"Scared People and Bad Guys" A story by R.J. DeLancey

Today [Editors Note: June 29, 2012, not the day this is actually getting published half a year later], RJ decided that Logan and I needed a dinner-time story.  So he told us this gem.  I originally wrote this down by hand as he was telling it, and I did skip words here and there, but added them back in when I typed it.  It's not perfectly verbatim, but it's pretty close.  Enjoy!

Once upon a time, there was a scary house with bad guys in it.  One was named "Bad Guy Hooper".  Me and my friends were outside.  Me and Brooke were dressed like ghosts, Zach was dressed like a robot, Ashlan was dressed like a witch, and Madeline and Hayden were dressed like Zombies.  The bad guys just had two hands that did all the bad work. They grabbed Zach because he was dressed like a robot.  They took him into the house and put him in a locked closet with a girl named Lazona.  The closet locked from the outside, but Zach had a skinny robot arm that fit under the door, so he could unlock it.  Austin was there too.  Zach had Austin.  They got out, but the hand took them again.  One hand locks the door and the other takes them.  Then, Lazona took off her dress and threw it at the door to try and get out.  Then they got out because Zach had another skinny arm that the bad guys couldn't take off like the other one.  Then the hands took them back inside again.  Zach got out again with Austin and Lazona, but this time they ran out and ran away from them.  They were too fast for the bad guys this time.  The rest of us were talking to the bad guys because we were dressed like scary things.  Zach, Austin, and Lazona went to Zach's house.  Lazona didn't go to her house; she went to Zach's house and hid in his room.  They wondered where RJ, Ashlan, Brooke, Hayden, & Madeline were.  They were still talking to the bad guys, but then RJ said, "Excuse me Sir, we have to go scare someone", to trick the bad guys into letting them go.  Then they went to Zach's house and up to his room, took off their costumes and stuffed them into their pockets.  And all of them played together in Zach's room.

RJ's Lego Birthday Party

It might not be the most creative of themes for a 5 year old boy's birthday party, but RJ wanted a lego party this year.  It honestly was a lot easier than a lot of the other themes that we've had, but equally as fun!

I made lego playmat bags to hold the favors.  These served not only the purpose of carrying the lego-shaped chocolate, but also for carrying each kids lego creation that they could take home.  I bought a couple lots of random lego pieces on ebay and let the kids either fill their bag or make a creation and put it in the bag.  The bonus was that RJ got to keep whatever was left over from that activity in his own personal (growing) lego stash.

In addition to the make and take lego table, we also had a building station for legos that stayed in our house, and a little-kid duplo station (thanks to the awesome garage sale find of a giant moving box of duplos, including 4 Thomas & Friends trains, track, and other specialty pieces, for $30).  Kids and adults also had to guess how many legos fit in a mason jar to win mini-figures.  

I also tried to make the food lego-like.  We had lego ice (love that silicone lego mold!) in our lemonade, the cheese for the crackers was all cut up in tiny circles to look like lego brick tops, ants on a log, and for the main entree, I made mass quantities of my fruit/veggie puree waffles and Aidell's sausages, so we had strawberry waffles, chard waffles, pumpkin waffles, and blueberry waffles!  And RJ requested sushi, so we got the big sushi platter from costco (yeah, not the BEST sushi, but it worked for a party).   

And since I know you're all waiting to see the cake...

Making lego brick cake doesn't sound too complicated, but I of course had to make it somehow more complicated by messing around with the flavors and fillings and toppings.  We had three different flavors of cake - orange-lemon, blueberry, and strawberry, each with matching flavored fillings (which were a frosting base).  And because I wanted the frosting smooth and shiny, but I don't like the taste of fondant, I attempted to coat the entire cake in different colors of white chocolate.  For how basic it was, it wasn't my prettiest cake, but the flavors were delicious (yes, I'm modest I know - but I did get lots of compliments!).  And RJ loved that it was toppled lego bricks with a 5 build on top of one (the blue one - it sort of slid) and had a minifigure guy!  

We unfortunately didn't take a lot of pictures, since we were too busy having fun, but you can find some here.

The main thing was that RJ and his friends had a lot of fun!

RJ Graduates from Preschool

In May 2011, we enrolled RJ in preschool, so he could get used to being in a classroom environment with other kids again.  He had been in preschool full-time when I was working, but we wanted to get him into a part-time program so he could get ready for kindergarten.  As he will be attending Kindergarten starting in August, it was time for preschool to come to an end, and so he graduated at the end of June.

The teachers planned the ceremony for a Friday, which happened to be the Friday right before RJ's birthday party.  We were busy cleaning the house and baking for the party, and it wasn't a day that RJ was normally attending preschool, so we committed the cardinal sin of letting RJ watch some TV before leaving for the graduation (thus alleviating the issue of him making messes faster than I could clean them).  So of course he didn't want to leave our house and spend the entire graduation ceremony scowling and being grumpy.  Ahhh...memories.  

The ceremony itself was cute with them singing a song and then handing out diplomas.  RJ did seem to perk up once food was involved after the ceremony though, so we got a few pictures of him with his teachers (even though his nice button down shirt was already smeared with cupcake frosting at that point).  

RJ and Ms. Kristen

RJ and Ms. Sukhi

More pictures here.

RJ Turns 5!

As of June 19, 2012,

Physical Stats:
Height: 44inches
Weight: 39lbs
Teeth: 20 (still has all his baby teeth, none lost yet)
Sight: 20/20
Hearing: Normal
Sizes: 5-6, 5T
Sleep: ~9:30 - 7:30/8 (though I'd like him to go down earlier...)

Favorites
Favorite Food: Sushi, Corn on the Cob, Apples, Pears (really any kind of fruit), 

Favorite Dessert: Ice Cream, Cake, Brownies, Cookies, Gummy Bears, M&Ms,
Favorite Drink: Eggnog, Hot Chocolate, Chocolate Milk, Horchata
Dislikes: Cheese, Leafy Greens (with the exception of Spinach, which he LOVES), Spicy Food
Favorite Book: Cars (Level 1 Reader books), Harry Potter books
Favorite Video Game: Lego Harry Potter (he did just get it today), MotorStorm (he doesn't play, Daddy does and gives him the inactive controller - he's way too uncoordinated for that particular game), he also enjoys Beatles Rock Band and Glee Karaoke Revolution, but he didn't say so.

Favorite Toy: Lightning McQueen, Harry Potter Lego sets, Toothless the Dragon from "How to Train Your Dragon"
Favorite Color: Red
Favorite Outdoor Activity: Looking for Roly Polys
Favorite Indoor Activity: Play with Cars/Toothless/Harry Potter
Favorite Sport to Watch:  Football ("Go Steelers!")

Favorite Sport to Play: Soccer, Gymnastics
Possible Future Occupations: Race Car Driver
Favorite TV Shows/Movies: Car Toons (Mater's Tall Tales), Cars 2 ("even though you don't think it's good, I think it's the best on earth"), How to Train your Dragon
Favorite Number: 95

Favorite Letter(s): R, J (duh)

Favorite Song: Life is a Highway (Tom Cochrane - though RJ does mostly like the Rascall Flatts version from Cars...sigh), Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band), 

I would sit here and detail his development like I've done in the past, but really, all you need is a summary.  He's pretty much a normal five year old, but with outstanding verbal and comprehension skills; pretty typical gross motor skills (though he tends toward being lazy and doesn't want to work hard at new skills or walk far or work at pedaling his bike); and decent fine motor control (he can write and draw and color and use scissors and all that).  He might initially play shy, but he warms up really quickly to people and makes friends easily.  Emotionally, he's sensitive and gets scared and upset easily, but he's getting a lot better at controlling himself the more we work on it with him.  All in all, he's a wonderful kid and we enjoy him being his normal inquisitive self!

On his actual birthday this year, Lance took a day off and spent the morning in RJ's preschool room talking to the kids about DreamWorks Animation.  We took Logan to our friend's daycare for the day and picked RJ up early from preschool to go to Funworks, which had GoKarts, Miniature Golf, and a Game Room as well as some other fun stuff.  RJ was particularly excited about the GoKarts!







After picking up Logan, RJ of course requested a sushi dinner.  And since it was his birthday, sushi came complete with an ice cream-filled pastry fish!

Happy Birthday to RJ!!!

RJ & Logan go to Dinosaur Story Time

You might remember from Halloween 2011, that RJ and Logan were dinosaurs.  When one of the local library branches hosted a Dinosaur Story time, they, along with their friend Ashlan (for whom we had made a dinosaur costume for her birthday), decided that they needed to be dinosaurs again.

More pictures here.

DeLancey's Go to the Sunol Wildflower Festival

When I noticed that Lance had put the Sunol Wildflower Festival on our calendar as a possible weekend activity, I was at first skeptical.  Wildflowers are pretty, sure, but as a family activity?  Would the boys really be happy looking at a bunch of wildflowers.  A quick look at their website showed me that guided hikes (some specifically for children) were available, which could potentially be a lot of fun, so we decided to check it out.

We took too long at lunch on the way there and missed both of the hikes I had selected as good for the kids, but we continued on anyway since we could always hike ourselves if we wanted (we had been to the Sunol Regional wilderness before after all).

It was a pleasant surprise, but the festival activities were SO good (and SO free) that we never even got on a trail.

Each kid got a "passport" that they would get stamped when they finished an activity and when they collected 8 (out of 12) stamps, they could claim their prize (a button with a wildflower depicted).  The activities kicked ass.

They learned about animals living in the watershed and each got to color a wooden animal (RJ picked a steelhead trout and Logan picked a salamander).  They learned about bees and other insects (and collected a plastic bee and plastic moth as swag) and made coffee filter butterflies.

RJ got his face painted (a bee) and both boys got temporary tattoos (RJ got a bee and I think Logan's is a dolphin or something).



Then, the sweetest thing happened...RJ and I were walking around the bee house building tent and one of the boy scouts running the activity (the smallest one I might add - they were probably 8-12 year olds if I were to guess) approached RJ and asked him if he wanted his help in building a bee house to take home.  This boy was a natural teacher - he gathered up the materials and led RJ through making his bee house.  He didn't do it for him, and he didn't just tell him what to do - he brilliantly did the activity WITH RJ, letting RJ do what he could on his own, and helping him when he needed it.  I made sure to tell this child that he was a really good teacher and that we really appreciated his help.  And now we have a bee house to hang outside.


RJ also learned about the parts of a flower at another tent, drew flowers at another, made paper out of cotton and wildflowers, and swindled me into making him an elderwood flute while he stole the awls and dug in the mud with them.  That flute is a pain in the ass to make.  My only complain about the whole festival was that to hollow out the stick sufficiently takes a LONG time.  RJ lost interest way before we had even hollowed out all the way through and it still needs "about an hour or so more hollowing" to make any sounds.  It would've been better if they had pre-drilled some of the sticks (we were doing it with hand files and screwdrivers), so that we could've left with a working instrument - but still, it's pretty cool they were doing this activity at all since I'm pretty sure this was the first time RJ held a hand saw and he managed not to saw anyone's fingers off.

While RJ was busy at the flute station, Logan found the "mud cup" station (yep - chocolate pudding + cookie crumbs + gummy worms) and spent the rest of the day with chocolate all over his face.  RJ and I got some too when we were done, but this was clearly the highlight for Logan, who, at 2 wasn't super engaged in many of the activities, which were understandably geared toward older kids.  He spent a lot of time running around in the field and relaxing with Lance by the band (yes, they had live music there too!).


We were so impressed with the incredible activities for kids, especially considering that they were all free and there was no admission other than the park's normal $5 parking fee!  We did make a small donation because it was such a quality event.

RJ & Logan Join the Circus

I missed out on the Madagascar 3 opening day celebration at DreamWorks, back in June, since I was recovering from a D &C the day before, but the DeLancey boys seemed to have a blast, as evidenced by the pictures.

Logan Eats Little Lunch and Lots of Treats = Logan goes insane

Real Circus Performers

:

When you're a little sleepy and a little loopy, it's a little trippy when your family comes home wearing these wigs.

More pictures are HERE.  

DeLanceys Roam with Dinosaurs

On June 1, we found out that baby #3 didn't have a heartbeat and we were a.) dealing with the shock and b.) trying to decide whether or not I should go ahead with a D&C or wait it out since I hadn't miscarried yet (Lance was going out of town in a week, so we ultimately decided to do the surgery so I wouldn't have to deal with the kids and miscarrying all while Lance was gone, but that's not really the point of this post), so we didn't really think about making any plans for what we were going to do on June 2, after we got to see the latest DreamWorks movie; Madagascar 3 (you should see it if you haven't already!!).  Granted, we could've planned something earlier than the day before, but well...we didn't.

Anyway, since the movie brought us to the glorious bay area, we figured that we should stay for the day, even without plans.  So we ended up driving around a bunch after lunch, heading toward Half Moon Bay, ending up driving along Skyline Blvd. for some pretty views.  We got out when we found a trail head, but quickly turned around when we realized that we were on a different trail than the easy one we thought we were on (it was not well labeled, and apparently there were two parking lots; the easier trail starting at the OTHER parking lot).  After that, we continued heading toward Half Moon Bay and when we randomly saw the giant metal dinosaurs outside the Spanish Town Market, we had found another destination.

Of course there were the metal dinosaurs.

It looks ginormous next to RJ!

Mom, I don't think that's a good idea.

But I don't WANT to leave the giant metal dinosaurs.

 I totally want one of these for my front yard.  The super large ones do not appear to be for sale, but a smaller one could be bought for $2598.00.  Anyone???

They even had a metal Beyonce Chicken, which is really only notable/funny if you read THIS.

We eventually made our way randomly down Route 1 and then back to the highway and I think we had dinner somewhere before heading home, but the lawn full of giant metal dinosaurs was the highlight of our day (after the movie that Lance's company made, of course.).

More pictures are here.

RJ Plays Soccer

I have joked since Logan was born that RJ would be my soccer player and Logan would be my hockey player.  The city of Tracy offers inexpensive sessions of soccer (between 6 & 8 weeks per session) for preschoolers (and school-agers since that's what he'll be soon), so we thought we could let RJ give soccer a go in addition to his steady diet of gymnastics.  He's actually quite the natural and has decent control of the ball for a little kid and was the fastest one in his session (which makes sense because he's on the older end of  the age spectrum, but I didn't want him to be discouraged when trying the sport for the first time, so I went with the younger group that he was eligible for).

His soccer practices are really well run, where the coach has fun games for them to play to practice discreet skills, and most practices end in a short and friendly scrimmage.  I was really impressed and RJ enjoyed himself this month too!  

These pictures are living proof that I'm now a "soccer mom".

I think Logan will be starting soccer too next spring when he's old enough for the 3-4 year old session!

More soccer pictures from this month are here.

  

RJ & Logan Host Co-op

We've been enjoying co-op for nearly 2 years now, starting when there were only the three big kids (RJ, Ashlan, & Zach) participating and Logan only hanging out when we hosted.  Co-op started like this, circa July/August 2010:

Now there are six kids, with Natalie and Austin starting to join in the festivities too.   These pictures are from one of our recent co-op hosting duties. We made sidewalk paint and played in the sprinkler!  It's hard to believe how much co-op has changed in the past two years and how it will be changing soon, as the big kids move on to Kindergarten and Pre-K.  

More co-op pictures are here.

May 2012 in Pictures

It's May!  The Sprinkler Parks are turned on!

We managed to take a trip to the zoo...and caught the elephant trying to climb the fence!

Seems that RJ does have my climbing genes!

Who says you can't take a picture of the eclipse?
(I did it  facing away from the eclipse, shooting with my phone
over my shoulder.  Regardless of the warnings that taking a
picture of the sun would irrevocably damage my camera, it did not hurt my
phone's camera in the slightest AND I have a kick ass picture.
So there.  May 20, 2012

Oh, don't worry, we viewed it the safe way too, using the homemade pinhole viewer.

Logan and Ethan continue to be best buds!

RJ is still enjoying soccer and even asked to sign up for the next session!
 (I'm signing him up for the Kindergarten group this time).
More Soccer pictures from May are here.

More pictures from May are HERE.