The escapee

A bubble almost got away. Ah, but not on Lucas's watch. See his little pink bubble wand in his hand? He chased that bubble down for all he was worth. And, sure enough, he got it. Lucas walked back triumphantly saying 'POPped bubble in the street.' looking smug as could be.

(It's probably rather fortunate we live on such a non-busy street..)

Things to do in our yard

Feed seeds to the birds.

Feed corn to the squirrels.

And feed dandelions to the Gwendolyn.

You would almost think I'm kidding if you didn't know better.... :) It's actually one of her favorite things to eat.

Cherry Tree

Flowers

Tulips, Snapdragons and Strawberries. Loving the springtime flowers!

Bubbles!

We were playing outside with bubbles this morning. Lucas loves chasing bubbles, he even likes blowing them sometimes. Tim was blowing bubbles for Lucas to chase and for Gwendolyn to watch. Lucas chased the bubbles around and poked them with his own bubble blowing stick. Gwendolyn happily sat in my arms (trying to eat the camera) watching the commotion, so no pictures of her.

Yellow bird

We had a little yellow bird come to our bird feeder today :) Lucas was totally entertained. He's never seen a yellow bird before - except in a book. We think it's an American Goldfinch. Hopefully it will visit again soon :)

The tractor in the water

Lucas got a new tractor yesterday. It used to be an indoor toy... Ahem. Now it's an outdoor toy.

I left a bag of potting soil unattended on the deck a week or so ago. It didn't go unnoticed. Lucas has been playing in the dirt, shoveling it onto his toys and the deck. Messy, but oh so fun. It somehow didn't occur to me that when it rained, the dirt would turn to mud. Much messier. But even more fun :)

The carrot

It seems like wherever Gwendolyn goes, a carrot is sure to follow :) Courtesy of Lucas. It makes her so happy to have a fresh cold carrot stick to chew on while she's teething. And Lucas is such a sweet, thoughtful boy, he makes sure Gwendolyn is well supplied.

(The carrot is sitting behind Gwendolyn in the outdoor pictures - Lucas supplies small red shovels when we're outside. And who can resist a small red shovel??)

While we waited...

.. for our crayons to cook, Lucas played in the sink.

Our neighbors brought over a few pounds of strawberries for us yesterday - how awesome is that??

Lucas has eaten almost the entire container already.. In less than a day.. Yeah, the boy loves his fruit :) One of his new favorite activities is washing his own fruit in the sink and eating it.

The crayon project

I read about this great project to turn old broken crayons into new big disc crayons. I really wanted to try it, but Lucas doesn't use crayons (I have no idea why, he just won't..), so we don't have any old broken crayons :) So we went out to the local thrift store and bought a big sack of broken crayons. We peeled off the labels, sorted the crayons by color (which was great for reinforcing Lucas's color recognition and matching skills), broke them up into little pieces (because what boy wouldn't love that???) and filled muffin cups with the pieces, then baked them for a LONG time. And then let them cool for an even longer time.

Lucas hasn't gotten to use them yet (nap time came along before the crayons were cool enough for him to handle). Even if he doesn't like the new crayons, I'm totally calling this project a success. He LOVED the whole process! And it's all about the process for little ones :) I think he's going to be so entertained that there is actually an end result to this particular project. (usually we do things just because they're fun and don't worry too much about the results) While our crayons were cooling we went out and bought two more bags full of broken crayons from the local thrift store. At a whopping 25 cents a bag for the crayons, this is a super cheap project that kept Lucas busy for a LONG time - too good to be true!!!

AHHHH!!!!

I just wrote out a blog entry with LOTS of pictures (just for you Dad), and the goofy computer skipped a beat or something and closed the web page. AHH!!! A certain small child whacked the poor computer really hard the other day. And now it's making funny noises... And another certain smaller child was chewing on the DSL box. The internet hasn't been working real well either. Hmm... Maybe I should keep the kids away from the computer?? Anyways, I'll be back at some slightly later time to post again. If I don't throttle the computer first...

The girl

She likes her toys...

The missing 'F'

AHHH!!! So the letter 'F' is in hiding these days or something. Lucas has been playing with the computer again. He pried a few more keys off. And the scared, nervous keys that are left don't seem to be working very well anymore. Needs a new keyboard.... So, I think my posts will become even more difficult to make out. Now that the N and F regularly don't work. Colorful...

Happy Earth Day

So I forgot today was Earth Day until I got an e-mail from my Mom reminding me.(even though I marked the calendar and planned activities months ago... it turns out that you need to actually *look* at calendars for them to help with scheduling. if they sit in the corner, they don't do much good.. ANYWAYS) Hmm. We did play outside all morning. And we're pretty darn eco-friendly to begin with.. Maybe we'll just have to call it good or this year :) Or maybe I'll try to come up with something to do this afternoon once the kids get up from their (hopefully very long) nap.

Layout

So I goof with the layout on a somewhat regular basis and can never get it quite the way I want it. Eesh. But I think I finally got it it! Woohoo! I always dislike the cluttered look of having tons of junk on one side so that the posts only take up half of the page. And it makes the webpage load so much slower when there's tons of junk up. Which is obviously a downside for my blog since I post SOOO many pictures. But I found a template I like :) It's plain and there's no random junk on the side. Awesomeness :)
Let me know if it's hard to read like this (as far as the colors/fonts go) I picked out some very similar colors, so I'm not sure there's enough contrast to easily read the text.

Woohoo!

The driving paths at our beloved Lowell park have re-opened for the season!!! They'e been closed all winter, so we haven't been able to go play by the river. I think it's about a mile walk from the parking area down to the river when the paths are closed - too far for Lucas to walk. And too far for me to carry both kids. Oh, but the paths are open now, so we can park right next to the river!! We went today and played by the river even though it was COLD. Lucas has taken to picking out his own clothes and outerwear. And he doesn't much compromise. Today he was wearing short sleeves with only a vest over his shirt and clogs without socks. The poor kid was freezing (but didn't want a jacket...). But he played happily, anyways, since it's been soooo long.

Pre-Easter celebration

Since Tim had to work on Easter, my parents came to us the day before :) As always, the kids sooo enjoyed the visit!!!

I made a very festive meal of... fajitas. LOL :)

Laundry on the line,

baby in the basket. Do I really need to tell you that is was Tim outside with the kids when this occurred?? :) She licked every single clothespin while she happily sat in the basket.

The tricycle

Gwendolyn went for her first tricycle ride just the other day. She LOVED it!! I've never seen her so content while she wasn't being carried around.

And guess who pushed her? Oh yeah, it was Lucas. Gotta love Tim's supervision!! LOL But they all had a great time - and no one got hurt :)

Isn't this just a happy picture??? Tim and Lucas talking while Gwendolyn takes in the sights on her tricycle :) It sure puts a smile on my face!

Not the field guide!

Oh yeah, the field guide got it... Tim and Lucas were sitting on the floor trying to identify a flower, and when no one was looking, Gwendolyn grabbed one of the guides and started chewing it apart.

Here is Tim trying to pry it out of her hands/mouth.

And here she is chewing on her very own laminated guide - the only one she is allowed to play with - and the only one she doesn't like :) What a sweet tiny person!!!

A smock!

Ah, I finally made a smock that Lucas likes :) I've bought several different ones, but he just won't wear them. So I made him a few out of some of my old t-shirts. It was super easy and he LOVES them. This is his Curious George smock - the boy loves Curious George. He wouldn't take it off for a few days :) So now his clothes can finally be paint and glue-free. And our poor Shout stick can get some rest...

Gardening

My parents got us gladioli bulbs for an Easter present and we planted them under the living room window today. I think the kids will love looking out the window when the flowers are in bloom and seeing all the bees and butterflies that they attract :) Not to mention I will love looking out the window and seeing the flowers - I love gladiolis!!
We also planted lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, field corn, and a handful of other flowers today. I can't wait to see all of this growing!! Lucas is enjoying 'helping' gardening. LOL It's more like chasing him down trying to retrieve whatever shovel/rake/hoe that you need and trying to convince him NOT to dump entire packets of seeds wherever he wants (like in the lawn.. ) But it's really good fun. Gwendolyn is enjoying sitting in the lawn and munching on grass these days. I say, at least she's getting her greens...
It has been a great day playing outside :)

Eek.

I think I have a problem... I'm currently on-line looking for more cloth diapers to buy. Eek. I have two complete sets of diapers.. I don't need to wash diapers for a LONG time before I run out. But there are just so many cute diapers out there!! I'm currently looking at hemp flats and practically drooling. Someone talk me down!! I LOVE flats!! And they're HEMP!! How cool is that?? (I'm now remembering that I have more hemp prefolds that I'm going to admit to that I never use because they don't fit either kid very well.. hmm..) I think I had better get off the computer before a whole bunch of new diapers follow me home...

Happy Easter

Lucas is laying on the floor playing with little bunny figurines. And a little bunny train. He does like bunnies :) He's now saying 'I like bunnies!!'
We spent our morning watching the bird feeder (we now have a downy woodpecker!!) and sprouting suflower seeds. Lucas keeps begging to eat them - he can hardly wait the day it takes to get sprouts.
Hopefully later today we'll have an easter egg hunt in our yard :)
As usual, I'm sitting on the couch with the computer and the camera and camera cord are on the desk. So, I do have some pictures to post, but they're *so* far away. LOL I think I need to start storing the camera and cord under the couch or something :)

Our morning

We are having a great morning :) Tim went into work a little later than usual, so the kids got to spend time with Daddy before he left, which is always a special treat for them. Breakfast was plums and green smoothies (our favorite - banana and spinach). We have some bread rising and it should be done just in time for lunch - to go with our spring green salad. Yummy!! I LOVE home baked bread!!! Lucas was running amok earlier, but he happily settled down to 'read' our new bird identification field guide (he loves thr bright pictures of the birds - and it delights him to no end when he can hold up the picture in the book and see the same bird sitting at our feeder). And Gwendolyn is laying in her crib happily cooing and she dozes off to sleep. Oh yeah, life is good!!!
Hopefully everyone else is having a great morning, too!!

Lucas photographs

A picture of the window because one of his favorite activities is standing on the couch and looking out the window at the birds and the squirrels.


A picture of his recycling truck - need I say more?

And various pictures of his artwork. It entertains me to no end that he walks around taking pictures of his artwork :)

Fun all around

Lucas using glitter glue - what can be better than sticky glitter??? Bwahahaha. We have one sparkly house these days! (See his pet tiger in the cage sitting on the table with him? It watches television with us, too..)

Lately, we have had a fascination with taping things to the wall. These are the pictures that Lucas took a little while back and we had printed. I left the pictures sitting on Lucas's art table for him to find when he woke up from his nap. Before I noticed, he colored them all. He enjoys them all the more now :)

And my sweet tiny girl digging through her basket of toys. She loves old fashioned clothespins.

And both kids playing in water on the kitchen floor :) Lucas enjoys dumping water from one cup to the next (with a generous amount spilling on the floor) Gwendolyn is playing in the water that escaped from the towel :)