.  As season pass holders at Six Flags we decided to maximize our passes and visit Six Flags St Louis.  Gretchen could ride every roller coaster but two of them.  It was very hot the day we went but so we hit a few water rides as well.  The only bad thing about St Louis was there was no Whizzer type roller coaster that under 40" set could ride.  Evan had to stick to the baby rides and other smaller rides.  He wasn't thrilled about it but we did our best to find things for him to do.  Sean could also ride a bunch of things so two out of three kids were pretty happy!

American Thunder at Six Flags St Louis

My pet shark

We took the kids to the Indianapolis Zoo and to the Indianapolis Children's Museum for spring break.  We are kind of spoiled by Brookfield Zoo so it was hard to love the Indy Zoo but there were a few things that kind of wowed us.  The boys loved the roller coaster but Gretchen really got into their shark exhibit where kids could actually touch the sharks in this giant pool.  We went to the exhibit twice since it was her favorite.  All of us got a chance to touch the sharks!  Their desert exhibit was pretty cool too.  It is in a giant biodome so the whole thing is about 80 degrees in there and dry.  Of course, after walking all day at the zoo and the next day at the museum, the kids still wanted to go swimming in the hotel pool.  The water was kind of cold so Gretchen kept asking to go to the hot tub.  I let Steve go with her most of the time because those things make my legs feel rubbery and woozy.  She did not seem to be affected though!  It was a good trip overall.  We plan on going to Six Flags in St. Louis this summer so now Gretchen wants to know how long until that trip and will our hotel be as good as the suite we got this time and are we going to swim there and what else are we going to do in St. Louis and on and on and on.......

Happy New Year!

Gretchen wanted to stay up for New Year's eve this year so we decided to let her try.  We did a celebration around 6pm with the boys with streamers, hats and noise makers.  After the boys were in bed, we watched Annie Get Your Gun since Gretchen has been singing "Anything you can do I can do better" for a few weeks now.  Surprisingly, she really liked it but we had to explain a lot of the context to her since it was almost foreign to her that a woman was not "allowed" to do some stuff.  After the movie, we watched some standard NYE shows and my girl promptly fell asleep.  She made it to roughly 10:30ish.  Pretty good really.  She kept asking us what else we were going to do and she was very disappointed to know that this was it!  Television and then bed...

Santa For Real!

Every year we visit Santa at the Lions Pancake breakfast.  They have the same Santa every year and he has his own white beard.  Last night at kids daycare/after-school place, they had a Santa there.  Apparently Gretchen told Steve that Santa was a fake!  Ha!  Makes me wonder when will she start to question it... She already told me the other day that some kids think Santa isn't real!  Which she followed up, "Can you believe that?".