Back for more Elmo!

This past week we headed out for our annual visit to Sesame Place.  Jocelyn doesn't seem as interested in watching Sesame Street lately, but the love for Sesame Place and the characters has certainly been rekindled this week!

We had such a great time and the weather was perfect.  We planned to drive up and back in one day, but we under-estimated the amount of activities Jocelyn would want to jam into one day.  We got there at 11:00am and didn't leave until 7:30pm (which got us home at 11:00pm)!  Wow were we tired, and this is why...

We started out the day at the Sky Splash ride.  It's a giant inner tube ride that we have wanted to try before but the line was always way too long.  This year the wait wasn't long at all, and we had a blast going over bumps and down the big water slide.

We moved from there to the pools and water parks.  And later Mommy and Jocelyn rode down Slimey's Chutes!



We made sure to catch the parade this year and we're so glad we did!  Jocelyn got to join the characters for dancing and jump rope!

 



After the parade we decided to check out some shows.  The shows were new this year and lots of fun!

 

Of course we also went on a few rides!

 

By the end of the shows and rides, it was getting late and we were getting tired, but Jocelyn had to have one more slide and a last goodbye with Zoe and the Count.

Yet another visit filled with fun and good times at Sesame Place!  As expected, Jocelyn is asking when she will be able to go back, but starting next week, we will have school to keep us busy!  More on that to come soon!

MD State Fair 2012

I love the Maryland State Fair.  The County Fair is fun too, but the Maryland one is the best!  Jocelyn and I have a busy week next week getting her ready for preschool, more coming on that soon, so I decided to take her yesterday.  It was the perfect day to go.  It was the first day of the fair and in the middle of a weekday, so it wasn't very crowded at all.  Jocelyn is now big enough to ride on many of the rides and there were lots of them for her age!  We had invited friends, but it ended up just being the two of us, and in the end, I was glad.  We had a lot of fun together, just the two of us.

Playing in soybeans!

We found Nemo!

We also got to see a chicken hatching from an egg, and baby piglets only an hour old, as well as lots of other baby animals.  We watched pig races, played games, and checked out a real bees hive. 

We're going to be wrapping up the summer fun on Monday with our annual trip to Sesame Place and we can't wait for that!!
In the meantime, here's a fun photo of my little one trapped in a sea of birthday balloons for a friend... just because she's so cute!

Stop Growing!!!

Jocelyn made the comment one night that she wished she had a big bed like Mommy and Daddy and I told her that one day she would.  (We still have her crib frame and intend to use it as a full size bed when she moves into a bigger bedroom)

In the meantime, I told her that we could expand her current bed.  See related post here.  And she was very excited, so excited in fact, that we were doing it the next day!!

Jocelyn helps take apart the bed frame

And expand it

Then adds the extension mattress

And then the best part!    Adding all the critters and testing it out!

We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this expandable bed!  We were actually overdue for the expansion.  She was touching the top and the bottom of the frame, but we figured we would let her decide when she was ready.  Now she loves having room for her friends and stretching out.  With any luck, this expansion will last until she moves out of this room, but we do know for sure that this was the best designed bed for her small room.  Now if I could just stop my baby girl from growing anymore!!

Visiting with Pepere and Memere

Pepere and Memere were here for a visit this week.  As usual, their visits involve lots of fun.

We started off with a gift of incredible love from Pepere.  For the last two years, Pepere has been building Jocelyn a dollhouse.  See here for our first encounter with the dollhouse last summer.
He delivered the finished product to us, and Jocelyn loves it!!



Always the goofy one, Memere led Jocelyn in singing "I'm a Little Tea Pot" complete with the motions.

We spent an evening at the county fair, riding the kiddie rides and visiting with the animals.

And pretending to milk a cow!

Miss you Pepere!!!   Thanks for so much fun!





Budding Engineer

Is is possible that Jocelyn got Daddy's Engineering brain?  (Notice I said "Daddy", not "Mommy")  Jocelyn has a new-found love....

LEGOS!!!

And I'm not talking about the big Legos, I'm talking about those little pieces, that magically fit together to create something.  In our case, cars are the current favorite something.

I'm pretty sure that Daddy is enjoying this new passion as much as Jocelyn!

I sat and watched them put a Lego car together yesterday and I was amazed at how clearly she understood the directions and where the pieces went on the car.  And she was pretty proud of herself when it was done!

I do have this tiny fear that Legos are about to take over my world...  I wonder why???







Kids and Chickens and Fireworks, Oh My!

So if you remember in February, I made a solitary trip to Connecticut, but I couldn't wait to bring Jocelyn back during the summer.  Well we made it last week, and it was just as much fun as I had hoped it would be.

Jocelyn got to feed the chickens and collect the eggs.

She loved playing in the pool with the kids!

And we got to pick blueberries at the local blueberry farm.

On July 4th, we went to visit with other members of Joye's family.  They have a big family bar-b-que every year and they end the day with their own fireworks.

Jocelyn did some more swimming, "played" crochet, played on the swingset, and had her first experience with fireworks.  

 

I love these pictures of her with sparklers and watching the fireworks.  Now these were not your average fireworks!  This was easily the best fireworks display I have ever seen, and it was right above our heads!!   WOW!!

We had such a great trip and it was so much fun for both of us.  I hope we can do it again soon.   Thank you so much to my friend Joye.  It was great to spend so much time with her this trip, and it was so much fun for Jocelyn to have the kids to play with.

You know she had fun when she ended the trip looking like this!

Family Trip to PA

Once the kids were out of school, we headed out for a long awaited trip to PA to visit Pat's family.  It took a lot of planning and coordinating, but we managed to get the whole family together, including Pat's brother Scott and his wife Rachel from Indiana.  We had a lot of fun!  It was so nice to have everyone together.

We spent a lot of time at the homestead, swimming...

And playing in the yard...

We had the most fun though, when we all spent the day at the Erie, PA Zoo.

We all took a ride on the train.  And Jocelyn played tag with the otters.

At the end of the day, we enjoyed the pool at our hotel.

And Jocelyn played with her "new" school house.  For those of you as ancient as me, this is the Fisher Price School House that Pat played with as a kid.  Pat's mom gave it to Jocelyn while we were visiting.  It's her new favorite toy.

It was such a great trip and it was so nice to see the whole family together.  It's not easy to get this clan together from three different directions, but hopefully we can do it again soon!

Taking a Breather

Wow!  Where do I begin???

The last month and a half have been a roller coaster ride.  I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, and what a tunnel it has been!

At the end of April, my Mom, Jocelyn's Grammy, had a stroke.  I admit living my whole life to this point in total denial about the day that it would become necessary to take care of my parents.  I had a baby at 40 years old.  That seems to have pushed back the timing on all the things that grown ups have to think about, I guess.


Today, is the day before I will be bringing Mom back to her home in Delaware, to once again resume her life on her own.  Yes, the recovery that she has had, from Neurological ICU, to out patient PT has been nothing less than miraculous, and she is being allowed to go home.  She won't be allowed to drive for a while yet, but she will have lots of services knocking on her front door, from Meals on Wheels, to rides to appointments and such, and her neighbors have been amazing.  She's very happy to finally be going home, and I admit to being a tish happy about going back to my denial.

But seriously, when you are growing up, you think your parents will live forever, and then as an adult, you think YOU will live forever, and of course my baby girl will live forever, right?
Now, I know that's not true.  This experience has been a good test of how my sister and I work together, what we need to do, and what we are capable of.  And I'm proud of us both.  Love you Sis!!

Oh yes!  In the middle of all this, the rest of my life has been going on.  I am about to be the "Previous" MOMS Club President, and I can't wait.  In the beginning of my tenure, I had high hopes, but at the end of my tenure, I'm glad to be free of it.  It was more work than I thought it would be, and in the end, I became discouraged at how little help and support I was given.  Hell!  It became like a job!  Why would I want that???  So the people that have taken over for me (yes 2 moms are taking over the job I did by myself), haven't participated in club activities for a year and a half, but they are gung-ho to bring the club "back to it's former glory".  It's all yours!  Knock yourself out!  I'm just happy to be free of it.  And no, I'm not bitter.  :-)

And what post would be complete without an update on my girl?

Jocelyn is currently in a week long summer camp.  She's going in the mornings for 3 hours.  Can we all say "Ahhhhhhhh...." for her Mommy?  I admit, due to the above events, I have not been able to enjoy it nearly as much as I would have liked, but I'm trying! 
Jocelyn's camp is 3 hours of outdoor fun, hiking, crafts, running around in the fresh air.  When she gets home, she's a wreck!  Tired and crabby and lumpy, but I think she's having fun, and it's a good test for the daily preschool coming up in the fall. 

And I get to my final update.  Jocelyn is signed up for preschool in the fall.  It will be a co-op preschool where I get to be involved in her day to day activities.  She will be going 4 afternoons a week for 2 1/2 hours.  Pat just asked me what I'm going to do with myself and I rattled off at least 10 things I can't wait to get to.  I will have no trouble filling my free time!

But I'm also grappling with the realization that my "baby girl" is growing up and stretching her wings.  Preschool is 2 1/2 hours in the afternoon, but full-time Kindergarten is looming in a year and three months, and I can't bear to think about it.

So I'm sure there's more to come on that.

But in the mean time, Allie and Shelby will be done with school on Friday, my Dad and Susan, AKA Pepere and Memere, are coming for a visit next week, and the week after that, we are going to visit Pat's family in PA. 
July 4th week, Jocelyn and I are flying to CT to visit Joye and her family, and then later in July, Jocelyn has two other weeks of summer camp - Ballet and Science - one week each. 

The fun never ends!   Here's hoping there's more time for blogging soon, as it seems there will certainly be more things to blog about!