The Teenage Years

Today was crazy hair day at camp. Hopefully this will be the worst of what I see as a mom in 10 years. Shout out to Colleen our neighbor for having gold hair spray!! Woo Hoo!

I really tried my best!

Tonight Jordan's elementary school, The Gregory School, had a social function at the ice skating rink. Now, for those of you who don't know me, I'm not the best on wheels, much less blades for that matter. Learned to bike ride at 21. Yes, you read that right. Roller skated when I was a kid by hanging onto other kids. Ice skated once at 20 where I fell on the rink and was brought into the ER so they could drain my knees of fluid. I'm just not the best on balancing of any sort. Running marathons? Climbing? Flying through the air on a zipline unthinkable heights? I'm your girl. Balancing? Not so much.

I had thrown the idea of ice skating at William a week ago. He was like SURE no problem-I'll do it. But once he got his legs into the skates, he was like NO WAY AM I GOING THROUGH WITH THIS! I looked at Jordy who was like HELP ME MOMMY-DON'T LET ME OUT ON THE RINK ALONE! So me being the guilty mom, thought I'd give it one more shot on the rink.

So, Jordan, I really did try my BEST tonight as I hung to the side of the rink like a scared two year old. And I know I was of no help to you at all. But, thanks to my dear friends Mark and Adria who fearlessly brought him around and made him feel like sort-of-a-typical kid :)

Legos and Maps of Playdoh

If you've been wondering why I haven't been able to blog lately, well, I suppose part of my excuse would be because I can't quite make it out of my room without becoming entangled in some sort of a Lego sculpture. That's right folks, I've been taken over. Jordan has made some pretty amazing pieces all in all.

This is after a week when we had, as Jordan described it to me, the United States, made out of playdoh, in the center of our kitchen table. For those of you who know me well I am definitely bordering on OCD and the fact that we had to eat dinner around this map of playdoh with coins, buttons and parcheesi pieces sticking out of it nearly drove me off the edge. It sat there for 12 meals, yes 4 days until we encouraged Jordan to remove it. Which he did. Hallelujah.

On the Justin side, he's started eating cereal and, most recently, carrots. Here is a pretty funny video of Zayda being a human chair for Justin while I fed him carrots. Enjoy!

Bubbee & the boys

Trains and playdates

We had a good week and weekend over here at the Amaya home. 

First off, I don't know how it happened, but Jordan graduated pre-school at the JCC last Thursday. My how the time does fly. They had a nice ceremony for all the parents and siblings and the kids sang onstage with their classes. Jordan's head kept popping up to see us because he happened to be on the left hand side of the stage and we were on the right side of the audience and it was tough to see him. Yes, in this picture Jordan SHOULD be singing, but instead he's being silly and I think he was talking to someone in the midst of a song. The drawing he is holding is of our home and family. I think i'm the one with the green legs :)

Here's a few photos from the ceremony and in Jordan's class afterwards (I think Justin was getting a little mad towards the end):

Due to inclement weather, our weekend was kind of touch and go really just running errands and such on Saturday. William took some nice shots of the boys while I was out which I thought were adorable. Justin looks like he's trying to figure out how he can get a bottle of milk without waiting for feeding time.

On Sunday we went to awesome Verona Park, which besides the fact that nothing else is near us, Verona Park happens to be an 8 minute run from our house (that would be me running sans children and strollers). It's a beautiful park, loaded with hills, lots of grassy areas, paddle boats, and even a place where you can get yummy food. So we headed over there on sunday to see our friends Danielle and Mike and their daughter Anna who is 2 months older than Justin. She was ALL OVER Justin. I asked her what her intentions were with my son. I just got some sort of drool answer. Way to get flirty on the playdate Anna :)-

Enjoy!

The Footsies

In typical Amaya fashion, I’m FINALLY starting a blog when my eldest son, Jordan, is 5 years old and my newborn (not so, anymore), Justin, is 4 months today. If it makes it any better, I really have been thinking about it for about 3 years now. It’s just taken me a while to pull it altogether.  

The boys and I had a lovely weekend in West Orange and were lucky enough to visit the local pool in our complex. You can see here how excited they really were to hit the waters! Justin even got lucky enough to be coddled by a bunch of local grandparents while I took Jordan in the water. He seemed quite content, and honestly, I was fearful that they wouldn’t give him back! Oh, and by the way, this is Jordan's new face in nearly every photo taken. It's some sort of Spidey/Superhero face.

We are really looking forward to a sun-filled summer with Bubbee and Grandpa, or Yoda as Sadie likes to refer to him, down in Margate, NJ at the beach. Jordan is at this fantastic age where literally all you need to do is plop him on the beach with some tools and he’s set for the day. Of course, William is often busy building sand castles and tunnels but it keeps us busy.  

On a last note, here’s a funny video of the boys from this weekend. Jordan has a favorite song based on “Comin’ Around the Mountain’, but he calls it ‘Comin Around the Footsies.’ Generally he races around the house singing this as fast as he can, but since Justin can't race quite yet, he’s using Justin’s feet as props. Enjoy!