It's official ...

Timmy is transitioning stages. I say this because yesterday, when I was cleaning out my office and re-arranging it a bit, I found a bunch of pre-school, K, 1st grade workbooks. Reading stuff, math, matching games, etc. Anyway, I brought them down at lunch, and after lunch, Timmy sat for somewhere around 2 hours and just did stuff in the workbook. Of course, that's totally his personality. He can do things* for hours at a time and not get bored. However, this is certainly something he has never done before.

*Other things he has done like this before: cars, super heroes, soccer, computer games, movies.

The other thing he's totally into at this point is dinosaurs. He's got a couple of books about them that he likes to read, and he's starting to memorize some of their names. The other day I was reading him a dinosaur book and as we passed certain of the dinosaurs, he'd say, "I have that one" (referring to the 5 or 6 dinosaur action figures he has). So we'd have to check out the underside of the dinosaur action figure (where the names are imprinted) to verify if indeed that was the same dinosaur. More often than not, he was correct.

So there you have it ... the next stage of Timothy David DeVries.

In other family news, we all took a trip to Target last night to get some slippers for Timmy and gloves and boots for Emma. The trip was a success, and confirmed for me that Emma and Timmy are cut from the same cloth ... they both love shopping and trying on stuff ... cloth which does not come from either Cyndie or I!

Following our shopping trip we stopped at Emma's school for an upper elementary play that one of the neighbor girls was in. It was cute, and the friend, Olivia, stole the show.

Feels like Wednesday

For some reason, today totally felt like Wednesday when I got up. Perhaps that's just wishful thinking!

Not a whole lot to report on today. It's sunny and it looks like most of the snow we got will probably be melting today. Timmy and Emma are both at school this morning, so Cyndie worked some on some graphic design business she has. She's doing a logo and letterhead for a friend who is starting a business, and also doing some branding type stuff (logo, letterhead, poster, mailers) for a Covenant Harbor related ministry. The best news is that both jobs are paying jobs!

So that's about it around these parts!

A Few Pix ...

Here's a few random pictures from the last week for your viewing pleasure ...

Here's Emma and Grandma and Grandpa D at the Pilgrim Feast.
Emma and Tim all blanketed up while watching the movie at the library last week.

Timmy swimming during Emma's swim lesson ...

Here's Emma this morning building her snowman on the deck at 7 am.

Odds and Ends

A few random thoughts regarding the weekend:

• Emma (and Cyndie) had a great time at the girl scout Sup and Sing on Friday night. Emma can home with a patch and singing all the different songs that she learned. I think girl scouts (actually Emma's age group is Daisies) will be right down Emma's lane. She loves the acheivement that goes along with earning patches, so I think she'll really excel. Cyndie and another mom from Emma's class are trying to round up enough girls from Emma's class at Woods to start a troop. So we'll see.
• I split quite a bit of wood over the weekend ... and I was pretty sore! I think I'm getting old. Mostly my hands hurt and my lower back is pretty sore. I think I'll wait a couple of days before I attack the "to be split" pile again.
• More fall yard cleanup was accomplished on Saturday. I think we're pretty much ready for snow, which is good considering the whiteness which is blanketing us this morning!
• We're all excited for a short week of school and work this week. Auntie Jane arrives on Wednesday late. Her arrival will officially mark the start of the holiday season.
• We had a fun time on Friday and Saturday spending an hour or two each day over at the art show for our art class. It was fun to talk to different people about both the paintings, and life in general.
  

White Monday

As foretold by the weather.com forecast yesterday, we woke up this morning to about an inch of snow on the ground. When I went into Emma's room at about 6:50 and opened up her curtains to show her, she was VERY excited. She promptly went downstairs, got all her snow stuff on*, and went outside and made a snowman, complete with carrot for a nose, all by herself.

*I should take a moment here to compliment Emma. When I went into her room, she had already made her bed, cleaned up half her room, and was halfway through getting dressed. That's progress for her. We're really working hard on keeping their rooms clean. And by that I mean Emma and Timmy keeping their own rooms clean.

The snow looks to be pretty wet, and I think it will get warm enough over the next couple of days where it will melt fairly quickly. However, it was still fun to get. The first real snow of the year!

How much wood would a wood chuck chuck?

So Dad and I have spent much of the morning and afternoon (with a trip to the class art show and a bit of work thrown in in around that) cutting down dead trees around the yard. So far we've managed to get down almost all of the trees that need cutting, with the only damage to the little yellow slide on the Dragon's Lair (and a near miss of a tree on Dad's head, but we won't go there). Perhaps the better quote would have been something about a beaver, but a wood chuck will have to do.

Tonight Emma and Cyndie are heading out for a girl scout event (I think they put it on to try to recruit new girls) and so Timmy and I invited Grandma and Grandpa D over to help us eat the extra pork chops. *

*We may have also invited them because rumor has it that there was a freshly baked apple pie over at the senior DeVries house that needed eating.

Total Cuteness

So I had to take a break and share a cool/cute little scene that happened this morning. Emma is almost always the first one up in the morning* (of the two kids). Today she comes down stairs while Cyndie and I are working out and finds a basket of books. Anyway, I didn't really notice what she was doing until I came up from the basement and was starting to put together her lunch and breakfast, etc. There she was, sitting there reading to herself for like 20 minutes or so. Totally cute, and exciting that she's into the reading thing. I can easily see her becoming an avid reader. She loves the stories, plus she's developed a nice bond with the kids librarian at the LG library who is always suggesting fun new stories for her.

*Note to self and spouse. Perhaps we should think about making Emma's bedtime a little later to see if that equals out the rise times of the kids.

Pilgrim Feast

So the whole fam just got back from the Woods School Pilgrim Feast. Every year, the week before Thanksgiving, Woods School puts on a Pilgrim Feast for the students and their families. It was pretty fun, and a nice way to build community. Grandpa and Grandma D came with us. We met up with Emma and her class and were seated and served by the junior highers. It was a full Thanksgiving meal with turkeys, ham, and all the fixings. Cyndie cooked two turkeys (getting up at 4:30 am to do so) and some rolls. Emma and her classmates had made/decorated place mats and indian style ponchos. All in all, a fun time.

This afternoon will be a bit crazy with Emma's swim class, a bit of help setting up for the art show, dinner at McDonalds (Emma's free compliments of a McDonalds reading program), Cyndie and the kids to the library for An American Tale, and me back home for worship practice. Phew!

Oh, and since I know you're all dying to hear how the Ham Fighters fared during last night's bowling league, we took 3 out of a possible 7 points from the defending league champions. Not too bad. I had my best night yet including my all time high of 164. Go Neal, go Neal!

Random Pix ...

Alrighty -- here are some random pix from the last several weeks. We'll start with when Papa Lee was here. We did a little Christmas early ... here's Tim with the Hulk he received from Papa.

Emma got a doll and a doll outfit. I'm not sure what the deal is with pictures that I rotated, but again they aren't showing properly.

There's Emma, Papa, and Ruby Robyn, Emma's new doll.
Cyndie painted a painting of Half Dome in Yosemite for Lee since they went there a lot together.
Emma happy about something ... probably the thought of opening presents!

Here's Tim and Emma working on some plans.

Papa and Tim.

This is when Emma brought Papa to school as show and tell.

He told the class about all the big trucks he works with.

Here's the game Emma made for us to play last night. It probably needs a little explaining. The orange part is the game board. You move by closing your eyes and pointing on the white piece of paper with a pen or your finger. There are numbers 1 - 10+. If you hit 1 - 4, you move that far. If you hit 5 or more there's a little line marking that you don't get to go ... because you got too greedy! The board "squares" have labels ... W is for water, if you land there, you go in the water (the blue paper) ... M is for mud, you go in the black paper and lose a turn ... T (I'm not sure what T stands for) means you write (copy) a word on the white piece of paper. It was really creative and original, and actually pretty fun to play!


Here's Timmy's preschool class. His friend Lukas is the third from the left in the front and friend Joseph is fourth from the right in the back. I hear a lot about Ben too, but I don't know which one he is!

Okay, here are some pictures from the weekend away. Here's Rico, Eric, and I playing Blokus.
Emma and her friend Jasmine (Rico and Julie's older daughter).

Here's the gang dressed up for the murder mystery.

Here's Cyndie and I as Rocco and Tara.

Art Pix

Here's the latest paintings that Cyndie and I finished today ... just in time for the coming art show.

This one is Cyndie's Christmas themed painting ... I'm calling it "Winter Door" for now ... she'll have to add her own title later!
This is mine ... we'll call it "Shared Malt"

Here's Timmy hanging out with me while I paint!

Nuggets from today

A few blurbs on what's happening around the DeVries household lately ...

• Cyndie and I are working on our final paintings for our art class ... hoping to finish them in time for the Friday/Saturday art show. I'm working on a painting of Emma and Timmy and Cyndie is working on a Christmas card-esque painting.
• We have swim class, Timmy this morning and Emma tomorrow afternoon.
• The kids were all excited this morning when their new box of Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheats had a free blanket offer. Upon finding out that we needed eight "tokens" (one per box) Emma promptly asked Cyndie to go buy seven more boxes (good math Ems).
• Dad was over yesterday working on cutting some more dead trees down. There's a lot still to go, so we'll see how far we get before the snow comes. Cyndie's planning on burning some more scrap wood (small branches) today.
• Timmy's thrilling discovery today ... the sweats that he put on this morning have zippers that turn them into shorts. Now he wants to wear them to school tomorrow for show and tell!
• Big events for the evening ... Bible study for Cyndie and bowling for me.
  

Back

So here we are, back from our weekend away and abruptly into the swing of a pretty busy week.

We had a really good time with Andersons and Fords at our weekend away. The area, Galena, IL, is very pretty. Lots of hills and woods interspersed with the farms. The town itself reminded us of Eureka Springs, AR, built into a little valley and very quaint. Aside from a trip to a park on Saturday, we mostly just hung out. The kids were a good mix of ages to play well together and largely allowed the adults to hang out, play games (board games, ping pong, darts), play guitar, and relax. The murder mystery was pretty fun. It turns out that Rico "done it" ... although he accidentally killed the victim ... accidentally because he was trying to kill me!! Oh the horrors!

Anyway, we left Monday morning first thing and got back in time for Cyndie to do her lunch recess duty at school. Then we went and had our last (for the fall session) art class. This weekend is the big art show, so we'll help with that.

So that's the story!

Running out the door

We should have a pretty short day today. By that I mean I'll work this morning and Cyndie will straighten up the house a bit and get some things packed, and then we'll hit the road around noon to head out to our long weekend/vacation. We've very excited. Initially we were planning on leaving in the evening because there was a church event that we wanted to support occurring over dinner tonight. However, that event was canceled, so now we're headed out earlier, which is great because it will give the kids a chance to settle before bed time, and we'll have a normal bedtime hour too.

The big excitement for the weekend will be the Saturday evening murder mystery that we're going to do. It's an Italian/mafia-esque theme. Here's the summary and Cyndie and I's characters:

Passion, Pasta and Pistols

Four days ago restauranteur Giuseppe (Pepi) Roni was found murdered in the kitchen of his renowned New York City eatery, La Sperenza. Pepi had been shot in the back with his own pistol. Tonight, his family and friends have gathered to pay their respects to poor Pepi and two eat a feast of Italian food in his honor. One of them is a murderer.

THE SUSPECTS ARE:

Rocco Scarfazzi (Neal): Pepi's twin brother, a tough talking no-nonsense Italian businessman. In addition to his vineyards and real estate holdings, it is rumored Rocco is in the 'laundering' business. He had no love for his brother Pepi, but his reasons are his own… capische?

Costume suggestion: black three-piece suit, white shirt and black hat and cane. Limousine optional.

Tara Misu (Cyndie): Kara is Rocco's vivacious young fiancée. She was just an upstairs maid in Rocco's villa until she swept him off his feet. Now Tara keeps a smile on his face and a firm grip on Rocco's assets.

Costume suggestion: Kara is dressed to kill. She knows the effect she has on men and flaunts her charms shamelessly.

There are four other characters too. We'll let you know if either of us "done it" when we return.

Bragging!!

So we had our parent/teacher conference for Emma last night and came away feeling very proud of our little girl. Her teacher, Mrs. Hintz, had only good things to say about Emma, and on all levels. She tried hard and does well in all subjects, socially, in PE, art, music, etc. Said she was a leader of the class and has a really good attitude. One thing that we were especially proud of was when Mrs. Hintz said that Emma was especially kind and helpful with Tiana. Tiana is an autistic girl in the class. We've had other parents tell us that Mrs. Hintz doesn't mince words ... she'll tell it like it is, so we figure we got a pretty good image of Emma in school.

So there's your Friday morning bragging from a proud parent!

Recovery

Though Cyndie is not 100% recovered (we'll put the number at 95%), it is amazing what a day of sleeping and not chasing kids will do for you. Big thanks to Mom and Dad for helping out on the kid front to let Cyndie get that much needed rest.

The kids went to Grandma and Grandpa's for an "R" party yesterday. They wore red, ate food that started with "R" (roast, red jello with raspberries), played "R" games, drew pictures of "R" things, and basically had a "R"ockin good time.

Cyndie slept much of the day, and still went to bed by 8:30. She's feeling pretty much better today.

I had bowling last night. We had our new bowling team shirts (go Ham Fighters go!), and it was also the first night for my new bowling shoes. It was a fun night. As there are only 7 teams in the league, we ended up playing the "vacant team" meaning we were playing against the league average. We all played pretty well, so ended up sweeping the points, yeah! It must have been the styling new shirts!

Today is pretty busy ... I'm going in to the office for a couple of meetings. Cyndie is going to a place called Agape House for a tour. It's a home for women that have had troubles in life. She's going with some friends to drop off some clothes and to give them the money they raised during the garage sale thing she hosted a few weeks ago. Emma has a half day of school, then we have parent teacher conference tonight.

Ready, set, go!

Feeling like Three Week Old Leftovers ... not great

So today is a blah day for the DeVries. Cyndie is not feeling very well. She started feeling bad late afternoon yesterday, but had the "Christmas Extravaganza" last night that she needed to go to, so was pretty pooped and not feeling well by the time she got home around 10 pm. This morning she's been asleep since about 7:30 (it's now 10:20). Hopefully she'll feel better after a day of rest today so that we can all go on our weekend outing with Eric and Cherith and Rico and Julie this weekend.

Timmy just left with Grandpa to hang out at their house for a while so that I can get some uninterrupted work done ... thanks Mom andDad!

After all the rain yesterday it's quite a bit warmer today. It's currently in the mid 40s, so maybe we'll even reach 50 if the sun comes out.

Tuesday Transition

It's Tuesday and that means that the fun weekend visit with Lee is drawing to and end. We've mostly just hung out and relaxed, but we've had a really nice visit, so we're bummed that he's leaving. If there's a bright spot, it's that maybe he'll take a bit of the cold weather with him!

He flies out in the late afternoon, so Cyndie and Timmy will drop him off at the airport, and then Cyndie will head over to her Christmas Extravaganza thing she's doing through MOPS. She's doing a booth for her company and she's also selling some purses that are made by ladies from a women's shelter in Thailand which is run by some missionaries affiliated with our church.

Thinking about it, it will be a busy week for us, especially in the evenings. Cyndie has that thing tonight. Tomorrow night she has Bible study and then after that I have bowling. Then Thursday night we have a parent/teacher conference for Emma and then she has her Thursday evening women's group. Then Friday we have a young families thing for church and then we're going to drive down to Galena, IL to spend the weekend with some friends from church at their family vacation home. It'll be busy, but fun too I think.

On the weather front, we've definitely turned for the colder. The highs are now in the high 30s and maybe low 40s. This morning there was a heavy frost on the ground.

One very good thing to report is that Timmy slept through the night last night. We put him to bed at about 6:30 and he didn't get up until 7:15 or so. He needed a good night's sleep!

Weekend Recap

So here it is, another Monday, and late afternoon Monday on top of that. I guess that means it's time to drop a quick "weekend in the life" post.

It was a pretty laid back weekend. We've very much enjoyed having Lee here and just kind of hanging out and enjoying eachother's company. On Friday night we watched a couple of episodes from season one of Deadliest Catch, about commercial fishing in Alaska. I think Cyndie is hooked! Saturday we had a big breakfast, then headed over to Home Depot for the craft there. I watched a bit of the Liverpool game around lunch time while Cyndie, Lee, and the kids ran some errands. For dinner, we went over to Mom and Dad's so that they could spend some time with Lee and catch up on the happenings in Lake Arrowhead.

Sunday was church, then afterward we had the guys/families from the Ham Fighters bowling team over for brunch. That was fun to hang out and it's especially nice because Emma and Timmy play so well with Anja and Lukas, two Ham Fighter kids! The rest of the day was pretty kick back, which gets us back to Monday.

Lee was Emma's show and tell at school today. He brought some pictures of his equipment and talked a bit about what he does with his company. He expressed his newfound appreciation for lower elementary teachers upon his return! Emma was excited for that though.

Cyndie's been a bit pooped lately as Timmy has been getting up quite a bit during the night. Hopefully that will stop, and soon. I'm not sure if it's because he has a bit of a cold (inherited from his formerly coughing sister).

So that's the story, have a great week everyone.

Friday Happenings

Not a whole lot to report on this end of the family and friends spectrum. The weather has been very nice through yesterday (though yesterday was pretty rainy). Today starts what should be the official decline in temperatures marking the decent to winter. Over the weekend it's supposed to be in the low 40s during the day and the low 30s at night, with mixed snow and rain. Oh how joyous!

Lee made it to town yesterday afternoon, and we've been enjoying hanging out with him. We have now big plans, just hope to relax and enjoy his company.

Emma and Timmy have been enjoying playing outside a lot the last week or so. Many of the bushes and weeds/undergrowth that make it very difficult to walk about in the woods have died off, so they've been spending a lot of time out there. They continue to like to play soccer (especially Timmy), and play baseball.

Cyndie started her new Bible study (that she's leading) on Wednesday night and enjoyed that. Then she hustled home and I headed out for my bowling league. We lost, but I had a fun time.

Emma's been enjoying painting a lot lately. My mom spent some time with her a week or so ago doing some watercolor, and I helped Emma work on a painting a couple of nights ago. She's just very inquisitive about a lot of things, and so when she sees us doing something (like painting), she wants to try it out and experience it herself. It's pretty fun to see her exploring things like that. Emma is also doing a great job with reading. She really is progressing quickly, and she's surprised me several times in the last week or so by being able to read words that I would have guessed she'd have no clue about.

On the Timmy front, his imaginary friend Jack (the mouse) has recently re-appeared after having been out of "sight" and mind for several months. Tim is doing a good job learning his letters. One of his favorite "games" is to push all the keys for letters on the computer, while reciting which letter is which.

So there you have it ... a little look into the current day to day life of the Wildwood DeVries.

Halloween and others

Here's some pix from lately ... I'm not sure what the deal is with Blogger today, but it's taking all my images that I've "fixed" (rotated correctly) on my computer and unrotated them. So you get to look sideways.

Mom wanted to go in the jacuzzi before it got too cold, so they came over one afternoon.

Here's the DeVries/Caspari mob trick-or-treating at their first stop at Dave and Amy's neighbors. They got a really good haul in the Caspari neighborhood.

Then, of course, the kids had to sample and peruse their candy ...

Here's a cute one of the girls sitting together watching a show the next morning.
Emma with "proof" (the voting sticker) that she went to vote with us.

Behind

I guess I'm behind on posting ... well, I'm not going to catch up today!

The big activity today was voting ... Emma was very interested, so we picked her up at school and brought her along so that she could see the American way! After that, Cyndie and Timmy had a picnic in a local nature preserve with Grandpa and Grandma D.

Big news on the visitor front. Papa Lee is coming to visit on Thursday, and will be here through Tuesday (if I got the dates right). The kids are excited (and we are too)!!