an excuse and some conversation

You may have been wondering where that project that I was supposed to finish and put pictures up of is. Well. It's not finished. And I have a really good excuse. We were watching Doc Martin all weekend on Netflix. And then a plague descended on our house and we've all been sick for several days. Yesterday was the first day all week that we even ventured outside. And it was tiring. For me. The boys seemed fine. We're slowly starting down the road to recovery. I hope.

Anyway, I'm going to try and work on the project, but there are a gazillion things that I'm trying to do before we leave in a couple weeks and I'm a little worried that my brain is going to explode.

So, in the mean time, you'll have to survive on some little boy conversations, which I hope you'll enjoy and hopefully they aren't just funny to me.

(While I was making cookies for an event)
Me: You need to wait. Do you know what "wait" means"
Sam: No more cookies.

(We acquired a large, rubber cockroach a while back. It's over a foot high and probably two feet wide spread out. I hate it. The boys love it)
Ben: Ow! Sam don't hit me!
Sam: Watch out, Ben! There's a sword coming!
Ben: Sam don't hit me. Just hit that cockaroch.
Sam: Take that, cockaroach!

Ben: Once upon a time there was a little boy. He jumped into his bed. And he bumped his head.
(pause)
Me: What happened to him?
Ben: He died.

Me: (handing something to Ben) Here ya go, sweetie.
Ben: I'm not a sweetie.
Me: Yes you are. You're my sweetie.
Ben: No, girls are sweeties. I'm not a girl.

Tent

We're going away for the summer again. I'm not 100% sure that I've mentioned that before, but we are. We are going to be visiting our families. So, we'll be starting off in California, heading down to Arizona, and then to Maine. Plus, there will be several stops in between.

So, we got the boys a tent.

Koja tent from Ikea

Because we are going to be in so many different places this summer, we wanted to give Ben and Sam a place of their own, so to speak. A place that will be consistent throughout the summer where they can feel comfortable.

We gave it to them a few days ago (something of an early birthday present), and they absolutely, totally, love it. They've slept in it the last two nights with satisfactory results. The first night it took them about two hours to fall asleep, because they were just so darned excited to be in that tent. Last night, they were very tired, and it took about ten minutes. Progress.

Sam in tent

We're all getting pretty excited to see the Fam over the summer. Several times a day the boys will ask if they can go to either their Grammie and Grampie (with the ocean and the boats) or Grandma and Grandpa (with the desert and the dogs). And sometimes there are some tears shed because they live so, so far away. And we can't go today. Sigh.

But we're going soon. So batten down the hatches, Grandparents! And we're bringing a tent.

I think I like this...

I have a bike. But I've only ridden it once or twice, because the breaks are very iffy. And if they weren't before, they definitely are now that the boys have turned it into a restaurant and serve pretend food off of it. But I really like it and that's why it's still in the back yard. We got it for $7 at a thrift store in Papillion, Nebraska, where my parents used to live. And it's pretty cool.

But, like I said, it's broken. And I love biking. I really do. It's probably one of my favorite forms of self-propelled transportation. There are lots of weird new "family vehicle" type bicycles out there right now. And most of them are... interesting. At best. But I like this one. And it comes in that lovely blue, which I love. And the boys would probably only fall out of it once or twice before they figured it out, so that's a plus.

Oh, and they're giving one away. And holy guacamole! I wanna win it. Because I like the idea of biking again.



So, what do you think?

Up to Something...

I've been working on something that is taking up a significant portion of my kinda-free time.

a fabricy mess

Any guesses? (If you already know, then don't say. That's kinda cheating.) I'll put up the finished product next week. That's right. I'm giving myself a deadline. And you guys can hold me to it. But be nice.

Painting the Town Red, and Blue, and Green, and Orange...

We finally got the boys some paints of their own. And it also finally dawned on me that we didn't need to buy that easel for them (for the moment anyway, Zach). The other day I tied a string up against our fence in the backyard, stripped down the boys (or I would have, if they had been wearing clothes at the time), and set them to painting.

Sam and Ben painting (almost) au naturale

I've only let the boys use paints twice before, but now that I've discovered this system, I'll probably let them loose more.

Ben's work in progress. He was talking a lot about waterfalls, whales, and swords while he painted this.
(note how he ended up holding his pie tin like a painter's pallet)

Sam's piece. He was talking a lot about sharks and whales while he painted this.

Ben's is on the left, Sam's is on the right

As you can see, despite the fact that they are twins, their artistic style is completely different.

And lest you think that this was a completely mess free event, I did get distracted for a few minutes and the boys did take that opportunity to grab three paint containers (mostly blue) and dump them into their pallets and then spill them on the ground and then run through them, and then run into the house. There were blue footprints all across the kitchen floor. But it came up pretty easily with the mop, so now worries.

And now, for your enjoyment, a movie.

Sam is on the left, Ben on the right.

Little Boys and Slugs

We haven a couple big logs in our back yard. I nipped them when they were cutting down some trees near our house. The boys have figured out that that is where the bugs like to hide. Yesterday they asked me to tip them over to see some "beedles." We did get to see five beetles, but it's a pretty fast insect and was pretty quick to find a new hiding place. What kept us by the overturned log, was the slug.

Sam and Ben takin' it easy lookin' at a slug.

Now, for the record, I loathe slugs. This is mostly due to an unfortunately unshod foot and a squished and slimy slug event at a very tender age. And because they are totally gross. But I'm able to overcome this for the sake of my little boys and remain fairly composed while looking at them. Except for the occasional shiver from the heebly-geeblies.

Anyway, moving on from my weirdness, we talked about slugs for a good fifteen minutes. How they need slime to move, how they don't have any feet, how they leave shiny trails of dried slime behind them, how they need to stay the bloody heck away from my plants or so help me, and how Mommy was not now or ever going to pick it up.

Sorry, slugs blend.

Ben contemplates slug

This morning the boys found another slug trail. And they knew what it was! Sam said, "Look, Ben! A slug trail!" And Ben said, "Oh! A slug trail!" Then they followed it around for a while and rode Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks over the trail until it was gone.

I was pretty impressed. I guess they are learning after all. It's all pretty exciting. Except for the slug part.

Ben's picture of the Slug Trail across the Log

Happy May Day!

...after the fact, of course.

In honor of May Day it rained. And so, thought I, what better day to make that rain stick that I've had planned for a while now? None, was my answer.

I've been trying to do more hands on activities with the boys. They keep themselves entertained wonderfully, but often the activities they choose are less than desirable. Also, I'm trying to incorporated these activities because I am planning on doing a at-home, coopt type pre-school thing after the summer. Something along the lines of a Montessori pre-school, but we won't have to take out a loan to do it. Before I offend someone, I'd like to state that I have nothing against sending your kids to preschool. At all. I think it's spiffy if you can afford to do it. But, as I may have mentioned before, things are a little pricey here. And I've always thought, with most things in life you don't need to invest a lot of money if you are willing to invest your time. And I'm applying this to the boys. Hopefully it will pan out. Also, I'm definitely open to any ideas anyone has about more play/learning projects for us, so let me know if you've got them.

And we move on.

I read about making your own rain sticks out of mailing tubes one day and the next I found a badmitton birdie tube out in the recycling (right on the top, by the way, I wasn't rooting around in there or anything) (Not that I'm not capable of it).

What we started out with

My original plan was to help the boys to use the hammer. I tried this with Ben. Then I realized that I had been on crack and went and found the little mallet in the boy's toy stash. Success reigned and eyeballs stayed in sockets.

I had marked several spots on the tube for the nails, but we got pretty liberal with our placing of the nails. I got the nail started with the hammer and then the boys would finish up with the mallet.

Ben, whistling "If I had a hammer..."

Sam hammering in the nails.

Wow. Look at that cute little body.

After we got all the nails in Sam poured in some little white beans. It didn't quite make the sound I wanted, so I dumped those into a bowl and got some bigger navy beans. Ben poured those in.

We ended up dumping them out and pouring them back in several times with a mixture of big and small beans. Then I sealed up the ends and Sam and I wrapped up the tube with electrical tape to keep the nails from slipping out in case of overuse.

Ben taking his turn pouring in the beans.

Then we moved on to playing with the rain stick, playing around with the beans and pouring them in and out of bowls. I think Dr. Montessori would be fairly pleased.

And don't worry, that one bean that Ben stuck up his nose came out without too much trouble. (**Mental Note** - Use the bigger beans for these projects).