Happy Birthday, Esme!

Our little Esme is five years old!!! I frosted her Dora the Explorer birthday cake in about three hours. Not tough, just SO many colors. She turned out pretty well, I think.


We had a leisurely morning around home, during which Esme received a very nice birthday call from her Uncle Scott, Aunt Cathy, and cousin Megan. Later, when Nee-Nee and Papa showed up, we headed out for lunch at The Grand Traverse Pie Company. Mmmmmmm.... Esme had a peanut butter sandwich (no jelly, please!) and a pink-frosted cookie for lunch. Then we went to the Meijer Gardens to enjoy the plants, the sculptures, and the paths - and Jim took Esme's five-year-old pictures! These are the best ones (though it was a tough choice, there were LOTS of good ones):

I still haven't decided which is my favorite! Anyway, Aidan did this first, and it was such a great picture Jim had Esme do it, too:

Back at home, Esme opened her cards and gifts. She would like to thank Danielle, her auntie Melissa, and her great-aunts Jean and Rose for their thoughtful cards! Aidan gave her this Groovy Girl monkey:

...and from Mom and Dad, she received some Belleville Legos:

Nee-Nee and Papa gave Esme her latest WebKinz - a cocoa dinosaur who has been smacked with the moniker "Hot Cocoa" - and a family favorite, Mouse Tales. Esme and Nee-Nee have already read it together!

After presents, we had Jimmy John's subs for dinner (Esme had a slim #1 - ham and cheese), with lemonade made by Aidan (he's getting really good at that) and watermelon. Then it was cake time!!!

We are so very proud of our five-year-old girl! And with that milestone accomplished, she'll pass another one on Tuesday when she begins kindergarten. Wow!

Riding Kent Trails

Yesterday we all took a bike ride. It just wasn't all the same bike ride! Esme, who has long since grown out of her "trailer bike," but had still been riding in it up to about two weeks ago, has been practicing hard on her two-wheeler (with training wheels). She has been learning about keeping right, trying to stay in a straightish line, and trying to go faster. So yesterday was her first ride on the trail!

She isn't ready for the road yet, so she and I piled our bikes in the car and drove to the trailhead at 84th street. At first, she was going so slow I couldn't stay on my bike behind her, but she soon learned she could gain quite a bit of speed. She mostly stayed right, and she mostly stayed in a straight line. A couple of times she accidentally got too close to the edge of the pavement and then forgot to use her brakes, so once she ran into a tree, and once she almost pitched over a "cliff" into a deep ditch, but stopped at the last second. But Esme rode all the way to 64th street and back - 4 miles! Her long (for an almost-five-year-old) legs just pumped up and down, up and down. She was pretty tired by the time we got back to 84th street, but she did a great job. We're so proud of her!

Aidan and Dad had an entirely different bike ride! They started out from home, as Aidan is quite competent riding on the road when he remembers to be. So they met us at the 84th street trailhead, and after about five seconds trying to ride behind Esme, they went on ahead! They stopped to wait for us a couple of times, and when we turned back at 64th street, they continued on. When they arrived at 28th street, they realized it was dinnertime, so they pedaled on down to Long John Silver's - Aidan had popcorn shrimp, and Jim had lobster bites. Then, of course, they were right there, so they had to stop at Marge's for a donut.

On the way back home, they stopped to rest at a bench, and there just happened to be a very large tree across from the bench that looked like the perfect place to hide a geocache. So Jim and Aidan climbed through the brush to get to the tree, just to check (there wasn't anything there). Aidan got kind of a big scratch on his elbow from the brush, but he is okay! They got back underway, when suddenly Aidan called out to his Dad, who thought he wanted to rest again already. "Dad! We forgot our helmets!!!" So they went back to the bench to helmet up, and Aidan said, in explanation for how he noticed the helmets were missing, "I said to myself, where's the sweat??"

Esme's Dora the Explorer swiss chocolate birthday cake is baked - now for the hard part. The frosting! The presents are wrapped, the guests (Grandma Margie and Nee-Nee and Papa) are invited, the pictures are planned (we're hoping Meijer Gardens isn't too busy on the holiday weekend), and Esme is age 4 and 364/365 years old!

We are ready for school on Tuesday. Thursday evening was the school open house, at which time we met Aidan's teacher Mrs. Throop and toured his classroom. She is a really nice lady with lots of personality and there are several kids in Aidan's class from last year and the year before. He has already done his first homework assignment - he had to decorate an orange paper bag and put inside it three things that tell a little about him. He decorated it with airplane and boat stickers, and inside put a Hot Wheels Lincoln Continental he earned at AWANA last year, a Continental airplane model (like the one we flew on to go on vacation), and a little Lego guy. I did all of my homework, too - filled out TWO emergency cards, the teacher's questionnaire, the first book order of the year, the forms for the student/parent handbook, no-bully policy, and district technology policy. All Aidan's important papers are tucked away in his blue plastic home folder with the Life is Good sticker on the front. He also has ready his gym shoes, his art shirt, his ruler, his pencil box with new pencils, crayons, and markers, and his trusty old scissors. His backpack and his Lightning McQueen lunchbox are also ready to begin their third year of service.

The kindergarten has its orientation on Tuesday morning, so we didn't get to meet Esme's teacher or see her classroom yet. We are totally looking forward to it. In the meantime, Esme has her gym shoes ready in her Strawberry Shortcake backpack, and she is totally ready and raring to go to elementary school. I don't know how she can stand the excitement!!!

AWANA registration is on Wednesday evening. Esme will be a beginning Sparks member, and Aidan will be a member of the Truth & Training club. They're both looking forward to spending that time with their friends.

Two Years

Yesterday was our house's two-year anniversary. We moved in on 25 August 2006. It has sure been a terrific two years! After we moved in and got most things put away, the first thing we did was celebrate Esme's third birthday! Now she's almost five. We're looking forward to celebrating her birthday on Sunday - Esme was born on a Sunday, too!

I have been working for pay the last couple of weeks, for the first time in eight years! Thanks to my Glander book, apparently the word is out. A friend of one of the folks who bought my book called me back in July, asking if I would do some genealogy research for her, as the professional in Utah she'd hired wasn't producing satisfactory results. So I've worked 25 hours on four branches of her family so far and she says she's very pleased. Tell your friends, folks! What fun - AND I'm at home where the chicklets need me.

In addition to getting the kids ready for school, doing research, and all the usual housework and everything, I've also been plugging away at getting photos scanned. I have only two albums and six boxes left - I started with probably sixteen albums and six boxes, so I've come a long way. I've scanned and catalogued probably over 4,500 pictures. Gosh, we have a lot of pictures of cats. But there are still more of the kids!

We Got Our Letters!!!

Well, the letters aren't from Hogwarts, but they're just as important!!! Unlike Harry, we've been expecting these letters for a long time. They're finally here!

Aidan will be in Mrs. Throop's 3rd grade class, and has quite a list of materials to assemble before school starts.

Esme will be in Mrs. Morrell's every-day half-day morning kindergarten class, which I think is probably the best possible scenario. She'll go to her orientation with Mom and/or Dad on the first day of school, for an hour.

Whoo-hoo! We're so excited!

I just refuse!

This morning on the way to church we were talking about how it's Mrs. Fortuna's birthday today (Happy Birthday, Tonya!), and Esme said, "Oh, good, maybe she'll bring cupcakes!!!" I explained that grownups don't usually do that sort of thing, even though it's true that kids usually do, and Aidan said "Yeah, everybody does that at school and I get so sick of it. I just refuse!"

I guess we know how Aidan feels about birthday treats at school!

Four Bathers...

Wow. After over eight years of bathing not only myself but also another person and sometimes two - I'm free. Esme, with careful instruction from her dad and me, has finally developed the skills and confidence to take her own bath. She does a terrific job, including rinsing her hair and making sure all of her gets washed. Yay Esme!

School will be starting in a couple of weeks. We now have our bus assignment and morning pick-up time, but we still don't know what kindergarten section Esme will be in, or who will be the kids' teachers. Aidan and Esme are taking this in stride. Mason and Aidan don't think they'll be in the same class again this year - though the odds are against it, I don't know what makes them think that! They both hope they'll be in Mr. Volker's class, though. Esme just wants to be in kindergarten - she doesn't care which teacher she'll have!

We went geocaching this evening after almost a two-week break. We found three little quick ones, two in Palmer Park and one by a hotel. We tried briefly to do our own three-stage multicache, but discovered that our area is already so thick with them that it's hard to find an acceptable place. So we gave that up for now. Maybe next year!

A New Era

We've entered a new era at our house - the elementary school era. True, Aidan has been in elementary school for three years already. But in a couple of weeks, both children will be in elementary school. I think the biggest indicator of the elementary school era for us is that we hosted a sleepover last night. Aidan's friend Mason came over and stayed with us last night - the first time ever that a child not in our own family has stayed overnight with us!

We picked Mason up at his house after dinner, and then the boys and Esme helped me make M&M cookies, which we had for a bedtime snack. After Esme went to bed, Aidan and Mason had popcorn and watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. They went to bed around 11:45 p.m. and probably talked for a long time before going to sleep...but I wouldn't know, because I put them in the guest room where I couldn't hear them, and then went to sleep myself!!! They were up at 7 a.m., the crazy kids.

Today I made waffles for breakfast and the boys played with lightsabers, Legos, video games, and even played baseball in the backyard. Grandma Margie was sweet enough to take us all out to a Panera lunch, and then the kids played outside (bikes, remote control cars, etc.) until Mason's mom came to pick him up. It was a good time - and actually very easy!

The kids just got their last WebKinz until at least Christmas. They really love playing with them both virtually and in reality, but it's just getting ridiculous. So (though Esme will probably be getting one more for her birthday - that one is just to bring up her total to equal Aidan's!) NO MORE for a while!!! Anyway, they purchased these with their own allowance. Aidan has a LilKinz blue jay called Dart, and Esme has a LilKinz black & white dog named Dorothy (Dot for short).

More Pictures!

Here they are, some second cousins! From left to right: Esme (4), Samantha (9), Annah (7), Aidan (8), Sylvia (5), and Caeden (3).

This great big moth caterpillar is living on a little bush at Uncle Dave's house. See Taryn's blog for more information about this big guy!

I took some photos of our house so Grandma McEowen could see what it looks like. Sure looks nice today.

I taught the 4s and 5s Sunday school today. There were 17 kids! Extra big thank yous to Mrs. Neimeyer and Mrs. Fortuna for helping out - couldn't have done it without them! It was actually quite fun as long as we didn't give them two seconds without something to do.

Cleaned out the Camera!!!

Sorry, folks...these pictures had been sitting in the camera for a while!!!

For Aidan's birthday, he requested a Star Wars cake, so I told him we'd see what we could find. I checked the Wilton site, which provided directions for all the old Star Wars pans, but none of the actual pans, which are from the 80s. I checked eBay, which had listings for all of the Darth Vader, R2-D2, and C-3P0 pans - but they were really expensive! So we decided to get one of those several-purpose ball-shaped pan sets, and make our own Death Star. Aidan wanted a chocolate Death Star, so that's why it's brown!

Truly grateful for his new Star Wars toys, Aidan spent the better part of a whole day with his dad, unboxing them and setting them all up.

Aidan Malcolm Lowry, age exactly eight years old, watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade before bed on his birthday.

He wanted us to get a picture without his glasses.

All of us Glander Girls! - Marcia, Juanita, Wanda, Geraldine, Esme & Wendy.

Me and my Boy.

Esme showing off her new haircut! So much cooler and super cute, too.

We got haircuts together and then Daddy took our picture.

This is Aidan's ant colony! It only has about 10 ants in it right now, but we will find more! They aren't too busy in the daytime, but they must be in the night, because there is always plenty of evidence of their activity when we check on them in the morning. Thanks again, Danielle!

Esme painted her piggy bank with flowers - so she has a very fancy piggy! Big thanks to Danielle for such thoughtful gifts for the kids' birthdays.

This is a picture from our vacation last month - the kids' first touch of the Atlantic Ocean, at UConn Avery Point in Connecticut.

And this is the helicopter that we took from New York City to the airport in Newark, New Jersey! Can you believe I rode on that thing?

The Fortunas came over a couple of weeks ago to spend the day and did we have fun!!! Jim took the boys over to the zoo just to go ziplining and they sure had a terrific time.

And here's a picture of Aidan's birthday cake again - "May the force be with you."

Those candles all bunched together made quite a flame - so big that Aidan had a little trouble blowing it out!!! But you see, those were the Death Star's lasers, so they had to be all right together...right?


We've had a great week this week, too - and hopefully I will get some photos out of the camera before they're too outdated. Sunday we took the kids over to Dad and Mom's for a night of camping in their yard - and then we came home! We all had a great time.

Aidan and Esme didn't just camp, either. It just happened that a hot-air balloon was taking off from the wheat field behind Papa's woods - so they got to see it!!! Then Papa made a three-step treasure hunt in the woods for them, and when they were done with that one, Aidan requested a fifty-step treasure hunt - he wanted it to last longer! They compromised on twenty and found the treasure in the bean field. After they got ready for bed they were allowed to catch lightning bugs in a jar. They helped with the cooking and dishes like real campers, too. Papa reports that while Aidan went to sleep at a relatively decent hour, Esme resisted it for a looooong time. Both kids were reading by a night-light at the other end of the camper for a while, and then Esme performed gymnastics in her bed until after midnight. They had an excellent campout.

Jim and I came home and went out geocaching! We had finally solved the puzzles for our local "Dharma Initiative," so we went out after them Sunday night - many of them looked (and really were) too hard for the kids to tackle. We started with the one furthest northwest and worked our way southeast. We crawled through swamps, waded through weeds and picker-bushes taller than ourselves, poked through forests... and finally stumbled out of the woods at 9:45, five hours after we started. But we stumbled out victorious!!!! We found all nine stages. Congratulations to us. We haven't been out caching since, we're still recovering!

We spent a perfect day in Indiana Thursday. We visited Great-Grandma and had a terrific chat with her. Then we went to Uncle Dave and Aunt Vonda's house, where we ate a bunch of really great food (meat off the grill and fresh veggies from the garden, among other things!) and enjoyed each other's company a lot! Samantha (9), Aidan (8), Annah (7), Sylvia (5), Esme (4), and Caeden (3) had a wonderful time playing outside, swimming in the pool, watching a movie, and generally running around together. When you don't have a lot of cousins, it's sure great to have a good bunch of second cousins! Aidan is doing so well at swimming now and can swim under water the width of Dave and Vonda's pool...and Annah is doing just as well, after only a couple of days of practice!

Today we spent the day at Michigan's Adventure with our friends the Dennies. Whoo-hoo, it was a great time! The kids rode kiddie rides in the amusement park part and then greatly enjoyed the water park pleasures for several hours. I made four trips to the bathroom with Esme, and one trip to the first aid station with Aidan, who got a little carried away swimming under water and scraped his nose and forehead on the bottom of the pool. Esme got so thoroughly worn out that when it was time to get changed and head out, she started crying and crying and wanted her blanket. Once she got dressed and sat down for a few minutes, though, she was better. Aidan, Livi and Esme spent a large part of the afternoon going down waterslides and heaving themselves through the wave pool. No wonder they're tired out!

On the way home we stopped at The Fresh Market and got ingredients for a picnic at the airport. Sandwiches, blueberries, cookies and drinks...and Jim had sushi. Yum. That hit the spot.

Friday Night TV

For the first time in years, there is something good on TV almost every night of the week.

Sunday -
Monday - The Closer
Tuesday -
Wednesday - Dog the Bounty Hunter, Mythbusters
Thursday - Burn Notice
Friday - Doctor Who, Monk, Psych
Saturday - Robin Hood

Last night the season finale of Doctor Who really wrapped up a ton of story lines - some of which we didn't even realize weren't concluded. Martha and Mickey appear to have joined the cast of Torchwood, the Daleks are finally destroyed (well, maybe...), Rose is finally happy, and Donna is home. It was a tearjerker.

Funny Story

Last night at the dinner table we were discussing from where various foods come - we would really prefer our kids aren't surprised to find that beef, bacon, eggs, oranges, etc. don't just appear on the shelves at the grocery store. They are already pretty well informed on the subject. But when Jim asked them where venison comes from, Aidan said "Pig?" and Esme said "Monkey!" After we stopped laughing, we told them "Deer."

I've added a traffic feed to my blog, so I can tell if anyone is ever reading this. It would be a shame if I'm talking to myself.