STAR OF THE WEEK!!! - Friday

Drew's last day of Star of the Week was Friday. We brought in a cookie cake with a train on it of course and David was able to be there. Drew was wearing his crown that David and I made him back at the beginning of the school year for this special occasion. The first thing Drew told me was that his crown had a train on it - do we know our little boy or what?

The kids sang "happy birthday" and gave him 5 hip-hip-hoorays. He also chose to wear his new train shirt one of his friends gave him for the day. Finally, Drew was the silliest I've seen him when he blew out the candle on this cookie cake taking the deepest, longest, most dramatic breath all while smiling - the apple does not fall far from the tree, that's for sure!!!

STAR OF THE WEEK!!! - Thursday

Thursday was Drew's Dance Party. I made a party CD (Thanks Laura for some of these songs!) to give out to each kid in the class after we danced to all of the songs. I have to say the Chicken Dance was hilarious and the kids were cracking up doing it. The locomotion and limbo were hits as well. All in all, the kids had a lot of fun dancing around the room and Drew loved showing the kids what to do in each dance.
I always thought every kid likes music and likes to dance because both of mine do. But some of the kids stand there not knowing what to do - like they had never heard music or danced before. But that was only about 2 out of the 20 - the rest were twirling around and grooving like crazy.

Drew doing the limbo - he had proper form!

Drew was the head of the train during the locomotion song.

Way fun! - notice all the kids were wearing blue which is Drew's favorite color and his request for his dance party. The kids loved showing him their blue shirts - even the teachers participated as well as Dilan and I - we were all in blue! :)

STAR OF THE WEEK!!! - Wednesday

Today for Drew's star of the week we made Fruit Loop Necklaces. These were definitely a hit! Drew had fun making his but most of all eating it. I'm not sure if the whole experience was what brought out his excitement or the sugar high as a result afterwards. But all in all, it was great to see each kid make their necklaces and tie them on and see them eating them. Dilan and I stayed for an hour to work with everyone and make sure they all had their turn. Dilan played with two little boys who must be itching for a little sister because they adore her every time we are there and really take good care of her. They taught her how to doodle today. :)

(And Adam, I got another picture of Little Sam Bradford - he really does look like him!)

STAR OF THE WEEK!!! - Tuesday

Drew had a Thomas the train day for his star of the week today. We brought his Thomas tent for his classmates to play in (they loved it!) and Dilan and I came to read three of Drew's favorite Thomas stories to the class. At the end of the school day, Drew passed out a train whistle to each classmate with their name on it. It was so much fun!!! Drew even wore a Thomas shirt to top it all off. As I was reading, he held the book up for the class and he even shared more information about Thomas than what we were reading. I love seeing him talk and share about what he loves in front of his friends at school.

The picture below is of him and about 7 other kids in his Thomas tent and the one below that is of him collecting name cards of all the kids in the class - an honor the star of the week gets!

STAR OF THE WEEK!!! - Monday

Drew is the star of the week at school right now. He has been waiting and waiting since January to have his turn and it's finally here. He shared his poster yesterday with all of his class and then answered questions from his classmates. It was so cute to see him standing in front of his class and answer questions about himself. He was brave, not nervous and did a fantastic job. When a girl asked him what his favorite fish was, he simply said, "I don't know." He didn't mind that he didn't have an answer and didn't make one up and I was proud of him. He talked about how he has his own room and it's decorated with Thomas the train stuff, his favorite restaurant is the "train restaurant" or La Estacion (Mexican restaurant here in an old train station where you can eat in old train cars), he likes planes, and he told his class that he got a new bike but sometimes he is scared to go down big hills. Drew also shared Thomas stickers with his classmates as well.

As you can see, he and I worked on his poster together. Drew colored it and I helped with getting pictures where we could fit them into his answers (such as wanting to grow up and be a daddy who works on computers).

Drew's new bike - Thanks, PawDee!

Drew needed a new bike - last year he just wasn't ready for a big-boy bike. This year he definitely was. PawDee (Kinsey's dad) said he wanted Drew to pick out whichever bike he wanted and he would get it for his 5th birthday. So, with David in town, we went to the big Walmart (20 minute drive away) and Drew picked out this awesome Spiderman bike. He liked the Spiderman because one of his friends from school has a Spiderman bike but not like this one. Drew said this one was more BLUE which is his favorite color right now.

Our goal is to take the training wheels off at the end of the summer so we'll see! Thanks again, PawDee, we spent all day riding it! And no worries, Drew did wear a helmet after these pictures were taken. And yes, he went down the driveway at the very beginning, panicked and ate it. A little scrapped knee and he was back on the bike riding and learning all about how to ride!

Drew's new chair - thank you, MawMille!

Drew asked for a new chair for his birthday this year. His birthday is next month but with his "star of the week" celebration at school this coming week, and Daddy coming home early to be there for one day of it, we decided to schedule his birthday party this Friday as well so we can just have one big week of celebrating! We also figured it would be best to celebrate his birthday now because we are unsure of where we will be on Drew's actual birthday in June.

So, with that said, Drew told me this chair was on his birthday list - he picked out the blue (which is his favorite color now) and he loves that his name is on it. MawMille (Kinsey's mom) sent it early for him and he was so excited! He got a smaller one of these when he was 1 but Dilan has pretty much taken it over now. Then, she tried to take this one over too. When Drew sat in it, she wanted to sit there too and she wanted to sit there alone - as you can see, she is literally trying to push him out of his chair in the next picture. When Drew finally let her sit in it by herself, she was a happy girl! Oh, poor Drew, he is already getting pushed around by his little sister.

Dilan is not happy Drew won't get out of the chair and he is just cracking up, it was so funny!

ahh, my turn to sit in this chair all by myself!

15 months

Dilan is 15 mths old now and had her check-up this week. She is in the 90th %tile for height and 75th %tile for her weight. She is a healthy girl and growing strong. I did ask about her eczema and skin issues - the doctor is going to prescribe something stronger for us to use on her. Her face is clearing up a bit (it got really bad in Houston when we were there) but she still seems miserable by it all.

At one point, the doctor said that having asthma, allergies and eczema was a trifecta (all of which David has) - luckily Dilan seems to have only the eczema and the allergies at this point. Although I don't know what the allergies are, the doctor said we could get her tested but at this age, you have to test often because the allergies can change frequently.

Dilan's first word was, "Up!" You can go to my facebook page and watch a video of it there. She really isn't saying much else. She is imitating sounds but not enough to know what she is saying. The doctor wants 6 words in the next three months so Dilan has some work to do! :)

Muffins with Mom

Last week I was able to go to Muffins with Mom at Drew's 4K school. It was so great. He was beyond excited and thrilled Dilan and I were there. Drew sang some songs and we ate our muffins together. Such precious time spent with one another and it's amazing he remembers these events and talks about them later. Drew even noticed the boy sitting next to me who was so sad because his mother was not there - the boy didn't touch his muffin and sat with his arms crossed and a sad look on his face the whole time. It broke my heart. I am so fortunate to be able to stay at home so I can attend everything my kids have going on. I am so thankful I have this opportunity and even more that I love being at home with my kids.

Below is a picture of Drew and I at the table and Dilan in another mother's lap on the right:

My mother day's gift from Drew:

Gift Shop afterwards

Picture of the gift shop where all these cabinets actually came down onto the floor. You could see where they hit the other side (scrapes and damage to the cabinets on the other side) and the carpet was already ripped out because there were over 500 bottles of liquor on these shelves. After David took this picture, the guy told him he couldn't take any pictures. Give me a break!

Our Titanic Moment

If you are on facebook, then you already know about this, if not, then maybe you read it here at CNN because it actually made the national news. Maybe you didn't know that we were on the ship that had quite a scare the last day but if you are going on a cruise any time soon (Henry's!), you may want to stop reading this now. I think I need to document this experience but I have been putting it off because there is a fine line between telling my story and retraumatizing myself.

Some of you have asked, so here it goes...

Again, the first four days of our vacation were wonderful - no one in our family even got sick, the weather was fantastic, and the last day (Tuesday) was a relaxing day at sea. We got up early that morning and got the best chairs on the adult only deck, had a great morning riding the big slide, playing mini-golf, reading, etc. We went to eat lunch in the dining area (Keely and Lars stayed behind on the deck) and it was right when we were finished that the ship took a sharp turn.

I was sitting down across from my brother and we both looked at each other when the boat started turning. My first thought was, "why are we turning like this in nothing but open seas?" We were like "whoa!," but then there was a moment when the ship started shaking violently and the boat was leaning too far to one side. My brother and I looked at each other and we knew something was wrong.

We all stood up holding on to the table and looked to the other side of the ship and could see the water. We were fortunate to be closer to the side that was turning upwards. The Titanic Moment was when the plates started crashing (over 3000 broke and shattered) - you could just hear them over and over falling everywhere. It was really scary. People started shouting to go to the side of the boat that was tipping upwards so maybe the weight of the people could balance the ship out. Children started crying clinging to their parents and the panic set in.

David was so calm and went into survival mode... he got behind me and we went to the top of the side of the ship that was up in the air. When we got to a secure place to hold on, I asked David, "Are we going to be okay?" David said, "I don't know." That scared me even more because I knew if he didn't know we were going to be okay, we were in trouble. He steered me away from the crowds and told me to not go near the big groups of people.
At that moment, I looked out into the water and thought to myself, "we could die today." I was not scared of dying as much as I was scared to leave my children without their parents. I thought of Drew and Dilan and I went into survival mode then. I remembered the Titanic where people got into the water and froze because of the freezing waters. I knew we wouldn't die of hypothermia because the waters were not that cold. So, I knew we needed to get into the water at some point and my next thought was that we needed life vests. I wasn't sure how we were going to get those but I knew we had to get into that water when the time came.

It did not feel like the ship was sinking but it felt like the ship was going to capsize, like we were going to turn over. We just waited it out there and thankfully, the ship started balancing itself out.

After we were okay, Keely and Lars found us coming out of the dining room as they were coming to find us. The experience on the deck was very scary for them as well because all of the water in the pool and all the spas came out and started sloshing around the deck. It made it look like the water from the ocean was coming up on the deck because it was leaning so far to one side. Luckily, we had chosen the side of the deck that was going up in the air and not towards the water and Keely and Lars were able to hold on and ride it out.

After it was over, we were all shaken up and literally our hands were shaking and then the tears came as a result of the fear we has just experienced. It was traumatizing and luckily it only went on for several minutes because people would have started jumping if it went on any longer. I was so thankful to be okay and the rest of the day, people could not stop talking about it. We saw people wearing their life vests after that. 60 people were injured, 3 people had to be taken to the hospital when we docked the next morning.

So, the object in the water was a buoy that got detached from where it was supposed to be floating. Maritime law says that if there is something in the water and you don't know what it is, you have to avoid it. The radar did not pick it up on screen so they saw it at the last minute and swerved to miss it. We talked to some of the crew on the ship who had been working cruises for a decade and never had they experienced anything like this before and most likely won't again.

The problem for me was that the rest of the day when the ship leaned or experienced a wave, we grabbed on tightly and waited to see if it was going to be another scare. We didn't sleep well that night, David literally woke up at 5am with his palms all sweaty and we kept looking out our window to see if we had docked yet. I just wanted to get home to my kids.

The Pistorius family won't be cruising again most likely. I know that seems extreme but it is more about going on another ship and having that feeling of danger at any slight wave or anything that makes the ship lean to one side at all. I don't think I'll sign up for a vacation that could bring me back to the moment I thought my life was in danger.

Anyway, it was only one experience on our vacation and not one that defines it - we really did have a great time and looking at all of our pictures and video make me really appreciate the time with our family and with one another. I just think next time we'll fly to a resort and stay there! :)