4 Miles

“I’ll be the Colts and you can be the Red Robins!”
“Um…you mean the Cardnials?”
“Yeah!”

James went to google today and it’s black (go check it out!) in honor of Earth Hour–a movement where we all turn off the lights from 8-9 tonight. He just said “Woah!” and told me “Go to Google.com.” So I went, and Will came over to see it. He wanted to know why it was black and I told him. He went running into his bedroom and told Alex “We have to turn off the lights! Google-dot-com said so!” He later told us to turn off the lights in the dining room because “that dot com told us to”. Why doesn’t he listen to me that well?!?

Before that, he was playing with trains and we overheard him say “Here’s the super train. Coming up next on CBS!” (Maybe I”ve been watching abit too much of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.)

Today we hit our Normal High–some where in the mid-50s. Actually, we were a bit above normal, we got to 59. But we’ve been so cold for so long, Normal seems REALLY nice! The boys enjoyed playing with chalk out back on the deck, play hopscotch on the deck and swinging. I was glad we could enjoy the afternoon and evening outside, it looks like we’re going to get rain for the next few days again!

We also are going to return to normal tomorrow–normal around the house that is. James left yesterday for an overnight business trip, and we all missed him. But we’re glad it was only an overnight trip and that he gets back late tonight. I have to say this morning was a crazy day…the boys were (again) up too late last night and they were pretty fussy and whiny. But naps made everyone happier.

Tonight Will and I were talking about the class I’m teaching (General Biology). I told him he’d find it VERY boring because I talk the whole time and show pictures. He said “You don’t do crafts or snacks?!?” I told him the students had to do that before they come to class.

Alex has suddenly taken to telling us something is broken when he can’t make it work right. Last night he couldn’t move the chair, so he said “Chair no working”. Then he woke up in the middle of the night crying. When James went into check on him he said “Blankie no working”. James unwrapped the blanket around him so he could ” ‘nuggle it”, and he was fine. This afternoon, his truck was (of course) “bwoken” because it wouldn’t stay on the trailer. It was funny the first few times, but I can see this getting old fast! (About as old as him now saying “Will did it” even when Will isn’t home.)

I don’t have much time to write up what we did for Easter–so I’m linking to our Picasa web page so you can see the pictures (Just click on the picture to see them all):

Easter at the Hills

The highlights:

We went up to Northern IL Friday morning. We hit an ice/snow storm about 20 minutes from our destination that made it look more like Christmas than Easter weekend. It cleared up pretty quickly though. We all had fun playing various games Friday night and Saturday. Saturday we celebrated with the big Easter lunch and Egg hunt. The boys loved the hunt and Will wants to do it again tomorrow (thankfully it looks like it will be warm enough to go outside, and I’m always game to do them again…it’s fun to watch them!). We enjoyed the Sunday service at Aunt Nancy’s church, and left to come home after a quick lunch. The trip home took all afternoon and went into the evening. It was mild out, yet we kept driving through snow flurries and then sunshine. What crazy weather. I’m glad we won’t have such an early Easter again for a long time!

This week is my spring break for the school I teach at. (That made traveling for the weekend possible, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to go.) Will has preschool, his spring break for it won’t be for 2 weeks. So tomorrow will be a nice catch-up day.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

The yellow flowers were first sited last Friday. They've been curled up tight since then (we've had cold weather and 3 full days of rain!). Today they opened up again, and even though they're a bit ragged looking, I felt they deserved to be put up here as our "First Flowers Blooming of Spring" honors.  Our faithful purple crocouses opened up again today as well.  Will kept trying to tell me we needed to water the flowers or the small trees we have growing. Did he not see the 3 days of rain? 

In celebration of the first day of spring, we were able to enjoy a 50 degree day with sunshine. And enjoy it we did, since we're looking at lots more rain and clouds in the next few weeks.

Alex learned how to get up on the counter and brush his teeth himself. He showed Will how to do it and the footstool Will always used is no longer needed.

If Alex has been quiet for too long, we know he's in the bathroom brushing his teeth. (He does a good job of only putting a tiny bit of toothpaste on the brush! Now if he could just learn to spit.) When you read below all the sweet stuff we have in our house, you'll see this is a good thing!

Will figured out how to do this "ladder" at the playground last year (he was 3 then). Alex, at 2, has discovered he really likes to go on it too! (Picture by Daddy's camera phone.)

Meanwhile, Will is LOVING playing baseball/T-ball. He has decided he wants to be a baseball player when he grows up (I'm not sure if this is along with a fireman, truck driver, race car driver and construction worker or instead of those).  So we have a few short videos of him and Alex. They are short, and GrandmaLo, it won't matter if you don't have sound.

Will can hit the ball off the tee without knocking over the tee some of the time. This time he did knock it over. But the reason we let you see that one is because of the video of Alex, next. First, you have to realize Alex was looking up at an airplane in this video. Then James gets his attention and he tries to hit the ball. But he's not content to just hit the ball, he wants to be JUST like his brother!

I loved this picture, that's why it's so big. I love seeing how Alex is laughing and looking at Will's silly face.

Happy Birthday Daddy! (No, he didn't ask for race car cakes… But the boys were really excited to see them!) And, you can see why they needed a bath after this fun time!

We actually celebrated James' birthday on Saturday. We went up to my parent's house because Will had been invited to a birthday part up there for the afternoon. He got to go to the one with his friend, then we had a baby sitter come and watch the boys while the grown ups went out to dinner.  We tried a place we'd never been to in Marion (The Icehouse, for those who know the town) and weren't impressed. So we've decided they'll have to come down to Indy so we can have more selection! We had an ice cream cake at my parents house. Since that couldn't be brought home, I made him a cake. SO…now we have cake, cupcakes (from the leftover batter), cookies and we have Easter candy coming up. Yikes!

Midterm grades are due tomorrow, 5 pm. I gave a test Monday night. This is what I did the last two days instead of grading:

Yesterday (Tuesday)

• Plan our meal menu for the next week (easy because we'll be out of town for the weekend and James will be out of town for two more days so I won't cook "real" meals but easy ones)
• Go to the store (not quite as easy with both boys…I usually would rather go with only Alex while Will's in preschool)
• Unload everything, put it all away, make lunch, get kids down for nap/rest
• …um I have no idea what I did in the afternoon…play on the computer? Probably, that's my "rest" time/activity.
• Get ready for MOPS (Boy, that sounds like it took time–it was just printing off a few things)
• Make a yummy supper while the boys played outside in the warm rain
• Change the boys out of wet clothes
• Eat
• Go to MOPS
• Stay late for a steering meeting

Today (Wednesday)

• Take Will to Preschool.
• Take Alex to Chick-fil-a for our free breakfast…I graded a bit while he played.
• Run some errands
• Pick Will up
• Fix meals, get kids down for naps (this was an ordeal today for an odd reason. Alex was literally holding onto the sides of his bed and jumping up and down. Normally he falls right asleep. Then Will fought and fought and finally took the nap he needed.)
• Chat with my Mother-in-Law online
• Read a few blogs while eating lunch
• Make a cake for James
• Start and work on supper at various times during the day
• Ice a cake for James
• Give the boys a bath after letting them lick frosting (you'll see pictures tomorrow and understand)
• Sweep and mop the floor after droping icing from the cake (but I didn't drop the cake! Just the spoon)…go ahead and do the same in the bathroom because it needs it and it was easy to do while the boys were in the bath.
• Ate supper

I was ok at this point, because I knew I had all evening. I took Will to his Wednesday Night Group at church and was going to grade the whole time he was there–JUST AFTER I did a quick errand to Target. Whoops. Before I realized it, it was 7:30 and I had to pick Will up in 30 minutes. 

BUT–I got it done! It's 11:30 and the grades are done and mid-term grades are submitted, a whole 18 hours before required. Now I just need to get my bracket together (if I don't do it now, I won't get it done tomorrow before games start).

I do have lots of funny pictures and things to share tomorrow, and we'll get you caught back up.

We had an even WARMER day yesterday! Who-hoo! (As an aside, I didn’t realize how much I said that until Alex did something at the playground the other day and said “I DID IT! Who-hoo!”) We got to go for another walk to the park, where Will had great fun racing cars up and down the slide. Alex managed to climb up one of the longer slides, and after about 4 attempts Will was able to do it. Alex also mastered climbing up something that took Will until last year (3 1/2) to attempt. After supper James took the boys outside and played baseball with them. Well, mainly Will, Alex had more fun playing in the sandbox that is filled with water right now. I spent the evening working on the test I’m giving on Monday.

One more weather thing…My tulips and daffodils visibly grew in the last two days! Of course, now we’re paying for it with rain and temps in the 40s. And it looks like we’re going to be that way all week. But we’ll take these bits of spring as they come!