Outing #4: USS Constitution

I still pick out the clothes my kids wear. Neither of them care. Most days, I usually dress them in similar colors. This is not intentional at all. Oftentimes, I find myself wearing the same colors. I've noticed, the colors we all wear coincide with the mood I'm in that morning.

Well, this morning when we left in the car, I realized they were both wearing yellow...bright, sunshiny yellow. I had to smile because I was definitely in a hopeful, bright mood. The reason for the sunshine mood...good friends.

One of my best friends and her family came up for a visit from Virginia. Daniel was so excited to see his old friends too. It did my soul good!

Maybe tomorrow will be a yellow day too!

Outing #3: Shopping

No holes!

After assessing the pant situation, I determined two pairs of pants were not fixable. I may turn them into shorts later. So, we went to Sears and bought a pair of "Toughskins". If your child wears through the pants in six months or less, they will replace them. They were $9.99. I thought that was a pretty good deal.

Outing #2: Park

Tuesday was gorgeous. We went to the park and attempted flying our kite.

Outing #1: Children's Museum

As promised in my last post, we have several outings planned for this week. Here is our photo report from today.

Very focused, trying for the 987345098729th time to get the bubble over his head.
Little did he know his protuding patootie was responsible for popping the bubbles.

Note to self: bring a change of clothes...

for both kids.

I wish I had one of these in my house.

PB&J for lunch with a glass of water to wash it down with.

A Few of My Favorite Things About...

James

His cheeks
His tickle spots
His constant smile
His babbling
His love of Daniel
His wobbly walking legs
His love of popcorn


Daniel


His hair
His constant singing
His imaginative play
His worn out pants (tokens of discovery)
His tractor noises that accompany his bike rides
His love to wrestle
His love of books

My New Mission Cont.

Today at church, I glanced over at Daniel, and then I saw it...the hole in his pants! Those pants were my last hope.

Anyways, thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I'm going to try all of them. I'm going to patch the pants he has now with old jeans, and then when it is time to buy new ones I am going to Sears and Lands End!

PS: I have been terrible at taking pictures. I will do better this week. We have a fun week planned with many a photo opt.

My New Mission

Have you heard the song "Pickup Man"? I think the first verse partly explains why all of Daniels' pants have holes in the knees.

Well I got my first truck, when I was three,
Drove a hundred thousand miles on my knees
Hauled marbles and rocks, and thought twice before
I hauled a Barbie Doll bed for the girl next door
(emphasis added)

I guess his Sunday pants don't have holes in the knees...but that is because he puts them on as he is walks out the door to church and takes them off as he is walks in.

Well I'm on a quest to find the most knee reinforced jeans. If anyone has any suggestions let me know. The jeans we've tried from The Children's Place, and JCP have lasted 6 months. I would love to see him grow out of a pair of pants before they wear out. I think I'm going to iron in reinforcements on the next pair of jeans before I let him start wearing them.

I thought about leather pants. But leather on a three year old?!?! What if I made him wear knee pads all day? Christian suggested chaps.

I guess summer is coming and it is shorts weather. At least skin grows back.

Maple Sugaring

It was a beautiful day to be out enjoying nature's spring bounty.

Wiindow Treatments Done

Thursday I woke up determined to cross the dining-room-window-treatment-project off my list. The project had been months in the works in my head and weeks in the works with actual tangible goods. And Thursday was the day all the planning and preparing was going to come to fruition. Collecting the goods was a project in and of itself which included:

• 3 trips to JoAnn's Fabric (a feat in and of itself considering I lost a child in between material spindles during one trip, got my husband to go along in another trip, and dealt with a disgruntled employee my final trip)
• 1 trip to Target
• 3 trips to Lowe's (it is easy to get Daniel excited about going to Lowe's because they have rider mowers to sit on and forklifts to watch)
• 5 extra drilled holes in my wall

But alas, I finished and I'm quite pleased with how they turned out.

But, when I get in the project finishing zone, there is no stopping the tiger. The boys had free reign. Anything goes as long as I couldn't see anything and they didn't interrupt me...out of sight, out of mind. I got so involved in the project I didn't eat lunch...so the boys didn't eat lunch. At about 3pm I walked into the kitchen to find my famished child serving himself lunch.

And later, after Daniel discovered our stash of candy, I found this...

No wonder everyone was so quiet for a while. At least Daniel shares when he finds some goods.

Needless to say, cleaning the house turned into another project after the window treatment project, but I finished both projects that night and went to bed very satisfied. Now the next project is in the works.

And Friday, I was a good mom. We went for a bike ride, had several puppet show, played trucks, read books, and ate lunch.

The Snow Keeps Coming

It snowed again this week. So, this is what we did

Let Daniel attempt to sew a pillowcase out of the John Deere Tractor material he found at the store. He sewed the whole thing...but there was a little yelling, namely "STOP!!!!"

Very proud of his pillowcase

Built several forts and had a couple puppet shows

Nerds and Treats

We went down to the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology) competition last Saturday. National Instruments donates hardware and software to the program. Christian is counting the days until he can build Lego robots with Daniel and James and program them with ROBOLAB. He is going to indoctrinate them to National Instruments software early.

The boys did not want to wear their protective eye coverings.

After FIRST, we went down to the sight of the Boston Massacre for it's 239th anniversary. And even though we have been trying to cut down on the sugar we eat (we are treataholics!), we could not resist sitting in the park and eating this....

Mmmmm...my mouth is watering just looking at it!

What Is This Thing?

The Dog Days of Summer

Since March has rolled in (with a snowstorm), I have been longing for those "dog days of summer". You know what kind of days I'm talking about? I'm talking about those days where you cake on greasy sunscreen because you are going to be outside all day. Then, at some point in the day, you get to handle dirt either because you are working in it or getting your child out of it. While you are in the dirt, you glance over at your other child to make sure he's not getting into anything he shouldn't, and you can't help but smile every time you look at his legs, because legs that look like this...

just make you smile...and giggle a little. Clothing is optional for little boys in the summer who can strut wobbly beauties like this (diapers are not optional)!

Then, when it is just too hot, you take a cool dip in the pool for the rest of the afternoon. After getting back from the pool, you slip into some comfortable rolled up jeans, a white t-shirt, and flip flops. On your way in and out of the bathroom, you notice a slight sun kiss look on your cheeks. You smile and go down stairs to make dinner...chilled watermelon.

You eat juicy, crunchy watermelon on the back porch so you can just spit the seeds and not worry about sticky juice on your floor. You let the kids play in the sandbox while you swing on the porch swing while the sun sets. Then you wipe the the sand stuck on watermelon juice off your kids and send them off to bed with the wind blowing through the open window.

That will happen someday. Hopefully sooner than later. But for now, we are layering on clothes instead of sunscreen, digging in the snow instead of the dirt, plowing the basement instead of swimming, eating soup instead of watermelon, and sipping hot cocoa while we read books instead of playing out in the sandbox.

Daniel's tractor with a "plow" hitched to the back.
I think he has plowed miles in our basement.

In a couple of months I may be longing for my hot cocoa again. I'll enjoy it while I have it.

The James We Love

Little James was really sick over the weekend. But yesterday he got his smile back!

Welcome back little pumpkin! We missed you.

Winter Projects

My winter projects this year were very basic...window treatments for our room, the boys room and the dinning room, cleaning/organizing the basement, and making a product from an idea I've had for a year now. I hope to sell my craft on Etsy soon. I'm almost done with all the window treatments. I thought the ones in my room turned out rather nicely.

Well, yesterday we woke up to this in our backyard, and front yard, and everywhere...

So I have more time to finish my projects now. Maybe if I finish them soon, blessed spring will come. That is motivating enough for me to finish my winter projects. Besides, I'm already planning my spring/summer projects.