North Pole Party

Click on the links below to check out two posts about the North Pole Party that my bff Kelly threw just for our three little girls.  My kids are still talking about that special night.  Kel, I hope this becomes an annual event.  Thank you so much for sharing your creative energy with my very lucky kids!

Party Preview:

http://thebarschfamily.blogspot.com/2011/12/north-pole-party-preview.html

The Party itself:

http://thebarschfamily.blogspot.com/2011/12/first-north-pole-party.html

Letters for Santa

Brian:  Elizabeth, would you like to write a letter for Santa?

Elizabeth:  Oh yes Dad!

Brian:  Okay, let's sit down and write him a letter together.

Elizabeth:  I want to write him a "W."

*******

Me:  Amanda, I see here in your letter you've asked Santa for a "balloon maker."

Amanda:  Yep.

Me:  What is a balloon maker?

Amanda:  When Santa brings me one, you'll see.

Amanda Turns 5

In past years, my more creative friends have asked me what the theme was for my child's birthday party.  My brow would furrow and I'd go, "Uh, you mean 'birthday party' isn't enough of a theme on its own?"  Well this year we actually had a real theme, thanks to Amanda.  She requested a luau, and she wanted it to be at home.  Fortunately, in Houston mid-November is still luau weather.  So I went to Arne's and bought luau-themed plates and cups, fake grass skirts and leis, and a cute little hula girl invitation, and voila! we have ourselves a luau.  (It is a little known fact that a bounce house actually is an integral component of the traditional Hawaiian luau.  As are chick-fil-a nuggets, pretzels, and Capri Suns.) 

I owe a huge thank you to Joan and Linda for helping me host the party!  A good time was had by all.  Here is a very small sample of the pictures.

 

The Christmas Story, Part 1

So I know I have a lot to catch up on, but in the meantime, I can't resist posting this short video.  The girls are both learning the Christmas Story in school.   This week they learned about the importance of waiting with part 1 of the story.  Hopefully I'll remember to post the rest of the story in the coming weeks.  Here's Elizabeth's take:

Life

"Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes, well, he eats you." 

Since early October, the bear has been getting the best of the Brantleys.  But things are beginning to turn themselves around.  Check back for a new photo-filled post real soon. 

"Reach for the Sky!"

We just returned from an epic family road trip to Natchez, Mississippi.  While I attempt to craft a post worthy of that debacle, check out the following twenty-three seconds of two-year-old adorableness:

Food Wars

"I cannot bring myself to eat a well-balanced meal in front of my mother. It just means too much to her." Angela Chase, My So-Called Life.

Occasionally I'll get hit with a wave of panic that I'm not feeding my kids enough healthy food. I immediately rush to the grocery store and fill my cart with ground flaxseeds and fish oil and all the fresh produce I can fit into my crisper drawers. I'll buy cookbooks that teach you how to hide hideous vegetable purees in all kinds of food. I once tried to sneak pureed cauliflower into scrambled eggs. That did not go over well.

So tomorrow I'm going to try yet again to get my kids to eat better with something we've tried before with moderate success: blueberry breakfast smoothies on school days. Hopefully it will work, at least until we forget to run the dishwasher one night and the blender is dirty in the morning (I don't do dishes before breakfast), or until the girls spill their tenth purple smoothie on the rug under our kitchen table and I vow never to let them drink another purple liquid inside the house ever again, or until my desire to improve the kids' diets ceases to outweigh my intense early morning laziness.

So we'll see how it goes. Angela Chase was right: It does mean too much to us mothers to watch our kids eat balanced meals.

Written Proof

This post serves as an electronic record that at age 4 and 3/4, Amanda harbored very fond feelings towards her mom. I am saving it for her teen years when other four-letter words begin an inevitable invasion of her lexicon of mother/daughter relations.

Soccer

"Yo, I'm gonna get my soccer on."

After the game:

Me: How'd you like your first soccer game?

Amanda: It was fun.

Me: I heard you got a little upset at one point.

Amanda: Yeah. The other team wasn't letting me kick the ball.

Me: That's the thing about sports, kiddo. The other team isn't going to let you have the ball; you have to just try to take it from them.

Amanda: I know. But they weren't letting me play defense.

Me: The other team doesn't want you to play defense. They want you to get out of their way so they can score. That's the fun part -- trying to play defense even though they don't want you to.

Amanda: But their team is called the Bumblebees.

Me: So?

Amanda: Bumblebees are fast.

Me: Can't argue with that.

Summer 2011 Photo Retrospective

How I Spent My Summer Vacation
(according to the following random photos from my iphone)

New Braunfels! We came, we tubed, we Gristmilled, we covered inflatable boats with sunscreen, we left. And I have this one picture to show for it. Just kidding; there are more, I think. I just can't locate them at the moment.




Buffalo Grille! Our favorite breakfast restaurant has relocated to within walking distance of our house. So now we ride bikes there every Saturday morning. One of my favorite rituals. In the pic below, the girls do their best impersonation of mean biker chicks.



We made funny faces!


We baked!



We golfed.



We went to see our human cousin Amanda and our canine cousin Tessa at the Reliant Park dog show.


Roller skates. I wouldn't say Amanda "roller skated," but she did put them on her feet, and somehow she managed to propel herself forward. A little bit.



Galveston! We went to the beach. Aunt Caroline gave manicures. And we toured Seawolf Park, visiting both the USS Cavalla submarine and the USS Stewart destroyer escort. We were "Griswolding," as Caroline's boyfriend Ward would say.






Blue Bell Creamery! We got a great tour from a surprisingly knowledgeable tour guide, ate free ice cream, and, a bonus -- there is a pretty cool public pool/waterpark less than a mile from the creamery. We'll be doing this field trip again.


We played in the sprinkler in our pajamas.

We had puppet shows, complete with a live studio audience. (See the disrobed barbies below, aka, the live studio audience.)


We visited the Children's Museum a few times.



And..... in late August, we went back to school! Elizabeth goes three days a week, 8:30 - 11:30, and Amanda goes every day, 8:30 - 11:30. On the days when Elizabeth does not get out of the car in the carpool line she says to me, "Mommy, I don't like to stay with you." While this stings a little, I much prefer this rather calm, rational bit of communication to the screaming fits she used to have last year when she wanted to get out of the car with her big sister.

Summer's over, friends!

Awww

Nothing much to say today. I just wanted to share this picture. How old does Amanda look here? Too old.

Seven Years?!

So apparently it's been seven whole years since Brian and I got married! We celebrated this weekend by attending the Baltimore wedding of one of his college lacrosse teammates. (The kids got the royal treatment from their Brantley grandparents while we were away. Thanks again, Joan and John!)

My husband has a great smile, doesn't he? Getting together with his college buddies makes him as happy as a beer keg in a frat house, or something like that.


Here's one of the two of us in Carmel, CA on our honeymoon in 2004. Can you tell we have no clue what we have gotten ourselves into?


Happy Anniversary, Brian. I love you.

How I know it must be August

If I were my kids' nanny, I might have fired myself today.


Number of hours with the television on? I lost count.
Number of attempts to do anything even slightly enriching or mildly interesting? Zero.
Number of times I answered one of my four year old's unending questions with something other than "I don't know" or "because I said so": Maybe one. Maybe.
Number of my kids' screaming arguments I completely ignored: Three.
Writing a blog post when I should be cooking dinner: Check.
What my kids actually ate for dinner: Chick-Fil-A.


I am lucky I am my own boss.

Dinner Time

When Amanda got old enough to actually converse with her dad and me, we had our first "family dinner." Our little toddler answered some simple questions, Brian and I told each other what we did during the day, and we also ate some food. An uninterested observer would label the event as fairly typical, perhaps a little dull, even. But for me, that seemingly mundane meal is the precise moment that the degree to which my personhood had been irrevocably altered by my motherhood became glaringly apparent to me. You see, the simple act of sitting around a dinner table at the end of the day and talking to my little nuclear family had made me undeniably, deliriously happy. It felt like a balloon of contentment was actually inflating inside my chest. It was startling, especially for a person like me, who prides herself on keeping sentiment to a minimum.

I sat through a heck of a lot of family dinners as a kid. My parents were pretty good about having us all sit around and eat together. But it never felt like this. I am pretty sure that family dinner euphoria is only available to parents.

And I know it's not just me. A friend of mine confessed at book club a couple of weeks ago the lengths to which she would go to make sure her kids could wait to eat dinner until her husband could get home from work. She'd give them chocolate and ice cream; let them play more video games than their daily electronic device allowance permitted; anything to allow her to experience the sheer joy that came along with sitting her boys and her husband around a table and talking to each other.

Luckily my husband understands how happy it makes me to have dinner together (perhaps because it has the same effect on him), and as often as he possibly can, gets home in time for us to engage in our now sacred ritual. We start by asking each other what our favorite part of the day was. Amanda usually goes first. Elizabeth used to follow with, "My fav-it paht, goin' gym," whether we had actually been to the gym that day or not. By now she seems to have gotten a grip on what a "day" is, and changes her answer accordingly.

Tonight, it was Amanda's turn to go first. We had gone to the pool today, and she wanted to jump off the diving board, something she had never done before. At our neighborhood pool, parents are not allowed anywhere near the diving board area, so in order to jump off of it, the child must be able to both jump into the pool and swim to the steps completely unassisted.

"I can do it, mom," Amanda stared into my eyes and confidently, matter-of-factly said at least a hundred times while we were safely in the shallow end of the pool. I wanted to respect my daughter's confidence. But I also didn't want to end up watching her get mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by a tanned, teenaged lifeguard whose mouth had been God only knows where before touching my four year old's lips.

So we practiced. I made her jump off the side of the pool and swim back to the steps without help from me. I made her jump off these huge, plastic lily pad things in another area of the pool and swim to the steps from there. "Now can I jump off the diving board, mom?" I could stall no longer. I took a deep breath and tried to hide my fear from her. "Okay, my dear, go for it."

We walk over to the diving board area. She climbs the steps to the board while Elizabeth and I stand as close to the steps as we can without actually getting into the water. As Amanda walks the plank out to its edge, I shout, "You don't have to do this! You can walk back if you want!" "I'm can do it, mom," she says.

And she jumps.

She disappears below the surface, then turns her body and swims to the steps, not coming up for air until she has her hands on the rails flanking the steps. She climbs out of the water, and I can breathe again. I think it took about twenty minutes for my heart rate to return to normal.

"My favorite part was jumping off the diving board!" she exclaimed to Brian at dinner, who was elated at his daughter's accomplishment. She recounted, with the details important to her four-year-old brain, exactly what she had done. "It looked like a high dive! I swam and swam and swam. I did it!" While she talked, I pantomimed to Brian the terror of the occasion, grabbing my chest and widening my eyes as though I were having a heart attack. Not much acting was necessary, because he knew exactly how I must have felt. Just listening to the story scared the sh*t out of him.

"My favorite part was when you reached the steps," I offered when she was finished.

Elizabeth had spent our time at the pool safely cocooned in her life jacket, so she could float around the deep end feeling free without actually being free. "My fav-it paht, goin' swimmin'!"

Brian's favorite part was easy too. "My favorite part is listening to you guys tell me what you did today."

New Trick

I have been trying for two days to upload a video of Amanda hula hooping. It appears hopeless. So, you'll just have to take my word for it. The girl can hula hoop.

Milkshake with Grandma

Their One and Only Time in the Back of a Patrol Car

This week Aunt Suzanne gave the girls a private tour of the police station. Though "inside voices" are not usually their forte when they are all together, they all behaved remarkably well inside the station. First we stopped in Booking, where we learned how the department takes fingerprints:


Then we stopped in the juvenile holding cell.



We also ventured out to the parking lot where the girls got a chance to sit in a patrol car. They took turns turning on the siren and sitting in the back. I said it before and I'll say it again, this better be the only time they find themselves in the back of a patrol car.

Thanks Aunt Suzanne!

Painting the Solar System

Making the most of Elizabeth's nap: Amanda has been really interested in the planets lately, due for the most part to an episode of Olivia in which our favorite little girl pig believes her brother is an alien. Amanda has since been wanting to make glow-in-the-dark planets for her room. Yesterday we finally did the project. We bought some styrofoam balls (not as cheap as I thought they would be) and glow in the dark paint at Michael's, spread newspaper out all over the kitchen table, and went to work. It was actually pretty fun.

Summertime

Summer 2011 Childcare Goals:

1. Do something fun every day.

2. Do something out-of-the-ordinary every week. (This week's out-of-the ordinary adventure is tomorrow's trip to the small town of Concord, in East Texas, for the Memorial Day picnic at the First Baptist Church cemetery where several generations of my family, including my mom, are interred.)

3. Read, read, read, and read some more.

4. Play more board games with Amanda.

5. Put my Iphone away.

6. Listen to more music.

Anybody got any of their own summer goals?

More New Tricks

Big Sister

Amanda's second dance recital was Friday night. Here is our star before we left:


On the way to the show, Amanda noted, "Mom, I LOVE Episcopal High School." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because it has a real STAGE, and I'm going to be ON IT!" Watching her be so happy up there was the best part of the night.

The second best part was doing her hair and stage make-up in my bathroom in front of my mirror, just exactly the way my mom used to do to me.

(Because I am a rule follower by nature, I did not take my own video during the show. I'll post the 'professional' video as soon as it comes in the mail.)

Little Sister

Elizabeth has grown up so much recently. She talks more and more every day. It's not so much how much she talks, but what she talks about that is so extraordinary to me. I think I've mentioned before that Elizabeth is very in tune with emotions. For a long time now, she has been giving a running commentary on how she feels. At the park she'll get perturbed by something another toddler has done and yell, "MOMMY! Izabeth Ve-Wee ANG-EE!!"

Lately her emotional intuitiveness has extended to others as well. She always points out when anyone around her is crying. "Baby sad, mommy, baby cryin.'" She has also started asking me how I'm feeling. "Mom, you HAPPY!?" Or at other times, it'll be, "Mom, you Ang-EE?" While she's asking me this, she'll get really close to me, put her little chubby hands on the sides of my face, and give me this wide-eyed stare, making it impossible for me to still be angry even if I had been when she initially asked the question. "No, Elizabeth, I'm not angry." "Happy?" she responds hopefully. "Yes, dear, very happy."

What Amanda thinks about her Mother

Elizabeth and I attended a delightful Mother's Day Tea this morning at Amanda's school. Among the many gifts Amanda gave me at the party was this poem.

THINGS I KNOW ABOUT MY MOMMY

My mommy's name is Samantha Brantley.

When I'm at school she makes lunch.

I think she's 85 years old.

Her favorite color is blue.

Her favorite food is soup.

My mom cooks the best macaroni and cheese.

My mom's favorite clothes to wear are dresses.

My mom's favorite TV show is Tangled.

She likes to take me to the park.

She has a lot of brothers and sisters.


I love you Mommy.
Amanda
Mother's Day
2011

I love you too, Amanda. You and your sister make each of my days Mother's Day.

PS This is way better than the last time you inspired me to post a poem on this blog. And it's an original work!

Simon Says Watch this Video

Elizabeth and Amanda play "Simon Says."

Slumber Party!

I had a Slumber Party! No, not for my kids. For me and my bff, Kelly. We recently blocked out a weekend over a month in advance for the specific purpose of doing something very, very important: absolutely nothing. In college, Kelly and I perfected the art of doing nothing. Some people would find it difficult to spend 12 straight hours sitting on a sofa watching bad tv, painting toenails, and eating food only if it was within arms' reach. Not us. We were masters of the art of leisure.

Though we had a few slumber parties in high school, the ones I really remember are those we had during the first semester of my freshman year at Baylor, when I was pretending to be a Division I volleyball player, and Kelly was a sophomore RA at Collins Hall. We would spend the night in her dorm on the night before game days. Because I knew there was no way I would actually be playing in the games the next day, I could stay up late and eat candy and feel like crap the next day with few ill-effects.

Anyway, flash forward to a Friday night last month. Kelly's husband took their beautiful daughter to visit his parents out of town, and Brian had Amanda and Elizabeth to himself from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon. We had a little less than 24 hours to spend at Kelly's apartment doing as little as humanly possible. But first we had to go out for a burger, of course. Then we went back to her house to get in our pajamas, open a bottle of wine, and start the perfect movie marathon for a girl-time laziness retreat: the Twilight saga. Here we are before we start the first movie:



And here's when I took a picture of the TV for the best part of the movie:


And then about ten minutes later, the DVD stopped working. This was a huge problem. If we couldn't finish the first movie, we couldn't possibly move on to the second one. We had to find a replacement DVD. And so, like we did in Waco more times than we could count, we loaded up in the car for a late night trip to Wal Mart.

Replacement disc in hand, we returned to Kelly's house and finished the first movie and fell asleep. After a few rounds of good girl-time gossip, of course. We woke up the next day and stayed in our pajamas until noon, just as we vowed we would, watching the second movie. After a quick lunch we watched the last movie and said goodbye. It was a sad goodbye. Not because I won't see her soon; I certainly will. But it will be a long time before we can get away with having a weekend of such blissful nothingness again.

And thus the first annual Kelly and Sam Tribute to College Laziness Slumber Party was born. I'm looking forward to doing even less next year, Kel.

Spring Break 2011

In our two Scott houses, spring break means one thing and one thing only: Galveston or bust! Hawaii it ain't, but it is less than an hour away and light years closer to our mom, who loved that little island more than anyone really should.

The kids had a blast, and so did the moms. Suzanne lived up to her picture-taking responsibilities, and I did not. So thanks, Suz, for making this post possible.

Each of our kids takes on a specific role when the four of them get together. Sarah, of course, is the mother hen, providing comfort, refereeing arguments, and generally just being Big Sister to her younger sister and cousins.









Amanda revels in having someone older than she is to play with when the four of them are together, loving being referred to as one of the "Big Kids," while Sammy and Elizabeth are the "Little Kids."



Sammy, as always, marches to her own drummer. She has no fear, of anything, ever. The first night we arrived was very chilly, so we went over to a small stretch of beach to fly a kite and walk on the sand a little. Sammy, of course, sprinted for the water. Her cousins followed suit.


Elizabeth seems to be very aware that she is the youngest of this group, relishing her role of "baby." She demands her pacifier at all hours of the day, despite the fact that at home she knows that her pacifier is only for sleeping. (It being spring break, I let myself off the hook for caving to her pacifier demands.)




The weather was too cold to hit the beach in the mornings, so Suzanne and I decided to brave the Galveston Schlitterbahn, with only one kid who really knows how to swim. We don't have any pictures of this event. (You wouldn't have gotten any pictures either if you had taken Sammy to Schlitterbahn. Trust me, it was a team effort to keep that fearless child from grabbing a tube and sprinting alone to the biggest waterslide in the whole park.) It was a great success. My kids were content to ride on the wavy river, pictured in this shot stolen from the Schlitterbahn website:
and play in this kids' area:

while Suzanne and her kids were up in the slides:
At one point Suzanne stayed with my kids in the kiddie pool so I could go ride a waterslide with her two daredevils. Two year old Sammy held my hand and led me up the steps to the top of the slide, "It's this way Aunt Sam! You can do it!"

We did make one rookie mistake during the trip: taking an hour long paddle boat ride around Galveston Bay. At 1 pm. I must take the blame for this idea; it was mine. Two captive toddlers on a huge, slow boat smack in the middle of naptime? Not. fun. But Suzanne did get a really cute picture of Amanda. And to this day, at dinner when I ask my kids to tell me their favorite part of their day, Elizabeth answers "I rode a Big Boat!" (Her sense of "today" isn't quite right yet.) So it wasn't a total bust.



It was a great little getaway, and I'm already looking forward to next year. (Don't worry, Suz, I won't suggest that paddle wheel boat ride again.)