Playing at Spike's

One day last week Mom had a meeting. Mom thought perhaps the meeting would go more quickly if Jack and I did not accompany her. Spike's mom graciously agreed to entertain us for the morning, and boy, oh boy, did we have fun!

From the look on my face, Mom thinks I enjoyed my lunch. As usual our fifth-percentile Jack is eating huge amounts of food. We can't figure out where that food ends up...

Here I am playing with Spike's teeny, tiny cars. They are "so cool"!

(And because it's important to give credit where credit is due, Mom shamelessly stole these pictures from Spike's mom's flicker account. Aren't they great pictures?)

The One About Pants and Balloons

Spending money at the dry cleaners isn't Mom's idea of a good time. However, Jack and I love going to the dry cleaners! It's because of the balloons. The nice people who clean Dad's pants give us free balloons every time we drop off or pick up a pair of dirty dress pants. They have this big dish on the counter full of all different colors of balloons. I usually pick blue, and Jack usually picks green. Except for this time; they were out of green, so Jack picked yellow.

Today we played with our balloons and hammers.

Hammering a balloon in the afternoon. Does it get any better?

Only if you trashed your pants earlier in the day and your mom doesn't want to pile up the laundry by putting another pair on you! :-)
Keeping pants clean is next to impossible around here. For Dad, Jack, and me, anyway...Mom seems to do just fine keeping her pants presentable. It must be a girl thing.

Snow on Saturday

The weatherperson was right! Yesterday morning we woke up to snow. It was a thick, heavy, spring snow--just enough to cover everything making the outside look really pretty. Best of all, we think our blooming plants survived.

And now it's gone!
Today the sun is shining brightly, and we're told the high will be 60. Snow just the way we like it--pretty with no mess!

Caught With a Cookie

Friday evening finished up a bit rough. Mom was trying a new cookie recipe. Those cookies expanded on the cookie sheet and ended up on our oven floor. Before we knew it our oven was a flaming campfire! Needless to say, our half-made dinner wasn't going to make it into the oven and it was already 5:30! "What to do, what to do," wondered Mom. "I know," said Mom "I'll have James go out and get some pizza!" Off she went to tell Dad he was responsible for dinner...

And that's when it happened!

I caught Jack up on a chair near the counter in the kitchen. He was eating all the saved cookie remnants! Scared there would be none left for me to eat, I ran screaming back to Mom and Dad. Mom saved the cookies and Dad saved Jack.

After the "saving", Mom and Dad figured out what had happened. That little, sweet, cute boy whose name is Jack, saw those cookies and was bound and determined to get one for himself! Seeing his opportunity, as no one was in the kitchen, he pushed a chair from the eating area all the way over to the kitchen counter and proceeded to help himself.
(The picture below indicates his starting place and his grand finish.)

Oh, that little guy keeps us hopping! He's (in his own words) a "sil monk" (silly monkey)!

Poop, The Library, and Trees That Don't Grow

We ventured out to the library this morning. We're supposed to be getting a storm later tonight that will deliver 4 inches of fluffy snow. As of right now, it's just raining. We're really curious to see what actually happens. But back to the library...

Jack has filled his pants the last couple of times we've visited the library, and it's cut our visits short. Mom had hoped no one had caught on the fact that libraries bring out the "stink" in Jack, but today when we checked out, the librarian commented "he's done it again, I see." Quite embarrassed, Mom herded us out to the car as quickly as possible. "Why does it have to happen at the library," Mom whispered to Jack as she buckled him in.
Really!

____________

Back home we decided to do a project. A friend had given us a grow-your-own-tree kit that goes with the movie we previewed this past Wednesday. We opened the box and read the directions. Here's a picture of our planted tree seeds.

You'll notice I'm not in the picture. That's because I had a meltdown and got sent to my room. Apparently trees sprout and grow slowly in real life--to the tune of 1-2 weeks, to be exact. In the movie that tree seed sprout popped right up out of the ground the minute the water from the watering can hit the soil! Mom tried to explain the difference between real life and the "magic of digital animation", but I was feeling upset, hurt, disappointed, etc. and couldn't be bothered with listening to Mom's explanation.

Let's just say, it was quite a morning...

Ahoy Maties!

One of the local businesses in our town makes (along with lots of other things) greeting cards and kids' dvds. Today they hosted an event to launch their latest dvd titled Really Woolly-The Tree of Life. Mom, Jack, and I decided to head on over to our local movie theater for the free festivities.

In the animated story two little sheep enjoy playing pirates with their friends way up in the big, backyard tree, so the event was pirate themed. At the theater doors we were given pirate masks. I loved wearing mine. Jack not so much...
Here I am giving a pirate growl!

Next, the mommies each got a goody bag. Mom thought it was really nice the staff acknowledged the hard work that movie theater, kid-wrangling really is!

Finally it was time to watch the movie. If you know anything about me and movies, you know they sort of freak me out. I'm perfectly fine reading about "scary" things in books, but seeing them in live action is a completely different story! Let's just say I prefer reading about pirate sword fights. I had to snuggle my Mom a few times to make it through the 30 minute feature.

The sword fights didn't bother Jack one little bit, but the folding movie theater seats sure made him nervous! It took him quite a while to get brave enough to give his seat a try. Only when Mom agreed to hold it down, did Jack climb up. My little brother spent most of his time on the floor looking back at all the people in the theater.

Once the movie was finished, they had drawings for special prizes. My name was drawn and I won my very own dvd of the movie! Yippee!!! Except that I told Mom I don't want to watch it because it was scary. (Please note: I was probably the only child who was scared. Mom says the movie wasn't scary in the least!)

On our way out the door, we were given gold coins and pirate patches so we could have treasure hunts at home. And that's just what we did after we got home. While Mom was making lunch, we put the coins in my treasure (cigar) box. Mom hid the box and gave Jack and me clues to find the box.

What a fun morning!!!

International Travel

This morning we took our trucks to Paris.

We stopped off at the Eiffel Tower to do a little road work.

A Sunday Evening Walk

After dinner and baths this evening, we went for a walk. All of us. Even Norah. Spring has sprung around here, and it was a beautiful evening.

Did you notice the blossoms on the redbud tree? The one in our backyard is a few days behind this one downtown. They are so pretty!

Aren't we cute? Seeing us in Dad's hats all clean in our jammies waving up a storm made our Mom feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :-)

Silly, Sweaty, and STINKY!!!

That's right!
We're a house full of boys around here.
Jack and I enjoy playing hard and playing silly!

Then we get all sweaty!

And then we get all STINKY!
So, Mom and Dad throw us in the tub to freshen us up.

Mom says she's glad we do it all-silly, sweaty, and STINKY.
She says that means we're having lots of fun being boys!

(She also says she's not sure what she's going to do when we are eleven-ish. She hears boys are really STINKY then. Oh my!)

Sewing with Mom

Now before you get all excited and start commenting and emailing asking my Mom if she really can sew, don't. She can't sew. She just wishes she could sew, and every once in a while she pretends she can. Today was one of those days.

While Mom was pretending to sew, I was playing by myself in my room. Sometimes I really like to have alone playtime. Good thing Mom needed help with her project! That way Jack didn't wish he was playing with me. Jack helped Mom instead.

And then when we were all finished with our playing and pretending, we ate lunch together.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Thanks to everyone who called or emailed to say Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We're wearing green and eating green food today. Kiwis, sprouts, avocados...

Do you like Mom's shamrocks? Wasn't she nice to let us hold them?

We hope you have a day full of fun, green things!

Marching

Today we marched.

But only after Jack asked Mom to remove all his clothes. "Off," he kept saying while tugging at his garments.

We put pegs in our mouths and buckets on our heads and we marched and marched.

Because, after all, it is March!

Reading with Dad

As you know, around here we like to watch birds. This week we found a fun book at the library. It's a book all about how to get birds to visit your back yard. We've sure enjoyed reading it with our Dad.

St. Patrick's Day Project

Neither Jack nor I slept for our nap yesterday. Knowing that two sleepless kids and paint was a recipe for disaster, Mom decided we should do our St. Patrick's project anyway. She stripped us down so none of our clothes would get paint on them...

...and we stamped away!

Even Jackie-boy did a little stamping.

And, boy, oh boy, was it ever a fiasco!

Today

This morning we were excited to discover that the birds have found my new bird feeder! We had to be very sneaky about getting a picture without scaring the birds away. That's why it's not a great picture. We are so happy that two little robins had breakfast at my new feeder.

Then, we headed over to Spike's house for a playdate. Here we are trashing--I mean playing--in Spike's room. As you can see, my allergies have kicked in for the spring.

And finally, our Mom really wants this picnic table. She thinks it would be perfect for outside crafts and lunches this summer. She's wondering if anyone who lives by us has a gently used table for sale? We might just want to take it off your hands. :-)

Happy Friday!

A Before Bed Song

Jack and I were ready for bed on the early side, so we took Jack's song block into the corner and sang a few songs. We sure do like to sing.

Mom's favorite is On Top of Spaghetti. We had to sing it over...

...and over...

...and over.

Finally, she allowed us to move on to Twinkle, Twinkle.

And then it was time for bed!

Baby Bird

After a fun, busy, and productive morning and a restful naptime, Jack and I decided to play baby bird. To the average eye, baby bird looks a lot like hotel. Let me assure you it is a completely different game!

Here we are being little baby birds all snuggled up in our nest of sofa pillows. Mom was the mommy bird, and she fed us pretend worms.

Before too long, after eating all those pretend worms, we grew big and strong enough to fly. We quickly flew out of our nest. See our flapping wings? (Who knows why the picture is crooked...)

There are so very many things to pretend about while using sofa pillows.

Hotel

We had a fun, full day today.

We went grocery shopping, we went to story time at the book shop, we took a walk, and we built a helicopter pad. Now, it's the end of the day. Dad's working late, and Jack and I wanted something to do. Hum...what to do...what to do...

"I know," I said, "Let's play hotel!" So...that's what we're doing!

We started off "sleeping" on the sofa pillows, but then we decided to jump.

It turns out that jumping is way more fun than sleeping!

Norah, however, prefers the sleeping hotel game to the jumping hotel game. She's off hiding behind Mom. That dog wants nothing to do with our crazy jumping.

A Beautiful Afternoon

This afternoon we headed outside to enjoy our beautiful day. We whipped our main flowerbed (in the back yard) into shape. We trimmed off the dead branches and pulled out all the leaves. It feels nice to have that finished!

We also hung a bird feeder in the crepe myrtle in our front yard flowerbed. That bush/tree is right outside my bedroom window. Dad thought it would be fun for me to sit at my table and watch the birds in my very own bird feeder.

Mom has been dying for a few flowers in the yard. We still have about 6 weeks of potential frosty nights, so we managed to hold her back to just a few pansies.

We also got two new chairs for our tiny patio. The others were old and looked it! Tomorrow Mom plans to do a little reading while sitting in her new chair watching Jack and me play.

And here's the part of the yard we did not get to. We've still got a lot of work to do in this area. It's Mom's cutting flower box (left) and her herb box (right). Yikes!!! It's full of dead winter junk! In the herb box, we were happy to find some fresh chives popping through ground, and we were majorly excited to find our lavender and rosemary bushes made it through our extra cold winter.

We've got some nice days coming up, so we'll get cracking at cleaning up the last two boxes. Hopefully by that time frosty nights will be a thing of the past and we can plant our seeds and seedlings.

We are ready for spring!!! Hurry, hurry, hurry...and then stay for a long time since we're not fans of summer at this house. :-)

Aunt Tammy's Outfits

A while back Aunt Tammy gave us these outfits. We had to wait to wear them until the weather was warm and the sizes were right. Today was the day it all came together! We put on our outfits and headed to the park.

Getting us dressed was the easy part. Getting us to pose; well, that was tricky!

I'm pretending to be a monkey in this picture.

Jack saw Mom with the camera and turned the other way.

We did our best, Aunt Tammy! Thanks for the matching outfits.