Tag: Marceline

Sledding

meisajDaily Life

Yesterday afternoon was a whirlwind.

Edith had preschool until 3:30, then after party til 4 -after party is basically her and a few friends sharing snacks and running around after class is done.

Get home. Throw girls into snow pants, boots, hats, gloves, jackets and back out the door to go sledding.  It is something we haven’t done before, but wanted to.

We have snow, but the temperature has been so low (low teens to single digits or less) that we haven’t done it yet this year. 

Yesterday though it hovered near 30 degrees.  So I wanted them to have that experience, especially since today it is supposed to get near 40, melting much of what is on the ground.

But Marceline has Robotics club at 6. 

Thankfully everything is within ten minutes of our home. 

Preschool to home – 6 minutes or less. 

Sledding Hill – 12 minutes due to construction.

McDonald’s – 6 minutes from the sledding hill.

McDonald’s to home – 10 minutes.

Home to robotics club – 7 minutes.

Somehow we got in 30+ minutes of sledding. The girls went from timid to over the top joy in one ride down the hill.  We could’ve stayed for hours.  No one else was there, just us.  It was a perfect sledding experience.

The McDonald’s we stopped at got us through their drive thru line in under 5 minutes.  Crazy fast for after 5 pm. Bonus is that they got some cool little toys in their Happy Meals, they actually remind me of the toys we used to get from Happy Meals when I was a child. 

Anyways, made it back home with 15 minutes to scarf down our food before rushing back out the door torobotics club.

Despite my thoughts on how the robotics club is run and the lack of any sort of structure or instruction to the club, Marceline has had a blast playing around with the motors, remotes, and knock off technic pieces.

Without any real guidance she built a small windmill last week, and a remote control car last night. And she gets to keep all that even after the club is done so she can keep building on her own.

It falls over a lot due to being top heavy.  But it works and she was zipping it all over the room. She was so proud (I was too).

Felt like cramming a lot into 2 hours in the afternoon. But the girls had a blast.

And I’ll readily admit,I had a blast too. The girls happily screaming running up and sledding down the hill is one of those moments that makes me just feel lucky to be a dad.

Harry Potter

meisajDaily Life

A few weeks ago Sam and Marceline reAd Harry Potter together and we watched the first movie. 

Last week Marceline started the first Harry Potter novel on her own as a reread.  She finished it two nights and immediately jumped into the second. 

I forget how fun reading can be sometimes, or how much fun it is when you are young.  I get up early most mornings and try to spend 30 minutes or so reading with my first coffee to start my day. 

It’s not a chore… But almost routine now.  I enjoy it… A lot .. but it’s definitely not the same joy that Marceline is displaying.

That’s kind of funny

Driveways

meisajDaily Life

Marceline was having a rough morning.  Just sleepy and didn’t have a lot of energy to get going this morning.

It was hard just getting her out the door, and despite being awake an hour before we had to get the out the door she was still eating breakfast while walking to the bus stop.

So I made a game of our walk to the bus stop where we would try to set one step onto every driveway on the way, and try to be secret about it.

We snickered and laughed while we zigzagged sneaking back and forth across the street to step on everyone’s driveways on the way to the bus.

I’m sure it looked ridiculous, but totally worked to cheer her up and get her emotionally ready for the bus and school.

Small things like that make me really glad I’m a parent.  Just things I’d never experience if we didn’t have kids.

Summer Ramp Up

meisajDaily Life

At the start of the year I set a few goals for myself.

A) I wouldn’t buy myself candy
B) I would do 100 push ups a day
C) I would 15 minutes a day on my kindle
D) I would try to run 50 miles a month

I’ve kept all of them – to one degree or another.

I haven’t bought myself candy, explicitly bought myself candy. I did buy Sam a bag of peanut butter hearts around Valentine’s Day when she was having a few tough days knowing that I would eat some. Same around Easter – buying her or the kids Easter candy knowing I get to eat some. But as far as picking myself up candy as a snack, or while out shopping, or just for myself – I haven’t done it. So totally counts.

I have done 100 push ups a day, every day except one, last week. I did 250 the next day to make up for it.

I have read 15 minutes on my kindle daily. It tracks that, so not really a way around it. And I’ve been enjoying it.

In February I ran 47 miles. It was a shorter month. But that’s close enough to count and I picked it up in March with 85 miles. I’m trying to be most lenient with this one. I run around my family. So getting up early to run or running at night. And when I don’t get at least 6 hours of sleep for one reason or another I refuse to run, and rather prioritize sleep.

And there are days like today where I come out to the living to get my running clothes on before heading out the door and Marceline is just laying on the couch with a big smile on her face. Of course I’m going to sit with her instead of running. She is too cute not to.