Winter Solstice

This was one of those things that we talked about more than we actually celebrated. I think in the future I'd like to get one or two small traditions started for the solstice but it didn't happen this year. One of the things I kept struggling with is that it is a pagan holiday, and while the traditions they have are beautiful, it just didn't fit our family. So social media was kind of a bust when it came for ideas.

The more I thought about it, I decided that the coolest thing about it is the night is so long. Most things seem to focus on the fact it is the shortest day, but I like the night, so I wanted to emphasize that more. The moon's influence is seen in my opinion the most at the beach. The tides are something you can physically see and lets face it, we are up for any trip to the beach. Lucky for me, the weather was 47 degrees and no wind. Not too bad at all. So we piled in our car two hours before sunset and went to beach.

It was lovely. It always is, but I love the beach in the off season. I love watching Madeleine at the beach now that she isn't terrified of waves. She can basically run as far as she wants and we don't worry about losing site of her. That leads to one happy tired kid, and lets her explore as much as her little heart wants.

There is so much to explore too since there are less people and trash. Finding this clam still with the animal with it was pretty cool. We have a book about sea life that Madeleine likes flipping through so seeing on in person was neat. We felt how much heavier it was and we could even see the clam sticking out a bit. 

Eventually, we watched the sunset and then we read our solstice books on the stairs down to the beach.

They were both pretty good. The Shortest Day was more in line with the general Earth unit we are doing, but they were both good.

This one was pretty short and simple, but since we are learning about the moon and its phases and the Earth's rotation, it's something we talked about more than anything else. We've been also transition into reading about snow and Winter instead of Fall. 

End of Summer and 36"

One of my most favorite things about New Jersey is that the weather changes almost exactly with the seasons. It makes me excited for the change and we know when it's coming. With summer coming to the end, Matt wanted to celebrate with going to the boardwalk. 

We headed to the little aquarium first. It's pretty small but it's so perfect for a toddler. It's mostly full of rescue animals.

The sharks scared Madeleine a bit but then she saw the penguins. Oh she was SO excited, she screamed penguins and ran across the room. The run across the room reminded me of a sappy romance film. She was so in love.

After a while we were able to pry her away from the penguins to see the seals. One of the seals is completely blind. 

After about an hour we finally left, and headed to the actual boardwalk.

We walked over to the rides, and unlike last year, Madeleine was excited to ride. We were excited to find out she was over three feet tall so we didn't have to ride with her. 

Our little airplane obsessed girl was thrilled to see a pink helicopter. All of the rides seem to have the themes of "pink" or "transportation."

The last ride she went on was the "biking" ride. She was so nervous. haha. But after a few times around she noticed that several of the other kids were picking their hands up above the bike. She put on her brave face and tried a few times. The lady next to me told me that it was one of the best brave faces that she'd seen. ;)

I love my little three foot tall girl. She's grown up so much this year, and I couldn't be prouder of her.

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial day weekend was pretty awesome. Matt is finishing up his project right now so he has a lot more flexibility than usual since he is writing. We took full advantage of this. :)

Saturday we went on the beach like usual. It was perfect weather and their was a boardwalk festival that morning. We came early enough to get parking (yes!) and we also bought our season passes.  

It turned out too that there was a small parade an hour after we showed up. Madeleine was excited. There were "blue cars" (police cars) and candy. 

There were no real floats. Just different people in cars throwing out candy and different bands playing music. I loved the bagpipes and this band.

You might not be able to tell from the photo, but these guys had sequins all over their jackets. They looked fabulous.

Sunday we watched movies all day, and Monday was full of parties. The highlight was Madeleine seeing a real frog for the first time. She really wasn't sure what to make of it. At first she called it a bug, and then she growled at it before deciding that maybe it was a frog.

Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day again. This Mother's Day was pretty low key. We went to church and then the beach. It's the first time this year, and I'm so excited for the weekends to come. We didn't get in the water this time. Between Matt's surgery and Madeleine's fear of the water, we didn't see much point of getting our swimsuits. The sand was wonderful though, and Madeleine was thrilled to discover shells. She was so excited. She loaded up her little truck we bought with shell and drive it in the sand. It was buried a few times on accident when a sand tunnel collapsed, but Madeleine would run and grab her little blue shovel and dig it out again.

The beach was pretty empty and the clouds were moody. They were so thick and gray and the sky just faded into the ocean. We couldn't see and of the boats or airplanes but Madeleine kept looking for them whenever she heard them.

We left after a while and came home to a broken fridge and no food. We ended up eating ice cream and going to bed, which I guess is a pretty anticlimactic ending to the day. :)

PS. Blogger won't publish my responses to comments on old post. I'm going to try again in a few days, but sorry if I didn't get back to you! I appreciated all the advice about daycare.