Halloween 2010

Just needed to post that the boy was Superman for the third year in a row and yes, the costume still fit and may still fit next year. I'm just happy that he's willing to dress-up and go trick or treating.

So here's a little time line :-)







And you can't ignore Miss Cinderella!

Ballet Class

So I had to get these pics up for my family who aren't on facebook. This week Sadie's ballet class invited parents to sit in and watch the class. Of course, I was so excited to be able to be in the room instead of sneaking peeks through the tiny little window in the door and I made sure to bring my camera. I dream of one day being able to photograph Sadie dancing on toe maybe it's all those years of studying Degas and his ballerinas, maybe it's my envy for how graceful ballerinas are... I don't know but I'm holding on to that dream.

In the meantime, I thoroughly enjoyed snapping a few pics of my little 'rina

Happy 4th Birthday Sadie-girl!

Little girl growing up... Sadie is now 4 going on at least 14 or 15. It's frightening. Somehow this child has managed to have all the confidence, boldness and outgoing-ness that her daddy, brother and I have never had. What she lacks in knowledge, she makes up for with enthusiasm. That's our Sadie.

Over the past year, we've had some pretty big milestones. Sadie mastered the potty in just under a week (a huge relief after the battle of potty-training her brother). She got to go to her first birthday party (non-relative). She went ice skating for the first time and attended her first ballet class.

She also invented her first imaginary friend- the first of many... but more about that later.

Sadie is my little ball of energy and joy. Yep, I can't think to describe it any other way. First thing in the morning, she wakes up with a big smile on her face and asks "What are we going to do today, Mom?" Something as simple as getting clean clothes from the dryer, she gushes over "Oh, thank you Mommy for my clean pjs" and she takes them and dances into her bedroom to put them away. Every gift for birthdays or Christmas's or for no reason at all is accepted with such enthusiasm that you might be tempted to think that she's acting for someone but the feeling is real, even if it is given with a dramatic flare. She never fails to remind me that anything can be good or exciting if you just look at it from the right perspective.

Now, don't get me wrong, the princess is certainly capable of showing the world her less desirable moods. She can be one whiny-cranky mess when the world aligns against her. Even while trick or treating the other night... it was our first time in the new neighborhood. Everyone was out. It was cold and the princess didn't want her jacket to cover her beautiful Cinderella costume. (Yes, we're a bit of a diva at times) We made it out and over to the next door neighbor's. Then we hit the house after that. After the third house, we had to walk around the corner and down the next street a little ways. Little Cinderella starts dragging her feet, "but I waannna trick or treat" "well, Sadie, that's what we're doing" We could only figure that 1. she was cold and 2. the house here are much farther apart than in Oakland, requiring her little feet to do a lot more walking. She perked up after getting her jacket on but in the end, they only made it down one street before they were done for the night.

She also can hold her own with a tantrum but fortunately those don't happen very often and when they do, it's usually because she is just too exhausted.

Sadie is our social butterfly. She loves being the center of attention. Often we believe that the world is her stage and we're just the audience. This is a lot of fun (most of the time). You never know when she's going to start a song or a dance or talk with a weird accent and poses or take a dive. She continues to be our physical comedienne. In fact, as I'm typing this, she struts down the hall with a blanket on her head and in her most elegant voice asks "how do i look?"

Preschool started a couple months ago and she's in the class Caleb had last year. She goes 3 mornings a week and on Wednesdays, she gets to stay for lunch. And apparently, Sadie already is developing quite the entourage. She has a best friend, Samantha, and judging by pictures in the classroom, they are inseparable, well, until the teachers have to separate them for talking too much during circle time. Recently, there's also been a boy in the picture. Now, Sadie has always managed to get the boys to follow her around but in the past few weeks, we've been hearing about Nathan and how he likes to hold her hand. I was not expecting this and I'm still not sure what I think of this. I think Daddy is even more unsure. But at any rate, she is a friendly, out going girl and I'm thrilled to see her making friends.

In addition to preschool, Sadie started taking ballet lessons. She's been obsessed with it since we were first introduced to Angelina Ballerina and if you ask what she wants to be when she grows up, she'll tell you "a real ballerina one day" (a line from Angelina Ballerina). When Caleb started working with his TSS, we thought it might be good to give Sadie a special activity and so over the summer we tried out a 5 week class through The Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School. Needless to say, she loved it and surprising to us, she really learned things. She would "teach" us how to do curtsies and use phrases that we know she learned from class. After that success, we decided to sign her up for the year. So every Thursday morning, we scramble to get Caleb to preschool and get her to ballet and she's loving it. To top it all off, we're attending The Nutcracker Ballet for the first time this year and she absolutely can't wait to go.

Sadie is very smart but doesn't always use it for good, like her brother. She's learned manipulation and tries very hard to "cute" her way out of trouble, i.e. shrugging her shoulders and grinning when she's caught doing something wrong. I swear sometimes I think I'm living on a sitcom with the antics she comes up with.

Sadie has added more people to our family over this past year... Margot, Sal and Ziggy. Just look back at past posts and you can read all about them. In short, they're her friends from Mexico and they make frequent visits. She also has a Mexico Mom, a Mexico Grandma and a Mexico Grandpa. So far they've been harmless and quite entertaining. For example, her Mexico mom likes to eat ketchup on pancakes.

Sadie loves to play pretend and for a while, we never knew what name to call her. Some days she was Cinderella, some days, Clara, and my favorite, Spider-man Sadie. She's been really great with getting her brother to play along with her and that's one of the special things that we thank God for about her.

She also very much loves her books- almost as much as her big brother. She loves to sing and dance and dress-up and play soccer and ride bikes. She's my active child. We've noticed that she's the kind of kid that gets more spastic the more tired she gets. It's funny to watch but not always funny to put up with.

And surprisingly she manages to have this grace about her despite being a complete clutz. I really have trouble understanding it.

Sadie's our special girl and we've had so much fun with her this year and we look forward to watching her grow over the coming year.

Afternoon Funnies!

Overheard this afternoon with Caleb's TSS...

TSS- Can you say blow? (emphasizing the sounds)
Caleb- No. I just say Bwow


TSS- If you go to the movie theater, you buy...
Sadie- Popcorn!!

the cast of characters keeps growing...

So Mexico is quite a crowded place, at least in Sadie's Mexico... we'll set aside the fact that my daughter's imaginary world happens to be in the news constantly for drug violence. i swear, we rarely have the TV on in this house

Anyways, so recent additions to Mexico-

Sadie's Mexico Grandma. This one has been talked about off and on over the past few months. Apparently her Mexico Grandma and Grandpa teach her things- best i can tell is that they are Mexican dancing instructors because she's usually doing some kind of little dance after which she says "my Mexico Grandma taught me that" and adds a little hand on her hip, flip of the hair for effect.

Well, just a couple weeks ago, we learned Mexico Grandma's name. Sadie informed me that her name was Terri and that her friends call her Aunt Terri. i can't help but wonder if she's basing her Mexico grandma off of my Aunt Terri. it's given all the Mattocks a giggle.

The other addition is Dotty-

i learned about Dotty last night while driving out to Derry to visit family. Sadie informed me of her Mexico cat named Dotty. Dotty is pink and apparently has taught herself to talk. when i asked Sadie if she spoke Spanish or English, Sadie replied that she "talks like me" which meant English. then we got distracted trying to figure out how to say hug and cuddle in Spanish so i didn't get to hear any more about Dotty.

And expect a call Aunt Betsy and be prepared to know how to say cuddle and hug in Spanish. :-)

Saving the planet... or not

in the new house, we have multiple bathrooms. This was eagerly awaited by everyone in our family. From a mom's point of view, the idea of getting to use a bathroom when one needs to and in private is a glorious idea.

Now, the kids get to use their bathroom (at the top of the stairs) and the half bath (at the bottom of the stairs) and this has worked out pretty well. They're enjoying their new independence, being able to reach the light switch and the water for hand washing. There is one downside- they are quite happy to turn the light on but somehow forget to turn the light off. So after I hear a monkey use the bathroom, I immediately ask the 3 most important questions...

Did you flush?
Did you wash your hands?
Did you turn off the light?

And of course, the monkey always replies "no" to all 3.

Now, if I should miss hearing a trip to the bathroom and forget to ask the 3 questions, I later hear the other monkey (the informant) announce to the house that the bathroom light is on. The announcement is always made and the informant monkey continues on their way- not touching the light switch. I guess there has been too much emphasis on the discussion of lights being on and not enough emphasis on the fact that we don't want the bathroom lights left on!!!

Sorry Al Gore, we're trying.

Caleb turns 5!

Another September and another year older for the boy. I was feeling even more nostalgic about it this year. Since he missed the birthday cut-off for kindergarten, this will be his last year spending most of his time with me. I can't believe he's five! I look at his baby pictures and think, is that really him with those big serious eyes taking everything in and that quick smile and of course, how ticklish and quick to giggle. My baby boy is really not a baby any more. He's a full blown little boy complete with fascinations for matchbox cars, legos, dinosaurs and super heroes.

This year has been full of some huge changes and the boy has come through them with flying colors. Grammie M lost her battle with cancer last fall. It was devastating for our family but we were able to make some great memories in those last weeks. In the midst of losing Grammie, Caleb managed to master the potty. This was huge considering that we were spending lots of time driving to and from Latrobe/Derry without any real schedule. Part of me likes to think that God showed a little mercy on me by having Caleb finally get it. It made a horrible time just a tiny bit easier.

There were questions about Grammie and lots of talk of heaven and God. Caleb was my little sunshine through it all- quick to offer a hug and always surprising me with an unprompted "I wuv you, Mommy."

Preschool was another change for him- 3 mornings a week and with new teachers. This year he was able to read and once the teachers were able to print up a schedule for him, the transitions went more smoothly. It also helped that he had a couple of buddies in his class. Andrew and Brandon were visiting from Canada and spent the fall semester in class with Caleb and on many, many outside play-dates.

Caleb continues to love reading and we're up to beginning chapter books. Mercy Watson is still a favorite but we've expanded to The Magic Treehouse books and beginning Marvel comics. Caleb loves Captain America and Ironman but Superman and Spiderman are also pretty high up on his list.

While he excels at reading, he struggles with writing and because of that struggle (I think) he resists it more. His poor teachers had quite the fight to get him to participate in the morning art activity and we have a very incomplete alphabet book but he's trying little by little. I'm not going to ask more of him 'cause this is only preschool.

At preschool, he continues to love music and movement and story time. This year also brought classroom jobs. He seemed to really like passing out napkins and door holder is always a popular job. The jobs have carried over home a bit too. He loves to be given "jobs" to do. If asked to pick up toys, whining will begin but if I simply say "I have a job for you" there's no whining and the task usually gets completed.

Caleb is still our policeman but we've also seen him improve with playing too. He spent one afternoon pretending to be a conductor for a train and taking us all over the country. Sadie is pretty successful in getting him to go along with her adventures. We've even had some issues with Margot (Sadie's imaginary friend) playing with Caleb instead of Sadie. You never know what's going to come up this house. Most recently, there have been lots of battles with evildoers.

This spring we started getting Caleb services to deal with some of his Asperger's issues. Stephanie and Thao came to our house and began working with him in June. They worked on getting him through transitions and used to doing tasks that he doesn't really like. They were really good with him and helpful for us, figuring out how to navigate with Caleb's struggles. The move interrupted things for a bit but I still think the time was helpful. Now at the new house, we've just started with a new TSS and BSC and they're excited to work with Caleb.

Over the summer, we bought and built a new house. This was probably the best way that we could have handled moving. They broke ground at the end of April. We were able to come of out and check it out through all the stages of building. This seemed to really help Caleb get use to the idea of a new house. Once we discussed that there would be potties and that they're toys would be at the new house, they were very excited. We've been in the house for almost 2 months and Caleb has loved it. No tantrums, no sleepless nights, and we now have drive-way dump-truck luge for entertainment.

The little boy is growing up and surprising us with new things everyday. Happy Birthday Monkey-Man!



First time on a horse at Derry Ag Fair



Soccer Skills



The Big Blizzard- we finally got him to play outside with gloves and a hat



Getting Our Christmas Tree



Halloween '09