Wii

Santa brought Griffin a Wii. Need I say more? We set it up in his Grammie/Grampie's bedroom at their house in Hilton Head. We had a great game of bowling last night. And you should have seen the sweat when Griffin and Dallas had a boxing match. Wow -- it's great exercise! You'll also notice G has on his box shorts - too hot for his pants! :)

This is going to bring our family hours of entertainment in the coming months and years. Thanks Santa!

Christmas in Hilton Head

What do you do when you're on the coast on Christmas day? You go to the beach! It was beautiful out and Griffin had a ball. There were lots of families and just as many dogs out there. We stayed for about 2 hours and loved every minute of it.

We came home and set up the Wii and had a friendly bowling competition. Those pictures will follow this post!

I hope everyone had a blessed Christmas. It was the 7th anniversary of the birth/death of my son, Ryan so it's always a difficult day for me. But thank God, I do have so much to be thankful for.

Cathi

Nature

Griffin and I took the golf cart over to the nature path yesterday morning. We had a great time together. It was so peaceful on the path and fun to just visit and talk with him. His imagination is so fun to watch. This kid loves numbers. Everything is about numbers. So our walk had distance markers along it and we did lots of addition and subtraction while enjoying our walk.

The only critter we saw was this cute squirrel and a few birds.

I'm also having so much fun with my new camera. I am trying to play with it and learn as much as I can by trial and error. I am pretty happy with this back of pictures especially the squirrel. Griffin's learning with me.

Fun in Hilton Head

To my friends reading in Chicago, I'm sorry. It was 76 degrees here today. We had the air conditioning on in the car while we were out. It was a beautiful day. I heard it wasn't so nice in Illinois. Want to come here for a visit? I'm staying til April (just kidding!)

Here are some pictures from our Boccie ball game the other day. This was taken from a 5 year old's perspective.

Merry Christmas!

Cathi

Well that was fun.

Ok, I'm just kidding. We left yesterday morning at 6:30 to drive from Aurora, Illinois to Bluffton/Hilton Head, South Carolina. Through Illinois - check. Indiana - check. Kentucky - check. Tennessee - check. North Carolina - check. South Carolina - check. I drove for 3.5 hours of the 15 hour trip and it was through the Appalachian Mountains and was raining the entire time. Not fun. But we did make it here and really did have a great trip. We have a Garmin and one of the things it shows in your "trip history." We only stopped for 37 minutes the entire way here! Not too bad if you ask me. We had 2 drive-though stops for lunch and dinner and then 2 other stops for a bathroom break. Griffin did great. I had no idea Legos in the car would be such a great success. He played with those for hours. It was about 20 degrees when we left Illinois and when we arrived in SC it was 65 degrees. We'll take it!

This morning we had a great game of Boccie Ball. If you don't know what that is, check out the link. It's a great game regardless of age/skill level. We had three teams and after about 30/45 minutes it was a three way tie 8-8-8. We decided that was a good way to end it. Then we hit the croquet court of a little croquet. It was so nice to be outside without even a coat on! I have some pictures I'll have to add later.

Cathi

Computer Problems

I needed a new fan for my laptop so Dallas went to Fry's to get one. Unfortunately, after it was all taken apart, he realized it was the wrong fan. He quickly put it back together and it appeared to be working. The next morning I went to use it and I could not get on the Internet. OMG! Major problem for me. Oh, I didn't mention Dallas left for El Salvador on a 6am flight and won't be home until midnight on Thursday. So I have no computer access. I am having withdrawals. But I do have a great stay-at-home-mom neighbor that is allowing me to use her computer. What would I do without her! Thanks Jodie. I have on my PJs and brought over a cup of coffee and we're visiting. She's sewing, the kids are playing and I'm being a crazy woman on the computer. I had to stop the mail, stop the newspaper, check the bank balance, look at Facebook, read my "board" and do a quick post here. I have a lot of updates for y'all to read but no means to blog. I guess I could just stay here all day! Just kidding Jodie.

And one more thing - it snowed 6 inches last night! I was out at about 5pm shoveling the driveway. I had to get it done because I was having a dinner party and wanted the ladies to be able to park on the driveway. I was about 1/2 way done and my wonderful neighbor (not Jodie, but Dan) came over with his snowblower and did it for me! Thanks Dan. Then this morning I was shoveling the last 2 inches that fell and he came over AGAIN.

I only know a few of my neighbors and I'm lucky they are as great as they are!

Cathi

I knew this day would come

Griffin's class does the green light, yellow light, red light thing for behavior. I think I've even mentioned it here before. Well, the day is finally here that Griffin was on Red. He went from 67 days on Green to Red today. The weird thing is, I happen to be in his classroom today when he went to Red. I saw it with my own two eyes. He crawled up and was about to stand on his table. And it was the third time TODAY that he did it. Safety is the number one priority of the teacher. This behavior is not safe and will not be tolerated. I have a note I have to sign and return tomorrow.

I made Griffin say sorry to his teacher before we left and then he started to cry. He was disappointed because he didn't get a sticker like the other kids. It's the little things, I tell ya.

No consequence at home. We just discussed that we will no longer climb on our table at school or any other place.

The funny thing is when the kids get in the car for the ride home they always ask each other if they were on Green and of course they always are. So when Griffin told them he was on Red, they couldn't believe it!

Australia

My sister-in-law just commented on her blog (or was it her Twitter?) that she had a visitor from China reading her blog the other day. Well, I just came here to check something and noticed I had a visitor from Australia. How exciting. I hope there was something they found interesting.

Cathi

Follow up

Dallas thought maybe I should post a follow up to the post from Tuesday. You know the one where I said Griffin would have consequences for his behavior that morning. Here's the story.

I was sitting at the kitchen table when he was dropped off from school. He comes bounding through the door and announces, "Can we go to the bowling alley today?" I was cracking up because I had no idea where this idea came from. I figured they were talking about it in the car and he said no. So I asked him why he wanted to go to the bowling alley today. The response, "Well, mommy, since I can't watch tv or play video games I was trying to come up with something fun for us to do instead." Wow, what a smart kid. And here's why I am telling you about this. I said, "Sure, let's go." We marched right out the door and were on our way. The entire time I'm thinking it's so funny that I said yes and I absolutely did NOT follow through with the consequence.

We got to the bowling alley and there were a lot of cars in the parking lot. I knew this was not a good sign. Sure enough every lane was filled with a high school match. No alley available for us. So we left, got a Slurpee on the way home and played together for the remaining afternoon.

So to my friend who asked for parenting advice this morning - I have no idea what I'm doing!! Well, I guess I do but I'm not doing it very well!

Cathi

This Morning

was one of those mornings. You know the ones. Griffin decided he couldn't (read. . . wouldn't) do anything himself. It started with the clothing. He couldn't take his pj's off himself so I had to help and while I was at it, could I just put on his clothes too? Then it was breakfast time. I poured the cereal, milk, and OJ. He ate. He couldn't clear his dishes because he *had* to go get something from his backpack right.this.second. Then it was time for shoes. OMG - you would have thought he was putting on shoes he wore in 2005. "They are killing my feet. They are too tight." So I had to adjust socks and put the shoes on for him. Then it came time to brush hair and teeth. I pretty much do this already for him in the morning so I did these two tasks with one major meltdown during the teeth brushing. I'm still not sure what that was all about. And finally, coat, hat, gloves and a scarf. No kid (well, my kid) can put these on himself, so I had to help with these. Into the car we go (7 minutes late) and guess what? He could NOT get the seat belt buckled. So out of the car I go to buckle the belt for him.

I guess my friend Amy put it in perspective for me when I arrived at her house to pick up her son and I said it was a rough morning. She said, "just try multiplying that by THREE!"

So this afternoon, when Griffin gets home from school, instead of watching tv or playing, he'll be practicing all those tasks/chores to make sure he can do them himself tomorrow!!

Good thing he's cute!

Comments

I'm beginning to think no one is reading my blog. It sure would do my heart good to have a comment or two (even if it's bad) once in a while from my faithful followers! :)

SNOW SNOW SNOW!!

It's been snowing for about 30 hours now. Griffin just *had* to go out and play before school this morning. The poor child doesn't even have any boots. They are WAY too small from last year. But Mom to the rescue. I went out today and got him some new boots and those cool Crocs with the lining. I think he'll like these to throw on for quick errands in the winter.

Is this the last year. . .

that Dallas will be able to lift Griffin to put the STAR on top of the tree??

A trip to Costco

This is how Griffin traveled through Costco today. He was enjoying the life of luxury while I was stressed out at fighting the huge crowd at Costco. I had no idea how crowded it would be but Thanksgiving shopping was in full swing. Of course, I went there for three specific things, left with 7 and forgot to get one of the three. I'm losing my mind!

I also spent the morning in Griffin's classroom. It is always such fun being with those kiddos. They make me laugh and smile. I truly admire Griffin's teacher for her dedication to the kids. She really loves them and it shows.

We cut out of school a little early for G to get a flu shot. He did awesome - the nurse looked at me like, "are you going to hold him down?" Not necessary for Griffin. It took about 5 minutes total which was very nice. He got to pick the lunch place afterwards, so we headed to Chili's.

We are looking forward to the next 5 days off of school.

Cathi

Even More Disney Pics

More Disney Pics - Animal Kingdom

I wanted to show a few more pictures from the trip but since I don't use Picasa, I don't think I can show one of those neat slideshows. I'll have to just post them one at a time. Here they are.

ANIMAL KINDOM - oh, and something I forgot to mention in the previous post. Griffin's most favorite ride. The one where you get ALL wet. I forget the name. He and Dallas rode it 3 times, I passed on it.

A Magical Place

You know all that stuff I read prior to going to Disney World about it being a magical place was just, you know, stuff. Whatever. Well now that I have experienced it with a 5 year old, I have to agree, it is just magical. We refer to it as "the happy place." Everyone there is happy - the workers, the visitors, the hotel staff, the people in the airport. We did not run into one uptight person in the 8 days we were gone. All weekend, as we were getting acclimated back to Chicago weather and life in general, Dallas kept saying, "I want to go back to the happy place." We even had Griffin saying it! So with that said, let me tell you about our amazing trip.
We arrived on Wednesday night and stayed at an airport hotel which worked out great. My parents drove down from Hilton Head so they had a car and were able to pick us up.

Wednesday morning we drove to Animal Kingdom Lodge to check in and most importantly get our passes to the Parks. We decided to tackle Epcot first. We hopped on the bus and were there is a jiffy. First stop, "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" in 3-D. This is actually important to the whole story so this is why I'm sharing this. Griffin did NOT like this at all. He did not like the things coming at him in 3-D. He actually cried and I had to take him out.

It was not crowded at all so we were able to do everything we wanted and only had very short lines to wait in. The Test Track was probably our favorite and we did that 3 times. We ate lunch in Mexico (which wasn't very good.) We only visited Mexico and China because these areas weren't too interesting to Griffin. He was much more interested in things like "Mission:Space" and the aquarium. We are Disney Visa card-carrying members so we had a private character meet 'n greet which was fun. Here's a pic from it.

We ended up back at our hotel room around 8pm and Griffin was anxious to go swim in the amazing pool at AKL. The adults were able to sit at the bar AND watch Griffin swimming at the same time - very smart on their part!

The next morning we headed right over to Magic Kingdom. Our first stop, Stitches Great Escape. It was a movie type thing like the 3-D movie from the day before. Guess what? Griffin hated it, cried and I had to take him out again. Poor guy. But then we hit the rides and he was happy as can be. He loved them all. The faster, darker, louder, the better for him. He loved Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We stayed here most of the day then headed back to Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner at Boma. It was awesome and I highly recommend it. We went BACK to get in some more rides and to see the parade. We walked over 10 miles this day (and actually the day before as well!)

Our final morning was to Animal Kingdom, just a short ride from our hotel, the Lodge. We went straight to the Tree of Life to the "It's tough to be a bug" 3-D movie. Can you guess? Griffin hated it. I can't believe the three (RANDOM) things we picked to do first at each park where things Griffin did NOT like at all. He said, "Mommy, I get to pick what we do first tomorrow on the cruise!" I can pretty much say without a doubt, my son is NOT a fan of 3-D movies!
We did all the rides here and took in the Lion King Show and the Nemo Show. Both were awesome, amazing actually. And I highly recommend them to anyone (young or old) who goes to AK. We stayed until about 6pm. I was so tired and ready to rest but not Mr. G or Dallas. They hopped on the bus and went over to Magic Kingdom and took in their favorite rides one more time. They stayed until 10:30pm! It was all I could do to stay awake before they got back!
Sunday morning we spent some time on the grounds of the Lodge - the playground, the lookout areas and of course, the pool. Then we headed out for the Disney Cruise. I think I'll save that part of the trip for a new post!

DISNEY

Disney update coming soon! (I promise!)