Seven Year Old, Queen Bee

Megan turned 7 years old in March!

We love having Megan in our family, she is a great big sister to her brothers, she is very helpful, she wants to be good and do good,she is always excited for the next thing, and always planning something great.  She loves playing with her friends, she loves riding her bike and scooter, she loves school.

When Megan has a birthday she really knows how to celebrate.  

The Family Party

Here she is on her official birthday March 6th, celebrating with the family.

She requested a black forest cake and dinner at Outback Steak.

Both were very yummy.

Her new scooter.

Seven is such a fun stage in childhood.

Eli loved the scooter.

Even though he is only 15 months, he thinks he needs one too.

The birthday fun continues with the...

The Pajama Party

Megan invited eight little girls over on a Friday night from 6:00-8:00pm for a Pajama Birthday Party.
It was wild and crazy.  The party started out with an impromptu pillow fight, then the girls made glow-in-the-dark beaded bracelets (these worked better in theory -- the beads where way too small, and didn't even glow very well). Next, the girls had to find the glowing bedbug to receive a big surprise (silly string), then they had to complete an obstacle course, which included jumping in their sleeping bag to the popcorn treat (one of Megan's favorite treats).  After a little late night snack, the girls got to go outside and have a silly string fight, which everyone loved.  When the girls came inside, we got into a big circle and made up a funny/scary story in the dark with a flashlight.  This age is more into funny than scary. I was going to get the book from my childhood "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark", but Megan saw the cover and said she was to scared to read that. Heck, I was to scared to read that book to the kids. We opened presents, sang Happy Birthday and ate donuts (another Megan favorite).  We closed the party with a quiet game called Mrs. Sandman that I sometimes do with the kids to help them fall asleep. It worked like a charm -- those girls where calm as can be after that game.  Last of all a goodbye and everyone sleeping in their own beds.

Sweet Party and Sweet Dreams.

Before the Craziness

Megan ready for FUN!

The kids waiting with anticipation 

What's a pajama party without a pillow fight?

Mr Henry, loved being the only boy at the party.

So Fun!

P.S. Henry's birthday was yesterday, posting soon to come, maybe on Mike's birthday.

Blue Ribbon Science Fair Project

Megan came home a couple of months ago telling us that there was going to be a Science Fair at school and she wanted to do it.  I casually said "great", not making it to big a deal.  Hoping she would forget about it, because I knew what it really meant for her to be a part of the Science Fair, Mike and I would be a part of the Science Fair, and I wasn't quite as committed to the Science Fair. But over the next month she keep bringing up the Science Fair, and what projects she could do, and how great it was going to be, and how she wanted to win (a true Frost). As timing would have it, this is when she started watching  "Jimmy Newtron, Boy Genius" on Netflix, science was on the brain.   So we did it.  Megan  entered her very first Science Fair. 

I like to call it:

Frost Family Science 101

 We (I mean Megan), choose the science of Popcorn.  

The Research 

(It was really cute, she wore her googles the whole time she worked on the project)

The Hypothesis 

(Megan really worked hard on her project and she was so excited the whole time)

The Testing

(Her favorite part)

The double blind study 

(Isn't he the cutest taste tester.)

The Findings

The Scientists.

(Mike and Megan make a great team) 

  Drum Roll, please...........

 The Barrett Elementary Science Fair

 Blue Ribbon Winner

 Megan's project really was awesome.  It was a project the whole family was proud of.

.....and family.

P.S. We found out later that everyone got a blue ribbon for participating.  I mean what kind of science fair is that. Where is the competition, the rivalry, the honor, the prize?  Well I guess now days everyone is a winner.

But I really do think Megan's/family project would have WON!

Bring on the next elementary project this Mom and Dad are ready. 

Merry Christmas 2011

Dear Friends,


As 2011 comes to a close, we wanted to share a brief review of what we're up to.


This has been a whirlwind of a year for us. We’re still living just outside of Washington D.C., and had our third child at the end of 2010. This meant that we needed to move out of our two bedroom home and into something with a bit more space. We also got a minivan, and suckered Aunt Chelsey into spending the summer with us to help us regain our footing and sanity. We were sad to leave our little place on Veitch St., where we were surrounded by good friends with compatible children, but have been happy on our new street and in our new home. The new location also has kids that are the right age, two parks within walking distance, and a slew of friendly new neighbors who like to throw block parties with swimming and coolers full of steamed Maryland crab. So there’s that. One thing that is missing is the nearby 7-11, thus our donut intake has definitely decreased.

Kim continues to work as a nurse at George Washington University Hospital. She is part of the float pool, meaning that she gets plugged into whatever floor is missing nurses on a given shift, and crucially, that she gets to make her own schedule. This allows me to be at home with the kids while she works, usually a night shift three times a month. Kim and I have spent the last two years team teaching the 9 and 10 year olds at our church, which has been a lot of fun. When she’s not bringing in the bacon or singing in primary, Kim spends all of her time making great memories for our kids, shaping them into humans. She also attends a regular dessert making group, plans incredible birthday parties, stalks half the known world via their blogs, and falls asleep during every movie we watch.

I just finished my fourth year working with John Snow, Inc., a firm that carries out health projects around the globe. At this point, half of my job is spent on a malaria project that delivers drugs, nets and test kits to 18 countries. The other half of my job is in a new position running a center dedicated to using mobile phone technology in health projects for gathering and reporting health data. I continue to travel quite a bit, which is rewarding, but tough. I spent 10 weeks out of this year in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ghana and Mozambique. I attained the dubious honor of “Platinum Medallion” status with Delta, and I’ve run out of space in my second passport. Our kids are accruing an impressive collection of coins, dolls and knickknacks from the far side of the world. We thank heaven for video Skype calls. I am also fairly certain that my iPhone is a culminating achievement of mankind.

Megan (6) is in the first grade, and is running the show. Since day one, she has maintained the lead in earning tickets for being good in her class, and recently depressed the “good ticket” market by cashing in her stockpile for a photo album. We read The Magic Treehouse books most nights, trading off pages, and she has become an expert at pronouncing unknown words so slowly that I can’t help but give her the answer. Megan has written more than a dozen letters to Santa over the course of this year, and assuming she can remember everything she’s asked for, she is going to be very disappointed come Christmas morning. Megan is the sweetest 6 year old on the planet, always helping her brothers, telling terrible jokes and getting perfect marks on her math tests.

Henry (3) couldn’t care less about good tickets. He continues to ignore entirely the fact that he has a neuromuscular disorder, preferring instead to rock out. Henry loves puzzles, Angry Birds, Dora the Explorer, wrestling everybody and not eating. He has a plethora of adult women caretakers (physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, preschool worker, nanny, swimming instructor) who think he is the cutest kid ever, and he dances like he’s got a tom-tom in his soul. His bus driver told me the other day, in all seriousness, that he has an incredible singing voice. Why would the bus driver even know that? Henry thrives on Carnation instant breakfast and my exasperation.

Eli (1) is our first fat baby. He doesn’t care that our lives were already packed with more personality than we could handle, he pushed on in with his own. He likes to cuddle, refuses to say anything besides “SQWAA!!”, and will eat anything. Like orange peels, dish soap, hand sanitizer, plastic, dust bunnies and my fingers. Despite what seems genetically feasible, Eli has dark hair and dark eyes and a space in his front teeth you could floss with a shoelace. He has us on a rotation where Kim must snuggle him before bed, I must snuggle him around 11 pm, and Kim has to snuggle him at least one more time before the morning. The wrong parent attempting to snuggle him at any of the predetermined times will receive a straight arm to the face, and a lot of “SQWAA”ing. He is so darn huggable.

We are incredibly blessed, and are loving this time in our lives. We hope this post finds you well, and that you have a wonderful new year.

Sincerely,

Mike, Kim, Megan, Henry and Eli

Frost

A North Pole Adventure

Everyone is on the GO

First Day of School

I love the first day of school.

Everyone around here was excited for the new change, and new rhythm that school brings, but even with the excitement we all still had little butterflies in our tummies.

Megan had lots of firsts.

She started the 1st grade with Mrs. Tu as her teacher, she started in a new school that is closer to our house, and she started taking the bus, which is awesome for her and mom. Meg was a little nervous, but when she came home she was all smiles and chatting up a storm about how great the 1st grade is. This is going to be a great year for Megan. I love this age.

My little Henry started preschool.

He has been waiting to go to school, just like Megan, for so long.

Thanks to the great Arlington school program, Henry is in an integrated preschool program, which means he is in a regular preschool that takes up to 4 cognitively age appropriate kids with special needs, and then physical, occupational, and speech therapists are provided to work with these kids throughout the day. It is a 5 day a week program from 8:10am-2:50pm, but I wasn't ready to send him that much time, so he goes 3 days a week. He loves it.

Henry at school with "His" teacher, Ms. Allison.

He walked right into school, turned around and said "bye Mom."

I was happy, but my heart broke a little too.

We always said, he would be the cutest kid on the short bus.

And of course little Eli.

He was pretty sad to see that his fan club was gone...

But, not for long.

He is so cute.

It's teepee time

Kim spotted a teepee in the backyard of a friend from the ward last summer, and decided that her kids' lives would not be complete until they had a teepee of their own. It may have taken 14 months for her to make it, but our kids are finally living the dream.

As an added bonus this week -- body surfer extraordinaire:

She's getting so big

Even though Megan had already lost four teeth on bottom, she was deathly afraid when her top front tooth became loose. That thing was hanging by a thread for weeks, and she would not let us anywhere near it without breaking out the tears. Finally, we'd had enough. We convinced her that my needle nose pliers were actually a special tooth extraction tool, and with one twist, out it came. Her tears dried up really quickly, and suddenly she was super proud of her lost tooth

Shortly after it popped out, the other front tooth decided it was ready to go. Megan swore that she was going to be brave this time, but when it came down to it, she freaked out, and laid on her back, crying her eyes out. That gave Kim all the opening she needed to reach in and snatch that tooth right out of there.

With both front teeth gone, we figured it was a good time to learn to ride her bike, as she had nothing to lose. This was the second or third time that we thought she was ready to ride a bike, and as you can see in this video, it was clear that she was nowhere near coordinated enough....

 

 ..Or so we thought, but suddenly it just clicked, and Megan instantly became a bike rider. These two videos were literally taken one day after the other.

   

 Meg starts first grade on Tuesday, and she's knocking down those milestones, left and right.

Golden Birthday

It was Megan's Golden Birthday this year.

For those of you who don't know what a golden birthday is, it is a very special birthday that only happens once in life time. Your golden birthday happens when the day of your birth matches your age, so Megan's birthday is March 6th and she turned 6.

GOLDEN.

And we definitely celebrated it to the max.

Aunt Crystal and cousin Hazel came to visit just for the event (it was pretty convenient that it was the same time Mike was going to Africa). A party is always better with Aunt Crystal and Hazel Jane.

GOLDEN

We started out our golden birthday celebration with Dad before he left on his trip. He was very sad to miss the official birthday. We had Megan's favorite dinner of fish, baked potatoes, veggies, sourdough bread and strawberries with fruit dip, sang Happy Birthday and opened presents.

Megan has been wanting a "science kit" for a while and we found a great one that is perfect for a 6 year old scientist. It was an instant hit when Mike and Megan did the volcano experiment. Mike shook the bottle for maximum effect and it erupted everywhere, and I mean everywhere: ceiling, walls, spectators. Luckily most of it was cleaned up before Mom saw the devastation.

GOLDEN

The next golden birthday celebration was a Fancy Nancy Explorer Extraordinaire party, and it was extraordinary. We decorated the clubhouse, read Fancy Nancy Explorer Extraordinaire, and the girls passed tests to become an official member of the Explorer Extraordinaire Club. They made an explorer notebook, went outside to explore and record their findings of nature, dropped bugs in a jar, played "bug bug who has the bug" and hot spider, and lastly planted flower seeds. All of this earned them a magnifying glass, fancy gloves, and an official club membership. After all their exploring they went to the clubhouse for a fancy lunch of butterfly sandwiches, fruit kabobs, cheese and pickles, pink lemonade and fancy tarts as the finishing touch. It was divine.

And GOLDEN.

After this party we just keep on celebrating -- at school, at church, the real birthday date, spa day with Aunt Crystal, etc.

Like I said it was a GOLDEN Birthday.

We love you Megan, and you are a delight to have in our family. Happy Birthday.

P.S. None of this could have been possible without the help of Aunt Crystal. Thanks for EVERYTHING, we miss you. You are a Golden Aunt forever.