Just a teaser of photos from our fun filled trip to Build-A-Bear. We went to celebrate JSL’s third birthday. He had never been to make a friend, so NHL’s Trike came along to help us out. More on this coming soon.
Last night, if you followed me on Twitter, a panicked Tweet went out just at about 9:00. As other people were settling in to watch the last episode of Lost, I was calling my parents to quickly come to my house.
After our fun day in the sun at The Great Escape, the boys were exhausted. We ate dinner, TechyDad gave them baths and it was time for bed. NHL was in bed and JSL was still getting settled. After TechyDad brushed his teeth, he went to get his sippy cup with water. I was getting something on my side of the bed and the lights were out. JSL came running into the room and WHAM!
After the initial thud, I heard horror-movie screams coming from my three year old son. I ran to the other side of the bed yelling for TechyDad to come quick (he had just gotten into the shower). When I flicked on the light and got to the other side of the bed where JSL was, he was getting up. His hands covering his mouth and blood was all over the place.
I could quickly see that he had a gash in his bottom lip. TechyDad came in and helped me to take him into the bathroom to try to see what was going on. JSL was beyond upset and did NOT want anything to touch him. We obviously needed to check his teeth, face and head. I asked if he would put ice on the lip to make it feel better. Thank goodness, he agreed. I got a paper towel to put on it and we got the bleeding to stop.
Meanwhile, I had called my parents. With NHL in bed, I was not sure if we were off to the ER with the little guy. My father left Lost and rushed over to our house. He definitely helped to calm JSL down and we were able to see that the bleeding had stopped. Looking into his mouth was another story. I was in a panic imagining the worst about his teeth. JSL refused to go into our room and wanted to stay on the couch. At a little after 11:00, he finally agreed to come and rest/sleep with me.
This morning, TechyDad and I held JSL down and I was able to look in more. I could see bruises all around his two top front teeth and it did not look good. Luckily, we were able to get into the dentist this afternoon. Here is a photo of the little guy asleep in his stroller as we waited to see the dentist.
I love our dentists – can not say enough wonderful things about them. Dr. N reassured me that we did the right thing with ice and coming in today. As he slept, she moved his upper lip and touched his teeth. Immediately, I saw one move. My heart broke momentarily. She could tell and told me not to panic. When she got the little mirror to check under the teeth, JSL woke up and was not a pleased patient. She got a look inside and said it was bruising that I saw. She asked if I would be ok holding him for an x-ray and I agreed. It took the two of us holding him on me to get it, but it worked. It looks like there is no root damage or anything more to the tooth.
For now, we have to watch and keep it clean, cut his food (no biting into things) and go back in a few weeks for his regular check-up. Looks like his three year portraits will be waiting a little while. Oh and once again, I am requesting a little bubble for JSL because the kid has given me one too many scares in his three years.
Last year, we bit the bullet and bought season passes for the Six Flags park that is near us. I never actually named the park in the past since I had not stated that we live in NY. This year, I will not only name the park, but was Tweeting from there all day today. For almost seven fun filled hours, the boys and I were at The Great Escape in Lake George.
We arrived there at about 10:30 this morning and left at about 5:30 this evening. We had a fabulous time in the gorgeous warm spring weather. The park was not too crowded and lines were short. We felt spoiled. When we arrived, we took the passes that we bought from NHL’s school and upgraded them to season passes. We saved $60 this way and used half of that toward a season parking pass.
Kudos to The Great Escape for making this process so easy this season. There were a bunch of stations set up and individuals could use computers alone to enter information and wait for the processing. It went very smoothly. Within minutes, we had our coupon booklets and were ready for the park.
Here are a few photos that I took with my cell phone today.
Many other memories were captured with our digital cameras to share later. Right now, we are scrubbing the kids and getting them to bed after they napped briefly while traveling home after the fun in the sun.
Disclosure: We purchased our own Season Passes from The Great Escape. This is a fun family destination that we like to visit over the summer and plan to blog about from time to time.
Some people may call be old fashioned, but I still believe in hand writing thank you notes to people. If someone takes the time to give you something special, the least you can do is write a note and add a personal touch. I think I owe this to my mother. She taught me to always write my thank you notes quickly and then I could use my new gives or deposit my checks. When we got married, I had my letters out to people within two weeks of getting back from our honeymoon – not too shabby!
When I was teaching, I made sure to mail notes to any student’s at their homes. If it was winter break, I wished them a Happy New Year. When it was the end of the year, I thanked them for a fun year and wished them a wonderful summer vacation. On the flip side, I also worked with my students on the art of letter writing. We read The View From Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg (love this book for so many reasons) and talked about the importance of a good "bread and butter" note. We thought about people in our school that helped us a daily basis that could use a nice thank you and wrote them notes to brighten their day. It was always interesting to see who the kids would select from within the building.
Last weekend was JSL’s third birthday party. With the celebration came these presents:
Since the boys are still little, I am the author of their notes. NHL is getting to the point where he can do them, but larger amounts of notes can be too much at six. While I was writing the notes for JSL on Wednesday, I decided to get him involved. I left space on the bottom of the note for him to draw a picture for the recipient with crayons (act surprised everyone when you get them). As I handed the card to him, I told him who it was for. He would shout out their name and immediately begin a special creation for them.
When JSL was done, the card came back to me to go inside the envelope. He was so proud that he helped Mama. I guess getting the kids involved in thank you note writing as young as possible is a good thing.
So my question to you this week:
Do you hand write (not e-mail) thank you notes to people? Why do you or don’t you write them?
P.S. This is my 100th Aloha Friday – I think I need to write Kailani a personal note to thank her for all of these weeks of fun!
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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.
Aloha #100
As I have mentioned in the past, JSL is quite obsessed in love with Winnie the Pooh and friends. Since our trip to Disney in February, he has declared that he only wants to wear items with Tigger and Pooh, watch their movies/shows and play with those toys. Thanks to this, we knew exactly what theme would be in place for JSL’s third birthday party over the weekend.
Everyone arrived to the party as we were still preparing the food. During this time, we had a little fun and excitement that many of us could have lived without. When we took the pizza bagels out of the oven, I put them down onto a trivet. Mistake #1 – it was plastic and must have adhered itself to the bottom of the cookie sheet. Thanks to this, when TechyDad put the cookie sheet back into the over. . . the plastic trivet went in to bake.
Nobody noticed anything until the time was up and we were pulling the goodies out of the oven. At that point, TechyDad and I both saw flickering. Sure enough we had a fire. Both of us yelled to get attention of others to come and help. I immediately turned off the oven and made sure the kids were not coming into the room. Meanwhile, my father and TechyDad worked to make sure that the flame was going out. It was at this point that we figured out the culprit of the fire. Luckily it went out pretty quickly, but left a rather large mess. This is what the rack that had the trivet and cookie sheet looked like in the end:
When all was said and done, nobody was hurt, the oven appears to be ok and the food was fine. Here is the food that was served for lunch:
We had veggies and dip, whole grain white rice (testing it for a review), vegetarian "meatballs" with sweet and sour sauce, pizza bagels, Mac & Cheese (Toy Story shapes), and mini bread bowls filled with two types of toppings.
As some of the kids cleared out from the kitchen, Uncle M sat down with NHL, JSL and SG. They were too cute sitting there together and chatting together, so we had to take a photo.
As we transitioned from lunch to cupcake time, the kids were able to play and baby be held by lots of people. JSL and SG had a ton of fun with each other, while Mimi and Aunt T held baby BA.
Two weeks earlier, I asked people for suggestions on what kind of Winnie the Pooh cake I could make. In the end, I went with something I had done before and was suggested by Maryellen Hooper (you are such a Rock Star – love ya!). I made cute cupcakes wrapped in Winnie the Pooh and Tigger liners and had JSL’s characters parading around them on the table. Simple, practical and no real worries. I had wanted to make a giant cupcake, but was not sure how it would work with egg substitute (my niece is allergic to eggs). Since there was no time for a test run, we did regular cupcakes. Here are all of the goodies ready to be devoured:
Thanks to my handy dandy decorating tool and Aunt M for helping me with operation frost and sprinkle, the cupcakes came out really nicely. It was soon time for the little guy to be shy and have everyone sing Happy Birthday to him. After several attempts, he was finally able to get the 3 candle blown out with a little assistance (we were all a little fire phobic for a reason ya know).
JSL had asked for chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (not my kid), so we bought those to make. When it was time for him to eat his cupcake, he did not want it. Note him eating it with a spoon and not being too enthusiastic. Meanwhile big brother and cousin SG loved theirs.
Once the kids were cleaned up, it was present time. More on this tomorrow for my Aloha Friday topic/question of the week.
It really was a nice party. Aside from the fireworks from the oven, it went rather smoothly. One thing is for sure, thanks to that we will always remember JSL’s third birthday party.
