Better late than never! Hailey learned to tie her shoes a few weeks ago. So I'm three for three. Taught all three of my kiddos how to tie their shoes.
Hailey was a little more challenging than the other two since she grew frustrated more easily and didn't really want to practice. Hence, why she was 5 when she mastered it and not 4 (like the other two).
Those last borns do everything on their own time frames!
But here she is tying a perfect loop. Now, onto the double knot!
Easter 2019 started out with church at 7:30am followed by an Easter egg hung around the yard complete with a clue to find their Easter baskets. (Note: The Easter Bunny has to start making the clues/hiding places a lot harder since Peyton was up early hunting for her Easter Basket.)
After devouring the details of their Easter Baskets, we went for a walk to Starbucks (the only thing open in town) and then off to Grandma Lou's famous Easter Egg Hunt where this year it was every kid for himself! Hailey came in third and scored herself a Mastercard gift card. (Grandma gives some good prizes!)
After the hunt, the kids were rewarded with another round of Easter Baskets filled with more candy, books, beach towels and outfits. They stuffed themselves with brunch food and then more candy and then they had the whole rest of the sunny afternoon to enjoy. Austen had about 4 hours of homework to do (on a holiday weekend? What? Book report. Math test) and Peyton enjoyed riding her bike. Tom prepped the deck to be repainted. Hailey played and I caught up on laundry while helping Austen with his book report and presentation. Another Easter in the books.
These were my words this past week to Hailey when she came downstairs one afternoon while the older two were at school and she showed me what she had done with Peyton's camera.
Now, this isn't just any digital camera where you can delete pictures that you take. It's an old school Polaroid type where you have to buy the film and it takes your pictures and prints them with cute borders.
Peyton got this camera for her birthday and has been quite stingy with the film electing not even to share a snap or two with her friends. So you can imagine how mad she was going to be when she got home and found out that Hailey snapped four pictures of her stuffed animals in different poses with her camera and film!
So I told her she'd better hide them real good and never tell her! After she stopped crying because she realized the seriousness of what she had done, she hid them in her room underneath her Octonauts playset. "Not a good spot," I told her. "You'd better find a better one!" She thought this over carefully and then decided to put them just under her bed. Now, that could be a good spot if you've ever seen underneath Hailey's bed as it's hard to find stuff under there but Peyton does play with Hailey (when she's being nice) and they take stuff out from under the bed so I had her move them into a little lunch box with a latch that was underneath her bed. (I really would have thrown them in the garbage but Hailey wanted to keep them! Something to look at and only take out when Peyton isn't home.)
So now we wait until the day when Peyton finds them. Hopefully it's years from now and she doesn't give a hoot about that camera anymore. But just in case, I'm deleting the evidence from my phone. But before I do, here's an example of Hailey's photography skills:
Recently I found out at dinner with Peyton's best friend's mom that the girls were sent to the principal's office...like four months ago! Peyton's best friend finally told her mom recently and she shared this news with me.
Now despite my brothers thinking I was a goody two shoes throughout my school years, I too was sent to the principal's office in the 7th grade. I remember it was in one of my least favorite classes - Industrial Arts (aka shop class) and we were bored. So we thought it would be fun to keep a piece of wood (aka a project) away from a boy. We were throwing it around the table and low and behold, our teacher came over and was very mad. I got sent down to the principal's office with my friend. Since it was a first offense, I don't recall getting in that much trouble and I don't even really remember what the principal said but I do remember that moment when I was told to go to the principal's office. And for a kid who never got in trouble at school, it was terrifying.
So the next morning when I saw Peyton I casually asked her about the principal's office. Wide eyed that I found out (I told her moms always have a way of finding out), she told me that she had been spying with a few friends on two other friends in the garden at school and the lunch supervisor blew a gasket and sent them to the principal's office. The principal was puzzled as to why they were sent there for spying (according to Peyton this lunch supervisor is just really mean). But then again, I'm not sure I believe all of her story either. I mean really...the principal's office for spying. But this is the kicker, she didn't tell me because it was right before Xmas and she was afraid she wouldn't get any presents for Xmas and I would cancel her birthday party! Smart girl. She would've taken that secret to her grave!
A great week was had by our family of five in Barbados in Merlin Bay - just north of Holetown. This year we chose to rent a villa which was the perfect location that afforded us unparalleled views, private pool, public pool and a beautiful beach. Even though the small complex had 8 villas, only three of them were occupied during our time there giving us a pretty much private space for Spring Break 2019.
Barbados was a bit of a longer flight for our kids than they had experienced before as there was no direct flight to Barbados from Chicago but they weathered the 8 hours in the air pretty well although Hailey did comment, "When are we going to get there? I don't like two flights." Yeah, well get used to it kid, now that you're older and can handle more than a non stop flight, we may be doing it more!
When we arrived, we were greeted with some VIP service through customs (thanks to our villa rental not because of my camouflage pants that you are not allowed to wear anywhere in Barbados as camo is reserved for the police). Once we got through customs and I changed my pants (to avoid a hefty fine), we embarked on securing our rental car and navigating (in the dark) through the not very well lit, labeled or large streets of Barbados. That's in addition to the fact that they drive on the other side of the road and the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car so kudos to Tom for handling all of that!
Austen and Me Jet Ski
The week started off well with some jet skiing - Austen wasn't so sure he wanted to go but a little prodding to get him out of his comfort zone had him agreeing if we went slow. He was glad he did too and begged the rest of the week for more of it.
Just Chillin' on the Catamaran
The next day was by far my favorite, we rented a small catamaran and set sail up and down the west coast of Barbados where we snorkeled with giant sea turtles. Amazing! I wish we had pictures of that! Peyton did great her first time snorkeling and Hailey wore the mask and took big breaths as she navigated around with a noodle in the middle of the crystal blue waters. We then ventured on over to a coral reef where we swam among thousands of fish before returning to our villa.
We took a road trip the next day to some pretty tourist spots like Bathsheba. I'd say it was pretty difficult to find given none of the roads were labeled that well but we found it! Thursday we embarked on a cave tour of Harrison's cave which was pretty cool - literally (as it was nice to get out of the hot Barbadian sun).
We swam, we rested, we read and we ate. Oceanfront dining was common place and we had reservations every night for dinner at some pretty cool restaurants with remarkable views.
It was a great vacay (even though Peyton drove me nuts for most of the trip)! And like any vacation, I'm always planning the next one on my current vacation so Spring Break 2020 - the kids want to go to Hawaii. I'm not one for going to the same place twice so maybe St. Lucia. Let's see who has the better flight deals!
