napa & kids

napa

So this past weekend we ventured up to Napa with some good friends & it was quite lovely.  And no we didn’t bring the kids along (I’ll get to them in just a little bit).  And yes that’s two weekends in a row that we’ve been away sans children.  Poor planning on my part but done accidentally.  I didn’t even realize until Matt pointed it our a few weeks back.  So anyway, here we are at Cakebread Cellars where we started our Saturday journey.  Not too shabby.  I have to say all in all we were very responsible & we didn’t get crazy.  Very unusual with this crew.  We ended the weekend on Sunday with spa treatments at Silverado where we stayed.  I could have spent aaaaaaaall day there.  Sonoma Mission Inn is still my favorite spa but this is also perfectly relaxing & restful.  One of the many great things about wine country is all the eye candy around you at all times.  So here’s some of the stuff I captured.

Here’s a giant sunflower in the gardens at Cakebread.  It’s one of the owner’s garden and it was beautiful and i’m sure she has plenty of help maintaining it.  Here are some of the sunflowers out to dry.

Cakebread was also doing some cross marketing with a local art gallery (I forget the name) but here is one of the pieces they had at the cellar.  I love stuff like this.  It’s just FUN!

And considering we were there during {crush} it didn’t seem very crowded, but we also stayed away from all the big commercial wineries so that probably helped.

And this is where we got a little bit silly.  That’s Wendy’s “run- bear!” face and of course Matt doesn’t need any coaching on this kind of stuff.

I can never play along ‘cuz I’m too busy laughing….

And I’m also convinced that Mr. bear is a direct ancestor of Mocha.  Wouldn’t you agree?

And although I fully enjoyed both weekends away I do have to say it was hard to be away from the kiddos two weekends in a row.  I can’t believe I’m saying that & I’ll remind myself at 4:45pm when I am wondering if it’s too early to have a glass a wine as I’m tired of the other kind of whine.  Anyway, it made me feel a bit disconnected from the kids & I don’t like the feeling.  We missed 2 of Sebi’s basketball games, which apparently he’s playing fabulously in.  We missed a birthday party Lexi attended and another party Sebi attended.  It’s nice to take some time alone with Matt and do some adult things, but these kids are little for such a short time and then they’ll be busy doing adult things of their own.  I really try to live consciously and enjoy life for what it is today ‘cuz these kids amaze me & make me proud all the time.

lexi

Lexi is truly surprising me how she has fully engaged in the academics of Kindergarten.  I know that the social aspect of it would be right up her alley, but she’s embracing the knowledge part of it full on.  Her Kindergarten class has a pet named Chappy and each child gets to take him home overnight.  We had Chappy stay over a week ago and part of the process is to write about your adventures with Chappy.  I’m thinking to myself, “yeah right, this is work for me ‘cuz there’s no way that Lexi can write anything”.  Well bite your tongue cynical mother.  I looked through the binder and saw that about half the kids wrote their own & the other half the parents did.  So then I’m thinking well….but not totally confident.  So Lexi takes Chappy on a play date adventure & as soon as she gets home she gets the binder ready to do homework.  Mind you Lexi has been ready to do homework for 2 years now since Sebi started doing homework.  Her kinder class hasn’t started homework yet at this point so she took this on big time!

In her eyes it was her first homework assignment.  She got her letter chart & with some help about what some letters were she wrote her own story!  It never even crossed her mind that I would do any writing.  This was all about Lexi.  Go girl!  Chappy sat by her side as she did the work diligently.

I’m so flipping proud of her and the work she produced!

And Lexi’s day finally came yesterday.  She came home with her first homework packet & she couldn’t get to it fast enough.  We have a standing play date on Wednesday so Lexi & I went to pick up her friend Emily at her old preschool and she held on to that homework packet the whole way, proudly showed her old teachers and as soon as she got home sat down at the kitchen table to work.  Her little friend drew for a little while but then became interested in Lexi’s work.  I was worried this might be a distracting work environment until I made copies of the worksheets for Emily & both girls worked on their own together.  The girls whipped through all the worksheets & I giggled when I read the notes from the teacher.  It talked about how there’s about a sheet per night and this should not take more than 5 minutes per night and that homework shouldn’t become a stuggle, etc. etc.  well Lexi polished it off in one sitting.  The only problem?  She’s going to want more homework tonite as Sebi works on his own so I’m gonna have to create some lesson plans for Lexi.  This is a good problem to have.  Love it and love this little girl!

sebi

Sebastian had his first field trip last week to the Jelly Belly factory.  I was a parent chaperone and I’ve always heard this is a great trip/tour.  It did not disappoint.  Candy factory, do I need to say more?

But my favorite part of the day was when Sebastian just came up to me in the middle of the trip with all other 2nd graders around and just gave me a big hug for no reason.  He loves that I’m involved.  He loves when I help out in his classroom.  He loves to have me around.  I cherish this right now, ‘cuz I know that’s probably not always going to be the case, but with Sebastian I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the kind of teenager that seeks his mother’s advice.  Time will tell and for now I just enjoy his sensitivity.  When I told him I was leaving when the kids were safely back in the classroom, he asked me to wait and ran over to give me a hug goodbye.

I love this boy with all his craziness and little boy energy and silly mouth sometimes, but it all makes him who he is & he’s a fabulous individual.  We had our parent teacher conference w/ Mrs. Donovan yesterday and she couldn’t say enough nice things about Sebastian.  She started by saying “I love this little boy”.  Seriously what else could we ask for?  Yes, there’s reading and writing and math and respect and all that great stuff that we send our kids to school for but if the teacher loves him, it’s ‘cuz all those other things are aligned properly.  This is what I took away from the meeting.  Sebastian is a funny boy with a fabulous disposition who everybody loves and is always happy.  Although i’m paraphrasing these are her words.  And I know this as his mother, but it’s wonderful to hear from the only other person who spends the most time with him right now besides us.  He makes me proud…. A LOT.

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