Proud Pizza Makers

I just wanted to add some pictures that I meant to post last night. Above, you can see cool-boy R with his masterpiece of a pizza. Below is flour-covered T with his masterpiece (much higher ratio of cheese to pepperoini than his big brother.)

And here they both are celebrating with noise makers:

A Day of Celebration

We had a fun day celebrating T's birthday. It started out with "fruit fruity" pancakes. M made four different fruit pancakes -- mango, banana, strawberry, and blueberry. It was a feast for a fruit-loving birthday boy!


After breakfast, T got to open his gifts, including a two-wheeler bike :> It's the same kind that he has at is preschool (a Trek) that he really loves. Too bad it was only 16 degrees outside -- too cold for biking. In the picture below, you'll notice T's "overeasy" pajamas (that's a term that he coined himself.)



After spending the morning playing with his new presents, we went to the mall to see the Curious George movie (cute, with great music) and the boys got haircuts. My oh my their hair grows fast.



For dinner, the boys made "half and half pizzas" --half alfredo sauce and half red sauce. They were great chefs....and the pizza wasn't too bad either. (As you can see, pizza making is VERY serious business.)

My Baby Is Five

How Can It be? How can my little baby be five already? Boy, does time go by so fast. Everybody told me that time does this crazy thing -- zoom by - but I never believed it. And here he's five. He's such a fun kid.

• He loves art and creating things -- it doesn't matter the media. Give him some sticks and sand and he's just as happy as if you've given him watercolors and a brush. He can make art out of anything.
• He also sees beauty in anything -- flowers, sunsets, colors, birds, a button on my blouse -- anything. While we were searching for seashells, I heard over and over "Mom, here's a beautiful one" or my favorite, "Mom, here's a beauty!"
• He has become terribly shy, which is often perceived as being a brat (perhaps it's his look of disdain when somebody he doesn't know talks to him?)
• He's either completely loving or a horrible snit. The Loving part: he'll snuggle and give kisses to me, his dad, and even, his brother (even in the hockey locker room when R is trying to get dressed, which doesn't go down to well -- I mean really, getting kissed by your brother in public when you're a hockey player? Come on!) The Snit part: He knows what he wants and he doesn't care if it's rude or wrong, that's what he wants. He has an opinion and he's not going to change his mind. (He's defintely not a pleaser.)
• He loves dogs and puppies and loves everything about them and everything that depicts them -- books, stickers, art, catalogs, and the real live things themselves.
• He's a train expert. Loves trains, knows trains, wants to work on a train when he grows up.
• He is smart! He has the best use of language and phrases. It kills me sometimes.

He's such a wonderful, loving, artistic, creative, tough, smart kid and I love him so much. I can't believe he's five!

What a Life!

I'm coming at ya from sunny Florida. OhMyGosh is this a beautiful place! It's overcast in the morning, but burns off by 9ish. We're in the cutest little town on the cutest little island. The boys are having a grand time. It was about 76 degrees today (sure beats the 12 degrees that we left behind us on Sunday!). Our flights here weren't the best -- delays, running for the connection, missing the connection, flying into a different city, driving for two hours, and finally, arriving at 1:30 in the morning.

It was so worth it.

Yesterday we swam and played at the beach, which by the way, has the most AMAZING shells EVER.



Then, today we drove down to Venice where they have a beach they nicknamed, "shark tooth beach". M saw a special on TV about it and I read up on it in my books about FLA. Evidently, this beach used to be underwater and home to bazillion sharks back in the day. We read that you can just walk along the beach and pick up fossilized shark teeth. Well, we had to get us some of that action. So, we drove an hour south to Venice. We got all our stuff out of the car, headed out to the beach, began looking. Nothing. The beach itself didn't look the way it did on TV. M asked a couple of natives walking by (you can tell they're natives by their leathery skin) and they told us the bad news: Hurricane Charlie tore up the beach, leaving nothing left. The city of Venice hauled in tons and tons of sand and the shark teeth have been really hard to find ever since then.

Bummer.

M didn't give up. We walked to the pier where I had read that you can rent sifters that allowed you to go into the water, dig down, and sift out the sand to reveal the fabulous black teeth. We got down to the pier only to find out that they were out of sifters.

Bummer.

M didn't give up. I took the kids to play in the water and he took the car to find a sifter. He came back with two collanders, which worked great. Before we arrived at the beach, I was praying that we'd find at least two so that each boy would have one. By this time in the day, I was praying that we'd find at least one tooth. We found 4! Yahoo! Success! We were sooo happy! I'll have to post some of the pictures of the teeth later on, but here's R sifting through the water.

The Power To Control The Weather

It's all my fault, this cold weather we're having.

You see, we were having such a warm winter -- days in the high 30's and even 40's. I was afraid that our scheduled trip to Florida, to get out of freezing weather, would be in vain if that warm weather kept up.

Last year at this time, it was in the low single digits. Low. Single. Digits. Last year at this time, I was praying for some warmth, some sunshine, some reprieve from the cold weather. Last year at this time, I promised myself that next year we'd take a vacation to someplace warm during the kids' Mid-Winter break.

Which is next week.

But, last week, on Thursday, we had a really strange weather day. It was downright balmy. It was 59 degrees. Fifty-Nine. That's just about shorts weather in these parts.

So, I did it.

I made the fateful wish....I wished that the would get really, really cold....so that our trip to Florida would be worth it.

That, my friends, is why it's 12 degrees outside now, with a windchill of 6.

Six. Degrees.

Now, we can go to Florida.

The Power To Control The Weather

Productive Weekend

This was a good weekend at home. Quite a productive one as far as the kids are concerned:

• R got started on his Pinewood Derby car, with a lot of M's help
• T lamented about how we haven't seen any birds this winter, which made us realize that we don't have any birdseed out -- so he and I took care of that.
• T and R (mostly T) made some beautiful home-made valentine cards (that will get mailed out tomorrow and arrive a bit late)
• I took another card-making class and had a lot of fun. I came home with the knowledge of about 3-4 techniques that I never knew how to do.
• On a whim, I made some oatmeal-cranberry-chocolate chip cookies (I made up the recipe based on an oatmeal cookie recipe) and they were delicious)
• M went pheasant hunting with Uncle B and had a good time (and is bringing the birds home as I type).
• M also hunted cay-utes (that's a hard "I" sound, like in Kite) and foxes on our friends farm because the cay-yutes (aka cayote) and foxes were eating his pheasant. Our friend is about to buy a flock of sheep and wants the preditors GONE before he gets them on his farm. By the way, they didn't see hide nore hair of the aforementioned preditors that night.

Here are some pictures of our productivity:

R and M laying out R's design on draft paper (R wants his car to look like a shark. Sounds tricky to me, but M says it will be no problem and is quite excited about it.

R and M working the bench press together to drill in the holes where the weights will be (this thing needs to weigh 5 ounces, per the rules.)

I thought this was cute :> R can't reach, so he's standing on the recycling bin. Perfect height! They're working in the garage wearing their winter jackets because it was about 33 degrees in the garage (just a few degrees warmer than it was outside).
Now, it's scroll saw time. This is no job for a kid, so R hams it up for the picture while M concentrates on the job at hand.

A good day's work. R shows the basic shape of his shark car. Can you see the fin on top and the tail in the back?

T trying to point to his newly made bird feeder. He's having a hard time looking up with it snowing and all. He started the feeder at preschool, but wasn't happy with the amount of bird seed on it (or lack thereof). So, we added more suet (aka bacon grease) and more bird seed. While we were at it, we filled the three bird feeders that were hanging empty in the back yard. When I woke up this morning, T greeted me excitedly, saying, "Mom, there are birds EVERYwhere today!"

Mission accomplished.



We hung T's feeder on the crabapple tree so that we could see it from our dining room window.


And, finally, the assorted valentines that the boys (mostly T) made today.

Superbowl Weekend

We were so fortunate to have M's family come and visit for the weekend. We didn't know they were coming. We had invited them, but different people had to work during the weekend and we were afraid tha it wouldn't work out. But, it did! Gram, Gramp, Uncle Dan, and Uncle Dave were all able to make the four hour drive :>

The men worked on my craft room -- building thresh holds, painting trim, painting doors, and other stuff that I don't really understand. R, T, Gram, and I hung out and played games. Gram and I even got to do a bit of shopping together, which was pretty fun. While the men were downstairs working and I was grocery shopping, Gram took the opportunity to build a "snow dog" with the kids in the front yard. When I drove up the drive way, they were nearly finished. And boy were they having fun! Here they are enjoying the winter snow:

We had quite the FEAST for the big game! Tons of tasty appetizers, including my new re-creation of a favorite from Cafe Iberico in Chicago -- baked goat cheese. We also had bacon-wrapped-pheasant, chile-cheese dip (requested by Uncle Dan and made by Gram), tasty cheese tray, lots of crackers, and, (drum roll please....) M's fried Turkey. Here's a picture of M and his brother pulling the tasty, moist, scrumptious bird out of the frier.



We only had one breast-worth of turkey leftovers after the Super Bowl, which we ate last night. It's amazing how tasty it was. All in all, we had a really fun weekend :>

An "Apology"

Yesterday we were cleaning out the boys' dressers and replacing them with some hand-me-down dressers that M refitted/re-enforced. While we were doing this, I was supervising the boys in thier dismal effort to put away the non-clothes things that somehow ended up in their dresser (ie Valentine candy from last year, multiple match box cars, dog stuffed animals, and a variety of legos.) At some point during this task, T decided that he didn't want to participate anymore. So he began pouting and harumping at me. I spoke to him sternly and told him that I didn't like his bad attitude and he better change it or else he was going to bed right now. He finally shaped up, but not without a fight.

Fast forward to dinner time, two hours later.

After dinner, when it was just T and me at the table (as it often ends up at night because he is such a slow eater and I excuse everyone else), T said to me: "Mom, I'm sorry about the attitude 'situation'" earlier today. As he said "situation" he raised his little hands up to either side of his head, put two fingers out on each hand, and made the universal quotation marks sign. He's not even five yet! How did he learn about the universal quotation sign? Too funny!!

I was good and didn't even laugh. I told him that I was glad he was sorry and I accepted his apology.

You bet I laughed my butt off when I recalled the story to M!

Pictures from Christmas Time

Got the kids to bed early tonight to try to keep them healthy. I also got them an additional vitamin C + eccinacia (sp) to add to their regular multi-vitamin during this cold and flu season.

I mentioned T's bruised lip last night. It looks (and feels) a lot better today. Here's a picture:




Here are some pictures from our visit to California at Christmas time.

First, the five cousins out for a walk to an outdoor mall on a bright, sunny day. Yes, that's one girl with a whole lot of boys.



Here are some of R and T in thier Christmas finest (minus the too-hot-for-the-weather adorable Christmas sweaters that we packed).



All the cousins with Santa. I talked to them about the naughy and nice lists that Santa keeps. R thought he was probably on the nice list. T wasn't sure because "sometimes I'm naughty, but most of the time I'm nice." J said that he had a 50/50 chance of being on the nice list. They must have all been pretty good because they made out like bandits!

Been Too Long

This is the first weekend since before Thanksgiving that I have felt healthy. Bummer, huh. Anyway, I'm feeling a lot better. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, I got really sick on Christmas night. Can't get out of bed for three days sick. But, I had to get out of bed...and get packed up....and get on a plane...and get home. I was so stuffed up that no drugs could get me to breathe out of my nose for ten days. I was so congested that I took Nyquil each night for fifteen nights. Crazy. On the weekends, it was all I could do to get out of bed and made something for the family to eat, then take a three hour nap, then get up and make something for the family to eat, and get back into bed. As a matter of fact, I have been so tired for the past three weeks, that more than once, I fell asleep at my desk for few minutes...which is dangerous when you work in a cubicle and all the world can walk by and see you.

But now I'm better. I saw my doctor last week and he suspects that I started with a virus and it hung on because of allergies. Allergies in the dead of winter? I asked. Yep. Mold allergies. Great. So now I'm back on all the allergy meds that I only thought I'd have to take in Spring and Fall. I'll probably end up taking them every day all year as long as I live in this fine Midwestern state, which I plan on doing for a very long time. As a matter of fact, the doctor said, Welcome to this fine-Midwestern-state (except he just said the state name.)

But now I'm better. And I did eight loads of laundry today. And baked a cake to celebrate Uncle D's college graduation. And made two loaves of delicious yogurt herb cake (but I did that yesterday.)

Uncle D is here to help M work on my room in the basement. I'm SSOOOOO excited! They have the walls up, taped, mudded, and painted! Right now, as we speak, they are putting in a ceiling! Oh boy!

R and D are also heathy these days. R still has that residual cough, but he's tons better. T's pretty good except for a big bruise by his upper lip where he ran into the door knob going down into the basement. R was in front of him and didn't know that T was behind him, so R closed the door behind him and T walked into the door. The knob just happens to be at lip level. Poor guy. I can't wait to hear what the teachers say.

I gotta go and fold some more laundry. Just wanted ya'll to know that I'm feeling a lot better.

Happy 2006

I know, I haven't blogged in awhile. We had a very busy, but fun, Christmas (except for the part in which M and I were sicker than dogs -- but that's another story.)

We started out the festivities celebrating a few days before Christmas with M's family in Chicago. We flew out of O'Hare on the 22nd, so we arrived the afternoon before and rented a set of adjorning suites at a hotel by the airport (our flight was at 6 AM so we wanted to stay close to the airport.) We had a great time visiting with Gram and Gramp, and Uncle D and his girl friend, J. We went swimming, ordered Chicago pizza, opened presents, and feasted on the delectible family favorite -- cranberry cake with hard sauce that Gram baked. Yummmmmm.....

We hit the airport by 4:30 AM and had a pretty easy flight to LAX. Unfortunately, M was sick, so I kept feeding him decongestants at the appropriate times to aid him for take-off and landing.

My sister picked us up and took us to her beautiful, big,new house -- enough beds for all of us!

After enjoying the California sunshine (78 degrees -- shorts weather!) for a few days, we had a nice Christmas. Christmas Eve service was at their family church -- we all had a good time, especially T, who sang his little heart out to "Angels We Have Heard On High." You should have seen his little mouth opened as wide as can be during the "Glo-oh-oh-oh...ria" parts :>

Santa came and endowed all the kids with lots of good presents. Then, Jen hosted a lovely brunch for the whole family -- I'm guessing there were almost 30 people there. The food was delicious and plenty of it!

It was a nice afternoon enjoying our new things and resting. It's amazing how all the cousins played so well together. It made me and my sis so proud!

I have to go read bed time stories to the boys. I'll blog more tomorrow or Friday -- hopefully with pictures!

Winter Time

So many things to blog about, like....


First Subject: How we got all dressed up

M and I got dressed up twice in the past week for two pretty fancy dinners for my work. The first was at the country club her in town (it's on a lake and pretty, but not as fancy as those big city country clubs). We had a nice time -- great food, that's for sure. It was nice that M knew some of my friends and even their spouses because he's played poker with them a couple of times. By the way, M looked pretty nice that night :> (see above).


Second Subject: How we've all been sick for the past week.
First, R got it...he woke up in the middle of the night with a "tummy pain" -- he pointed alternately to his stomach and then later to his chest, and then to his stomach. It was quite frustrating at 3:00 in the morning not to really know what was hurting him. Sometimes he would moan in pain and curl up his legs (like when you have a stomach ache) then later he would cough and cough and say that his chest hurt. Hmm...what's a mother to do. Do I give cough medicine that will help the cough, but might hurt his tummy? Do I think that it's his chest that hurts, but not his tummy? But, those moans and that fetal position thing look like a stomach ache. In the end, I gave him no medicine, but sat with him for three hours until he fell back asleep. Then I crawled back into bed for an hour nap before I had to get up. We kept him home from school on Thurs and Friday, then he seemed fine, so we let him go to Cub Scouts (but not hockey because of his cough). Next thing I know, it's Sunday night and he's vomiting. I stay with him for awhile, leave him a big bowl, and go back to bed because I'm soooo tired. On Monday morning, I felt horrible. I've got it too. Fever of 100, nasea, vomiting, and aches and pains. R and I were out for two more days. We were back at school and work on Wed.

On Thursday, M calls me in the morning saying that he feels like he's "been hit by a truck". He called me in the afternoon telling me that T had vomited. I came home a bit early to care for the sickies, walked in the house to M moaning and T throwing up red jello (through his nose) and saying sadly "I'll NEVER be healthy again!" I took care of those two very pale looking, high fever guys Thursday night and went to work on Friday. M felt better on Friday night (or pretended to for my sake) and we went to the big company Holiday party. Saturday was good - all healthy. We went to hockey, a birthday party, and I fixed dinner for the family and Uncle Dan (who was visiting for a great Christmas present for me -- story to come later).

After dinner on Saturday night, I felt LOUSY. The worst I've felt in FOREVER. My stomach hurt, my legs hurt, I was freezing (or hot!), my nose was stuffed up. I felt TERRIBLE. I was up all night with nasea, vomiting, and a general feeling of ickiness. My fever was over 102. I was lethargic and slightly delirious (and example of said delirium was when I was so cold that I tried to take a hot bath to warm myself up, but couldn't get the water hot enough to feel warm at all to me.) Anyway, I was sick in bed all day on Sunday -- couldn't even lift my head up off the bed. I missed work yesterday, sleeping most of the day. Thankfully, Iam MUCH better today. I hope that I'm the last of this cycle. We've sprayed lysol everywhere, changed the sheets, thrown out the toothbrushes and are washing our hands like crazy. Oh yeah, did I mention that this flu is closing down schools around here because of how contageous it is? Crazy nasty thing!


Third Subject: The weather
It is definitely not "way down in the fall" anymore. We are talking full-on winter!! Since the first snow in mid-November, we've gotten 24 inches. Yep, you read that right. That's two feet of snow so far. Some of it melted, but I'd say that we have about and 12-18" base out in our yard right now. Amazing. It's been so cold that it hasn't melted much. It was 12 degrees on my way to work today and 21 degrees on my way home. Last Wednesday, it was 4 degrees.....4. Here's a picture that M took for me to show you some of the beauty of the cold. As R said, we have REAL icecicles mixed with our FAKE icecicles. The really long one there is about 14" long. Cool.

This is NOT an Announcement

Tonight at dinnertime, R said "I think we should have a baby girl." T agreed, "Yeah, I think that's a good idea."

Oh, I said. I'm not sure about that. Daddy and I like the family that we have now and we think that God is happy with our family as it is now too. But, if God wants us to have a baby girl, we will have one.

R said, "Well, we don't have to have it right away. Maybe in January or something...some time this winter would be good."

I explained to him that it takes about 9 months for a baby to grow in a mommy's tummy. So, the earliest we'd be able to have one is around his birthday, if that's what God wanted.

He thought that's okay...as long as it's not really on his birthday. T agreed.


DISCLAIMER:
As I say in the title, THIS IS NOT AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANY KIND. It's simply a re-creation of a dinnertime discussion.

Kids Tell All

Today we were taking a friend of R's to McDonald's with us and M was asking the kids what they wanted to eat and drink. After the kids told us what they wanted, M and I said what we wanted. M said he'd have Diet Coke. Zach, R's friend aked why he drank Diet Coke and not regular Coke. M replied that he had diabetes and couldn't have a lot of sugar.

"Oh, you have diabetes? My dad has diarrhea!" said Zach.

M and I are still laughing about it five hours later.

So Many Things To Be Thankful For

I have so many things to be thankful for. Here's just a few iin no particular order:

• Two beautiful boys that make me smile
• A great husband that I love so much
• A job that pays enough for M to stay home, but doesn't stress me out
• Diet coke in the morning
• Warm blankets on my bed
• Hair scrunchies to hold my hair out of my eyes
• A calm between two snow storms that allowed us to drive to M's parents house for Thanksgiving
• People who read my blog and make comments
• A safe car to drive in the snow
• Hot chocolate with little marshmellows
• A son who loves to do crafts with me (T)
• A son who loves to watch airplane shows with M (R)
• A great elementary school that teaches R music, art, and art appreciation, language arts, gym, Spanish, as well as the three R's
• Family all across the country
• 8:00 bedtime for the boys, which gives me a couple of hours before I go to bed
• Songs, singing, and a family who loves to sing
• Dolly Parton, who gave us "A Coat of Many Colors" -- the current bedtime favorite"
• "Too many kisses" - a game both boys play with me in which they compete with each other on who can give me the most kisses
• Books, libraries, and Scholastic book orders
• My comfy red chair
• God who loves me even when I haven't even started looking for a church yet
• The boys' prayers at dinner time -- T usually thanks God for "having a wonderful day" and R asks that God "make sure our family gets home safely"
• M's love for me and all the sweet things he does to show me he loves me

I hope every one had a great Thanksgiving!

You Can Infer It

R, T, and I were reading a new-to-us book by Eric Carle (a wonderful children's author) called "Slowly, Slowly, the Sloth" about animals from the rain forest. We came across an animal that was hard for me to identify, so I asked the kids, "what animal is this?"

R answered, "well, the author doesn't tell us with his words, so we have to infer what the animal is. I think it's an anteater."

I said, "'infer' is a new word for you. What does that mean?"

R said, "well, authors use words and sometimes drawings to explain what they're trying to tell you. Sometimes they don't tell you exactly what they mean, so you have to infer it from the clues they give you."

Yep, he's six and knows what "infer" means. Some adults I know get "infer" confused with "imply."

I love his school :>

Two Happy Boys

R and T are having a nice weekend. R had a playdate yesterday with a boy from his class (who is also on his hockey team.) They had a blast. They even played with T, which is great. R had hockey this morning and made a goal playing "D" (defense). He says that he likes playing "D" because he can stop the other team. Just for the record, there isn't a position that he doesn't like at this point. He just loves the game. He said, "I'm just so happy when I'm out there on the ice!" Gotta love that.

T and I read some books and did puzzles during our "mommy and T time." I'm giving him some special time because he's been feeling a bit left out with all of the activities that we do with/for R (scouts and hockey). He likes having this time together -- he's such a lover (when he's not being a snit -- there's no inbetween with him!)

Good Fall Fun

T is dressed for winter even though it's just fall(dressed himself, of course) to show grammie and papa the "nature trail" that M blazed with his lawn tractor through the field just past our woods. The boys love to go out and get "lost," each with a walkie talkie in hand. They communicate with each other to find thier way. Good fun.


Below, you see a proud R. He designed this vampire jack-o-lantern, which M drew and grammie helped cut out. Notice the sharp fangs, which every good vampire must have.

Trick or Treat

What a fun Halloween! I took the day off because my mom and dad were in town and I had a lot of fun doing the mom thang all day (with the help of grammie!) Here's my day:

• 7:00 up and at'em - get R and T dressed and breakfasted
• 8:00 send R off to the bus (with costume in backpack)
• 8:30 leave to take T to preschool
• 9:00 to the grocery store to get eggs
• 9:30 bake two batches of brownies with newly purchased eggs
• 11:15 pick up T from preschool
• 12:00 make lunch for mom, dad, T, and M
• 1:30 go to R's school (with newly baked brownies) to do the room-mother thing (Grammie went to) -- Halloween bingo, costume parade for the whole school, and a party with many sugar-laden treats
• 3:40 Take R to the doctor for his annual check-up (I know, I know, M made the appointment on Halloween)
• 5:00 Go home and make two boxes of mac n cheese for kids' dinner to go with M's homemade and delicious chili
• 5:15 the H's arrive for chili and trick or treating (they live in the country and have no homes near by to go to for trick or treating)
• 5:45 Get kids in their costumes and apply appropriate make up
• 6:00 trick or treating around the neighborhood (grammie and papa stayed home to give out candy)
• 7:00 Back home where the kids got to eat two pieces of candy each
• 7:30 H's go home
• 8:00 Kids in bed
• 8:30 three games of Pegs and Jokers (a perfect ending for a busy, but fun day!)
  
  
  
  

T loved his dog costume. He was also a dog last year, but wanted to be a different dog this year. He's a golden retriever, just like Mackinaw (he even let people call him Mackinaw for that one night.)

R LOVED being a vampire. He got to wear this costume three times this "season." He was especially excited to use the "real" fake blood on Halloween night (the other two times we used a red make up crayon for the blood.) The "real" fake blood was drippy and never dried -- he loved it!

So Proud, Man!

Tonight was R's parent-teacher conference at school. It's such a fun experience when your child is doing well -- and he is doing well. She even called him "profound" in how he answers questions. He's curious and loves to learn -- you couldn't ask for much more. R always wants to do his best, which leads to a bit of perfectionism (I really don't know where he gets this -- not from me nor M.) Anyway, sometimes he gets so caught up in doing things exactly right, that he gets a bit paralyzed and can't go on until it's perfect. This is primarily the case in spelling words. They have a journaling exercise in which the children write about whatever subject they're given. Spelling doesn't matter. The idea is to get thier thoughts down on paper. Evidently he has a hard time with the "spelling doesn't matter" part because he really wants to spell it right. I'll work on not being so perfect at home -- I certainly don't want his idea of perfectionism to hinder his creativity.

All in all, he's doing a great job and you can tell that the teacher just loves him. She asked him some questions about what he's learning and the proud and caring look on her face was precious as she was looking at him while he answered.

It warms a mom's heart :>

As we were leaving R's classroom, we saw Mrs Edwards, his kindergarten teacher from last year. Wanting to give T some attention in this R-filled night, I told Mrs Edwards that T would be in her class next year. She looked pleased and bent down to talk to T -- who immediately turned his back to her and refused to talk. Oh well, he'll learn...right??

Conversations from the bath tub:

The boys are in the tub right now. I just overheard R say "oh, careful T, I just tooted and it smells really bad!" T said, "that's okay, sometimes that happens."

Way Down in the Fall

The boys and I just had a discussion about the seasons. Around here, the leaves are definitely changing, the air is crisper (56 degrees crisp), and the squirrels are gathering nuts for the winter. In a Dolly Parton song, she sings about being cold when it is "way down in the fall." T says that it's not that late in the year yet and R says that he was cold at school, so maybe it is way down in the fall. We compromised and agreed that, right now, it's way in the middle of the fall.

We just went to a Fall Fest party at the home of one of R's classmates. Totally fun for the kids. Totally insane for the parents. They played a bunch of games with prizes for everybody for each game; they ate hotdogs; they decorated pumpkins; they had a pinata; and they wore costumes. Oh yeah, and there were 46 kids. 46. Kids. Yikes!

I had to go to the grocery store after the party and R said that he was embarassed to go in his costume. He's a vampire. Black pants, white shirt, red cumberbund, black cape, white face make up, red blood dripping from his mouth, hair slicked back, fang teeth. He wanted to take the cape off to go in the grocery store. I convinced him that he'd look better with the cape because then his face make up made sense. I don't think he really got what I meant, but he went in full-costumed anyway. He got lots of smiles. So did T, who was wearing a dog costume -- a different dog costume than the one he wore last year because he didn't want to be that dog, but he wanted to be a golden retreiver like Mackinaw. Too cute.

It's been a full on busy day. M and R had hockey team pictures at 8:00 am this morning. This means that they had to be at the rink by 7:40 or so to get suited up. M suggested -- and I quickly agreed -- that I stay home with T :> I took a long bath and read a lot of a great book (Julie and Julia) for an hour. Then, I cooked up some bacon and had a great breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast for them when they got back.

After our late breakfast, we all worked in the yard. M had tilled out a bigger area in the front yard for a flower bed. We got some tulips in the mail last week that I ordered from Holland, MI. Sixty bulbs in all. T and R helped me plant them six inches deep. They'll be so beautiful in the spring! T asked me to read the names of the flowers as we planted them. At the end of the morning, he said, "I can't WAIT to see the Pink Imaginations come up, can you mommy?" I didn't tell him, but I, actually, am most excited about the Red Cashmir and the White Trumpets...but I'm sure the Pink Imaginations that we put around the mailbox will be divine.

Fun with Uncle Dan in Our Second Corn Maze

We had a great weekend with Uncle Dan last weekend at another corn maze. In my quest to see all of the corn mazes within 50 miles of our house before the month was over, we discovered a really fun place. We all had a great time. I tried to post these pictures earlier in the week, but Blogger wasn't cooporating -- it still isn't cooperating, but I posted them the old school way. Enjoy!

T and R goofing around in the hay bale maze.

R, pretending he's a farmer and chewing on a piece of corn straw (he saw his daddy doing it earlier and thought that it was pretty funny.) 

A rare picture with me in it. I know, it's not the best of the boys -- but I don't look too bad! 

Uncle Dan with R and T -- all ready for the corn maze. (Yes, T picked out his own outfit, bandana and all.) 

Sleep is Good

I got a GREAT night's sleep on Friday night and last night. I'm such a happier person (and wife and mom) when I've had over five hours of sleep in a night :>

Uncle Dan came over this weekend and we had a really nice visit. He and M went skeet shooting yesterday, and last night we played 3-way pegs and jokers (after a tasty dinner of chicken, spinach casserol, and tomatoes with mozerella). Today, the boys took Mackie for a walk in the woods while I finished up some work and then we went to our second corn maze of the season. Lots of fun there -- I'll have pictures for you later this week.

I'm off for my last(!) business trip tomorrow at 4:00AM. Wish me luck!

So Tired...

I don't know how I'm awake right now... I don't think I've gotten more than 4-5 hours of sleep each night for the past three weeks with all this traveling. On Wednesday, I was up at 4:30 and in bed after midnight. That's a long day, especially when it included six hours of driving to Chicago and back. The crazy thing is that I was so wired, despite being exhausted, that I couldn't sleep that night. And the same thing happened last night. I didn't get to sleep until after three in the morning. Arghh! Tonight, Tylonal PM will be my friend....I better take it now so that I can be awake at 7:00 to get the boys ready for hockey.

I'm back from my third (out of four) business trips in so many weeks. I'm pooped! The boys made "welcome home" posters for me -- so cute. R wasn't feeling well today and had a fever -- that poor boy has been getting sick a lot. He still has a bit of a fever now (don't ask me how high it is; I dropped the thermometer in the toilet and threw it away and haven't replaced it yet). His only other symptom is a headache. Bummer.

M is at the Tiger Cubs meeting right now. I was supposed to help him, but I'm home with the kids since R is sick. The theme is Health and Safety. I organized the meeting and got most of the stuff together, with M's help. They will be making first aid kids and talk about safety. They'll also make firefighter hats and play a firefighter relay (they'll have to put on their hats and some big boots, run across the floor, blow out a candle, and run back to give the boots to the next boy.) Should be fun.

Meanwhile, I worked with R on his vocabulary words because he has a test on Friday. I'm impressed with his sight reading skills. Funny, though, they don't teach phonics at his school. When I asked him to sound out a word, he looked at me like I was weird and named the letters in the word instead of sounding it out. So, I taught him how to sound out words. I did this because he saw the word "car" and quickly said that it was "color". I guess that he just saw the first letter and quessed....strange. But, all in all, he got more than 90% of the words right on the first try, so I told him how proud I was of him.

I have a long day tomorrow. I have to drive to Chicago, leaving at 6:00am and I won't get home until about midnight. Some folks are spending the night, but I don't want to be away more than I already am. Then I'm home until Monday, when I'll fly to Cincinnati for one night. Then I'll be done traveling for awhile. Whew! By the way, M is being quite a trooper about all this traveling, which makes it so much easier for me. He says "well, it's your job" and "I know you're not doing this because you want to." He also appreciates all my efforts to get home quickly. I sure love that man!

Breakfast Conversation

I made eggs, toast, and bacon for breakfast this morning. R polished everything on his plate pretty quickly. T ate his eggs (and then some) and most of his toast. R, upon seeing that T was slowing down, said to T "can I have that piece of toast with honey on it?" T said, "sure you can. here you go." R got it and said, "Honey toast! Prepare for your doom!" and quickly took a bite.

Life with boys...such testoserone-driven drama.

Share and Tell

We got a note from T's preschool last Monday letting us know that they were going to start doing Share and Tell, one child at a time. When they sent a bag home, we were to help our child pick out a non-toy to share. The kids would be asked to say three things about what they were sharing. So, last Friday, T brought home a pillow case with a drawstring in it, and proudly told me that he was going to be the first one to share....

Fast forward to Monday at lunch time, when M and T took me on a "lunch date" and M whispered to me "ask T about Share and Tell." YIKES! I immediately remembered that we completely forgot about it!! So, I said to T:

Me: T, what happened at share and tell?
T: I shared; I told.
Me: Oh...what did you share and tell about?
T: Air.
Me: Air?
T: Yeah, I talked about air.
Me: Wow. What did you say about air?
T: I said, 'This is air. You need it to breathe. It's air. The end."
Me: That's great.
T: Yeah, I know.

I was so impressed with his flexability and improv on the spot! Most four year-olds would cry or pitch a fit or say that they forgot! Not my creative T! No way...he shared about air.

Later on in the lunch, I spotted on T's wrist the friendship bracelet that he made over the weekend. I said, Hey, you could have shared the friendship bracelet. He said, "Why? I shared air?"

Exactly.

A Day At The Farm and Corn Maze

When my sis was in town last weekend, we went to a local farm for a day. It's fun to see how these farmers are creating profitable attractions for visitors. I know farming isn't an easy vocation and I like to see the creativity they each have. Anyway, this one has a u-pick apples (which we're going to go back to do), a corn maze, a cute barn store full of tasty and cute items, a wagon ride, and a little kids playground area. We went mainly for the maze (my quest is to do all corn mazes within a 70 mile radius of our house this fall -- I think there are three of them). Last year when we went to a corn maze, there were triva questions at each juncture. If you answered it correctly, it told you the correct way to go. If you answered it incorrectly, it told you the wrong way to go.

At this maze, there was nothing. No questions, no hints, not even a clue as to where you were supposed to exit! It was ridiculious!! But we had fun.

R and T didn't know which way to go...

M, with his boy scout training and smart brain, began droping kernels of corn to mark our way (how hansel and gretle of him!) so we would know if we were just walking in circles. The boys had fun, we had to keep telling R to wait for us because he would run ahead to see what was around the bend and we couldn't see him. Once I realized that we might be there awhile, I stopped drinking my tasty fresh apple cider in case M would need some glucose out there...I was a bit worried. But, never fear, with M's leadership, we made it out! And we were so proud, man!!




And now for laughs, here's me and my sis as scarecrows...kinda scary!

Queen for a Day

I'm back in town.

I was supposed to leave my conference at 1 pm and get home at 6 pm, but after missing my family and checking the agenda for the conference, I decided that I didn't need to attend this morning's sessions. So, I woke up at 4:15 (ugh!) and headed to the airport to catch an earlier flight. I had checked online last night and saw that the 6 am flight was wide open, and that there was a 6:50 flight only half full. I figured that I could get on one of those.

I did, but barely.

The 6:50 was cancelled and those passengers were called the night before and told to come get on the 6:00 flight. I waited in a terribly long line (especially for 5:00 in the morning!) and was told that there was only one seat left. Great! I said, I only need one seat. Well, in order to hold it, the ticket agent said, you'll have to pay a fee. She said this with a sad look on her face. Uh oh...so I quietly asked, what's the fee?? (praying that it wasn't the difference between my ticket and the current price...which would be an unachievable $400 and also praying that it wasn't the $100 fee they charge for changing your flight on the phone.) I held my breath....She said, 25 dollars. $25! :> :> :> no problem, $25 to get on a plane and not have to wait for 7 hours in the airport...why that's less than four bucks an hour. Count me in!

So I got home at noon instead of six tonight, much to the delight of M and T (who were home at the time) and R (who got home a few hours later). T decided that I should be a queen and proceeded to get out paper, scissors, tape, and markers (the necessary requirements of all good art projects.)

He asked me what name I wanted on a royal name tag that he was making and I said "S....". He said I couldn't use my real name and I needed to pick another. So I picked "Sue", my middle name. He didn't like that either, so he said, I'll pick a beautiful name for me. So he made me a name tag that reads...

Queen Rowala Diamond

He got help on the spelling, but the name is all his. I don't know where he got that name, but he is very proud of it. "Isn't it beautiful?" he said. Yes it is, I said, proudly wearing the paper crown and nametag, with a very warm feeling in my heart.

It's nice to be home....and it's nice to be queen :>

Biz Trip

I'm getting ready for four weeks of business trips -- 2 nights this week, one night next, and two nights away the next two weeks. YIKES. I shouldn't complain becuase I haven't traveled since June, and February before that. M is gearing up for it and has babysitters lined up one night each trip so he gets a break. Smart man. R is fine -- "it's only two nights mom, that's not bad at all." T tears up and gave me hundreds of kisses when I put him to bed. Awwwhhh...

My sister visited me this weekend and we had a BLAST. I'll post more on that when I get back (with pics). Here's some catch-up thoughts.

• I've only made half of the medical appointments I need to...but HEY, that's four appointments I made. Not Bad.
• T is liking ice skating now. He's still on buckets, but should be off soon. He can shuffle half way across the ice without the buckets. I think he likes the snacks afterward the best. The one day he quit after 15 minutes, he didn't get snacks. He's played ever since...might be a correlation!
• R is doing amazingly well at skating. In addition to the skating drills, he's even playing hockey a bit...and made a goal once! His heart is in it and he's a coaches dream. What an attitude that boy has. You would not believe how red, hot and sweaty he is after practice...his shirt is drenched and he has sweat rolling down his face, accompanied by a huge smile! He sure doesn't take after his mom there!
• M took T to Michaels to get his very own paint and art supplies today. He's in heaven!
• I thought of two more sayings in the biz world that drive me crazy: "Reach out" as in "I'll reach out to Brenda and ask her to take care of that." What ever happened to the word "call?" The other one is "Have a dialogue" What ever happened to simple "talk"???? Crazy world I work in!
• My allergies are under control. As of three days ago, my ears, eyes, nose, and throat are all A-OK. Remember, I'll be taking a nasal spray twice a day until the first hard frost!
• R seems much better until he's overtired, then he says that he feels sick. He goes to the doctor in November for a check up. We'll ask about allergies.
• We haven't taken out Yankee Doodle since THE EVENT.....timing just hasn't been right. M and I agreed that we need to take it out before we put it away for the winter. Stay tuned on that front.

That's it for now! If you feel like it, reach out to me so we can have a dialogue.

A Sign of the Season

T walked into our bedroom this morning and said, "Mom, my clock in my room says that it's seven o'clock, but the sun outside doesn't say that it's seven o'clock." I looked outside and saw that the sun was barely peeking out -- it was pretty dark. I said, "T, that's becuase summer is about over and it's time for fall. " T replied without a beat..."ohhh, that's why I saw the leaf falling down yesterday!"

Surfer Boy

R had a great time "surfing" on the lake when we were at the cottage. The "surfboard" is the board of a wind sufboard. My friend, Kevin, spent some time with R, helping him get up and then giving him a gentle push. R figured that he was a pro because of all of his practice in the creek with Uncle Rick back in California. Needless to say, he had a great time -- and provided some entertainment to those of us on the beach in the peanut gallery.

Note: R just came in and saw this blog entry and broke into a huge grin. He said, "Mom, next time we got there, I'm gonna do this move" and started to wiggle his hips, with his arms out and his knees bent (one in front of each other.) And then he said, "you should bring your video camera next year because I'm going to be great."

Ear Update

Whaddaya know....it's allergies and not a cold.

I went to the Urgent care ( yes, that place that I hate) but actually had a good experience! I was seen by a nurse practitioner (I love nurse practitioners -- much more realistic and down to earth than doctors, in general). He said are you allergic to ragweed? I said that I was (as you all remember!) but that these symptoms were completely different. I told him that my eyes weren't itchy and watery...and besides, R has an ear infection and we've been sick with the same cold for two weeks.

Hmmmm...he said as he was looking in all of the orifices on my head. Well, he said, your nasal passage looks like you have allergies.....and your ears look like you have allergies....and your throat looks like you have allergies....I'm fairly confident that you have allergies. Then, he said, do you also have spring allergies? Nope, I told him, I didn't have any spring allergies...But wait, I said...there was that cold that lasted for five weeks last April.

He just smiled.

Evidently, I have allergies.

Why am I surprised? I was allergic to pollen growing up, so why not these midwestern plants too?
(Note: When he asked me if I had any Fall allergies and I said 'no', T corrected me and said, "you're allergic to cats, mom!"

He prescribed what he calls the "triple whammy" -- steroids (Prednizone) for five days to block any new ragweed and golden rod from getting into my system, a "turbo sudifed" and nasal spray. He said that after two weeks, I'll be under control and will only need the nasal spray until the first hard frost (now that's not something you hear in California.)

Anyway, I feel alot better. I'm just a little stuffed up and my ear is just a little bit clogged.

I'm beggining to think that R has allergies too and it turned into an ear infection. His nose runs evertime he's outside (it has all his life -- since he could run around a playground.) But, we'll deal with that later at his annual exam with our new pediatrician.

By the way, we finally do have a pediatrician. And we have appointments for both boys (thanks to the deadline given by T's preschool -- ya gotta love deadlines.}

Now on my doctor To Do list, I need appointments for:

• Eye doctor for me (no, I still haven't gone)
• Eye doctor for M (to check on that thing that was not intrusive but needs to be watched)
• General check up for me
• General check up for M
• Dentist for all four of us
• Gynee for me (unless I do the general check up first, then all can be covered there)
• Endocronologist for M

Whew! If I just get two of those checked off my list this week I'll be happy.

I'll be even more happy on Friday night when my SISTER COMES TO VISIT :> :> :> :> :>

Of Colds and Ear Aches

Ugh...

R and I got a cold two weeks ago. We both felt pretty lousy for a week. I would sneek home to take a nap in the middle of the day (the beauty of living 12 minutes from work) and R stayed home from school for a day. After about 5 days, we felt better, albeit still stuffed up. M and T, in the meantime, got a weaker version of this cold. Anyway, between Sudafed, Dayquil, Children's Triamenic, and Tylanol, we were all feeling a bit better. So we went to the cottage. And had a great time. By the end of that trip, we didn't need the drugs any more and were'nt blowing our noses every three seconds.

But R and I still had some stuffy (me) or runny (him) noses. And then, on Wednesday night, R woke up at 12:30 and came to my bedside. I asked why he was up and he said that he didn't know. So, I had him go tinkle, get a sip of water, and took him back to bed. Then, he was up again at 3:30, with his ear feeling like "it has a huge metal ball in it, trying to push out." I thought that was a great description of an earache (much better than his very vague decriptions from when he had a "soft tummy." So, I gave him some decongestant and ibuprofin and stayed up with him whimpering until 5:30, when he fell asleep,

Took him to the doctor on Thursday and yep, he has an ear infection. I wanted the doc to check my ear too (since we have been on the same path with this illness) but didn't ask because my ear really didn't hurt, it just felt plugged up. R stayed home from school yesterday (after another night of being up with mommy around 2-4 am) and he seems a lot better today (the wonders of antibiotics!)

Now it's Saturday and we're waiting until 9:30 for the Urgent Care to open because I have a large metal ball in my right ear trying to get out.

Bummer.

Cottage Life

Welcome to Shady Shores! What a great place...a place where we hope to return to next year :>

Here's our cute little cottage on the beach where we spent a lovely Labor Day weekend. All of us had such a great time.


R and T had fun playing shuffle board. They don't know how to play, but had a good time making up their own rules. As usual, wrestling was involved (I know, I know...but they are boys.)




T loved playing in the sand. If it were up to him, he would have stayed in the sand all day. As a matter of fact, his favorite way of warming up after getting cold in the water was to lay down in the prone position in the sand. He looked like a sand monster, but he was warm.

Fun Times at Shady Shores

A friend of my from California has relatives in the Midwest who own a group of seven cottages on a lake. We just got back from a fun trip visiting with them. I'm too pooped to blog much, but I'll think of a few highlights:

• Great food! BBQs to the max - burgers, dogs, steak, Greek Chicken, corn -- yum!
• The boys body surfing on the lake because the wind was so high that it made waves.
• Flying a kite and tying it to the chair on the beach to float in the breeze as it wanted to.
• Being served breakfast by all the kids; giving them tips; and taking them to get ice cream cones (doubles!) with the tip money.
• Watching the boys learn how to play poker with the other kids.
• Bonfires every night.
• Looking for shooting stars - and admiring the Miky Way every night.
• Drinking great wine and tasty coolers.
• Walking out as far as you could and still be on the sand bar, with the water only up to my knees.
• Sleeping in the adorable two-bedroom cabin with the family.
• Playing fooz-ball with R in the main cabin (and him beating me each time!)

That gives you a good taste of the weekend for now. Photos to come later...