Speech Therapy at the Park

We just returned home from a trip to our favorite park in Fort Collins. Before we arrived, some other kids had spent considerable time digging two holes in the sand that were about four feet apart and connected by a tunnel under the sand.

My boys were enchanted with this tunnel of opportunity and proceeded to add their own modifications in the way that all boys do. They gathered sticks and poked them through the tunnel, dug out additional parking areas, threw sand out of the way like crazed gophers and had a grand time.

Since neither boy can say the “S” sound very well, especially if it is part of a consonant-blend (as in the word ‘stick’) they usually replace it with the “D” sound. And this is the conversation I overheard at the park…

Put your d-ick through the tunnel.

Can you see my d-ick going all the way through to your end?

Put your d-ick in that end and I’ll put my d-ick in this end.

Are our d-ick touching each other?

I think your d-ick is bigger than mine.

But your d-ick is longer.

Oh no, my d-ick broke!

We are seriously going to need some speech therapy next year when kindergarten starts.

After playing in the sand with the tunnel and their d-icks for so long, everyone was hungry, so it was clearly time for a nack.

Ruby lives again!

In October we sold our trusty and reliable Subaru, Ruby. She had 183,000 miles and had been with me for adventures through 16 years, 2 oceans, 1 husband, 3 kids, 2 countries, 101 camping trips, 2 fender benders, 1 wind blown out windshield, 2 grand prix go kart races, 2 alternators, a check-engine light that was on for 6 years, many snowstorms and more…

Ruby and I – we went there and back!

And yesterday, in our effort to clean out the garage on a sunny day before the next snowstorm comes (probably tonight) we found one of her old tires.

As anyone who also drives an all-wheel drive vehicle knows, if you get a sidewall flat tire that can’t be fixed, you have to buy four tires instead of just replacing the flat one because they all have to have the same amount of wear on them for the all-wheel drive to work properly. I had kept the old tire just in case I had a sidewall flat again in the future, this random one might be a fit to replace it. Good or bad, we never had the opportunity. Ruby is with another buyer now and hopefully their adventures are continuing.

So when Andy found the tire in the garage, he asked if we should toss it. I mentioned it would make a good swing in the backyard for the kids. And they were all over it. Combined with an old climbing rope of Andy’s (a hobby he is now done with also), and a lucky cottonwood tree, the tire swing came to be.

While I tried several times to throw the rope up into the tree around the proper branch, we all knew it wouldn’t work. And I ended up climbing the tree to hang it in the right place. And here is the final product! If the snowstorms ever end, this will hopefully proved hours of summer fun.

And the best part is, Ruby still lives on giving us lots of rides.

UPDATE: Here is our tire swing in today’s 12 inches of snow on May 1.

Winter Life

I’ve decided that it is way more fun to be a stay-at-home-mom in the summer. Sprinklers and swimming pools vs. snow pants and snotty noses. No contest.

Don’t get me wrong, I love winter, my Alaskan genes command it. But I don’t love entertaining small children in winter’s cold and wind.

So here are a few things that have been going on recently.

“I love you more than a tiger,” Sean tells me frequently. At least I know where I stand. And speaking of standing, he is just now tall enough to pee standing up and actually hit the water instead of the wall, the brand new roll of toilet paper or his own sweatshirt. Anyone who has potty trained boys will really understand what a big deal this is. He still has to stand on his tippy toes, but we are ALMOST there.

I’ve also been writing for the Greeley Tribune’s “Greeley Mom’s” section. It is a fun and diverse group of women. I’m one of the Thursday gals, so here are links to my last couple of blogs:

Date night of a different sort

Get your flu shot (unlike me)

Christmas, crafts and Laura Ingalls Wilder

Survival guide to the bowl games

Leaving the herd behind

Whack-a-mole game resembles bedtime in our house

-An update on bedtime, my sweet little 2 year old Sean now has a ‘Bedtime Chart’ on his wall. Every night that he stays in his own bed all night, he gets a smiley face in the morning. And a prize when the chart is full. A big deal in his world. Yesterday he filled his chart and picked a prize – he wanted a sleepover party in the living room with his sister and brother. (I’m positive they had something to do with this choice.) So, we dragged the beds down to the living room just for fun and here they are…

And this is Sean in his new big boy bed. Hoping the excitement will last all night.

Thanks for reading!

Merry Christmas

Here is a Christmas post for our out-of-town family and friends. It was an extra fun season because we had 3 Santa believers. I thought for sure that Teresa would have figured Santa out by now, but she didn’t seem to ask as many hard questions this year as she did last year like, “How does Santa get through the glass on the fireplace?” But with all the excitement, they still managed to fall asleep at the cabin in Estes Park.

When Santa visited on Christmas Eve, Alan was VERY helpful finding his name on the NICE list that Santa brought in his red briefcase. “It is A – L – A – N.” He spelled it loud and clear.

Leading up to Christmas, we did some fun winter activities: decorating a gingerbread house, sledding, visiting the light display at Spring Creek Gardens, seeing a live reindeer and the annual Christmas party at ProActive where the kids hid in the lockers. They won’t fit in those lockers for too much longer.

And here are a few of their favorite presents:

Teresa was ecstatic to find wadded up dollars inside the pocket of her new coat.

Thank goodness that Great Aunt Susan was so thoughtful to get all three kids their own harmonica so they can all play them at the same time and they don’t have to fight over them. You should hear the music they make!

Teresa’s first latchhook project. Maybe in a decade I’ll be able to post a picture of the final butterfly.

Cozy pajamas from Cousin Kacy and Gigi.

And all three of the new coats. Would you believe it took me 8 tries to get all three of them sitting and smiling in a single picture. Wish you all an amazing 2013!

Bring on a little TSA screening

I have a 4-year-old who hates to bathe. Shower – no! Bath – no! Garden hose and mud – yes! Swimming pool – probably!

So, before a recent flight to Oregon for summer vacation, I had to tell my best worst parenting lie ever. “Alan, before we can get on the airplane, we have to walk through a machine. And if we are not clean enough, they won’t let us on the plane.”

He willingly showered, while keeping his eye on the closest exit at all time.

Fairly certain I’ll go straight to hell for that one, but sometimes, when you just gotta get the kids clean before the grandparents super-hug them, a momma gets desperate.

And guess what, it worked on the return flight as well!

(Photo Credit: saizdat911 – photobucket)

A Photography Lesson in Vanilla

 

Ice cream photos sound great, but are almost impossible to capture. Here is a lesson in what doesn’t work:

Don’t take the picture just as one subject is dropping his cone and the other is bird watching.

Don’t say, “Show me your cone.” Because it really was almost the same size as his face.

And when something is so delicious that the subject’s eyes roll back in his head, it just doesn’t really make a good picture.

And another flop. So, when in doubt, the best advice that I have to offer when shooting ice cream pictures is this – if it just isn’t working, the best option is to change subjects…

 

What the deck?

Our new house (can you believe we’ve been here a year already) had a mess of old bushes and landscaping in the front, and since we have about a dozen years of supervising our minions in the cul-de-sac, we figured we might as well have a comfortable place to watch. This is how the vision for the deck began. And this is how the construction process went.

Chris’s job: do all the brainwork, ordering,  measuring and sharp tool usage

Andy’s job: grunt, post hole digger, driller, holder

Holly’s job: keep the minions out of the way, deliver food, pre-driller, critic (self-assigned role)

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And then the neighbors began to show up… Luckily we have very helpful, intelligent neighbors with great tools. Without their help, we would probably still be sitting on the framework.

A few tips if you’re considering building your own deck. We picked the Evergrain composite material. If you’re building a ground-level deck, the special clips that hold the boards down without screwing them in from the top just won’t work unless you have about 100 extra hours to spend with your arms at very strange angles. The color is Evergrain’s Redwood. It matches the bricks on the front of our house perfectly.

And here is a picture of the final product: (insert picture of smiling kids sitting on the deck eating popsicles here)

Oh, wait, it still isn’t finished. What was supposed to be a single-weekend project is now on it’s fourth weekend. To be fair, we have been rained out every Saturday since the start, but really, we are so close! Maybe today?