the kids

  • the kids

    birthday boy.

    Judah turned 7 on Monday! We had a fun couple days celebrating . . . David measures the Birthday Kids each year and records their height on the dining closet door frame. Judah grew 2 inches this year and Amelie grew 2.5 inches! We did a birthday breakfast and gifts Monday morning before work and school. Judah’s breakfast request was his dad’s homemade bagels. Yum. Judah still loves Star Wars but his latest character obsession is Transformers. He was so excited to bring cupcakes to Classical Conversations on Monday. Can you believe we just started our fourth week of the school year? Each week gets a little easier for the…

  • motherhood,  the kids

    five year old.

    Our baby girl turned five this week. The other night David and I were watching home videos, laughing in delight and astonishment at our one-year-old Amelie toddling around, mostly hairless, with her big brown eyes and chubby fingers and toes, jabbering a mile-a-minute at the world around her. And now today she’s tall and slim, all long brown legs and bashful smiles in the presence of strangers. She’s losing that baby-girl innocence, she’s starting to notice looks exchanged and laughter at her cuteness and it embarrasses her. I watch her watching other girls, noticing their hair and clothes and shoes, and then sizing herself up, wondering where she fits. I ache inside,…

  • the kids

    he says.

    (Judah tells me about the one hundredth Lego set he’s decided on for his birthday…in September) Me: Hey buddy, Dad and I are going to pick your birthday present, okay? It’s going to be a surprise but I promise you’ll love it. Judah: Okay. Just make sure it’s expensive.  

  • columbia,  food,  the kids

    june.

    Summer is my happy place. The hotter the better. I feel like my soul goes into hibernation in winter and now I’m myself again. I can just breathe better in shorts and flip flops. Great news: I’m working on a summer reading list for you. In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been up to lately: Afternoons at the park. Before the humidity of our South Carolina summer gets too brutal. Afternoons at the pool. As of last week, both our kids are swimmers and let me tell you what, it’s life changing. After 6 1/2 years, I’m here to tell you the pool is once again relaxing. Growing radishes. Today my daily salad consisted…

  • motherhood,  the kids

    our girl.

    She’s an extrovert in a family of introverts. After a social event, when David and Judah and I retreat to three separate rooms with our books and Legos, Amie bounds from room to room debriefing about her day. For our girl, play time by herself is the worst sort of punishment. Her love language is physical touch. She wants to be in my lap, stroking my hair, having me scratch her back (or her arms or her face), sitting as close as humanly possible on the sofa. She feels deeply, knows what she wants and what she doesn’t. She’s in tune with the emotions of people around her and exudes…

  • the kids,  travel

    the great wolf lodge 2013.

    Last December we took the kids to the Great Wolf Lodge in Charlotte for a night and it was such a big hit that we did it again last week (has a whole year really passed?). If you aren’t familiar with this place, it’s a hotel that’s completely in character in a wolf/forest theme, with a water park inside. The whole place is completely over-the-top (there are multiple restaurants, an arcade, a spa, bowling alley, etc.) But it is truly a child’s dream. Our kids have been counting down the days for a couple months now and David confessed to a friend that the Wolf Lodge might overshadow Christmas in…