drama frog...

Oh, the drama that goes on in this house over one little silly frog...

... tearfully lost forever by Alyssa. (again) Destined to never be found. ever. again. But the drama in this little frog isn't so much that she had been lost but just the day before she had been found trapped in a match box van and would never be able to come out again. ever. But Daddy rescued the cute little frog and only for moments, at least less than half a day to be lost again. forever.... until I went to brush my teeth at bedtime and found the little frog balance on my candle vase?! Who knows where the little frog is now?

why I shouldn't home school...

I should add more emphasis on that ... why I should definitely not home school. 

Last night, Jaiden and I were set up at the kitchen counter working on his math workbook (yes, I am one of those moms who doesn't want their child to lose 40% of what they learned over the summer) and I had some brown rice cooking on the stove. Alyssa appeared with a test tube filled with water, pushed a chair to the sink and started what she called "a science experiment".

She started to pour salt in her test tube...

 and stir it with a chop stick.

When I asked what her science project was about? She replied "ocean water". Okay, interesting...

Then I noticed Jaiden was really working hard ... staring off into space. So I focused on directing him back to his workbook.

 I turned just in time to see Alyssa start tasting her experiment... grab a quick shot and tell her not to eat her experiment.

 Only to then look over at Jaiden and see him staring at pictures... or perhaps he was thinking about the problems in the pictures. I sat back down with him so we could do a couple together.

 Then Jaiden began laughing while Alyssa drank her entire science experiment.

When I got her to quit drinking her science experiment and wanting to make more, I asked him to finish his math work and I got this look.

 Thankfully during this fiasco, I did not burn our rice but I could just see that happening in the mix if I were home schooling. I believe this effectively demonstrates why I should not even consider home schooling my kids.

a cool hike?

Yesterday, I had this great idea... to get the kids their own day hiking backpacks outfitted with a handy platypus but room to add other necessities like a few snacks, a light rain coat, an outdoor whistle and a first aid kit or in Alyssa's case she added a much needed flashlight, her own sunscreen (left over from girl scout camp) and a light coat.

Today we went on a short hike. Here they are starting on the trail. 

Going to check out the Copeland Lower Falls (I love these two photos) 

 I love this one of Jaiden. Ironically his shirt matched his backpack!

 Daddy taking the kids to a wet rock closer to the upper part of Copeland Falls.

 One of many rest breaks along the way up the trail, enjoying a little snack and desperately wanting to climb all the big rocks!

 Alyssa checking out her much needed flashlight

 Alyssa's turn to climb the big rock and join her brother.

And returning back towards the parking lot. 

We had hoped to cool off on this hike but even at 8500 ft, it was still 83 F, but when we got home it was 98 F at 2 pm... not sure how hot it got but the past two days have been over 100 F at 102 and 104 F... feels like we are in Arizona! 

But it was a very cool (fun, awesome, etc) hike... perfect for the kids and they enjoyed the test run of the their day packs!

bff

Aaah, something about this makes my heart melt. Alyssa was upstairs cleaning out one of her drawers. She found lots of postcards collected from Daddy's trips and a few of her own trips as well as a few blank cards. She immediately came down and asked for spelling help. 

She wrote - 

To Maverick

You are my best 

friend.

Love Alyssa

Then she asked for an envelope to send it to Maverick (who lives less than a 1/2 mile away). When I turned over the card, I saw this...

Oh, the sweetness of 6 year olds is really too much! When I asked her why she chose this card, she said 

"I think Maverick likes bears and who would give me blank card anyway?"

Uh... mommy? I thought she'd like the photo!

Now, I think Maverick will be tickled pink when he gets this!

the collector

I meant to post this last week to show what Jaiden was up to while Alyssa was at camp but the evenings were so busy last week, I didn't get much time to sit down and when I finally did, I pretty much was falling asleep!

He and I had a couple of projects, or maybe I should say, I had a couple of projects I wanted to do with him. And so this is one of the projects Jaiden was up to...

... organizing his baseball cards! He spent an entire afternoon working on his organization. He sorted by team, then he added to the back of his book the cards he would want to trade.  I think he thought the day was going to be a bit boring as he had to come with me to an appointment but then I took him to Hobby Lobby. Things were still not looking so good for him until he realized we were there for him. I wanted to get him those nifty baseball card plastic pages so he could view his baseball card collection easily. Now he got excited... really excited!


When we left Hobby Lobby, he decided he was hungry so we went to 5 Guys for burgers.  The day was only getting better for him!

In the afternoon he spent about 2 hours deciding how to organize, sliding them in, sorting them... he even made his own paper cards to write the teams names on to label his pages! It was really sweet watching him. 

After much pestering I managed to find my old baseball cards so he and I could trade! His fascination with baseball is stirring all sort of memories and even a bit of fun reading about baseball history between him and me! 


Did you know that Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth all hit career home run number seven-hundred during the same inning?


Yep, they all hit their 700th home run in the 3rd inning! Pretty cool! 

happy father's day!

Happy Father's Day!

I hope everyone had a great dad day. This dad here did! He made breakfast for all of us, then lunch, he let me sew all afternoon, he mowed the lawn, went to Costco (which was part of the afternoon so he might not have known I was sewing), he grilled steaks, roasted beets and made a nice salad, some Costa Rican pineapple juice and played on his iPhone. 

At the end of the day I presented him with this...

I am quite certain he always wanted a matching dress for Alyssa and her doll for father's day... next up is a matching one for him, Alyssa and her doll - won't that be cute?

g'knight ride

Tonight was Daddy's night. He chose for Father's Day to do a local community fund raising bicycle ride called g'knight ride. We registered, picked up our schwag bags, and got excited about riding a 3 mile family ride (versus the longer 10 mile route). Then waited until tonight...

Couldn't pass up a little face painting before the race. After all a unicorn makes it more magical riding!

 Along with your favorite doll named Alyssa (of course) riding behind you.

Daddy messing with his phone as usual right before the race began!

Jaiden is right in front of me with the 2 on his shirt, Alyssa is in front of him, with Dennis just to Jaiden's left. This was the beginning of the race.

There were signs telling us where to go but it wasn't until the end that Jaiden pointed out they had the gear g'knight logo painted on the road too!

A highly encouraged detour about a mile into the ride to the Tasty Weasel for homemade root beer and Dale's Pale Ale.

The last leg of the ride. Alyssa and Dennis but little did I know, Alyssa was crying for mommy. It turns out in her usual not paying attention mode she rode into a parked car and badly scraped her knee.

So I spent a lot of time holding and comforting her but I must put in my own plug because I was super smart to pack my nifty first aid kid outfitted with antiseptic spray and large bandaids!

Jaiden enjoying his coconut cupcake in the grass.

A truly good sport. He rode with Daddy to get the car and park it a little closer as Alyssa was quite upset about her knee but then he even rode her bike and wore her helmet to the car while she rode on Daddy's shoulders.


It was a lot of fun... and a new summer tradition for us... but next year instead of Team Nicksenbachler, Jaiden says that he and I will ride the 10 mile ride as Team Flame Throwers which eventually led downhill (no thanks to Dennis) and has morphed into Blue Gas Propelled Team... great!


And a happy (early) Father's Day!

camp moments

Alyssa started an all day Girl Scout camp from 8:45 am to 3:30 pm for the entire week! I was planning on an all day camp later in the summer but this girl scout camp fit right in to what she wanted to do. I figured it might be a good intro to what expect next year for 1st grade. Little did I know, she was ready. She gave me a hug and kiss and said 'bye Mommy!'

I snagged a few photos before I left her yesterday morning. She was oblivious to me there. She was ready to start.

Her first two days have been great. She comes home tired, dirty and hungry. 

She is excited to go back. This is a good thing!

Jaiden and I are spending a lot of time together. We went swimming on Monday. Today, we got baseball trading card pages (the kind you slip the cards into) and put it into a new binder. He also asked for 5 Guys for lunch. It was easy and nice. I had to chuckle over a conversation we had in the car on the way to pick up Alyssa. We were having a conversation about him remembering something and me trying to decide if I should say good job for remembering or be quiet because he might take it the wrong way. When I asked him what I should do, he said I should tell him it was a good job. Then he went on to say...

J: Daddy gets an A+ for taking offense and an A+ for yelling

M: oh, great, what do I get an A+ for?

J: Math. And hugs. And kisses. And snuggles. And reading to me at night - you don't yell like Daddy does when he is reading. You read softly.

Lucky me! When I told Dennis, he rolled his eyes and yelled "I don't talk loud!"

take me out to the ball game...

Today was pretty cool. Not only did I take Alyssa to the ball game, she walked the field with her t-ball team! The first photo I took for scale purposes. I thought it was impressive just how big that field is and how small those kids look on the field.

Where's Alyssa? 

There she is! She really is right there and if I had loaded these photos in full resolution, you would be able to zoom in and see her holding hands with her friend, Julia! 

Here they are moving towards right field. 

Alyssa is near the end in this photo - orange shirt.

 Her team is the Orioles this year. 

To me, the craziest things is watching your child walk the field. 

I can not get over the scale of the whole park versus their tiny little cuteness! 

Here she is rounding first base near the dugout. She is the one at the very end looking out into the crowd. I tried waving and yelling but I am certain there is no way they can even find you in the sea of people waving and screaming! 

And my last photo of her on the field near home base. She is one at the end walking with her friend, Julia.

It was a really great game, beautiful cooler weather at 73 versus 95 yesterday. She was delighted to go, and loved being there with her team mates. 

And if you were wondering where Jaiden was? He had to choose between going to the game or a birthday party?! Unbelievably he chose the birthday party. I guess he wasn't as impressed with walking the field since he had already done that last summer!

ah haaa!

This girl has a hard time sitting still at the table and eating. And if she is sitting still, she is normally up to mischief. 

Daddy made special drinks with swords of fruit in them. This girl turned hers into a pirate adventure of stabbing raspberries and yelling 'ah haaa!'

This girl then ate them off the sword... 

shoving all 6 into her mouth at once...

and trying to keep them all in her mouth! 

While this boy drank his yummy mango juice... 

and ate roasted beets with blue cheese and spinach salad with turkey bacon and mustard vinaigrette! He never ceases to amaze me with his food adventures. 

Now if only we could get her to sit still and try new things!

what to do in 93 degrees?

We go to the bike park and ride on dusty dirt trails, under the blazing sun until our faces turn as red as a tomato, then we drink all of our water and get ice cream to cool off. That is (according to my kids) the way to spend an afternoon in 93 degree weather!

And afterwards, we agree that is better to go early in the morning or late in the day.


And as I type this, there is a dragon flying around in my lights... 

hello june

I have big expectations for June this year... okay maybe realistically, I have big expectations for the summer. Today, the kids and I started a summer manifesto. A manifesto? Yes, a manifesto - a public declaration of intentions... in our case, summer intentions. I have seen this done in other places - rather creatively... but ours is a simple list of ideas, things we would like to do over the summer. 


When I explained to the kids what this meant, Alyssa immediately chimed in with her first intention "I want to sleep in every morning". Given this morning she woke me at 6:30 am, I am not exactly sure what her definition of sleeping in really means?!


Jaiden enthusiastically added "go to water world" and "the pool... a lot" and "have friends over".  So far this is looking pretty good for me, but we didn't get a chance to finish. 


One thing I wanted to add was blogging more. I have been missing getting many of our stories in writing. One in particular is about the dragons in our house. 


Every spring, the dragons return and they are a bit of a nuisance. They are attracted to lights and appear at the worst time of the day... late at night. I spent one night while Dennis was out of town, very late at night trying to fight off two in my room.... seriously freaked me out. I made quite a ruckus as I battled them. I lost and couldn't catch or kill either one.


In the morning, I asked if I had woke them up. Jaiden said no, why? I said I was fighting dragons and there were two still loose in the house. His eyes got wide "real dragons?" I wish I could have captured that expression. Alyssa, on the other hand, was very knowing about dragons. I hated to disappoint Jaiden but dragons are from a long time ago when Alyssa had awoken late at night and was scared to fall back to asleep. She came to get me and Daddy, her eyes wide at the time and she said she was scared, there was a dragon in her room. It took us awhile to figure out what she was talking about. Dennis laid quietly with her in her bed hoping she would fall asleep when all of a sudden, she squeezed his arm and whispered "there is the dragon daddy!" Dennis caught and freed that dragon. But the experience forever changed the definition of dragon in this house. 


Jaiden had the pleasure of finding a dragon on his shoe the other morning. He screamed and then acted cool about it as he helped free this dragon.

And it is with this season that we are catching and freeing dragons ... again! Thankfully, dragon season is almost over and we will wait for next spring's dragons to arrive.