Ramblings

...or things rattling around in my big ol'  head.....

--Crepes-I can't get them out of my head.  No idea why.  When we were in Vancouver, for the Olympics-yeah, we are cool-Gil, Leslie, and I stopped for crepes one afternoon.  Which caused us to run like the wind through downtown Vancouver one afternoon to catch a ride.  Whew.  See-I said ramblings.  Maybe that is how it started.  I had the best crepes with dark chocolate and coconut.  Really good.  Hadn't thought of them since, but lately, can't get the stupid little pancakes out of my head.  Gotta do something about that, do you need a crepe pan or can you use a skillet?  Allrecipes here I come.

--Also food related-I am tired of us all eating junk-and shut up-crepes are NOT junk.  I do not aspire to be all organic and hippie-but the fruit snack obsession around here has gotten out of control.  Nate gets them out of the cabinet all day long.  And I know there are so many problems with that-we have them, snacks are at his level, I could go on and on.  I am also so stuck on what to fix for lunches around here.  I am tired of pb&j, chicken nuggets, ham sandwiches, or turkey hot dogs.  I need some more ideas.  We are also not eating enough veggies.  Hmmm, so much to think about.

--Kitchen cabinets. Also a little food related. My brain won't leave the kitchen this afternoon. They are wonderful and fine-and really nice quality wood, they are just looking a little outdated to me.  We have replaced the appliances, from black to nice shiny stainless, and we painted the walls a really nice buttery yellow color.  The counters are laminate, which we don't love-but they are staying for a few years at least.  I was thinking that painting the cabinets white might be a great, inexpensive update.  Any ideas or suggestions?  Besides of course to clean off the refrigerator doors, counters, and take decent pictures????

I guess that's it for now.  Ben is upstairs screeching into his monitor, which I guess means a nap is not in his future today, which selfishly is ok-since I know he will go to bed early if he doesn't sleep this afternoon!

Oops!

Yesterday I was getting out the wheelbarrow, which lives under our porch in the back, and heard a strange sort of rhythmic beating sound.  Of course I assumed it was a murderer-hiding under our deck????  Turns out, I was the murderer.  A little bird was thumping around inside our fertilizer spreader, maybe stuck, I'm not sure-I just saw him sort of hopping around in there and making a boatload of noise for a little sucker.  I ran out because-ACK-a tiny bird-and I'm a chicken.  When I went around to look at it from outside, through the lattice-it was lying on it's side-DEAD!

He was fine right before, so there you have it-I caused the darned thing to have a heart attack.

I am a bird killer. 

Poor little guy.

Goodbye my friends

I think we are days away from azalea demise around here.  The ones that bloomed first, I guess the ones in the sunniest spot, are quickly growing ugly.  I'm sure the others will follow.  I took a few pictures at their peak to remember the pretty things that are way too fleeting.  (And I know, the first one is a cherry blossom or something, I just thought it was pretty.  I think those are holding strong for a little while longer).

Nerd School

As you probably know, I am working toward my masters in Information Sciences.  Huh?  you say.  I want to go back to work as a school librarian-ok-media specialist.  And to do that, I have to have my masters.  I never would have guessed that you would need another degree to do that job, most of the schools I have worked in, the librarian was an experienced teacher-who I guess may or may not have had an advanced degree.

Anyway, rankings just came out on grad schools and look at old USC...

Not bad, huh????

Over the river and through the woods....

The boys and I headed to Virginia last week to see my family. We love to go, and this was the first time that the ride was 100% easy. Nate was such a stinker in the car for several months, until we turned his carseat around really. We left on the Monday after Easter and stayed until the following Sunday. We started the week at my sister Rebecca's house. She has 2 sweet boys-Ian and Brandon-oh, and a nice husband, too (I didn't forget you Shaggy!)

Dad came to Becca's house one day and hung out with the wild boys.  Can you imagine how hard it is to get a picture of 4 littles and their Grandpa?  This is the most interesting out of the 30 on my camera-love Brandon's expression.

The boys had such a good time playing together, but it was really strange for all of us to be in the car together.   I don't know how families with 4 kids do it.  I guess by the time you have the third and fourth, the first 2 can usually buckle themselves up.  We just looked back and it was a whole lot of kids!

The three big boys played in the sprinklers across the street while Taters took a nap. 

We HAD to go to the beach one day-it was spring break!  We had such pretty weather and it was a great beach day.  We went to Sandbridge,which I just read in Southern Living is one of the best hidden beaches in the South.  As warm and sunny as it was, it was still April and the water was FREEZING!  And Nate decided that Pringles (which he called 'bups') dipped in the ocean water were delicious.  Um, yuck.

Brandon looks like a little surfer with his crazy cute hair.

The only picture of all 4 boys at the beach, Becca looks like the Pied Piper of little boys.  Brandon is clearly still deep in thought, communing with the waves.

One night we ate dinner at my aunt Charlene's house.  She just redid her kitchen and it is amazing.  I should have taken a picture of it.

The boys "played" croquet.  And by that I mean they swung their mallets around and threw the balls until we all saw our lives flash before us.  But they had fun, and no ambulances were required.

                                          

                                                 There is Charlene's little dog Cotton.  Awww.

Mom and Nate, having a serious discussion I'm sure.

And here are Charles and Sharon, and the back of Shaggy's head.

We really did have a great time with the Virginians.  Gil and I get to see the adults in a few weeks at my cousin Mark's wedding in Richmond, while our little guys will be in Charleston with Mimi and Papa.  It will be nice to hang out with my family as just adults.  The last time we tried was at Charles and Sharon's son Mark's wedding, but I had to get myself admitted to labor and delivery a few weeks prior to having Nate, due to dehydration.  I'm still mad I missed that one!

Hot Dog Shoes

Catchy title, huh?

Nate has 2 current obsessions

          

He calls Mickey Mouse "Hot Dog"-we have no idea why-but he is Nate after all.  He also loves shoes.  Wants to wear as many pair as possible at any given time and will follow everyone in the house around with their own shoes, wanting us to also wear them at all times. 

The deadly combination in our house right now is, you guessed it, the "Hot Dog Shoes".  Nate came across some Crocs in his closet with little Mickey Mouse pins in them that used to be Ben's.  They are a little big and a lot worn out-I have no clue why I kept them.  He wants to wear his hot dog shoes all the time, even though they come off with every step, and they look like they belong to a homeless person.  These shoes almost drove my mom to drink last week (and she is not a drinker at all!).  He would walk around screaming, "HOT DOG SHOES" over and over.  We would hide them and he would find them. 

Looking back, it's kind of funny, but last week, not so much.

Little Farmers

Today Kristen, Allie, the boys, and I headed out to Gilbert to pick some strawberries (that I'm sure are much cheaper at Publix-but not nearly as much fun to procure!)  Oh yeah, just a little something we discovered, when you pick the strawberries too high on the stem, or pick the flowers, the owners of the strawberry patch HATE YOU and may want to kill you.  I'm just saying, if you head out to one, watch yourself-and don't tell them you know us.


Here are the boys at the start of our row, notice Nate's nice clean white shirt, this is the last you will see of it!  And how bizarre does he look in those sunglasses?

Miss Allie concentrating hard.  She was cracking us up.  She probably took one bite each of her first 20 or so strawberries, then wanted to put them in the basket.  Yuck.  I think she finally got it down after a little while.

 

Ben took his picking very seriously, and picked about 95% of our whole bucket.  He also didn't eat a single berry until we were leaving.  I'm not sure why, but it was kind of funny.  We were even trying to get him to eat one and he wouldn't do it.  Our little rule follower.

This kid is a whole different story. There is a good chance he ate strawberries right off the ground, the nasty ones someone else already picked and threw down. He made sure we were getting our money's worth, eating his AND his brother's share.

 

And this is how we left the patch (before the hating and the wanting to kill the bad, bad pickers part).  No, sweet babies, stay away from the big bad shed!

Look at how tan Allie's little arm already looks next to Ben's

After we picked and ate our fill of berries, we headed to the Farmer's Shed for lunch.  Oh my gosh, how I love that place.  They have the prettiest things for your yard, fresh produce to buy, and the best food in general.   Here are some sweet pictures of the wild things before we ate.  Notice how they all had whales on today-really strange.  I didn't even notice both boys had whales on today until after they were dressed, then Allie runs in, all whaled up, too.  Hmmm.

Us

On the Saturday of Easter weekend, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and head over to the Horseshoe for a long overdue family picture. I am pretty sure the last time the 4 of us were photographed together, Nate could not sit up on his own-and now he is a ball of 19 month old energy.

On the way out to campus...

Pretty good one I think (except for the missing feet)....

This one is my favorite, although you can't see the monsters' faces. I'm sure Nate likes this one, too-he is really into holding hands lately, especially Ben's....

So, that was our Easter Saturday at USC.  And then we had to go to Rockaway for burgers.  Yum.

And one last one, the boys on Easter Sunday.  My gosh is it hard to get a picture of these two when you really want to.

Craftiness

Sometimes I find myself being a little crafty-but just sometimes. And that is when I'm not making myself crazy, not being able to figure out something crafty. Yesterday I decided to make the boys some little pj outfits for their Easter baskets (I know, High Holy Holiday+pj's=FAIL-but they are also getting a nice Bible storybook).

It took me HOURS to figure out how to get these suckers sewn together. To read a map, I pretty much have to step into it like Joey on Friends-that is how spatially challenged I am. So far, that is the hardest part of sewing for this beginner, knowing which way to flip things when they are backwards and inside out, to make them come out right eventually.

And here are some shirts I made for the wild ones a few weeks ago. I did freezer paper stencils and fabric paint. So easy and cute. (If you have a little one with a birthday coming up, look away, one might be coming your way.) This picture is from Easter Egg Hunt #1 this year. I think we'll end up at a grand total of 5-which I find CRAZY! Ben and Nate are with their great good friend, Allie-whose mom Kristen is a great good friend of mine.

I have some pictures of some other things I have made or re-made. I'll post some now and then.

First!

Yeah-I'm finally here! My name is Amanda, and I am a blog stalker. I have been reading other people's wonderful blogs now for years (the first one I ever stumbled upon was this one-what a great introduction, by the way).

I decided to start this blog as a journal, to remember all of the things that we do around here. I also hate to admit, but the boys don't have baby books, and I have journals that I MEAN to write to them in, but I just don't do it. So, hopefully, I'll have a record of our days here.

I stay at home with these sweet boys and really feel so lucky to be able to do so. Ben is 3 1/2 and goes to preschool three mornings a week, and Nate is 19 months old. I'm going to write separate posts about each of them soon. I taught 3rd grade before having Ben, and am (sort of) in grad school right now. I should finish up around the same time that the boys go to school. But-if you are reading this-you already know all of this.