First day of Kindergarten

This was Buster's first day of Kindergarten. He only had a short day of orientation, and Ben and I rode the bus with him. The bus driver is the same man who drove all through my years at Gananda, too. Peter and Nathan waved, wanting to get on and go to school with us. Buster does very well at school. He adjusted immediately to being at school for a full day, and he never complains about going. Every afternoon he bursts off the school bus, happy and excited. He is really such a good kid.

I've been having bad luck getting my photos to post right side up on Blogger. There are tons more that I want to publish but they all upload sideways. This one of Buster's first day of Kindergarten is the only one that uploads correctly. Sorry for the long delay in updating our blog. If I can figure out how to rotate the photos, I will post the rest of them so you can see what we've been doing since July.

Snakes

The boys had a lot of fun playing outside this summer. Here, Nate is enjoying the simplest of pleasures, and my filming him is interrupted by Pete's discovery of another snake. To our surprise - and Ben's disgust - Peter turned out to be a master snake hunter. On one warm afternoon in September, he caught over 30 snakes from the side yard of my mom's house and heaped them into his tote for viewing, feeding, and likely breeding. At one point, he thought they were getting hot in the sun so he poured a little water in the tote. When he saw a snake dive under the water and then resurface, he exclaimed, "Look! The snake knows how to baptize himself!"

After Buster got home from school that afternoon, he wanted in on all the slimy fun so Peter divided up the snakes. Here he is choosing a "wild" one for Buster.

Halloween

Happy Halloweeeeeen in rounds.

                                          
This is the second house where we went trick-or-treating. The first was a total disaster for Nathan. He saw a kid in a skeleton costume and got freaked out, so that is why at this house, he is ecstatic upon finding "no skel-tuns!!" Feeling much more comfortable, he takes liberally of the goodies. He was absolutely the cutest kid in a costume.

Sometimes the boys get bored of playing with their toys. So we try to be creative and often they end up inventing their own recipes for fun. Like...

going outside and sitting on Ben. Or...

customizing their undershirts. Or...

                                                            playing horsey. Or...

                                                                        
 trying to play "airplane" with Nathan. While holding onto Nate's hands, Buster is supposed to lift him off the floor with his feet. But this what happens every time without fail. Lastly...

Nathan goes off into his own world and makes these "vroom vrooming" sounds, which surprisingly seem to entertain him quite well. This is one of my favorites to watch because his lips really showcase his chipped front tooth, one of his cutest features.

Fore!!!!

Here are the big boys taking some hacks at the local driving range!  Buster had a few really good ones - 25-30 yards!  I still can't get him to uncross his hands though so...lots of work to do there.  He wanted to hit with my driver and hounded me the whole time we were there.

Peter will never be a golfer.  This was the second swing at this same ball and after he missed it completely he threw down the club with both hands and I swear it was like Happy Gilmore all over again - beware Bob Barker ("I hate that Bob Barker!").  He did hit a few despite his baseball follow-through and also managed, somehow, to hit the white wooden divider between our stall and the one to the left.  The loud "thud" turned every head on the range - the boys thought it was awesome!  Can't wait for our first 9 hole round.  A case study on replacing divots!

Peter savors.

Buckle up. This is a long video but it shows in reality how Peter eats. When he takes a bite, he chews, tastes, licks his lips, and then licks and licks and licks. His tongue meticulously searches for EVERY crumb on or around his mouth. He savors every morsel, no doubt tasting each individual ingredient in his bite. Here he is eating a cupcake - a whole one - which might take up to 45 minutes. He thought, as I was pointing the camera at him, that I was about to take a picture of him, when instead I was filming the whole time. That's why he keeps looking at the camera that way and asks near the end why I haven't taken the picture yet.

Can you see why we love Peter??

The future of British Auto

A guy called looking for a convertible top boot. So after looking through buildings 1,2, and 3, shelves of tonneaus, the barn, and 6 foot weeds, we finally located one in a beastin van. Go figure. We dug it out of the mouse nests and it needed a cleaning. Luckily for us, Nate volunteered. No fear, Voelckers family. The future of British Auto is here.

The next video is one I took after the one above. Nate saw me filming him and got embarrassed - it's like he didn't know what to do and he was trying to say "Now you see it...(clap)...now you don't!"

Christmas 2011

This post is a little late but we couldn't not publish these pictures. We had a fast but excellent Christmas. Christmas is at its very best with kids.



We know what you're thinking- Please Santa, let there be an AbMaster under the tree addressed to Nate....is that candy in his hand??








Here's Nate, upon finding a fruit snack
in his stocking.














Here's Buster fully embracing the speed and greatness of Gordon.















And finally, Pete. Looking dapper in his new jammies, although little matters to him except for his trusty blanket and his thumb.

Grandma, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins

The worst thing about leaving Nebraska was parting with Ben's family. The boys had become so very close with his mom and it was wonderful to see her on a regular basis. Nathan used to rush the door with arms wide open whenever he saw her coming up to it. She used to catch him up in her arms and say, "You do a lot of good for an old grandma!"

We miss you, Jill. It did a lot of good for us to be near you, too.




We grew close to Eric and Julia, as well, and fell in love with "Graham Graham", as the boys used to call him. He's the sweetest kid on the planet! Once when he was over playing at our house, he said to me "You so fun A-kuh!" Made my day. It would have been great to let these boys grow up together.























Here are the boys camping out for Friday movie night with more of their cousins. This was a favorite event and has now become a weekly highlight in our family.










How else could we get them to do this??

Buster loses his first tooth

Grant had a loose tooth for about a week and was really excited to have it come out. It started to get very loose at the end and he was begging to make it stay in. He didn't know what would happen or how life would ever keep going or if the Earth's rotation would somehow fall out of whack from the displacement of his tiny baby tooth. It was pretty emotional. Thankfully it fell out over night and he came down holding it in the morning with a smile almost as toothy as the day's before.

Loving living at Grandma Cathy's

All parents know that kids max out whatever space they are in and basically dominate. Buster, Peter, and Nathan have accomplished that with ease at Grandma Cathy's. It's plain to see, though, that they feel this is home. They remember when we spent the summer here just after we left Connecticut. Now the boys are happy exploring every inch of the yard here, building train tracks that link 3 rooms together, and taking turns at this favorite activity:



One thing missing, though - Grandma Cathy.
Don't worry, Mom, the kinds of toys that turn into these injury-inevitable games are slowly and mysteriously disappearing...

My dad.

My dad and I had a very special relationship. Someone special recently told me he and I were 'cut from the same cloth'. I miss you, dad. IWALY.

Why is 'pronunciation' such a long word?

Peter is in love with all things dinosaurs. He frequently bypasses food in favor of playing with his dino toys. Now he only 'reads' books about dinosaurs. He will make us read to him for hours and recite every detail about the dinos - from stats and measurements to appetites and teeth length. He has a pretty good memory so each time we go through a book he remembers quite a bit of the info.

One of our favorite dinos to read about is this guy:

Pachycephalosaurus - pak-ee-SEF-uh-lo-SAWR-us










Any trouble with the pronunciation just watch the video:

Stick with Pete - he won't lead you astray when it comes to 7 syllable dinosaur names.

Did we live in Nebraska...or was that a dream??

Upon returning to Nebraska last fall, Ben and I knew we were going to move back to New York. We hastily put a little "For Sale By Owner" sign in the front yard of the house we had bought merely 9 months ago-the one we were still moving into-and that same evening, a man showed up at our door and was our buyer. "Ahahaha!! Maybe it's someone to buy our house!!", Ben had laughed that night as I walked to the door, wondering who was ringing our doorbell. It was after then that we stopped laughing. I guess, in the words of Ben's brother, Eric, when it's time to go, it's time to go.





So much for long good-byes!








And so much for Rochester winters....

This is New Year's Eve, when we arrived. We were so lucky to travel without even a hint of winter weather. After three days on the road, a billion dollars in gas, and bellies full of unsatisfying snack food, we pulled in and found the feeling we had been missing: settled. Oddly enough.