Random stuff

As you probably realize, the kids do stuff all the time that is totally random, cute, funny, head-scratching, etc. I keep saying I need to write it down, since I tend to forget much of it so quickly. Here are a few of the more memorable random moments.

-Miles has been having us read him the story Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel quite a bit the last few weeks. The other day he said that he would like to go to Popperville one day. I asked him what he would want to do if he got to go there. He replied that he would eat, because he would be hungry once he got there. Never once mentioned anything about seeing the town hall or steam shovel.

-We have a whole bucketfull of Hot Wheels cars, and in that bucket is one Hot Wheels motorcycle. Quincy was playing with the motorcycle yesterday, zooming it across the kitchen floor, then into the dining room. In the dining room he stopped zooming, stood over the motorcycle and proceeded to crouch down as if he were going to ride the Hot wheels motorcycle. He seemed to quickly realize that there was no way he was small enough to ride it, and went on his way.

-Due to Miles waking up at all hours of the very early morning, he has been told that he can't get up until 6am. Sunday evening Miles went to bed at his normal time. About 8:20pm he came downstairs. Normally he is very good about staying in bed in the evening, so I was surprised to see him at the bottom of the stairs. I was even more surprised when he told me that he slept past 6 and 7 so he could get up. He must have had an amazingly restful 20 minutes of sleep, since he thought it was 8:20 in the morning. The poor guy was devastated when he found out it was still nighttime and he had to go back to bed. He was a big 'ol mess of tears.

And a couple of random pictures of the kids waiting for breakfast one morning:

Miles took this picture of Quincy:

Quincy during soccer

Miles is still playing soccer every week, and Quincy seems to have lots of fun there each week as well. He really wants to get in there with the bigger kids, but also finds plenty to entertain himself off the field.

He really likes playing in these cubbyholes, he likes this one in particular, and plays in it for a bit nearly every week:

Checking out the one next to him:

And back into his favorite one

Spending some time watching the big kids play soccer:

Back in to eat some snacks:

And playing on top is fun too:

First beach day!!

The weather is wonderful these past few days! Up in the high 60s, perhaps up to 70s tomorrow. The kids and I headed out to the beach today, our first time there this year. It was beautiful and there were very few people out and about. I believe we were alone on our stretch of the beach for almost an hour. It was great.


First thing Miles pulled out of the beach bag and put on, swim goggles. He has the goggles on, but he's not quite ready for swimming:
Monkey see, monkey do:
Miles thought that the goggles worked like his shinguards, that if you got hit it wouldn't hurt. That misconception was quickly corrected.
See, no one else on the beach!
Quincy wanted to go to the water, and kept trying to walk in with his socks and shoes on.
But he didn't seem to like it so much on his bare feet:
Miles had no plans of getting his feet wet:
He would rather dig in the sand,
Lay in the sand,
and throw rocks in the water (from a safe distance so his feet wouldn't get wet):

We had a picnic lunch at the beach (Miles is rockin' those sunglasses)


Then it was time to go,
One last look at the ocean.

More sunny days

Sorry I haven't posted for a while now, I seem to have lost my spare camera battery and the battery charger. And of course I didn't notice this until the battery in the camera started showing as low. So I searched all over the house and van, a few times, called my inlaws and my parents in case I left them there, and finally ordered new ones. Meanwhile, I forgot that I had a few pictures on the camera that I hadn't uploaded, and had just enough juice in the battery to upload them onto the computer. These pics are from about a week or so ago, before we got inundated with rain for several days.

Miles playing with his big loader, digging in the rocks of our driveway:

Quincy trying to ride the tricylce (his feet just barely reach the pedals, but he keeps trying):

Quincy pulling Miles in the wagon:

Beautiful day!

Today is such a beautiful day outside! Finally warm weather, clear skies and wonderful sunshine. We took the boys and Rocky over to a local park that has some fenced in areas so Rocky could run free. Rocky had fun running. Miles and Quincy tried to chase him, but quickly learned it was futile.

There were some baseball fields there, Miles had fun pretending to play baseball and running the bases:

Quincy seemed to like playing with the fence...

Then of course over to the playground equipment for some sliding fun:

It is so nice to finally get out and run around outside.

Oh, the joys of boys

Miles goes to school 2 hours a day, 3 days a week. He doesn't go to school on Mondays and Fridays. Most weeks I really like this arrangement, it gives us free time to go to the park, zoo, or wherever two days a week. This week however I am starting to think otherwise. On Monday, some of you may recall me posting about Miles locking the bathroom door. He locked it with no one in there and the water in the sink running full blast. He did this because he wanted to run water through his rocket launcher toy, but he didn't want me to see him doing it. And forgot the door was locked when he left the bathroom and closed the door. So off came the door handle, jiggled the lock out and got the door open. The handle went back on fairly smoothly and everything turned out just fine.

All week Miles favorite word is poop. Anything that gets talked about, or apparently thought about, he manages to turn into talking about poop. All week.

This morning I found the bathroom trash can had liquid in the bottom, and the little bit of trash that was in there was floating. Upon dumping out the liquid I realized that it wasn't water. Nope. It was urine. After first denying he peed in the trash can, Miles finally told me that he did it because he wanted to see what it was like to pee on garbage.

So, to recap, Monday, (no school) he locks the bathroom door with the water running. Friday (no school) he pees in the bathroom trash can. I know this is only two relatively small things in one week. But it really just makes me fear for when both of the boys are in full force.

To reaffirm my womanhood, (and because I have had a craving for chocolate since yesterday)while the boys were napping I made this, from scratch:

And, of course, proceeded to lick the cake batter bowl and the frosting bowl.

Trip to NYC

Last week Mike took a group of students to NYC to see the broadway performance of Mamma Mia. He tries to do a trip like this every year, and for the first time since Miles was born, I was able to join them again. It makes for a long day (and night) and most of our weekend was spent in a bit of a fog. In fact, just this morning I went to see if I needed to upload any pictures from the camera onto the computer and realized that I had taken pictures in the city (although not many).

The trip was great. But we weren't sure that the trip was even going to happen up until we got into the city. There was the huge epic hurricane winds blizzard predicted for the northeast for Thursday, and our trip was on Friday. And where we live, people tend to panic at a dusting of snow. Due to the storm, my MIL was unable to drive down to watch the kids. A friend's (and music teacher) parents were unable to drive down due to the storm as well, so he very generously offered to watch his kids and ours so his wife and I could still go on the trip. Thank you Bill!!!!!

Of course the weather was still an issue for the trip, so we played it by the moment, watching weather forecasts constantly. Luckily, the roads and weather was great for our drive up (and back). We arrived in the city to big beautiful snowflakes. I have never gotten to be in the city for a snowfall before, and it was beautiful. The beauty didn't last long once the snow stopped and the slush and grim took over, but I chose to remember all of the snow covered parks, trees, and fire escapes.

After poking around Times Square for a bit, we had a workshop to meet one of the performers that we would be seeing in the show. We met with Eric William Morris, who plays the fiance (Sky). Then it was dinner, where we met up with my parents, brother, SIL, niece and nephew. They drove down to the city for a day of sightseeing and to meet us for dinner and the show. It was great to see them and spend a few hours visiting. The show was wonderful, lots of energy and fun. By the end I was on my feet singing and dancing! Not your average broadway show.