Just a quick update. Easter with the Woods and then at Meme's house. The kids loved hunting for eggs (What kids don't?).
Also, Taylor had spring break this week, so she went to the zoo and saw lots of cool Peacocks!
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Agile Family Meeting
Inspired by a recent TED talk, we decided to try out "Agile" family meetings. Not being familiar with it in software development sense, I had no idea what to expect. We sat down with the kids and explained that we would be meeting weekly to discuss ways our family can adapt to our growing, changing kids.
We threw out a few ideas that we each wanted to try. Setting the table for meals, a reward jar, cleaning up dirty laundry and things like that. Ultimately we decided on two things: setting the table and reward jars. Then we decided on the rewards to work toward- zoo trip, food delivered, setting off fireworks, ears pierced.
After that, we ended the meeting and the kids set about earning their first marbles. They were super eager to help, and the house was cleaned in record time. We'll see how this goes but we're off to a great start.
We threw out a few ideas that we each wanted to try. Setting the table for meals, a reward jar, cleaning up dirty laundry and things like that. Ultimately we decided on two things: setting the table and reward jars. Then we decided on the rewards to work toward- zoo trip, food delivered, setting off fireworks, ears pierced.
After that, we ended the meeting and the kids set about earning their first marbles. They were super eager to help, and the house was cleaned in record time. We'll see how this goes but we're off to a great start.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
PunchKickRun
So not too long ago, we took Taylor and AJ to Burger King, and they start showing us their Karate moves on one of pillars in the kid-play area... I feel sorry for the pillar, it was not prepared for the beatdown it received.
Also, this week Taylor did the FoxTrot, a fund-raiser for her school, and she ran a full 8 laps. I realize I have no perspective on whether that's a lot or not, but since it's MY kid, I'm gonna go ahead and declare it the greatest thing ever on the earth. Yay Taylor, congratulations :)
AJ has learned to do the monkey bars, and we're going to take a video and post it here soon, but apparently he decided he's able to do it, and he just swings from one end to the other. I know, lots of kids end up doing it, but it's new for him.
That's it for now!
Also, this week Taylor did the FoxTrot, a fund-raiser for her school, and she ran a full 8 laps. I realize I have no perspective on whether that's a lot or not, but since it's MY kid, I'm gonna go ahead and declare it the greatest thing ever on the earth. Yay Taylor, congratulations :)
AJ has learned to do the monkey bars, and we're going to take a video and post it here soon, but apparently he decided he's able to do it, and he just swings from one end to the other. I know, lots of kids end up doing it, but it's new for him.
That's it for now!
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Learning to play the Piano
Short update today: Both Taylor and AJ are getting pretty good at playing the piano. They love to sit down and start banging away at the keys. Taylor can play London Bridge, Happy Birthday, the Taylor Swift "We're never getting back together" song, a piece of Lady Gaga Paparazzi.
AJ can play London Bridge and the same piece of the Taylor Swift song. Its not a huge selection but he's not even 5. I've been thinking about getting them into lessons but we'll have to see if they keep an interest in playing.
AJ can play London Bridge and the same piece of the Taylor Swift song. Its not a huge selection but he's not even 5. I've been thinking about getting them into lessons but we'll have to see if they keep an interest in playing.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Taylor interviews a fish
Taylor had her talent show recently and she did excellently. She had the audience laughing and she has a good stage presence. Here's the video!
I attribute her excellent performance to great writing :)
So what's new with us?
Taylor got a report card today from school, and she's doing Good/3 in every category, scoring highly in math and reading. The only 'S' she got was for staying on task. Takes after her dad, easily bored and needs a challenge to stay interested.
Taylor has been taking swim lessons, and recently signed up for swim clinic/swim team. She's been very excited to join the swim team and this is the first year she's been old enough. Her coach says she's very ready and she can do backstroke a little and freestyle she's swimming like a fish.
Tia recently gave us an upright piano, and Taylor has taken a real interest in it. She's good at playing and she's even written her own little song. This skill I can say definitely did not come from me, she gets music talent from her mom.
As for AJ...
AJ loves to dance. We'll put on the radio or the keyboard and he likes to get jiggy. I'll try to get Nicky to record a dance video and add it to the next update.
For Christmas he got a Nintendo 3DS, and we downloaded Super Mario Brothers (the NES, 1984 game). He loves it! He jumps the bad guys and we play it together. He's my little gamer buddy, and he's already better than me at the swimming levels.
The other day, AJ got in trouble at school for bad words. I was really worried, and on the way home, I asked him, "What did you say at school today?".... the offending word? "Booty". I wasn't sure how to respond, so we had the "Some words are ok at home but not at school" conversation. You know what his first response was? "Can I talk about Pirate's Booty?"... Great, a 4 year old rules lawyer.
A while back, we were driving through Mill Valley, and out of nowhere, AJ says "mmm Barbeque Chicken!". He's such a huggable friendly kid, and it's the simple pleasures that make him happy.
Here's some pictures:
So what's new with us?
Taylor got a report card today from school, and she's doing Good/3 in every category, scoring highly in math and reading. The only 'S' she got was for staying on task. Takes after her dad, easily bored and needs a challenge to stay interested.
Taylor has been taking swim lessons, and recently signed up for swim clinic/swim team. She's been very excited to join the swim team and this is the first year she's been old enough. Her coach says she's very ready and she can do backstroke a little and freestyle she's swimming like a fish.
Tia recently gave us an upright piano, and Taylor has taken a real interest in it. She's good at playing and she's even written her own little song. This skill I can say definitely did not come from me, she gets music talent from her mom.
As for AJ...
For Christmas he got a Nintendo 3DS, and we downloaded Super Mario Brothers (the NES, 1984 game). He loves it! He jumps the bad guys and we play it together. He's my little gamer buddy, and he's already better than me at the swimming levels.
The other day, AJ got in trouble at school for bad words. I was really worried, and on the way home, I asked him, "What did you say at school today?".... the offending word? "Booty". I wasn't sure how to respond, so we had the "Some words are ok at home but not at school" conversation. You know what his first response was? "Can I talk about Pirate's Booty?"... Great, a 4 year old rules lawyer.
A while back, we were driving through Mill Valley, and out of nowhere, AJ says "mmm Barbeque Chicken!". He's such a huggable friendly kid, and it's the simple pleasures that make him happy.
Here's some pictures:
Friday, February 15, 2013
Daddy Week
So this week, Nicky has been gone in Hawaii, so I've been off work for vacation, and spending time with the kids. I've had a lot of fun with them, and I really am enjoying the people they're going to become.
Taylor is so opinionated and unwilling to compromise. At 5:30 AM, when she insists on sleeping between me and AJ, to the point where she climbs over us, waking us up, it can be annoying, but I try to reassure myself that as a teenager, it's this same characteristic that will keep her from doing really dumb things just because her friends ask her to. That's what I tell myself anyway!
She's also wicked smart. She has her talent show skit completely memorized, and I rarely have to work with her on her homework. Her greatest weakness is that she's too smart for the work she's doing, and she ends up rushing things because they're too easy. Sounds like her dad..
I need to make sure I spend some one on one time with her, I want to see just which board games she can handle. If I don't keep her challenged and interested, she'll get bored and lose interest.
Andrew is such a kind, warm brother. I asked him tonight if he thought we should get his sister McDonalds... without hesitation he cheered "YEAH!". If I had asked her, I'm not sure if she would have even said yes, let alone said it with so much excitement.
He's obsessed with Super Mario brothers right now. He plays it every chance he gets. Right now he can't get past the water levels, and he comes over "Dad can you win this level"... it's so cute and I love that he wants to play with me. We played castle smashers for an hour tonight... he's already my little buddy.
I have to remember, with all the things he does, he's still only 4. It's hard for me not to hold him to the standard I hold Taylor too, but for being 2 years younger, he keeps up pretty well.
I'm actually kind-of glad that Nicky went away. When she's around, it's easy for me to just ignore the kids and let her handle it. This kind of one-on-one time with them is awesome, and I need to make sure I do it more often. For Nicky's peace and sanity, and so that I don't miss my kids growing up.
Taylor is so opinionated and unwilling to compromise. At 5:30 AM, when she insists on sleeping between me and AJ, to the point where she climbs over us, waking us up, it can be annoying, but I try to reassure myself that as a teenager, it's this same characteristic that will keep her from doing really dumb things just because her friends ask her to. That's what I tell myself anyway!
She's also wicked smart. She has her talent show skit completely memorized, and I rarely have to work with her on her homework. Her greatest weakness is that she's too smart for the work she's doing, and she ends up rushing things because they're too easy. Sounds like her dad..
I need to make sure I spend some one on one time with her, I want to see just which board games she can handle. If I don't keep her challenged and interested, she'll get bored and lose interest.
Andrew is such a kind, warm brother. I asked him tonight if he thought we should get his sister McDonalds... without hesitation he cheered "YEAH!". If I had asked her, I'm not sure if she would have even said yes, let alone said it with so much excitement.
He's obsessed with Super Mario brothers right now. He plays it every chance he gets. Right now he can't get past the water levels, and he comes over "Dad can you win this level"... it's so cute and I love that he wants to play with me. We played castle smashers for an hour tonight... he's already my little buddy.
I have to remember, with all the things he does, he's still only 4. It's hard for me not to hold him to the standard I hold Taylor too, but for being 2 years younger, he keeps up pretty well.
I'm actually kind-of glad that Nicky went away. When she's around, it's easy for me to just ignore the kids and let her handle it. This kind of one-on-one time with them is awesome, and I need to make sure I do it more often. For Nicky's peace and sanity, and so that I don't miss my kids growing up.
Friday, January 4, 2013
The Holidays and Other Happenings
Just saw this old post. It was written in Jan, but just now posting
Holiday season 2012 was filled with lots of fun and great memories. We are fortunate to be able to spend Christmas with both sides of the family and it's great to spread out the Christmas cheer a bit.
Our kids are so lucky and definitely didn't do without. We decided to get each kid a Nintendo DS. We weren't sure if AJ would be old enough to handle one, but he's holding his own. They are playing old school Super Mario, Club Penguin, and a bit of Spider-Man. Of course, there's many built-in features that they are loving too like Face Rangers and their own little audio recorder. For AJ, the sound recorder trumps the other features by far. Anything that involves making tons of noise and nearly blowing out speakers is a plus for AJ. Taylor and AJ got together with their cousins Ben and Lily for some great DS download fun as well. The DS's appear to be fairly sturdy: Only one exchange on Taylor's because she jammed in a game incorrectly and AJ's stylus seems to be holding up alright despite the blunted tip. All in all, a great purchase that they will definitely continue to grow into. I asked Taylor what her favorite DS feature is and she exuberantly replied, "EVERYTHING!" Guess we get an A+ for our gift this year.
Holiday season 2012 was filled with lots of fun and great memories. We are fortunate to be able to spend Christmas with both sides of the family and it's great to spread out the Christmas cheer a bit.
Our kids are so lucky and definitely didn't do without. We decided to get each kid a Nintendo DS. We weren't sure if AJ would be old enough to handle one, but he's holding his own. They are playing old school Super Mario, Club Penguin, and a bit of Spider-Man. Of course, there's many built-in features that they are loving too like Face Rangers and their own little audio recorder. For AJ, the sound recorder trumps the other features by far. Anything that involves making tons of noise and nearly blowing out speakers is a plus for AJ. Taylor and AJ got together with their cousins Ben and Lily for some great DS download fun as well. The DS's appear to be fairly sturdy: Only one exchange on Taylor's because she jammed in a game incorrectly and AJ's stylus seems to be holding up alright despite the blunted tip. All in all, a great purchase that they will definitely continue to grow into. I asked Taylor what her favorite DS feature is and she exuberantly replied, "EVERYTHING!" Guess we get an A+ for our gift this year.
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