Magnificent boys

In Thomas’ class, each student gets a turn to be “Magnificent Me.” When it’s your week to be “Magnificent,” you get to fill a poster board with pictures of yourself and and your family and favorite things to do. Or rather, your mother gets to create said poster board. :)

The student brings the poster in on Monday and shares the pictures with the rest of the class (apparently they are given the opportunity to “explain” the pictures and tell friends about their family/friends/hobbies/etc.

A closer look with a strange-looking Thomas on the side. :)

Then on Tuesday the magnificent student brings in a favorite toy. On Wednesday, “Magnificent Me” brings a favorite book to share with the class. Thomas opted for “A Day at the Fire Station” by Richard Scarry. And finally, on Thursday the child brings in a favorite snack for all the class. Thomas brought Spiderman fruit snacks and colby jack cheese sticks.

Thomas had been asking me for a LONG time when it would be his turn to be “Magnificent Me.” Since the teacher was going in reverse alphabetical order, I hated to keep telling him he had to wait a little longer. His class “number” is five out of 19, so he had to wait for 14 other turns before it was his.

Now his big week has come and gone, but we know he’ll continue to be magnificent!

Speaking of magnificent, Parker is pretty great, too! Last week we tried lowering the seat on Thomas’ bike and Parker was able to ride it. He was so excited.

He has a smaller (12’) bike at Nannie & Papa’s house that he can ride, so I knew he could if he could just keep his feet on the pedals, and lowering the seat seemed to help.

Of course, as I was taking the last picture, he ran into the Jeep (the Power Wheels jeep) and lost his balance. When he fell, he caught his chin on the top of the Jeep and bit into his tongue. He was pretty upset and refused to get back on the bike (we were planning a trip around the block when it happened). So he hasn’t been back on yet, but at least we know he can when he is ready again!

Hooray for magnificence!

A little slow

A long time ago my friend Taryn told me about a program to use when blogging that made the picture uploading portion easier. I thought it sounded great, but never took the time to check it out.

Lately though I just cannot find any blogging mojo, and it’s the process of selecting, editing, and uploading pictures that really holds me back. So last night I remembered her advice and searched through my email archives. I found her email from 2008 (seriously) and checked out the program (Microsoft Live Writer).

She was not kidding! It makes blogging so much easier for me! I had to take my car in for a service this morning and I brought along my computer. I was able to write three posts while I waited and then publish them when I got home. Taryn, you probably use something even better these days, but I'm happy enough just to have found this way (Blogger never works for me for some reason).

The downside is that it publishes the pictures a little smaller than I would like, but if you click on them, they will open up larger.

When asked about it, Parker and Sarah Ellen were shocked that it took me so long to take Taryn’s good advice:

And then they laughed at me for being such a fool.

Oh well. At least I finally figured it out and perhaps now I can be a better blogger and catch up on the 50 or so posts that I have neglected to write!

By the way, those pictures are from a recent dinner the boys and I had with Taryn and the girls when the Dads went to see a concert together. The “littles” tired of playing with the “bigs” and came to entertain Taryn and me.

Parker time

On Wednesdays Thomas is at school until 2:00 and Parker is not in school.  I enjoy the long day to spend just with Parker.  Usually we find ourselves at storytime at the library or running various errands, but this week we met a few of his class girlfriends for a playdate at the park (our third park playdate in as many days!).  It was cooler on Wednesday and for the majority of our time there, Parker and his friends had the entire play area to themselves!

Parker seemed perfectly happy to be the one boy on this playdate.

I’m trying to be a better blogger, and I’m also trying to take more pictures of Parker on his daily adventures, just as I did with Thomas!

A Monday for sundaes

There was no school on Monday, so I took the boys to the park to enjoy the beautiful weather.  Many other parents obviously had the same idea.  After a picnic lunch, the play area really started to get crowded.  Many of the kids were older and I was ready to take my young boys home.  They were not keen to leave, so I promised them ice cream sundaes when we got home.  They rushed to the car. 

We got out all of our toppings and the boys didn’t hold back.  Thomas used half a bottle of sprinkles before I noticed.

And then he topped it with whipped cream.  Oh the joy of special treats!

At least they put a lot of granola on there too and they seemed to like that just as much as the sprinkles and candy. 

Waiting for Spring

I’m trying a new way to blog … seeing if I can make it easier so that I might actually do it. 

The weather has been pretty hard on us this winter.  Add to that we are living in the world’s most inefficient house, and we’ve had lots of grumpy children longing to get outside more and freezing parents inside getting tired of said grumpy children and wondering which one they should sell to pay for astronomically high power/gas bills.  I kid…sort of.

So the last few weeks, we’ve been delighted with temperatures high enough to allow for more outdoor play.  Thomas went through a spell when he was asking me almost every morning on the way to school, “When will it be summer again?”  Needless to say, the boys are very happy just to be outside!

This one is a little odd, but a little interesting…

Parker just cannot sit there and smile for me without walking toward me or grabbing at the camera, or both!

Parker has a mouthful of something here, but I was loving this picture of his hair.  I know one day he will want for straight hair just as all those with straight hair long for some curls, but for now, I love it.

Imagine our joy last Friday when we headed outside to play in long-sleeved shirts and quickly realized we needed to change to something even cooler!

And I finally got a few smiles by asking them not to look at me and not to smile.  Go figure.

Little punks…but I love them so. 

At least Thomas will give me a few seconds to try a close-up.

I’m sure we’ll have another cold snap or two in the coming months, but we have been sure to enjoy the warmer temps in recent weeks.  In the past three days, we’ve been to three park playdates!  Remind me when we are dying of the heat in August how much I was sick of being cold in February!  :)

Valentine’s Day

The boys were very excited about their respective Valentine’s Day parties at school this year.  This was the first year I really made Thomas help with his Valentines (aside from his usual task of picking which one goes to each friend).  It was too hard for him to write his name on the tiny space on the front, so I had him write “From Thomas H.” on the back of each valentine.

It took three sessions spaced out over the course of that Sunday, but he finally managed to finish his 20 valentines.  Whew!

Since Thomas was in school on the actual day, his party was that Monday.  I was involved in planning and the teacher recommended we have an ice cream sundae party.  Sounded like a great idea to me!

Thomas was happy with it.  He, of course, steered clear of the chocolate-y toppings and opted for dumping what seemed to be a pound of sprinkles on his ice cream instead.  He did venture out and ask for caramel sauce (and whipped cream). 

Most of the children wanted chocolate ice cream and chocolate toppings, but everyone seemed to find some way to make their sundae just right!

After a story about Valentine’s Day, it was time to go.  Thomas had quite a full bag of Valentines from his class friends. 

We waited until we got home for him to check out all of his loot.  He has asked me many times since then when it will be Valentine’s Day again.

Since Parker is not in school on Mondays, he had to wait until the day after Valentine’s Day for his class party.  It was worth the wait. 

Parker loves a class party!

And at the end of the party, he had his very own self-decorated bag full of Valentines from his class friends. 

I made him wait until we got home and he could have his turn to check out his treasures. 

I think he was happy with everything.

And then he got into the stickers his Nannie & Papa sent him for Valentine’s Day. 

Apparently he couldn’t pick just one.  Such is the dilemma of Valentine’s Day.

Lions & Tigers & Elephants, oh my!

Yesterday, Nana & Umpa took the boys (as well as Trey & I) to the circus.  A grand time was had by all!

Thomas kept telling me it wasn’t “the circus",” it was a “SHOW!”  And it was!

 

There were all sorts of acts and events to keep the boys entertained.

And of course there were tigers!

And a trapeze act…

And Thomas was most entertained by eight motorcycles riding inside a ball at the same time…

The boys were frequently mesmerized…

My favorite part was the elephant show…

Then there was a grand finale…

Many thanks to Nana & Umpa for taking us to the circus.  We all had a fantastic time despite the wildly overpriced concessions and souvenirs.  Eleven dollar lemonade never tasted so good.