Preschool field trip

The oldest's preschool group went on a field trip to the Civil War and Locomotive History Museum in Kennesaw, Georgia. It was a bit of a drive, but we'd been talking about trains and they had a Mommy and Me program about trains arranged. They walked around the museum, looking at all the trains.

Both of my boys were fascinated. The youngest follows his older brother in everything, even loving (and signing) trains and dinosaurs. So it was funny that the child I had to pull away from The General was the youngest.

After this, the program had a craft, but the two boys wanted nothing to do with the craft and everything to do with the playroom in the education center. It was decked out with train tables, a toy kitchen, blocks, puzzles, books, and foam train to climb on, etc. They were delayed for just a minute by a diesel engine the got to "drive," then the boys and their siblings went crazy.

My youngest wanted to do everything and finally settled for climbing.

Because the youngest is so little, I forget how much his older brother was climbing at this point. I think that the youngest is younger than he is because he looks younger (he's still in 9-12 month clothes). One day while we were living in Spain, the oldest decided he wanted to climb from the couch to telephone table. The two pieces of furnature were purposefully divided by a good 7 inch gap, but I came into the room after taking something to the kitchen and there he was, climbing over the gap onto the telephone table. The next day he had figured out how to climb the empty computer table.

We took a little break and ate lunch in the red caboose outside, meeting some friends there and avoiding the rush of children from the program's craft. We got back in to spend more time with the funnest toys around.

All of the moms decided it was the best $5.50 we'd spent in a while.

Math equation

What do you get when you take a Saturday afternoon, add two families (four and a half children), subtract two very busy fathers, and color everything pink?

A wonderful Valentine's party!

Both my friend's and my husbands were at school, so we decided to throw our own low-key Valentines party for our boys (and half a girl). I provided cookies and frosting, she provided a craft and sprinkles.

We all decorated Valentines . . .

And cookies . . .

(No decorating for the youngest. He was content to spend his time

eating his sugar cookie with pink frosting.)

(Yep, those cookies are hearts, dinosars, and rocket ships. You gotta love Valentines for boys.)

(You don't see this by my oldest is liking the frosting off the knife.

I'm not sure any frosting made it onto the cookies at all.)

Then we went on a ride on the Valentine's Express (a wagon ride--I wish we'd brought the camera outside for that because we had all four boys in the wagon racing around the parking lot) and a trip through the love canal, aka. the club house or fort.

The party lasted about two hours and was so much fun. Just what we needed on an otherwise boring holiday.

Happy Valentine's Day

Doughnut forget that you are loved!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Arizona surprizes

On Monday, we received the greatest present anyone could send to people experiencing winter (though not as hard of a winter as we will experience in the future): we received an apple box full of Arizona citrus, handpicked and carefully packed by my loving in-laws. We have been sharing oranges with our friends and neighbors, and the boys have been having a ball.

The oranges and lemons have ended up being crated around by the dump truck, creating an O for our friend Owen on the wheat bucket (sorry it posted sideways and I'm too lazy to delete and repost it),

and being licked, dropped, and enojoyed.

Thank you so much Arizona family!

Happy News!

I am happy to announce that I have some great news.

1) My oldest dresses himself 100% (except for dress shirts and snaps/buttons on pants), all by himself. This, of course, means that he changes his clothes multiple times a day—the clothes are too dirty, he can't find his socks, or something is a little uncomfortable. I think the trigger was the new pair of Lightening McQueen (pronounced "uh-kwEEn" or "nuh-kwEEn") tennis shoes. I got them a little big because he has one foot that is a little larger than the other, but they have no laces or velcro.

2) The youngest sleeps through the night and only nurses once or twice a day. We can usually distract him away from nursing the other times he asks. He is also eating much better meals, though he still doesn't eat meat or cheese or drink milk (he does like yogurt, plain or otherwise).

3) I submitted a draft of my prospectus, and I think it is much better. But we'll wait to see.

4) My husband and I have been married 6 years today. (Great times, even with the stress of the job search. I would do it again in an instant.)

5) And speaking of the job search, we have stopped searching and signed a contract with a state school in the midwest. It is scary to think that we are almost done with this phase of our lives (not really, because I still have to finish the dissertation before we are fully done). I've started stressing about kindergartens and neighborhoods and safety. It is nice to know where we will be for the next 7 years at least.

All in all, life is good for us. Thanks for your prayers.

More Creatures under the Sea

We finished making our ocean and added a few other creatures.

A whale . . .

a family of starfish . . .

two sea cucumbers . . .

and a family of hammerhead sharks . . .

Next time you are in the area, grab your snorkeling equipment and your bathing suit and stop by for a swim.

Under the Sea

I've noticed in the past few weeks that I have become a "NO!" person. The oldest does things like barrel into his little brother or turn on the tv or throw toys or hit or . . . and I tell him no. Can he have a cookie? NO! Will I play trains with him? NO! Can he watch another movie? NO! (You get the picture?) So I decided that I would try and be less of a nay-sayer for a day. And I also decided that the best way to start was by saying no to the tv. So instead of letting him watch movies while I worked during the youngest's nap, we played together.

I pulled out some craft ideas and asked what he wanted to do. While he liked the idea of making a bumble bee, he loved playing with scissors. (Don't worry. He doesn't really understand how they work, but I like letting him try.) So I asked him what he wanted to make.

A fish.

Then he wanted to make more fish.

Then he wanted to make some jellyfish (a mom and a baby).

This was yesterday. In the end we created part of a nice little ocean for fun. And he likes to stand on a chair and get stung by the jellyfish's tenticles. (If you are wondering, it is high so that the youngest won't be able to get at it.)

Today he asked for a shark, so maybe our ocean will be more populated later.

As for saying no and having it be a good day. It was great! The best we've had in a while.