Adventures of the Loveless Family

Moving!

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:39:00 +0000

Nope...not a new house. New blog. I'm switching from Blogger to Wordpress. My blog address will be the same, but if you're subscribed through a feed reader, you will need to subscribe to the new feed. To do that, go to my blog at www.twosixteen.com/christie (the link for this post may or may not work) and subscribe through the button at the top of the page. I hope you decide to stick around :)

Seven!

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:40:00 +0000

Megan turned 7 yesterday. For some reason, 7 seems so much older than 6 to me. It just hit me that it's only a few years till the "double digits" and that she's more than halfway to being a teenager. She seems so grown up these days. And so tall!

We started the day at 6:30 am when Megan burst into our room announcing very loudly "It's my birthday!" It took us about an hour to get over being disoriented and wake up enough to go downstairs so to watch her open her gifts. We gave her a waterproof camera that she's planning to take to Hawaii with her in a few weeks when she goes with my parents. She also got a LeapFrog Didj, a Bakugan tin, and a few other items.

We planned to have her party at Olivia's Tea Room in Camp Hill. Of course, a tea party requires a fancy dress. I made Megan a "Feliz" dress like I had made for Molly for her birthday. Megan chose this fairy fabric for her dress, and I made the under-layer with a red corduroy I had in my stash.

Megan invited a few friends and her cousin Angelita to her party. The girls really enjoyed looking around all the rooms of the house filled with doll clothes and accessories. Then we sat down to a "brunch" meal of pancakes, sausage, waffles and french toast. After the meal, the girls made beaded bracelets and then Megan opened her presents from her guests. She was very gracious, remembering to thank each girl (or Nana and Grandpa) for their gifts.

And of course, there was cake and ice cream! The tea house ordered a cake for us from the Pennsylvania Bakery in Camp Hill. They put a fancy tea set on top that Megan got to bring home. The girls also got to help decorate ice cream sundaes to eat with their cake.

I forgot to put together party gift bags for Megan's guests, so Scott suggested that we let the girls each choose an American Girl book from the shop to take home as a party favor. When I told them that we were going to do that, they were all so excited. I was thrilled to see the girls so excited about picking out a new book to read. Maybe we'll do something like that from now on - I'm sure they (and their moms) will appreciate the books much longer than any little toys from the dollar store!

After the party, my Mom and Dad came over to visit for a bit. Megan enjoyed having them here, along with having a little extra time with her cousin Angelita, who had rode up with my parents. We had a nice day, visiting with family and friends. I can't believe my girl is 7 already. She is growing up so fast!

Do you remember...

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:23:00 +0000

Lately, whenever Molly wants to ask for something, it starts with "Do you remember..." She's trying to be coy about asking for whatever it is that she wants. "Daddy, do you remember those M&M's up in the cupboard?" "Momma, do you remember that popcorn popper that we have?" (Click here for more.) And she puts her hand on your arm. Or your shoulder...whatever she can reach. It's very amusing...and effective most of the time.

Momma...I never really expected one of my kids to call me that. I always envisioned being "Mommy". But Molly has perfected calling me "Momma" in a way that melts my heart and sounds so sweet.

She can lay on the charm like nobody's business. And she knows it. It doesn't always work for her, but she certainly can be very persuasive. Every 2 minutes. Till she gets what she wants. Or a time out. I guess that's how "4" is...figuring out how far you can push before you hit the wall. She's certainly testing us out.

This little girl is such a sweet heart, too. She gives hugs, and kisses, and more hugs. She's so petite that I can still (almost) easily pick her up, at the age of 4. She still easily fits on my lap, and crawls up in it on a regular basis. I'm glad - I'll be sad when she's too big for that.

As I often tell her, she's my baby girl, and always will be. No matter how big she gets.

Homemade Pizza

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:33:00 +0000

We had homemade pizza for dinner tonight. When I was growing up, this was a Friday night tradition in our house. As we got older, friends were always welcome to come over and it was always a fun way to end the week.

Scott and I made homemade pizza a lot when we were first married. After having kids, we didn't make it so often. Recently, I've started to make it again. Scott and I still prefer the "standard" recipe, with mushrooms and olives. The girls are a little more particular, and they prefer to have white sauce on theirs. Megan has olives only, and Molly tries a little of everything on theirs.

The girls have been requesting pizza for dinner fairly regularly - homemade, not "bought" pizza. I guess it's time to add this one back into our regular, weekly meal lineup. Even though it's kind of a lot of work, it makes me happy to make pizza from scratch for the family. It warms my heart that a tradition I treasured so much growing up will hopefully touch our girls lives, too.

Playing Catch Up

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:52:00 +0000

I've been a bit slow about updating the blog. Ok...really slow. One of my resolutions for this year is to get my blog up to date and try to blog more often. About the little things, not just the major life events. Also, I want to blog more about my hobbies, the other things in my life that make me happy. I still enjoy sewing, and have taken up knitting, too. And I'd like to have a place where I can keep track of that stuff and see the projects I've completed.

In the next few days, if you're interested, you might want to look back through the past few months (or if you read through a feed reader, they'll probably appear automatically). I'm going to be going through my photos to jog my memory, and add some entries about Molly's birthday, the holidays, snow fun and more.

Molly's Christmas Program

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:45:00 +0000

Molly's preschool class put on a Christmas program. The kids all lined up on a little stage and sang us some of the songs they've learned this year. We were all very proud of how well Molly did.

Waiting for the show to start...she looks nervous!

She was happy when the bells were passed out - not really singing anymore, but happy :)

Molly with the other girls from her class - Emma, Isabella, Molly, Haley and Kylee. She loves going to school and she loves her friends. I can't count the number of times she hugged them all before we left!

Snow Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:04:00 +0000

For the first time in the past few years, we got a big snowfall yesterday. The girls were so excited that they didn't even wait for it to stop snowing to go out to play in it. When all was said and done, we had 7-8 inches, I think. Let's hope it sticks around till Christmas!

Attempting to make snowballs...it didn't pack together very well.

They were working together to do something...but who knows what! That's our neighbor Andy in the background. He's a little older than Megan and they really enjoy playing together.

O Christmas Tree!

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 03:04:00 +0000

When we started to talk about going to get a Christmas tree this year, Megan started to balk. She said she didn't want to go cut down a tree. She wanted to use a fake tree so that we wouldn't have to cut one down. So, even though I really wanted a real tree, we agreed to get a fake one. We had one we had used last Christmas, but I didn't like how small it was. A very generous co-worker offered to loan us a 9 8-foot tree she had that was too big for their apartment. We have 9 8-foot ceilings, so of course we said "Sure!" *Thanks for straightening me out on my facts, Scott!*

The girls were impressed to watch it get put together, with all the different color coded branches. And "fluffing" them was an event all on its own. Once it was up, we started in on the decorations since it is pre-lit :)

Here's Megan stretching to get a candy cane up high.

The girls and I made clothespin reindeer ornaments this year. They thought it was the coolest thing ever.

The finished tree. Yes, the star touches the ceiling. And please don't mind the bottom unlit section. We wiggled and jiggled the plug with no luck - that section would not light up! At least it's at the bottom and not in the middle!

Molly and Megan give a quick hug in front of the finished tree.

Gingerbread House

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:33:00 +0000

Megan's school put on a Christmas Event called Winterland of Gingerbread. Each child was invited to decorate and bring a gingerbread house to the event which had several holiday themed activities. So I bought a kit and a few days before the event, Megan, Molly and I built and decorated the house.

Both girls were very concerned about the construction. They were convinced that the icing would not hold the house up. For a while, I was concerned, too...but eventually, we got it built!

We decorated both sides of the roof with the same pattern of icing dots. Then each girl decorated one side.

Here is the finished house. We did add some little plastic trees the next day. We glued sparkly pom-poms on the top of them...they added a nice festive touch. We really had a lot of fun decorating the house and I would like to try to make this an annual tradition.

Stitching

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:35:00 +0000

Megan has been pestering me to let her sew something, but I'm not quite ready to sit down at the sewing machine with her, so we decided to try embroidery instead. I dug out a hoop, some needles, and lots of embroidery floss. She decided to make a pumpkin, so we sketched it out on the fabric and off she went. She sat and worked like this a little while for a few nights in a row and got done fairly quickly

She decided to give the finished picture to her Nana Stone as a Thanksgiving gift, since we we will be having Thanksgiving dinner at their house this year. I imagine this little piece of hard work will hold a place of honor year round.

Olivia the Pig Birthday Dress

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:29:00 +0000

I made a special birthday dress for the birthday girl. I used the Feliz party dress pattern, which means happy in Spanish. It certainly is a happy dress. It was also a lot of work, but it came together really nicely thanks to a wonderful, step by step sew-along on the Trillium Designs blog.

On the big day, Molly wasn't feeling up to modeling her dress much, and had to be coaxed. I couldn't get a good shot of her away from the furniture unless she was twirling!

This dress has a very full, ruffly skirt that is great for twirling. It's also so long that I think it will fit her well into next year and even beyond. The top is adjustable too, so it should be plenty big for years to come!

Look at all those ruffles on the skirt. Even though it was a lot of work, this dress was so much fun to sew. Sewing this style of clothing was one of the reasons I wanted to learn to sew in the first place. Remind me of that when it's time to make Megan's fancy, special birthday dress!

Birthday Party

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:18:00 +0000

Saturday afternoon, we had a little birthday party for Molly. My parents came up and Scott's parents were in from Arkansas for a long-weekend visit. Molly has been obsessed with pigs for a while now, so we decided on an Olivia the Pig birthday theme. I decorated the cake...

Not my best work but she was happy with it.

Blowing out candles - I think she's getting the hang of this finally!

Opening a present from Nana & Grandpa Stone - a lamp. She's been wanting a lamp for her room for ages, so she was thrilled with it!

After present opening and cake eating, we just hung out and visited. It was nice to have everyone all under one roof.

Trick or Treat

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:05:00 +0000

Here in crazy Central PA, they don't trick or treat on Halloween night. Ever. They do it on the Thursday before Halloween. Which this year fell on...you guessed it...Molly's birthday! What a day this girl had.

A practice run at our house :)

I made Megan's princess/fairy costume - she helped pick out the fabrics.

Patsy walked around with me to take the girls Trick or Treating. We didn't go too far - just a few blocks. They were just as happy to come home and run back and forth between our house and the neighbors' down the block who have a 7-year old niece that Megan likes to play with.

Birthday Presents, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:44:00 +0000

After the parade and the rest of the morning at preschool, Molly came home to open her birthday presents from us. We usually do this separate from the rest of the party and

Here she is opening the much requested Little People Castle. A few weeks before her birthday, we had received a Fisher Price catalog in the mail with this castle in it. From day 1, she was asking for it for her birthday, Christmas, or any other occasion! When I found it on sale a few days before her birthday at Toys R Us, I couldn't resist.

Molly spots her other gift - her new bike! She has outgrown her trike and is still too small for the bike Megan has recently outgrown. So she needed her own little bike. She saw Scott looking at the "Cupcake" bike online and decided that's what she needed. She was thrilled to see it here for her birthday!

Happy birthday to my baby girl. I'm not sure where the time has gone, and how she's already 4. The other day, she told me she'll be 5 at her next birthday. While I know it's true, I can hardly imagine.

Halloween Parade

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:20:00 +0000

On Molly's birthday, she also had a Halloween party at school. Oh the horrors of having a birthday near a holiday! Here she is all buckled in dressed as Elmo.

There's her whole class and teachers, in costume. They had a blast parading around the school gym, showing off their costumes for all the parents.

After the parade, regular classroom activities resumed. Each student gets to put a sticker on this chart every morning, to show that they were at school that day.

Then some play time ensued - complete with dress up - Molly's favorite!

As another special treat, Megan stayed and read a story to the class. They enjoyed having her and it was good practice for her, too. Fun morning for everyone!

First Lost Tooth

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:34:00 +0000

First Lost Tooth, originally uploaded by PA_Christie.

Megan lost her first tooth. Finally. After wiggling it since early in the summer. It has been hanging by a thread for weeks. The threat of going to the dentist to get it extracted seemed to finally do the trick. Her bigger tooth is already half way in, so there is hardly even a gap. I think her teeth are going to fall out as slowly as they came in!

Molly Started Preschool

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:40:00 +0000

Molly started preschool on October 1. She has been asking all summer long when she gets to go to school, so we started looking for somewhere for her to go. She and Scott visited her new school one day towards the end of September. She jumped right in without so much as a glance back at Scott. Because they don't prorate tuition for a partial month, we had to wait till the first of October to begin. Every day she asked if she could go that day - those few days of waiting were agony!

Here she is all ready to go to school. She was up early and dressed in record time. While we were waiting for Scott to get back from dropping Megan off at school, we took some time for a few photos. When did my baby get so big? By the way, this is her new "cheese" smile.

And once we got there, we hung up her coat and backpack. She was so excited to jump in and went right in the classroom. She got to sit next to a new friend Emma and we've been hearing all about her lately, along with all the other fun stuff she's been doing. I'm so glad that she's happy to be at preschool and so far, all reports from her teachers have been good.

Cyber School

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:57:00 +0000

After a tough first 6 weeks of school, we decided to pull Megan out of the public schools and school her at home using Agora Cyber Charter School. They had spent 6 weeks doing assessments and reviewing things they should have known before even coming to kindergarten. She was very frustrated, very bored, and we didn't get a lot of assurance that things would be changing anytime soon. Both of us had spent time in that boat, and knowing that we had the ability to do something more for her, we decided to give it a try.

Agora uses the K12 curriculum. It is offered through several Cyber Charter Schools throughout the country, and they also sell the curriculum directly to home-schoolers. About a week after we enrolled her, we received a computer to use for her schoolwork. Then the boxes of curriculum arrived. Three large boxes full of materials for her to do first grade at home. Each subject was packed in its own box - some even had two boxes! Math, Science, History, Language Arts, Phonics, Music and Art are all in there.

Once it all arrived, her enthusiasm was through the roof. She was so excited to dig into those boxes of books and other fun stuff. This is what school should be about - enthusiasm for learning...rather than "learn to sit and wait patiently if the material isn't challenging enough for you". We can't wait to get started! I get the feeling we are preparing to embark on quite the exciting adventure.

Happy birthday to Me!

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:38:00 +0000

Guess what I got? A new laptop and I love it!

Fall Fun Crafty Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:19:00 +0000

The girls were in need of some craftiness, so after getting them to help me clean up the craft cabinet, we did some fun fall projects!

The first project was Megan's idea entirely - she described it to me while we were sorting through art supplies. We traced everyone's hands onto fall-colored construction paper and cut them out. Then Megan helped me staple them around a paper plate with the center cut out. We hung it in the dining room. I was pretty proud of her for coming up with that idea!

Next we took a walk around the neighborhood to collect different types of leaves to do leaf rubbings with. On the way out the door, Molly grabbed Scott's hand and said "You're coming along, right Daddy?" How could he say no? It was fun to be out on a walk with the whole family - we don't do it often enough! The girls collected lots of fun leaves and we did some really nice rubbings of them. Unfortunately, they didn't photograph well.

Last, I had the girls help me sort through the crayons to get out all the peeled and broken ones. Then I stuck a bunch into foil muffin tins and baked them in the oven for a while. They all melted into these really cool multi-colored crayons. The girls love them - I think this might be a fun project for the Daisy troop!

After all this fun, I was exhausted, but it sure was fun to hang out with my girls for the day. We really had a blast!

Apple Picking

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:09:00 +0000

The weather has been so nice that we made our first trip to Paulus Orchards a bit early this year. We picked Jonathon, Gala and Cortland apples. The Cortlands were reserved for pie :)

The girls had fun, but Molly was a bit terrified of the yellow jackets that were hanging out in the orchard around the trees and fallen apples. She was stung a few weeks back, and she's been really leary of them ever since.

The trees had been pretty well picked over when we got there, so it was hard for the girls to find many apples to pick. Megan loved picking from up on her Daddy's shoulders.

Skeleton Girlies!

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:23:00 +0000

IMGP2301, originally uploaded by PA_Christie.

I ordered these glow in the dark, skeleton jammies for the girls and they came today. They had to put them on immediately and wore them to bed tonight. They both thought they were the coolest thing. I have a feeling I'm going to get my money's worth out of these things!

On a side note, where did my babies go? Especially when I look at Molly in this picture, I see a big girl. NO baby. Not even a hint. I can't believe she'll be 4 next month. The time has flown.

Megan's First Day of First Grade

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:33:00 +0000

First Day of First Grade, originally uploaded by PA_Christie.

My baby started first grade this year! Megan is growing up so fast, and turning into a young lady before our eyes. After going half-days last year, she has been looking forward to going all day long for quite a while. Her teacher's name is Mrs. Brengel. She wore a special apple dress and bracelet on the first day. On the way home, she asked her daddy when the next summer vacation starts. I'm afraid it might be a long year!

Gone fishing!

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:19:00 +0000

We went to Aunt Lori and Uncle Ken's house to celebrate Nana Caroccia's birthday. While we were there, Megan had a chance to fish in the pond. Uncle Ken stocked the pond after he made it, so there are a lot of fish in there. And he goes out to the dock to feed them every night, so that was the "hot spot" for catching them.

Megan's first actual catch was this minnow. She was getting frustrated and just dangled her worm into a pool of minnows. This one bit on and she pulled it out. It was only about 2 inches long, but she was thrilled.

Eventually she caught a bigger fish. This one was 4 or 5 inches long. The kids had a great time. William caught several really big (like 10-12 inches long) ones and they all caught a handful of panfish. Megan fed this one to one of the cats - that made her day.

Here's William and Megan sitting on the dock together. They had fun hanging out. This is one of the rare moments when they were both still and I wasn't worried about one of the kids hooking someone!

And a shot of the "birthday girl". It was Nana's 78th birthday. We really enjoyed being there to celebrate with her.

Look Ma, no wings!

noreply@blogger.com (Christie) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:40:00 +0000

Megan took the plunge this weekend. She decided to give swimming without water wings a try. She took them of and held onto the edge, then said, "Hey Grandpa, watch this!" She was going to try to float, but we convinced her to try to swim instead. Once she realized she could she would not stop! She was swimming the length of the pool, on her own, by the end of the day.

Here she comes!

and there she goes. She was so proud of herself and we were very proud of her too. I think she could have done it long ago, but just needed to work up the courage.

And a shot of Molly just because. She still swims with her water wings for now, but I bet she'll give them up next summer. She's a daredevil and doesn't like to be left behind by her big sister.