Catching Up

There has been a lag in blog posts here since May. A huge part of that is because our life as a family has been teetering on crazy for well over 2 years now. That all kind of hit a head this summer and we were just trying to keep up with life.

We have made some decisions about our life as a family that have taken place this August. I have decided to leave Mission Year and work part time with FCS Community Economic Development. This allows me to stay home 2-3 days a week with Sam and Maya. It also means that one of us will not always be working which has seemed to be the case over the last two years. We are hoping that this will free us up to enjoy our family a lot more instead of just passing each other by so much of the time.

One by product of this switch is some added time for me at home to keep up the blog and other things that will help us remember our time with our kids. I will be trying to piece together our summer over the next few weeks.

It was a wonderful summer for us, even though it was quite hectic at times. We were blessed with two additions to our household and were so thankful they were here. Caty and Meroe brought a lot of joy, happiness, and laughter to our house this summer. The volunteered with our church summer camp and lived with us. We also got a chance to spend some time at the beach, in Texas, with Shawn and Shelva, and Mom Mom and Grandpa Ed this summer. It was great to have so much family time in such a short amount of time. We watched Maya transition from a walking baby into a toddler from June-August. It has been a remarkable transition that is a joy to watch happen right in front of our eyes.

We hope to have picture highlights up from the summer sometime soon!

Reading Time

Sam and Maya love to read (a trait inherited by their mother. I routinely am unable to recall any books that I read as a child). It has been really fun to see them enjoy books so much.

Maya's favorite book at the moment is a book called "I'm a Big Brother." Sam got it when he found out that he was going to be a big brother. Maya loves it because it is all about babies and she loves to point out the Mommy, Daddy, baby, "Sam", and Grammy and Grandpa on each page. Her other recent favorites have included: I know Rhino, a Thomas Book (another book bought for Sam), and Who's Driving.

Sam has multiple favorite books at the moment, it is hard to pick out one. He generally enjoys books that are fairly silly, such as the Stinky Cheese Man and An Alligator Under my Bed. He also enjoys a good dose of Curious George.

What Sam and Maya both love to do is act out books. We routinely find Sam or Maya with Lego blocks on their head shouting: "Caps for Sale, Caps for Sale, $.50 a cap." Or we find Maya turning off the lights in the living room, having everyone go to sleep, and then waking up when she turns the lights back on. Sam joins in by quoting the lines from Go Dog Go of: "Now it is day, now is the time to play."

There have been a few books that Sam claims to be able to "read." They included Mr. Brown can Moo and I Know a Rhino. We have read them to him so much that he can literally recite the entire book. Of course, this is also a trait he received from his mother because, as the story goes, she claimed to be able to read when she went to school even though she couldn't, she just had them memorized.

Here are some pictures of a recent story time in our room:

Together

Sam and Maya have quite the fond relationship most of the time. We love hearing the excitement in Maya's voice when she says "Sa" (her version of Sam) when he comes down in the morning (Maya is the earlier riser usually). Sam does his best to include Maya in conversations and often asks her questions such as, "What is your favorite color?" or "What do you want to eat MaYAA" (his inflection).

But siblings wouldn't be siblings without torture and oh man, can they torture one another. It is quite amazing to watch how ingrained it is in them from such an early age. Sam will just stand on Maya's blanket just to get a reaction of our her or Maya will just walk up to Sam's trains and throw them half way across the room to watch Sam melt down like no ones business.

Today I was able to capture each of their favorite tactics in physically torturing the other one. First Maya's favorite move:

The old head sit by Maya is by far her favorite. She even enjoys doing this one to daddy as well. It is not often that she is able to get Sam in this position, it usually involves Sam letting her, but when it happens, oh is she happy.

Sam's favorite move:

Sam has enjoyed the "wollybooger" from a very young age. He could spend hours doing these to Mommy and Daddy. He no longer has the need to do them to us, because he has his sister to torment with them. Of course, they are the funniest when Maya is running around the house holding her shirt up trying to avoid one of his "attacks."

Hots Dogs and Trains

Two Summers ago, I took Sam somewhere new every Friday on the train. It was a meaningful exercise for me to do with Sam. Because of time constraints of my job (s) and the challenge of taking two on MARTA, I have not rekindled that tradition until today. Sam, Maya, and I went to the kid'suem (as Sam calls it) or the Children's Museum to most.

Sam and Maya first went the Kid's Museum with Mom Mom and Grandpa Ed back in May and Sam feel in love with it. They have some ball contraption that Sam can play with for hours, literally. It is really fun to watch Sam be so confident and play so well without us. It has been one of the first places that we truly aren't needed. Maya on the other hand, well, we'll save that story for later.

After the museum, we were going to go to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. But a combination of a large gas leak downtown and a siting of a street hot dog vendor made us change our minds. I love a good street vendor. It is one of the things that I love about a city, just walk up to a street corner and get yourself a nice, cheap, and probably a little dirty hot dog. In ten years, this is my first hot dog from a street vendor in Atlanta. So really the pictures should be of me probably and not the kids, but they are cuter and they can't take pictures yet. So here they are eating on the train:

First Day Of School

Well, after a 3.5 month absence, we finally decided to post something here. What better way to start it off than back to school pics!

This is Maya's first year at school. We sent her to a few weeks of summer camp at her school, but this week marked the official first day. We weren't quite sure which side of her would come out: the person that loves people and enjoys being social or the girl that loves her daddy and mommy so much that she can't stand to be without them. Thankfully for everyone involved, she loved her first day of school and was even the prized art student of the day (something that made Mommy immensely proud).

Here are some pictures of Sam and Maya on their way to school:

This is Sam's 3rd year at Ormewood. We realized that it is the same amount of time from him starting there until when he will be going to a big school. That is really crazy to think about. This year is somewhat different for Sam. He will be going on Tuesday/Thursdays which means that he will be going with different friends than the last two years. Thankfully, one of his best buddies Zachery is going to school this year and is in his class. That made the transition for him much better. Here is the eager student on the first day (and yes, Maya would not pose for a individual shot):

More Sports

Here are two more of the sports that Sam loves to play. In the basketball video, it looks like Maya is trying to play defense against Sam. In the golf video, the "hole" is the entire rug.

Golf

Basketball

Urban Exploring

The world is beginning to open up to Sam. His understanding and curiosity are growing by leaps and bounds. Lately, Sam has been obsessed with Lady Bugs. Every walk that we take through the neighborhood turns into a lady bug hunt. He classifies lady bugs by their color - red or orange. All lady bugs fall into one of those two categories. This is the scene that we typically see when we turn around to see where Sam is on our walks:

Many of our walks lately have been to the community garden around the corner of our house. Sam doesn't like to eat too many vegetables, but I am holding out hope that the process of watching them grow and eating them from our garden will make it more exciting (I know, I am probably just kidding myself). Sam loves to walk to the garden and help mommy weed or daddy water. He is also great at pointed out the lady bugs, or in the case of yesterday, finding mud filled puddles to jump in with his boots. Here is our garden plot very early on in the season: