6 Miles

Grandma asked Alex "Do you want half a piece of pie or the whole piece of pie?"

"I want half!….Act-ua-lly, I want a whole piece!" (It's funnier if you hear how he says it, but I wanted to remember it.)

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Today we were having leftovers and we were all eating turkey standwiches. I notied Alex had eaten the bread and the cheese, but not his turkey. I asked Alex "Don't you want to eat your turkey?" He replied "No, I don't like turkey, it takes too much like meat."

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Driving up to Grandma's House we hear lots of "When's Grandma's house?" and "When's the exit?" I try to help the kids know by looking at the mile markers, but Alex has no concepts of numbers, so I tried to tell him the cities we'd go through or past. I mentioned Anderson and Munice. Later he asked, "Mommy, are we at Mon-kee yet?"

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Alex was sucking his thumb. Grandma asked him if she could have it. He looked down at it and then said "No, you can't have it 'cause it's stuck right here!" and pointed to his palm.

I meant to come up with a few more ('cause there were a bunch of funny ones) but saved this in drafts and forgot about it. So you're getting it a week later with some of the really funny ones forgotten and not included.   

We got to Teri & Rachel's and one of the first thing Alex says is "Mommy, where are deir doys?" (Where are their toys?). Um, sorry bud, that's why we brought our own–unless you want to play with dog toys!

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Will: Freeways are called Freeways because you're FREE to go FAST on them, there are no stop lights. You can go fast unless there's road construction, the you have to slow down.

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Alex has taken to calling his blanket "Blankie Miles".

The boys are playing "Race the Truck" while I've been folding laundry. One person races "big truck" while the other has the starting flag and tells the racer when to go. Alex keeps saying, "On mark, set, engine!" (I'm guessing it's a combination of "on your mark, get set, go" and "start your engines".)

Last week I found a pair of bright green rain boots on clearance in Will's next size (they're a bit too big right now). I've been keeping an eye out for boots for the boys, and the fact that they're green made them even better. Both boys have been wearing their snow boots outside when it's muddy, and Will's boots are really starting to get too small.  After we got home, he put them on and went out to play on his motorcycle. Then he came back in, asking for his bike helmet.  Now, he's a policeman when he wears them.

Last Tuesday was 80s Night for our MOPS group. Here's me getting my hair teased, since I needed help! (In my defense, I was too young for most of the big hair time, by the time I was in high school it was the early 90s, and while I was in Texas, home of the big hair, I had short hair. And yes, I am wearing the vest James work in RD&S's wedding, it seemed kind of 80-ish, or the most I had in the house. 

As I mentioned in the last post, Will's Spring Break started last week. So we've been finding different "crafts" or activities to do. Last week we pulled out the paints–a VERY special treat because Mommy doesn't want to deal with the clean-up/supervising of Alex.  Here are a few pictures of that fun time:

The middle picture is a self-portrait of Will. It's him with spiky hair.  Alex had a great time with his water colors and actually made some nice abstracts.  

Saturday and Sunday we had the warm weather we've been waiting for! (I heard one of the weather people say we'd already had 2 days in the 80s by this time last year!)  We hit the 60s and spent a lot of time outside.  On Saturday, James had help from the boys while he laid some bricks by our gate. You can see they were great help. I spent the time preparing for my Monday class.

Sunday they were going to help me pick up all the sticks we've had fall off the various trees in the past few months. The boys got smart and decided pretty quickly they'd rather play then help me. So we were outside while daddy watched the race.

Monday we had our trip up to Grandma's house and they played outside all afternoon while I did labs and taught. We hit 70 that day! I had to smile at the students in shorts.  The boys were excited to wear T-shirts and Alex pointed out (quite happily) "No coat!" when I was putting him in the car to go. Will was sad the next morning when he went outside and realized it was cool again! Typical spring weather, we're changing several times each day!   

Yesterday I attempted to make my own yogurt. Again. I've tried this various times over the last 3-4 years with dubious results. Once again I had really runny results, but it worked well for smoothies. So we made berry smoothies for our 3:00 snack yesterday. Or "Milkshakes" as the boys called them. Alex enjoyed his more than Will (probably because it wasn't as sweet as a real milkshake). When his straw got blocked by a berry he started to cry "Milkshake broken!"

Today we made sidewalk paint and painted the deck (and anything that was on the deck). The boys enjoyed making their car "beautiful".

I left the next picture big so you could see a true artist at work–or at least one who's not afraid to get into his craft and to really show the world his work.

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

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.)

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!

Monday I picked up Will from preschool early (on our way up to Grandma’s house & teaching). We were walking towards the door when one of the teachers who had Will last year stopped me to tell me something funny. She said they had a visit from a dentist that day and she was asking the kids for healthy snacks. Kids were naming apples, bananas, and Will raised his hand and said “My brother likes to eat belly-button lint.” We laughed but I was puzzled. How in the heck had Will heard of belly button lint? It’s not a topic that comes up at the house, really! As we were walking again, Will said, “I was saying my brother likes to eat belly-button oranges”. Ah–lightbulb! We call navel oranges “belly-button oranges”. (anything to make food fun, right?) I went back to tell the teacher what he meant…they laughed even harder. Not quite sure how they heard oranges as lint! By that time the director had joined us and she said “You’ll need to put that in the baby book!” I thought “Nope, but I’ll blog it!”

You can't see that he also got the inside of his ear as well.  And the desk. And some papers on the desk. <sigh> We had gotten one out for something this morning and I just forgot to put it away. You would think after the coloring on the couch I would remember!

Alex, couting today "one, two, six, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, ten!"

And, one more Alex story (since I'd been telling so many Will stories).

Earlier in the week, he decided he wanted to wear Will's underwear. BUT–he did not want to go pee in the potty. So he got to wear the underwear over the diaper. We found that funny and have included a picture–for his future embarrassment. He had fun running around like that, and even wanted to wear it was I was getting him dressed.  

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A 30 degree drop in temperatures and a REALLY strong wind (windchills in the negative teens–very cold for us spoiled mid-westerners) kept us inside. The boys both wanted to go out for a walk, but we had to veto that. And to think the 40s for the last few days had me thinking how it was "spring-like"!

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I've been working busily on course building for the office and re-learning (or learning for the first time, I don't think I really had a good grasp on the concept) Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration. Great fun at our house, don't you wish you were here?

Oh! And James' last day at Target is Saturday. He's needed to do more work for the office and can't because he's too tired from that, so he's decided it's time to be done. We'll enjoy having him around more.