It’s Been A While

Hey there.  I haven’t forgotten about my blog, I’ve just been pretty busy.  We moved, so I was busy packing, moving, and unpacking…which I’m not completely done with yet.  Plus, we’ve enjoyed Thanksgiving and we’re getting ready for Christmas.  And…I’m pregnant with baby #3, so the nauseousness has been awesome. (No, not really) 

But I’ve been feeling better for the last couple of days, so lets hope that part is over.  So, here I am, back to my blog…finally.  :) 

I’ll post some pictures of the boys soon, along with what we’ve been up to besides unpacking.  But for now, back to unpacking.  :)

Ah Yes

You’ve got to love the warmth.  My furnace is fixed.  Hooray! 

Cold

Our furnace went out Sunday morning and the earliest someone can come out is Wednesday afternoon.  It is SO cold in here. 

The boys have a floor heater in their room at night, so they’re fine.  We’re fine until we need to get out of bed from under the warm blankets.  And, it’s too cold during the day.  - unless I’m under a blanket all day – 

We’re all very bundled.  Just one more day and we’ll be warm again.  :)  Can’t wait. 

Our Pumpkin Search

We went to a pumpkin patch to search for that perfect pumpkin for us to take home. That perfect pumpkin to put in front of our door and to carve for trick –or- treaters to see on Halloween.

We searched and searched, and finally found one among the hundreds of pumpkins to choose from.

It was so muddy from the rain over the last couple of days that mud got everywhere. I will say that we were not prepared for mud. This was our first pumpkin patch, (Safeway normally provides our pumpkins) :) so this was a learning experience.

Anyway, the boys had new shoes that were 100% covered in mud by the time we left…along with fingers and jeans.

It was fun…

It wasn’t too bad where the pumpkins were actually at. It was getting to them that was the problem.

Pilot, as usual, loves when I take his picture. :) And not too much mud on him…yet.

Rider was trying to help out by picking up a pumpkin for us. He almost got it.

Wherefore Art Thou…Curls?

First hair cut!

Before and After

I absolutely could NOT take a good picture of him after his haircut! He got a balloon and either that got in the way or he kept turning away or, like this one, his eyes were closed. I tried a hundred times…trust me. But, you get the idea. Our baby boy is all grown up!

I’m never “ready” to get rid of those curls. Pilot had them too. But, once I’m questioned by people on whether or not I have a boy or a girl, then it’s time for them to go.

Also, his hair was getting so long that they kept getting in his eyes. And, the curls in the back of his head ALWAYS got into tangles. But anyway, he’s still looks oh so sweet. :) And yes! I saved those curls!

How About Another?

We pulled out one of those puzzles the next day. -the chocolate one- We ended up doing the puzzle together. Which is perfectly fine. The other puzzles, the ones that are easy for him, were difficult for him in the beginning. So these are perfect. He needs a little challenge. He still pulls out the old puzzles a lot of the time.

A few days later, we opened up the ABC puzzle. The second time we did it together, I really didn’t have to do too much. I just helped with bits here and there. He’s doing really well with them.

Let’s do a puzzle

Pilot is doing so well with puzzles.  He puts his 25 piece puzzles together so quickly, it’s amazing.  He does pretty well with a 46 piece floor puzzle.  So today we got him two 60 piece puzzles (for 4+.  Not floor puzzles – due to a little brother who takes them apart).  One is of the ABC’s and the other is of chocolate.  Yum to the chocolate.  He’s really excited to give them a try.  By the time we got home after getting them, it was bedtime, so first thing tomorrow we’re diving into one of those boxes.  :)  I’ll let you know how it goes…

Aprons!

I made these aprons for the boys.  I thought it would be fun for them to have these while they are either helping in the kitchen or doing some crafts. 

 

My model (a.k.a. Pilot) wouldn’t put it on for a picture, but I’ll get one later.  :)  They have pockets and everything!  They’re too cute, if I do say so myself. 

 

Here they are!  Too fun!

 

Here’s one up close.

A Bus!

You’ve got to love boys.  Anytime we’re out and about running errands or something, Pilot can find a bus, a dump truck, or a trash truck miles away.   He counts how many he’s seen too.  “We need to find one more bus.  Then it will be 5.”  So here I am driving around town hunting down another bus.  “Can we see a fire truck?”  he might ask, and I’ll say “lets look for one.”  We may or may not see one during our day, but at least we looked, right?  :) 

 

Also, walking into a store…something so simple, right?  He’ll either skip all the way in (holding my hand), or jump over squares or cracks all the way in.  And when we get inside, he feels that EVERY store needs to carry those car carts.  I can go into a bookstore and he’ll tell me we need to find a car cart.  I tell him they don’t have those at this store and he will just want to look…just to make sure.  I mean, maybe they’ve recently decided to provide those in our bookstores near by…you can never be too sure.  So, we look…just in case.  :)  

 

Oh, and we also have one of those special bread cutters (for sandwiches) in the shape of a dinosaur.  It cuts two dinosaurs in one sandwich.  You could also use a cookie cutter.  Anyway, he will now only take his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the dinosaur shape.  I’ve tried a bear cookie cutter or an airplane one, but no…it needs to be a dinosaur.  So, why not?  A dinosaur it is.  When I give him his two dinosaurs, what does he do?  Well, before he eats them, he has the dinosaurs growl at each other.   It’s really quite funny. 

Letter Factory

We got Leap Frog’s Letter Factory DVD from the library and it was so cute.  I would recommend checking it out.  Pilot comes to me throughout the day saying, “the P says, pa, like popcorn.”  It’s funny.

 

Thursday’s Tip – For Guests!

This is just for fun.  I have a 3-ring binder for guests to look through when they stay with me about my area (state/city).  I typed everything on the computer and after printing that off, I have them in clear protective pages that go in a 3-ring binder.  :)

 

Here are some of the tabs that I have:

 

- Fun Facts: about the state/city.

 

- Useful tips for your stay: just a fun list of things to read.  For example: we recycle, so we have two trash cans.  One is for trash and the other is recycle.  So one of my tips is for them to “think before you toss.” 

 

- Guest book:  These pages I decorated like a scrapbook.  Then I put pictures of the people who have visited us.

 

- Brochures: I got brochures of different areas in the state and of touristy places. 

 

Have any other ideas to add to the binder?  Let me know!  :)

Precious Boys

Big Truck Day!

We went to see Big Trucks.  The boys had so much fun!  I haven’t been before, so I didn’t know what to expect.  But you name it, they had the big truck.  ;)  Four different fire trucks, a trash truck, a concrete mixer, a moving truck, a tow truck, and much much more!  Here are only a few pictures of our day.  :)

 

Driving the Backhoe with little brother driving in back.

 

In the bucket!

 

Hanging out on the Tank!

 

Checking out the Ambulance!

Thursday’s Tip – Get some quiet time

Make a Quiet Time Box for your kids. I want to get some things done during Rider’s nap and I’m normally not able to (not very easily) with Pilot not napping also. So, for an hour I have Pilot do activities I put in a shoe box.

I have a large shoe box and covered it with construction paper (blue, green and red – for fun) and then I covered that with clear contact paper. On the top of the box I wrote “Quiet Time Box” and I placed some stickers on the top as well. (Trucks, concrete mixers and diggers – the cool stuff, right?) :)

Then, on the inside of the lid, I wrote out (on a small piece of paper) what I have in the box (for my own use). I also have a white twin size sheet folded in the box. I cover half of my dining room table with the sheet and he can do his quiet time box in the “cave”. He thinks its fun. Sometimes he prefers to do the box in the living room. Whatever works, as long as I’m able to get some paperwork done. :) He has a fun pillow he can rest against too (just for quiet time).

You can put whatever in that box that they would enjoy. Here is a list of what I have in the box:

- Sticker book: I cut come scrapbook pages in quarters and stapled them together. I added a small sheet of stickers he might want to put on the pages.

- Color pages: I have about 5 coloring pages with some crayons in the box for him. I put the crayons in a tea box. It keeps them on one place (for the most part).

- Books: Just a couple of fun books to look at.

- Puzzle: I have a simple puzzle in there.

- Notepad: There is a small notepad, maybe 3 x 5, with a truck pencil he can draw or color in.

- Cards: I have a small box of alphabet cards with animals on them. He can either match upper case letters with lower case letters, or match the big animal (Bear) with the baby animal, or if he’d rather, he can just look at all of the 26 different animals.

This might be too much for some kids. Mine doesn’t do everything in the box, but at least he has the option.

Jogging…or something like that

We got a double jogging stroller a couple of weeks ago. We try to go out on a trail we found a while back. We’re doing pretty good. Toward the end we just look like we really should have stayed home.

The boys seem to enjoy the ride. When we stop to catch our breath, we hear Pilot saying, “go, go.” I also find a couple of leaves for them to look at during they’re ride. They like to hold them up and watch them fly in the wind.

You know, sometimes people honk at me while I jog. I haven’t figured out if they’re honking to tell me to please stop jogging before I hit the pavement, or because by some wild chance they think that this women, who is red in the face, barely breathing, and slumped over (practically)…looks good?? My personal opinion is option A. :)

We got our bikes “tuned up” also. I have a snazzy new bike helmet to help add to my car honking experience. Biking isn’t bad. I just have to get back in the swing of things again. It’s been about 4 years since I last rode a bike. It’s coming back to me though. ;)

Thursday’s Tip

I’m going to start giving tips on Thursday’s (hence the name). So, here I go…

Magazines. I get a few parent magazines. They have great articles and ideas that I want to keep for future reference, but I don’t want to keep stacks of magazines in my house. If your like me, you rip those pages out that you want to keep. Now what do you do with them? If you haven’t ripped any pages out yet and just have the magazine, start with maybe 5 or 10 magazines at a time and take out the pages you are interested in and put them in a pile next to you.

Once you go through that stack of 5 magazines, go to your pile of pages you took out. Then separate them into different categories. You might have an article on birthday party ideas and something on crafts or even a parenting tip you’d like to hold on to. What ever it is, put it in its own pile.

Then, get a 3-ring binder and some dividers. Label each tab one of the categories from your pile of papers.

You can either punch holes in the side of the articles and then put them in the binder or you can tape them on another piece of paper and punch holes in that paper.

If what you are interested is only a small section of the magazine paper, then feel free to cut that little article out and tape if to a piece of paper. Then you can put that in the binder and add to it with future articles you cut out.

Okay, that is step one. If that works for you, great! But, if one of your tabs takes up the entire binder, then you’ll need to get a separate binder for that tab alone. And do the exact same thing for that one tab. Divide out those pages into separate categories.

For example: One of my tabs is “fun activities”. That tab is becoming too big for my current binder. So, I’m going to separate those. I’ll have a holiday section, crafts, games, and science (to name a few). I’m sure you can get more in-depth, but this works for now. That binder will just be for activities.

If your curious, here are some tabs I have in my binder:

- Hints and Tips

- Health and Safety

- Food Tips

- Fun Activities

- Parenting/pregnancy

- Fun Facts

- Birthday

Depending on how many magazines you have, it could take a while. But don’t give up. Do a little everyday. Maybe try to do it 10 minutes a day.

Hey Babe

That is what my 2 year old said to me.  My husband will says that to me when he’s trying to get my attention. 

So, I was working on something and my 2 year old was playing with some toys with his dad.  My son stops what he’s doing so he can show me what he’s working on.  He looks at me and says, “hey babe...”  I look at him with this shocked (and laughing) face thinking what did my son just call me? 

‘Milk’

My youngest, who’s now one, finally started signing ‘milk’ the other day.  I’ve been teaching my kids American Sign Language.  He’s real proud of himself too.  :)

I started doing ASL with my older one when he was 6 months.  Now he’s three and does really well.  My older one started signing before he was one, but I think I was able to work with him more than I am able to with my second.  I’m working on that, though.  :)  It’s a lot of fun. 

You've Gotta Love It

Matching! My youngest is finally at the age where I can buy my boys matching clothes. I know...I won't do it forever. They're SO cute. No, I don't have them match all the time, just occasionally...really.

I have friends tell me, "My mom did that to my sister and I when we were 12." I'll try not to do it that long. :)

But for right now, I'm going to do it. It's TOO cute! Maybe I'll get over it in a few months, we'll see.