OmaClou: April 2018

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

James's 7th and Miranda's 4th Birthday 2018

For the kids' birthday weekend, Grandma Kathy visited for the weekend, Miranda brought donut holes to preschool, Kevin and I went to James's 1st grade Earth Day party and read to his class, Carol visited, they went to dance, soccer, and baseball, Bob' visited Saturday night, and they had cake and presents. Woo!

Grandma Kathy visits.

Miranda came home from preschool with a birthday hat

James was so happy we came to his school party

Doing Earth Day crafts- planting seeds in recycled cans

Won some glasses in Bingo

Kevin reading his classic favorite, Make Way For Ducklings

Kevin reading my contemporary favorite, Bored

Carol came over and brought balloons! They love balloons like crazy

Opening presents

Opening presents (early purchase from my mom)

James's favorite present- his Dash robot

Grandma at Dance

Grandma at Baseball

My baseball crew

Cake with a 7

Singing Happy Birthday

Cake with a 4

Can you spot Bob?

Playing with toys

Buddies

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

James's 7th Birthday Interview 2018

Waiting for the bus in his new spring kicks

What's your name? James.
What's my name? Ericka. What do you call me? Mama.
What's my husband's name? Kevin. What do you call him? Dada.

How old are you? Seven
How old do you think I am? Thirty-nine (yes)
How old is Dada? Thirty-eight (yes)
How old is Miranda? Four. (yes)

What is your favorite food? Cake.
What's your favorite breakfast? Yogurt and granola (with milk).
What's your favorite lunch? Ham and cheese sandwich.
What's your favorite dinner? Pizza.

What is your favorite animal? Puppies
What is your favorite color? Golden.
What is your favorite book? The Book with No Pictures.

Doing his homework

What is your favorite song? Moana.
What is your favorite toy? The Dash robot.
Do you sleep with any toys at night? Fudgie, Sharkie, Teddy, and Whale.
What is your favorite game? Dinocharge (on his Kindle)
What's your favorite sport? Baseball!

Coach-pitch Baseball this year!

What is your favorite show? Minecraft videos (on youtube), second-favorite is Steven Universe
Which is your favorite movie? Minions

Are you funny? Yes, I think so.
How do you know? Because I make you laugh because I'm cute. (I LOLed.) Like I just did!

Who is your best friend? Everybody who is my friend: Liam, Kyle, Darin, AJ, Michael B, Nolan
Do you like school? I like it when we have fun stuff.
What do you like about school? My friends. Well, what about a class or subject: Gym.
Who are your teachers? Ms. Gambino and Ms. Frampton.

Ms. Gambino's Clip-Up Chart (You start at green...)

Do you love me? Yes!
Do you love Dada? Yes!
Do you love Miranda? Uh, yes..
M: Why do you not play with me then, James?
J: Well, do you like to play zombie game with me?
M: No.
J: Well, that's how I feel about playing Mommy and Daddy games with you.

What does it mean that you love someone? That I like them a lot and I don't want someone to hurt them.

Do you want to get married one day? Yes.
What do you think the person that you marry should be like? Pretty, nice.
Is that it? Yeah.

What's your favorite thing about Mama? That I get to snuggle all the time with her and she's nice to me.
What's your favorite thing about Dada? That he goes to work and makes money for us so that we can survive.
What's your favorite thing about Miranda? That I can play rough house with her.

Family snuggles

What's your favorite thing about Grandma? I like her cats.
What was your favorite thing about Nana? She was nice to us.
What's your favorite thing about Bob? He likes to play games with me.

Tree-climbing

What do you want to want to be when you grow up? I don't know.
Well, what do you think you might want to be? A teacher.
How come? I'm in charge of a lot of kids.
Do you know what Dada's job is? Professor.

What's your favorite place to go? Skyzone.

What do you like to do with Dada? I like to play games with him like zombie games.
What do you like to do with Mama? Snuggle.
What do you like to do with Miranda? Play rough house with her.
What do you like to do with Grandma? Go to great-grandma's.
What do you like to do with Bob? Play with him.

What else do you think I should ask? What do you always want to remember? What's your hobby?Play games all sorts of different kinds, outside ones, video games, board games, all kinds.

Okay last one, what do you think the meaning of life is? To have time to enjoy stuff.

My boy!

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Miranda's 4th Birthday Interview 2018

Miranda is very different than James was at 4, but one thing that seems similar is her ability to negotiate us into a corner so she gets what she wants. James doesn't torture us like that anymore so I'm hoping she outgrows it too. She's trying to learn the alphabet and counting to 20, but she's not totally there yet. She's been practicing the letter M a lot because she knows it's the first letter in her name.

She loves to be outside. She loves Barbies. She loves to draw and paint but only abstract pictures, though the other day she did do a family picture for me. She's naturally athletic but I can't get her interested in soccer or softball, she just wants to dance. She wants dance class to be more challenging.

1. What's your name? Miranda (she pronounces Ma-randa)
2. What's my name? Ericka.
What's Dada's name? Dada. His real name? Kehvin.

3. How old are you? James how old am I... um, four.
4. How old do you think I am? Five! I mean four! I mean eight! (I am 39.)
5. How old is Dada? Forty-five. (He is 38.)

6. What is your favorite animal? Duck. I mean, a chick and a bird.
7. What is your favorite color? Pink.

Miranda in her pink dance leotard

8. What is your favorite food? Tomatoes, I mean cheese. Tomatoes and cheese.
What's your favorite breakfast? "Ganola" and milk.
What's your favorite lunch? Peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
What's your favorite dinner? Tacos.
9. What is your favorite book? Dora the Explorer.
10. What is your favorite song? Bah bah Black Sheep.
11. What is your favorite toy? My Barbies.
12. Do you sleep with any toys at night? Yes.
What toy do you sleep with. A lot of toys, a teddy bear...

Miranda with her Doc McStuffins and Lambie toys

13. What is your favorite show? Carebears. (starts singing) Join the fun, feel the hug, all your carebear friends. One by one, shine you love until the rainbow never ends. Carebears carebears, always be there.
14. Which is your favorite movie? Minions.

15. What do you want for your birthday? Cake. Barbie pool.
16. Are you funny? Yeah.

Being funny.

17. Who is your best friend? Ella (from her nursery school)

With Ella

18. Do you like school? Yes!
19. Who are your teachers? Miss Dee.
20. Do you love me? Yes.
What does it mean that you love me? I don't know. I want to snuggle.
Do you love Dada? Yes.
What does it mean that you love Dada? I don't know.
So you love James. Yes, but he's mean to me sometimes.

James and Miranda painting together

21. Do you want to get married one day? I don't know.
If you do get married, what kind of person do you want to marry? Ella.
22. What do you want to want to be when you grow up? A doctor, a princess, and a fairy.

James's 4th Birthday Interview 2015