Play Time

One of Nicholas' classmates celebrated her 5th birthday yesterday at a local play place.  We've gone to each other's birthday parties the past couple years and it's been neat to see the kids interact outside of school.  The party was held at an indoor play place with a bouncy house, slide, and assorted playground clubhouse deals.  The company's primary business is selling the playground equipment and they use party place to show it off to potential customers.  Pretty smart concept.

Without further ado, here are photos of the boys having a ton of fun.

This is Nicholas with Rubel, his best classmate since they were 2.

Celebrating Independence

The favorite breakfast item for the boys during the week is an Eggo Chocolate Chip waffle.  (Trust me, when the Eggo plant was flooded a few months back, it was a rough time around here.  Thankfully Chocolate Chip was one of the first flavors to return to store shelves.  We're still waiting on the Flip Flop to come back.)  It's an obvious choice because it is hand held, minimally crumby, and transportable.  Travis is pretty impatient when it comes to food preparation.  He prefers instant gratification.  "Hungry...Food NOW".  The waffle was the first step in understanding and waiting for food.  He dances in front of the toaster with a plate.  And when the toaster finally dings, he yells "DING!". 
Nicholas has learned how to toast waffles.  He has waffle duty in the mornings now.  Such a time saver.  And he likes the role of big brother - waffle provider to Travis.  It makes him feel proud, and very grown up. 
Soon I'll teach him how to pop popcorn, and open cans of soup.  He already had the water dispenser on the refrigerator under control.  He will be able to feed himself or his brother in no time.  And I can get back to updating my blog and checking Facebook more often.
Not to be outdone, a couple of weeks ago we came back from the Y and it was dinner time.  Travis went to the kitchen, got a plate, and went to the freezer.  He got the box of chicken nuggets and arranged three nuggets on his plate.  So obviously this is what he wanted for dinner and we had to go with it.  Of course because it was so amusing and I was so proud of him.

A Little Yard Work

The boys helped me do a little work out front.  We still have a ways to go, but we're biting it off in small projects.  The first weekend we put new flowers by the sidewalk.  I hope they survive - we haven't had rain in weeks.  Yes, places around us have had rain but it just doesn't seem to happen where we are.  We also planted our veggies.  Last year we planted the tomato plant that Travis brought home in dixie cup.  It gave us 2 tomatoes very late in the season.  So this year we decided to purchase plants and give it a shot.  We have big boy and roma tomato and cayenne pepper.  Those seem to be doing fine.  The big boy has a couple flowers even though it's only a foot tall.  The pepper has little bitty peppers - smaller than a pea.  Oh, and the gerber daisies came back so I decided to let them stay just for doing what they are supposed to.  Good perennials.  If only their friends did the same.

Project 2 - we dressed up the front porch.  We used to have baskets on either side of the porch, but the house faces south and gets full sun all day long.  Nothing ever lived more than a day in the baskets so they hung there doing nothing (except inviting black widows and wasps to build nests).  Back when we bought this house, something was weird.  There were no house numbers - anywhere.  How did the previous owner ever get a pizza delivered?  We added numbers to the mailbox post, even those were hard to read - especially at night.  So nine years later, we have house numbers by our front door that are visible from the road.  Ta Da!  The evergreens and petunias are new, the pots are re-used.  It dresses up the entrance a little, don't you think?

Project 3 - I got a new mailbox post and mailbox for Mother's Day.  Yes, that is what I asked for this year.  The sub-project of this is to put a small bed around the mailbox.  I've scoped out the neighborhood and everyone seems to do this.  Stay tuned for photos.

Sooner Than I Thought

A few weeks back I signed Nicholas up for the Y's after school and track out programs.  I still envisioned the start of school being several months away.  Growing up we were on a traditional school calendar and the first day of school was right before Labor Day.   My mom would take us to Ocean City to visit our grandparents.  The water was so warm in August.  We'd come back right before open house for school.  In my mind school still started then.  And things don't change ever, right?
If you're in a year round school, like our neighborhood school, it follows a 4 track calendar.  This allows 3 tracks to always be in school and 1 to always be out.  45 days in, 15 days out.  All tracks have the same holidays off.  It appears to be a delicate science of dividing up the expected class sizes and accommodating track requests.
We got our official track assignment letter in the mail recently - and it's going into the previously mentioned yet to be constructed scrapbook (Amanda - we will have to get together because I need professional guidance).
Our assigned track starts on July 9, 2010 and ends the school year on June 30, 2011.  Holy cow!  July 9!  That's like right after Independence Day!  That is so much sooner than I had planned for in my mind.  My baby is going to start kindergarten in just a couple of months.  Whoa.