4 Miles

Today was the first cool day of the fall, so I celebrated by making a pot roast (Oh do I love that meal!). It was part of some funny dinnertime conversations.

Alex: What’s this?
James: You don’t have to eat the pine needle.
Tina: It’s rosemary and you can eat it
Alex: I don’t want to eat the pine-mary.

Later in the meal…

Alex: I ate ALL my chicken.
Tina: It was beef.
Alex: BEEF!
James: You didn’t eat it all, you ate half, and I ate half. And if I eat it off my kids plate, the calories don’t count.
Alex: You can’t eat kids!

The boys have been playing football lately. They use their winter hats for helmets, and tend to run at each other or try to throw the ball to each other. (The hat being down = face mask)

It's not pretty when they collide–I had to tell them no tackling until Alex is 5 or until they have pads.

Game's over, he's done!

This weekend we celebrated my birthday at my parent's house.  The boys were quite excited to go to Grandma's house and I had a nice afternoon (James had to spend it working on the plumbing at our rental house…sadly not as nice for him).  Then we all went out to dinner, then came back for cake and ice cream. The boys were great help taking all the candles out.

And we ALL enjoyed the cake with yummy, gooey chocolate icing!

Alex, after James and Will went for a bike ride/run: "I very miss Daddy and Will" (in a pitful, sad voice).

* * *

Last night we were driving home from my parents house, rather late. It was dark out. At some point, Alex was looking at a book and he said "Will, do I have this upside down?" 

Tonight James took Will to his first football game…they went to our local High School's Friday night game. (The picture was taken with James' camera phone. They sat on the visitor side since most of the seats on the other side are reserved…this way they got to sit in the middle of the field and see more.)

I knew I'd have to come up with something to do with Alex to ease the sting of the pain, so we went for a walk to feed the fish and play at the park. He wasn't QUITE thrilled with it, but managed to have a good time. The title of the post was what he yelled at one point…made me smile!

The bread is some beer bread I made that didn't turn out right, so we froze it to share with the fish. (I know it looks like a rice crispy treat there.)

The fish were quite happy to see us.

This is to give you an idea of how dry it is here. I've never seen the lake so low (in the three summers we've been here) nor the floating dock so far down–normally that ramp is flat, not at such a slope. 

The blue tongue is from a sucker he had after supper. He was having fun with me taking his picture all the time.  He wasn't so happy to go to bed with Will still gone.

Will had a great time at the game. When they got home he told me how the news helicopter landed in the practice field and they took pictures of the game. And "One of the cheerleaders picked up the other one and threw her in the air and she landed on her FEET! While they were CHEERING! And she did summersaults over and over and over. And another one did them too!  And half time was LONG." and "It was good we got there early mom, so we could hear the Beginning Band." The band played a song and then the National Anthem before the game. He liked seeing them but thought half time was long and wanted to see more football James said. The fun thing we found out is they don't charge for kids below 1st grade, and it's only $5 for the adults, so we might go see another game. For that price it might not be so bad to take Alex and then have to leave. He REALLY wanted to go, but we thought he'd get bored pretty early. We'll see how it goes (they're half way through the season already and I won't pay to sit in bad weather!) … but he might surprise us. 

We have had some beautiful weather the last few weeks–cool at night, warm during the day. Last night the "mit-er-ologist" (as Will calls it, thanks to the Spanish accent from his preschool teacher– that is his job this week in class {I probably didn't spell it right, but just imagine meterolgist with a Spanish accient…I never would have thought about how it sounded until he tried to say it that exact same way and we can't convince him you say it any other way.} If you're curious what his job requires of him–from what I can figure out, he tells the class if it's sunny/rainy/cloudy or hot or cool.)  Anyway, the weather guy was saying the normal high is 70-75 this time of year. We've been getting into the mid-80s all week, with clear, sunny skies. It looks like we're going to get pay back next week and have colder than normal temps. While I'm looking forward to more normal fall-like weather, I'm trying to enjoy the nice weather as long as possible! I'll be wanting it in February and March and April and probably May! 

So, this morning I chose to ignore the laundry and cleaning that should be done and we went to the park all morning.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

In case you're wondering what he's on, there's another view of that rock structure below–Will was up top to turn on the water, then it flows down the rocks to the sand area below.

They started out digging a big trench, then used the sand the dug up to make a dam.

This one is for Aunt Heidi–Senior Picture pose!

We were making pictures for thank you notes. We're almost done with all of them–if you haven't gotten one yet, I promise it's on the way! 

One of Will's gifts was a cool roller painting set. He's loved using it, and it makes some cool pictures for the Thank You Notes.

Meanwhile, Alex used the stamping/stenciling set from Grandma Harbin. He liked to sqeeze it out more then really use the stencils.

And you can see, as most artists, he really gets into his work. I think Grandpa Miles was the lucky one chosen to get this masterpiece, for a late birthday card.  I hope the Thomas stickers the boys chose to put on it didn't ditract from the true quality of the work!

This morning, Alex walked into the bedroom and told me "I going to be sick!" "Why?" I asked him (since I know that doesn't meant to him what it would mean to you or me if we said it). He said "Because I bless-you" (Sneezed). Turns out he had sneezed while helping unload the dishwasher and James told him to not sneeze on the silverware or he'd make us all sick. 

And, can I file this under "No One Told Me I'd Have to Teach My Children"?
Today I had to stress to Alex only one square of toilet paper is to be used and if you flush the toilet once and things don't go down– YOU DON'T KEEP FLUSHING. I walked into the bathroom to find the floor COVERED in water. Not just damp, an actual covering of water…to the point I wasn't sure I had enough towels to wipe it all up. He'd used up the roll of toilet paper and kept trying to flush it down. ARG! What a mess. I'm ready for another weekend away!

It was time for the Annual Safety Days, sponsored by the local fire department & hospital. This is a great time for the boys to get to climb on fire trucks and other work equiptment (and not as busy as the official "Touch A Truck" day the park service offers). They also do an accident reenactment with the Jaws of Life and a helicopter coming in.  The boys have been asking when it would be for a few months. I was excited to see a banner showing the date was yesterday. Sadly, I was gone all weekend for the Women's Retreat with our church. James took both boys by himself and even remembered the camera to get lots of pictures. The firemen provide a free lunch as well! The boys had a great time. 

Will in an airport fire truck–this is the "small" one. (James said it's HUGE and they brought the smaller one of the two.)

Both boys got to get in the helicopter.

I'm not sure why a race care was there (neither was James), but they liked being in it. Will was excited they could both fit in it.

Look what the front end loader dug up!

A REAL fire hose!

Will playing with his new digger–the gift he got with his birthday money from Uncle Doug. Thank you Uncle Doug!

The boys favorite thing to do outside–make MUD!