Friday, August 31, 2012

Fun with chalk

I'd been seeing pictures on Pinterest where you make chalk drawings on the ground, and pose your children near or on them. I made Emily be test subject!
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We called the boys over and made them play as well
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I can't wait to try some more!!

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Gardening 2012

Emily's garden:
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Jared's garden (back left) and Connor's garden (front right)
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In Emily's garden we have some broccoli:
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some zucchini:
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some butternut squash (assuming this one little start gets pollinated and grows!)
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A bush variety cucumber plant (purchased the bush variety on accident, and won't be doing it again...):
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And a pumpkin plant, (assuming this little start ever turns into anything):
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In Connor's garden we have corn:
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broccoli, same as Em's

tomatoes:
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and two pumpkin plants (neither are sprouting any baby pumpkins yet)

In Jared's garden we have beans (Connor has been happily munching away at the few beans that have sprouted so far. We are finally starting to get more than just a couple at a time)
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tomatoes, same as Connor's

lettuce:
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and a pumpkin plant, which isn't sprouting any baby pumpkins yet either.

We are VERY disappointed about the pumpkin situation. Our pumpkins at this time last year were softball-ish sized, and they never did turn green in time for Halloween. Based on the fact that we basically don't have pumpkins at all right now, I'm guessing orange pumpkins in time for Halloween isn't likely. POUT.

We were really surprised at how huge the leaves get for the broccoli plants. Or at least, how huge ours got! I assumed broccoli grew pretty close to the ground, the stalks for the broccoli plants in the kids's gardens are over a foot tall before the broccoli head starts forming, and the leaves are closer to two feet!

I also expected the corn to get a lot taller, but as long as we actually get corn from them, I'm happy! Of the 8 stalks we have, 7 are growing an ear of corn each, and one looks nearly ready to pick (woo hoo!).

We have a bazillion green tomatoes of varying sizes, but none of them are showing any signs of turning red any time soon. I thought for sure with that two week stretch of hot weather we had that we'd see some red tomatoes, but no luck so far.

The lettuce, at least, has been a quick and all-summer-long producer for us! Looking forward to seeing what the rest of the growing season has in store for the gardens. At the very least, we had fun tending the gardens and watching everything grow and change!

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Monkey Crochet

Emily got a little instruction book for crocheting tiny animals as part of a birthday gift from one of her good friends. Em's still working on the basics right now, but I was looking through the instruction book and found a monkey pattern! I figured it would whip up pretty quickly, based on it's completed size, so set to work making it for Connor.

Turns out, the tiny little monkey was a royal pain in the behind, and I told him he'd better be careful not to lose/destroy the little monkey because I wasn't making him another one! The other animals look like they will be much easier; it was the skinny little arms, legs, and tail that made the monkey so tricky. I was actually supposed to stuff the arms and legs and tail, and that was absolutely NOT happening. The little monkey is lucky to have his hands and feet stuffed! LOL

He still needs eyes, and I went ahead and added the green shirt "just for fun", but all in all, he's pretty cute, and Connor was thrilled to get him. Connor named him Tiny.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Geocaching with Grandma!

The kids and I took my mom geocaching last week on her birthday. I'd purposely mapped out some caches near my favorite coffee stand so I could drive through and treat my mom and I to coffee.

The first cache we took her to was one we'd found previously, so I made the kids stay in the car so they wouldn't spoil it for her. (I always take new people to caches I've found before so they are guaranteed at least one successful experience.) After she found it, I let the kids out of the car to pose for a picture. Fun Fact: This cache was also the first one that Emily Grace found! (It was actually her suggestion to do this one first so she and Grandma would be matching)
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We drove through for coffee and then made attempts at finding the two caches just down the street. We couldn't find the first of the two. The second one I had found before, but none of my kids had, so I figured it would be a fun one to watch my mom and the kids searching for it. When we arrived, I could tell right away it was not there. Very disappointing!

So far we were 1 for 3 and I was feeling bad that my mom's first geocaching experience wasn't all it could have been. Time-wise we were running short on time so we picked two more caches to try (one near-ish to where we were, and another very near home).

We tromped off-path for a bit to find the first one. The kids actually found some things they were interested in trading for (a lot of times the caches are just full of major junk). We drove to the last cache for the afternoon, and got to explore an old cemetary. The clue for the cache said we didn't need to enter the cemetary to find it, but after unsuccessfully searcing for the cache, we figured we might as well peek at all the grave stones. We found two that we're pretty sure are relatives of ours (through my dad's side). The kids enjoyed looking at the old dates on the graves and recognizing some last names of people we know (whether or not they're relatives of people we know is another story!).

We ended the afternoon 2 for 5, my most unsuccessful geocaching outing to date, but we enjoyed the warm sunny day, and the time spent together!

Monday, August 27, 2012

Summer Camp

We recently sent Emily away to summer camp for a week with her friend Julia. Em and Julia met in the 3's class of preschool, and I love that they are still friends!
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Check out the view from their cabin!! Can I go to summer camp, too??
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Sounds like the girls had a wonderful time!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Loves from Connor

I found this sweet note on the white board from Connor:
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In case you can't decifer on your own:

"I love dada"
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"and mumu"
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"and the rest uv the famule"
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He sure knows how to melt my heart!

Monday, August 20, 2012

My kids's blankets

I never got around to posting pictures of the blankets I made for each of the kids for their birthdays, so here they are!
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Close-up of some of the "sunburst" granny squares from Emily's blanket, plus the ruffle border
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Close-up of Jared's zig-zag, or Chevron pattern blanket, in the requested Seahawks colors (as close as I could get to the colors anyway!)
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Close-up of Connor's waffle pattern blanket, done in jungle-ish colors, with the intention of finding a cute crochet monkey pattern to make him to go with it (two-tone brown monkey wearing a green shirt)
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Thursday, August 16, 2012

Olympic dreams

I don't ever remember watching the Olympics as a kid and thinking, "I'm going to do that someday!" It was always more of a, "Wow, sure wish I could do that!" sort of thing.

Jared and Connor? It's a definite "I'm going to do that someday!"

Jared told me he's going to beat Michael Phelps's swimming records, and everyone is going to know HIS name instead. Connor has big dreams of being an olympic diver. I LOVE that they are so inspired by the Olympics to have dreams of competing someday themselves, that they have an enjoyment of the pool, and that they have such confidence in themselves.

Sometimes, though, that confidence goes a little too far, especially where Connor is concerned!

During a recent stay at a hotel, Connor decided to attempt a dive similar to this one (without the benefit of a spring board, or any training):


Before we had any warning of what he was about to do, he'd put his back to the water, jumped up, and flung himself forward in an attempt at a somersault, landing with a sickening THUD face-first on the concrete pool deck. His body slumped down into the water. He was holding onto the wall, but wasn't making any sound.

Dan got to him first, so I backtracked for the towel, fully expecting to need it to mop up what was left of his face. I was positive there'd be missing teeth and/or a broken nose. If you'd heard the sound of his face on that concrete, you'd have been expecting total gore as well. aughhh!!

I don't know how he did it, but the indestructible little guy "only" ended up with a minor goose-egg at his hairline (more of a brushburn than anything; his nose and lip clearly took the bigger brunt of the fall), a pretty scraped up nose, and a shredded inner lip.
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The picture doesn't do justice to his inner lip. There were actual strings of skin where his teeth grated at the inside of his lip. The lip wound went all the down to the base of the gumline, and swelled up pretty good that night.

None of his injuries seemed worthy of medical attention, but we kept a close eye on him for the evening. By the next morning, the swelling was gone in all three areas (head, nose, lip), and as far as he was concerned, it was as if nothing had even happened.

I, on the otherhand, have woken up at least once a night since it happened, hearing the sound of that THUD of his face in my dreams. I'm so thankful it didn't turn out to be worse, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed he's always so lucky, because I have no doubt he'll continue in his little dare-devil ways.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

What happens?

What happens when your six year old tells you he wants to make his own sandwich?

I'll tell you what happens... THIS disgusting "masterpiece" happens:
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Cheese and jelly. Together. And, yes, he ate it.

GAG

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Crocheted baby blanket

Here's my most recent crochet project, completed!
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I had originally planned to have three cars along the road (one green, one dark blue, and one red), but the crocheted applique made the blanket a little thick/stiff, so I opted to just do the one car off to the side instead. I did the blanket using the same zigzag pattern I'd used on Jared's blanket, but swiped an idea I'd seen online by incorporating the road into the zigzag pattern. I love how it turned out!

Posting this blanket reminds me I still haven't posted pictures of the blankets I made for each of my kids for their birthdays... Better get on that!

Monday, August 13, 2012

Triathlon #2

Getting marked up for the race
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A scraped up face and shredded inner lip didn't slow this kid down for one second! He's such a trooper!
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transition station all set up
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standing around waiting because the race was an hour delayed!
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10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2...
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...1, GO!
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Blurry picture of Jared, out in front of the rest of the swimmers by 2-3 body lengths!
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I swear I took a picture of him getting out of the water, but I guess I didn't press it down all the way... Whoever thought I could juggle trying to photograph two kids in the water, AND be helpful in the transitions was pretty silly... *grin*

Connor getting out of the water (he beat about half the kids out of the water)
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They had to change the bike course last minute, so the kids had to run their bikes to and from the transition area to the mount/dismount area. This is Jared running his bike from the dismount area back to the bike "parking" area so he can do the run portion
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Connor coming back (Dan hung out in the dismount area to help make sure Connor knew what to do since he was so much younger than most of the other kids)
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Jared made it to the finish line just before Dan and I made it over there (pout!), but here is Connor
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Jared was 9th overall for the 6-8 year old bracket, 2nd place male (missed out on 1st place male by 18 seconds!). Connor was 24th overall, 13th place male (3rd place six year old male).

Jared said he passed a lot of people during the swim and the run, but a lot of people passed him during the bike (he didn't feel comfortable riding really fast with so many other kids so close to him). Connor said he got a side ache and walked most of the run portion, but when he saw the finish line he started running again. Both boys had a GREAT time, and Dan and Emily and I had such a good time cheering them on! I wish I could have gotten more pictures of the biking/running, and better pictures of the swimming and finish-line. Next time I need to just assign photographers throughout the course to help me out. LOL

We made a family outing of the whole thing by staying in a hotel near the race location the night before. The kids enjoyed the hotel pool and getting to eat our meals out (something we rarely do!). It was a great weekend.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Camping

We got invited to go camping with my good friend and her family (her family, her sister's family, and her parents) over this past weekend. The kids had a BLAST!

Our campsite was very near a shallow creek, so the kids got to spend a bunch of time building little dams, splashing around, etc. We let Emily bring a friend because there weren't going to be any girls close to her age (the only other girls were 15 months, 3.5 years, and 4 years old).
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My friend's son is the same age as Connor (we met while the boys were in preschool together!)
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Even Charlie got to come camping with us!
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The kids all had bikes so they did a bunch of bike riding. Connor, especially, LOVED having all the extra room to ride his bike. At home, we just have a small driveway to ride circles in.
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Em's bike is significantly too small, but it's too close to the end of summer to mess with it this year. It worked out well enough!
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Who says you can't eat well while you're camping? Marinated flank steak strips and home-made fried rice. YUMMMM!
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Speaking of food, I'll also just add in right here that the ziploc omelets were QUITE tasty, and I would totally eat them again! You take a quart sized freezer Ziploc bag, fill it with however much whipped egg you want, along with the toppings/fillings of your choice, seal it shut, then boil it in a pot of water over the camp fire or a camp stove. Took 5-10 minutes or so (especially for the more loaded ones, and we were also boiling a lot of bags at a time), but they came out great. Easy way to cook breakfast without much mess!

We took the kayaks with us, having heard there was a great beach to kayak off of there, but we only discovered miles and miles of MUCK!
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I probably would have opted to keep Charlie at the campsite had I known ahead of time!
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If you didn't stick to the watery pathways, you sunk it up to your knees in places. Even sticking to the watery pathways was slow-going!
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Connor was a wild man, running all over the place, completely disregarding all the sharp shells he was encountering along the way. He regretted it later when his feet were sliced up in multiple places, but he sure had fun!
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Charlie was NOT thrilled with any part of the beach. The other dog on the trip with us LOVED LOVED LOVED the water/mud and was prancing all around like a crazy maniac, splashing around, whipping sticks and shells into the air with his mouth, etc. Charlie just sort of stood around and looked pitiful, and resisted taking steps in certain areas. LOL
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There was also a stage and seating area set up near our camp site, so the kids had fun putting on little shows for us.
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Mr. Muscles working on perfecting his cartwheels
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S'mores!! (I would have sworn I had Jared in this picture as well, but he must have JUST moved out of the shot as I was snapping the picture. I remember being really proud of myself that I managed to line them all up in there! POUT!)
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Connor all but adopted this bag of peanuts as his own...
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Charlie sat on my lap with his front paws resting on my thighs, and when he jumped back down, I was left with a perfect little pawprint imprinted in my skin!
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I really thought I took a lot more pictures, but I guess I didn't! Nothing of Dan and I, nothing of our tent...

The kids have asked a few times already when we will get to go camping again. We were a little spoiled this time in that it was sort of a community food affair and we were each assigned items to bring to contribute, and everyone helped cook and clean-up. I'm sure any future attempts of camping on our own won't go quite so smoothly, but I definitely have the camping bug now!