Zachary Kindergarten Picnic & End of Year Show

Today Zachary had a special end-of-year show for Kindergarten. Poppi and MeMa were here during this time.  Zach had a picnic with his class then back to the school auditorium for their presentation.  Lucky for us, Joanna (aunt Juicenana) was able to join us.

We stopped by Subway and grabbed lunch to take with us to the picnic, not knowing if the kids would eat lunch there or not. We met at Zach's class to "assist" all the classes to the park.  I did not know the park they were talking about, and it turned out to be pretty far away.  We walked them out the school, then crossed Demptster, then walked all the way to the playground through some HORRENDOUS pollen spores.  So awful.  I don't know if I have ever seen anything that bad.  It was difficult to even walk through.   Turned out that the kindergartners had already eaten, so we (me, Wy, Nick, Poppi, MeMa, and Joanna) found a table a little out of the way and had our lunch while Z's class, plus the two others, played.  Then we played and watched all the kids.  The teachers passed out Popsicles to the kids, and Wyatt was granted one.  Yannick spent most of the time walking across a bridge and putting his sunglasses on and off.  Special thanks to Aunt Juicenana who was happy to oblige his sunglasses obsession.

Entire Kindergarten (3 classes) Zachary back row, far right with a stick, leaning on the grass

 Then long trek back to the school where the families went to the auditorium and the kids back to their classes to prepare for the show.  We were not sure what it would be besides singing.  Turned out they all sang songs they learned during their weekly music class.  Art was able to leave work to come watch the show with us.

Zachary in the purple shirt behind his friend David in orange

Zachary in the middle singing

The three Kindergarten classes.  Z's head is in the middle row, middle, to the right of the girl in the pink shirt, and above the girl with the white shirt.  He was not so into all the singing really.  But he did participate some.

video of Kindergarten class singing

After the performance, all the kids came down to sit with their parents to watch a slideshow of pictures taken of the kids throughout the year.  They said they would send home a copy of the picture slideshow at the end of the year.  Here we all are watching the performance:

Quite the audience to support Zachary!

Little guy doing some good clapping - a favorite past time at the moment

Best audience ever!

Afterwards, Art had to go back home, and we collected Zach and brought him home.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion by Poppi/MeMa
Body Snatchers meaning they took over our kids - YEA!!  Given the amount of stuff that went on, I will attempt to keep the verbiage minimal.
Poppi MeMa arrived Monday May 21.

Tues May 22
Jump right into Grandparent role.  MeMa stayed home with Yannick while Poppi, Wyatt and I went to go have lunch at Z's school.  Lunch being at 10:30am for the Kindergartners, Wyatt got to eat his snack.

Zachary is in the red shirt w/ the baseball on the far left.  Wyatt is wearing a red jacket on the far bottom right.  Z is sitting next to his bestie, David.

Back home for lunch and playing. Joanna was planning on joining us in the afternoon, but not sure what time. I had an outing planned, but it didn't go off without a hitch.  We wanted to go to NWern to feed the ducks and the fish (which who loves more, Poppi or the boys??) and while there take advantage of their "Friday Crepe Happy Hour" and get a Nutella Crepe for $1.25.  But we got to the lake late (around 5pm), after picking Joanna up as she walked from the El stop towards our house.  But the feeding of the ducks/fish was fun as always, though Yannick kept eating his bread.  I remember when Wyatt would do that with bread or raisins.  Then Poppi and Joanna take the big boys back to the house while MeMa and I go to Dengeos to get dinner.  King Lab was having a fundraiser where Dengeos will give 20% of your order total to King Lab if you give them the paperwork.  We had never eaten there, but it sounded pretty good.  There were a few Gyros ordered, a few Greek salads.  Joanna stayed and had dinner with us.

Aunt Juicenana reading to the big boys

Wed May 23 - stuff happened that I don't remember.  Except I DO remember that the grandparents babysat for me so I could go get my eyes checked.  I knew they were getting worse since having had Yannick (EVERYTHING swells during pregnancy, and some stuff doesn't go back, like sometimes eyes), and I suspected that I would need to start wearing glasses full time.  Sure enough, my eyesight has changed quite a bit in one eye, and a little in another eye.  I defin need new glasses.  I asked the Dr. if this was the type of prescription that meant I needed to wear them every day all day.  He said about 50% of the people w/ my prescription would.  So I think I won't.  So there.

Thurs May 24 gets its own blog entry: Zachary's kindergarten picnic and performance.

In fact, oddly, I have decided to give the rest of the events their own entries as well, which will make it easier to search for them later.

To be continued....

Aunt Joy Visits!!

Yea!  Aunt Joy came to visit for a bit of family togetherness and some R&R!

I was super warm last week, and we were expecting more warm weather for Aunt Joy, but NOOOO, a big cold front came through (thanks Chicago!) leaving Joy's summer clothes lacking!  Poor her, she had to borrow sweats from us!

She arrived late Friday afternoon and met up with Joanna.  Art and I waited for the sitters and drove downtown to meet them at a Korean BBQ restaurant.  YUM!!  It was so so cold in there though, and we had to take our shoes off.  But worth it!

Art Shayna ready to EAT!

All 4 of us enjoying appetizers - notice everyone still has their coats on.

Joy and Joanna preparing for some good meat

After dinner we bid Joanna good night and took Joy back with us to Evanston.  On the way home, Joy gave me my present- my beloved Doubletree cookies!!  Oh Joy you are too good to me!!  Dropped Joy off and said goodbye to the sitters.  Successful fun evening!

Saturday started early as most days do.  I held the boys off from waking Aunt Joy until 8am...and that was tough for them!  Then just a regular Counts saturday.  Lazy breakfast, visit to Ms. Beanie, lunch, nap for the boys and Aunt Joy (playing is tough business!).  After naps for all, Joy made cupcakes for the boys to decorate later.  She wanted to celebrate the boys' bdays early and give them some presents.  We wanted to celebrate her birthday as well and decorated her chair.  Here is the proof of fun brownie decorating:

Wyatt decorating

W icing face

Wyatt lovely icing smile

Wyatt licking a knife??  Good idea??

Wyatt, how did Mommy not steal that knife

Zachary decorating cupcake

Icing face

Zachary icing face

Aunt Joy with her two oldest nephews, all happily sugared up

While I worked on getting dinner ready, DaU and Joy worked on turning the playroom into a giant obstacle course.  I went down to watch during the last few minutes before dinner.

Yannick and I watching the big boys run their obstacle course

after jumping off couches, slam into Buster, knocking him over

Roll over the cushions, crawl under the pillow

Zachary doing a forward roll

Z watching as W jumps off the couch and heads for Buster

Dinner time!  We all just get through Asian chicken noodles so we can enjoy the cupcakes Aunt Joy made with the big boys.  Happy Birthday to Aunt Joy, Zachary, and Wyatt all coming up...plus a happy 1st bday belated to Nick.

Getting ready for birthday dinner

Singing Happy Brithday 

Yannick getting the Heimlich or being jollied out of a temper tantrum?

Boys opened their presents - superhero jammies for the big boys (Batman for Zachary and Spiderman for Wyatt), and an Avengers shirt for Nick.  All so cute.  Because it is still so cold here, the boys could only wear their jammie shirts, and not the shorts.

Good superhero poses

And one more turn with the rocker walker for Yannick before bed

Sunday

View from Aunt Joy's bed as she is awakened  by her nephews!

Sunday - off to church - the boys wore their superhero jammie shirts under their sport coats for church.  Art rode his bike so Joy could ride with us .  After church I had to run to the store for supplies for tonight's Ethos meeting.  Joy waited in the car with the boys.  Apparently they listened to a lot of music and also, threw paper airplanes around!

Action shot of the airplane

Wyatt getting ready to launch his airplane

Zachary being a good big brother and helping Nick with his milk.

After lunch, Joy and the boys made jello jigglers before their naps.

I am not sure the boys had ever had jello jigglers before, and I can say they were not thrilled with the taste, but they enjoyed the craft time.  Aunt Joy is always fun for a food craft.

Aunt Juicenana came by as well, and we all sat down to chat while the boys napped.  Zach's one-hour nap time goes by pretty quickly when you are just chatting.  After naps, it was crazy in the basement time with Aunt Joy who attempted several times to get some pics with her nephews who can't be bothered with looking good for pictures

Some good attempts, and WOW what a mess!

Not to be forgotten:

Yannick dressing up for the occassion.

Sadly it was then time to take both Joanna back to her apartment, and Joy back to the airport, leaving Art in charge of getting all of them to bible study.

Joanna, always exhausted with her MBA studies/social life catches catnaps whenever possible...like in the car

Nighty Night Aunt Juicenana!  Even though it is 4pm!

Come back soon Aunt Joy!!

Opa & Oma Visit!

Opa and Oma had been trying to get away and come up here for weeks and weeks, but something kept coming up.  This weekend they finally made it!  They called on Wednesday and said "we'd like to come Friday", and we said 'Absolutely'.  We rearranged some things we had planned, and then kept some other things the same, and just enjoyed them being here.  BUT boy did they work hard; esp Opa.  They had brought the unfinished crib/toddler bed up, and got it done while they were here.  Sanding, priming, painting. They did it, and it got done.  We did a few other things while they were here though!

On Saturday, the Dutch school was throwing a party to celebrate the Queen of the Netherland's birthday (Koninginnedag).  I thought it was a big party thrown by the Dutch club of Chicago, but it turned out to be a small party thrown by just the Dutch school.  One of Zachary's friends from school, Visanth, was there with his mom, which was fun for Z.  Since nearly all the games for kids, instructions, and announcements were in Dutch, Oma got to go help out the big boys.

Zach and Wyatt were on the "yellow" team, and Oma is helping them at each activity center

Later Saturday evening, Oma babysat Yannick while Art and I and the boys went to the Watsons' house for a cookout in honor of some old friends (Pigstorm) who used to live in Evanston but moved back to Singapore in 2009.

Sunday was church.  Then our Ethos group planned a kickball tournament with another group.  Opa and Oma again preferred to babysit Yannick instead of going.  It worked out great, because that meant that Art and I could both play kickball and be involved in the game.

Monday, Oma went to Zachary's school.  First we ate lunch with him (Wyatt and Yannick just had snack), then we played outside on the playground with his class, then Oma got to read a story to his class.

Zachary introducing Oma to his class

Oma reading to his class - Zach is sitting by Oma, and Wyatt is there wearing red pants, sitting on a purple circle.

Mrs. Soverinsky let Wyatt sit and listen to the story as well.  She said Yannick could, but I declined since he decided he'd rather pull all the books out rather than sit and listen to one.  So I mostly spent the 20 minutes or so out in the hall with him.

Here are all the rewards from their hard work:

Our little guy proud of his new bed!

It was an enjoyable visit, and a bit too short.  They left on Wednesday, so we would have a few days to regroup before Aunt Joy came to visit.

Christmastime at Leisure Dr

I am a bad bad keeper of family memories.  I did not take 1 single picture our entire time in Georgia.  Not for Christmas eve and Christmas day at the hotel with Nana (who paid for the 2nd bedroom upgrade - lovely!), not Christmas day at Leisure Dr, not MeMa's birthday, not even, be ready to gasp at the horror, any during Janneke's wedding weekend (none of the rental house, none of the mani-pedi action for Railey's birthday, no pics of the luncheon, rehearsal dinner, wedding day, dinner reception, and NONE of dance-party USA!!).  So, here are some pics that people who felt sad for me sent my way to help me round out my photo documentary of our lives:

Yannick at the hotel, feeling festive with Nana

Saint Nick??

Art carving the turkey - YUCK!

Yannick ready for light saber battle

Merry Christmas Poppi & Nick

MeMa reading to Zachary

Zachary on the hoppity (check out MeMa in the background w/ the bow & arrow!)

Wyatt in the inflatable R2D2 chair

Aunt Juicenana reading to the big boys

Handsome AS Counts family at Janneke & Thomas' wedding

Poppi holding court with all the "little boys" (ZWY + cousins Andrew, Jake, John) during Janneke & Thomas' wedding

DaU & Yannick being silly

Entire Counts Clan with the bride and groom

Thanks to all those that contributed pictures for me!