Part 2... following up on good intentions!

I can't remember exactly but I think this was our 4th time to move during a summer. This is definatly a tradition I want to break.  Weston has asked several times over the last few years "Why do we always move in the summer, why can't we just stay in the same place?".  It breaks my heart to think of how uprooted our kids feel at times. They seem to fair it well, but I think we'll all be glad when we are stable and permanent somewhere!  Maybe then, we can focus on fun family vacations instead!!!!

Anyway - back to blogging!

We moved from the cute little town of Upper Arlington, to Columbus City. North of OSU campus by about 2 miles. It was a 15ish minute drive from our first rental, but it was a different city, different school district and completely different lifestyle!  We moved into the 'hipster/artsy/some might say scary' part of town!  I can agree that we were slumming it to some extent, but we did so for the sake of saving money.  The school for the kids ended up being so much better than I had been told, and being completely honest - I liked it better than the higher ranked school we had just come from! The duplex/house we were now renting was another story!

The neighbor to one side exposed himself to me completely one night while peeing off his porch.... a rediculous story that ends with the moral - Don't drink!!!  Alcohol makes people STUPID!!!!  The other neighbor that shared the other half of the duplex was scary to anyones standard and rarely was seen in person. But we always knew when he was home. He smoked a lot and mostly on the front porch as his told "I"m a manly man, more so than anyone else, because I'm a soldier" stories with his buddies and so we got a healthy dose of pompous idiocy and second hand smoke through our drafty windows most nights.  And when he wasn't blasting his classic rock starting about 7 or 8 at night till about 10:00,  he was up till 2 or 3:AM watching TV in the room across from our room. On a humorous note, I could always tell when he ate something that disagreed with him because I could hear him pass gas through the walls!  We had our garage broken into once, but that was enough to clear out John's nice bikes and all his tools.  Our car was broken into 2 times, but aside from cleaning up glass from the broken window - they only got away with our gps which we didn't care about, but what really irked us was that they took the coin box... so now there is just an open hole. Still upset about that one!

Enough of that rant...  Here it is.. Plus side!  Awesome school for the kids!!! Seriously awesome!  And a short bike commute for John to campus. Or a quick 7 mintue drive when I needed to drive him, or go visit because I needed a break!  Oh, the stories we could tell from that place!  Truly a character building experience!

 (we were in the middle house on the side behind that tree!)

Elayna turned 4!  And was really into pink and purple!  She is such a sport, her birthday has been so low on priorities that she doesn't get much fan fare. But she does love her birthday's anyway. I guess it's good we've not set her expectations too high!

Playing like they usually do.. Elayna still sporting her awesome sense of fashion.

We spent a lot of our summer with the Harpers... and we had so much fun with them!  It was always a good time, regardless of what we were doing.  Thank you Harpers!!!!

At the annual Columbus Rib Fest, or is it Jazz and Rib fest??? Either way, there were ribs and Jazz music, and it was a great evening to play with friends!  The kids loved dancing to the music and the adults really enjoyed the ribs!  No one was too thrilled about the nasty heat and humidity - but we didn't let it get us down!

(normal turn of events with this crew... boys vs girls...)

Lego's have been and will always be a huge part of our lives.  I could never post enough pictures to satisfy the very present and important place it holds in the lives of these two boys. Even if I attempted to, it would be way too much to share!   So I'll just assume that you assume that lego playing and lego creations happened every day till now! (and will continue I'm sure.)

I got my hair cut... I really loved it especially because it was nice to have off my neck in the heat and humidity... sadly I get lazy and don't commit to upkeep. Oh well! It was fun while it lasted.

John brought us all on a very cool bike trail!  Elayna wasn't quite riding yet, so I ended up walking her bike next to her along the trail following after the boys. The boys LOVED It!!!!

With the Harpers, we were always a phone call away from "hey, do you want to......". We spent lots of days at the new splash pad downtown Columbus. We spent many happy hours there and left with some nice tans!

Weston being so serious about Scout competitions!! He had a really good group of boys and seemed to really enjoy himself.

We were able to enjoy John home a lot more than what we were told we would, and the kids really took advantage of his silly side.  They would all cuddle up and listen to him read Captain Underpants or Diary of a wimpy Kid to them... I can't say it helped teach any great manners or morals to my kids (notice both boys picking their noses), but they did get to spend time with Daddy and that was important!

 Playing Dress-ups... These two really had fun together!

Our little place. Almost always a mess until we started getting rid of things!  It was just too small to have very much. We learned the most amazing thing too - if you put something out in the alley behind our place within a few hours it would be gone. So we never worried too much about dumping stuff, because it all magically disappeared!

Elayna started wearing my shoes - a lot!  And would randomly dress up in a dress, my shoes and then go about doing some sort of house cleaning job.  It was really funny, and always unexpected!

Since we didn't have much of a yard, the boys found ways to play outside anyway they could. One day after getting home from school they found a 'huge' pile of dirt in the alley. It was behind someone else's house, but they didn't care. They spent a good 30 + minutes making a city out of the dirt.  Tyler came in later with a stick playing around and Weston kept trying to tell me about how he was going to earn lots of money from their dirt creations. I wasn't sure what he was talking about so I went to look and found his sign! '1$ per picture', assuming people would walk by and want to take pictures of his creation, and then know where to go bring the money!!!  It is always so cute to see how interested he is in earning money - and how clueless he can be about it!

Elayna started 'real' preschool. No more speach therapy (she didn't qualify under the Columbus City restrictions), but she needed to talk - and talk a lot to keep up her progress. So we enrolled her into an awesome pre-school and she just loved it!  Just like now, she was queen of the castle with several little boys wanting to be by her side all the time. The girls all wanted to be her, and I soon had the mom's all talking to me about Elayna and how their girls wanted "Elayna hair".. It was always so funny to me.  Social skills are not Elayna's problem. Thankfully so, I'm just curious to see how this plays out as she gets older.

Expressing her creativity!!!  And besides "Mom, look the flowers match the ones on my wall!".  It was left up there for almost 2 weeks I think!

Slate Family Farm had an awesome Fall program. We met up with the Harpers there and had a great time. Bonus was that we were able to sign off a lot of Weston's scout requirements because of projects and activities they had there... so cool!

And John and Elayna, playing.  They always seem to be playing with each other. It makes it really hard at bedtime because if Daddy tries to tuck her in, she just thinks its play time.

Trick or Treating with the Harpers.... Down Olentangy street.  Our kids ended up with about 4 lbs of candy in a little less than 1 hour.  It was pretty phenominal.. Half way through the girls gave up and we went back to watch movies while the boys finished making their haul!

Our Family pict and Christmas Card... hopefully you saw the original! 

Elayna started taking ballet at the community center. It really wasn't fun for her or me, but it was something to do on her days off from preschool.  Tyler off course had to join in the fun - so we took pictures - just cause we're awesome parents that way!

still posing, still just as fashionable!

Weston being silly - but he let us take a picture since it was off his creation.  He runs from camera's like it's going to suck out his soul.. So any chance we get to get is picture is remarkable.

The influence of 2 big brothers. They had an all out paper gun war with pillow blockades, and hiding spots and more.. It was pretty cool!  The paper tommy gun was the best, but sadly it is no more.

We got to spend Thanksgiving with Erik, Min, Spence and Ella. And as a bonus I got to meet Natalia - Damien's wife (my nephew).  It was a great visit... we loved that they were close enough to visit. My kids LOVE their cousins!

Yup... all by herself!

Our little dancer... not sure she really wants to be doing this.  And definately not sure she wants to perform in a recital in front of everyone.

Nope... she really didn't want to do it, and especially didn't like us telling her she did a good job!

I found a recipe that made really good gluten free waffles... but once I figured it out, I stopped making them! But they look pretty good don't they!???

digging in the yard.  They were bored, so I said go outside to play. That escelated to digging in dirt which I said yes to because behind those blue buckets was a hole section of just dirt.  I didn't realize until too late, that they decided to dig a hole and fill with water in one of the only sections of grass that was actually growing in well.  

The kids loved cold days when they could snuggle up with some hot chocolate and watch a movie. It just always ended up being a huge production and set up so we didn't do it very often.

More legos.. technically mind-storm. But still legos.

Being Tyler!

OSU had an indoor rock wall that was free to family's during certain times. We didn't go often, but the kids did enjoy it when we did go.

more legos - but I have to show this one becuase it was just awesome. I'm pretty sure Tyler made it. It's a rocker man with a guitar!

Getting ready for Valentines day. Elayna with her love for office supplies and homework really got into this one!

The boys found it a little less intuitive, but still had fun.

And somehow it turned silly... Tyler started this one, but when Weston started in too, it was just too amazing to pass up taking pictures!  Elayna enjoyed it as much as they boys, but didn't quite understand the farting noises they were making.. Now, the boys have graduated to arm pit farting noises which is less cute.

Being cute with the final project, and ready for some valentines parties!

Being silly with Elayna... Sadly Elayna tried to copy this face for a long time!

At a boy scout pinewood derby!  Yup, always working on her own agenda.

We finally were able to convince the dr's that Elayna's speach would never correct completely until she had her tounge clipped.  A minor surgery that when all was said and done was $5000.  Ouch. Thank you Medicaid..    It lasted all of 2 minutes, and her recovery was pretty fast. Made better because she got a popsicle!  Again, notice the bangs... her handy work again!  As for her speech.. yup - immediately improved and hasn't been a problem since.

Tyler.. so proud of his long hair!

Somehow Elayna discovered one of her favorite things to do is wash windows at the gas station!  Not a problem unless you're trying to be fast. Now, we try to fill up without Elayna in the car. Just to save on time.

At one of Elayna's pre-op visits with the ENT, I asked some questions about Tyler. I was told I could just bring Tyler to her post-op visit and he'd take a look. I was concerned that Tyler wasn't breathing well and wondered if maybe his tonsils were a problem or the adenoids.. I was told there was just 1 adenoid and the initial visit led to an actual on the record visit because there were some problems.  Come to find out, Tyler had (according to the ENT) a 'huge' adenoid that was most likely causing the breathing/snoring while awake and restless sleeping problems.  So we scheduled a surgery and hoped for the best.

We learned to be okay with playing with our food!  Maybe it was just me that had to lean to be okay with it... John was good and used this as a tactic to get the kids to actually eat their food! Fish, green beans, fresh fruit and bread - you'd think I was feeding them mud by how much they complained!

Weston Turned 9. And to my own amazement I through him a birthday party with an angry birds theme.  I was pretty angry by the end of it, so I'm not so sure I'll be throwing too many more friends parties!

Elayna discovered fingernail polish!  This is outside the school - downtown Columbus. Their regualr school was being renovated so they were borrowing an older, Victorian school bldg that wasn't being used. It was really old and had all sorts of weird quirks, but because it was old - it had a lot of realy cool things about it too.  - Cool, in a historical sense, horrible in a practical sense!  But like the other school when it was finally renovated - it was in a city, so it was surrounded with chainlink and had a blacktop playground.

Tyler turned 7, and because I through Weston a party he got one too.  His was better attended which made it a little harder. But we made candy sushi, and origami projects and the kids had fun all in all. But by the end, I was really ready to swear off friend parties!

The boys won passes to this awesome trampoline park for winning a healthy food challenge. There was a group of about 20 kids that all got to go, and they had a blast. It was a really cool place. Luckily for Elayna they let her join in. We just had to run to Walmart to get her socks so she could participate.  Tyler was really sweet to make sure that she was taken care of and enjoying herself!

the school year was done and we were ready for a summer.  One that didn't include packing or moving! 

Part 3.. summer 2012

(next post)