My Kids & Me: What we've been up to...

You can thank Vin's absence for the reason I'm blogging so much; I know he misses the boys and checks in often to see if there're any new photos up.

So, we've spent a lot of time in the backyard. The weather has been fantastic, meaning the kids don't need mittens on and thus there aren't any tears when they take them off anyways and cry because their hands are cold. Our yard is slowly melting and opening up a whole new world of ice and wetness. It's great to be able to stay out there for a couple hours at a time and only go in because it's lunch time and not because we're so cold our mouths cease to work.

We have a birdbath with a cute little birdhouse in it at the back of the yard. Every day the boys go back there and check to see if a bird is living in it. When I brush Silas I tell the kids that some sweet little mother bird would love to have his fur to put in her birdhouse (if any of you have some sweet mother birds that might want some of Silas' fur for their houses we have enough for all of creation right now...), so now they're pretty sure a bird momma will take up residence in it any day now.

He's showing a lot of snowboarding improvement. I even had trouble staying up when I first tried this run (must be the giraffe rubber boots).

Atticus has been after me for a few days to buy him the board game, 'Candy Land'. It's supposed to be for kids around his age, and every time the commercial comes on he gets so excited to play it (likely because it has the word 'candy' in it). We took a little outing to get some supplies so we checked to see if the store had it, but they didn't. He seemed ok with getting 'Chutes and Ladders' instead, but hasn't let go of the 'Candy Land' dream yet.

This is really the first board game he's played, and when I say played I really mean didn't play. But it was a good opportunity to count (he counts to 10 really well) and to try and teach him about game rules and taking turns (and not throwing the pieces around and messing up the board every 2 seconds). It was a fun 'first' for both of us.

I also said the boys could each pick out a new book, and this was Atti's choice. It's kind of a cute book, and if Atticus wasn't potty trained already it probably would've been a good training book for him, but that was the one he chose so I let him get it (I'm not wild about the crossbones, though; I prefer the Veggie Tales' 'Pirates Who Don't Do Anything' look).

And Dillon picked himself out some goggles (that he's likely not to wear swimming, but at least the fight for Atti's can end).

I got Silas a backpack and put 6 cans of pop in it for when he has too much spunk and I don't have any free hands to put him on the treadmill or play with him outside (since Vin isn't here to help). It seems to always happen in the evening when I'm trying to get Dillon to sleep. On this particular occasion he found it too warm (I should've put the cans in the fridge first) so attempted to cool himself off in the (bone dry) bathtub. It's barely spring and he's from a sub-tropical climate, you'd think he'd be all curled up still chilled to the bone from his first snowy and (more) cold winter. Anyways, the backpack definitely helps curb his enthusiasm when needed.

Atticus got a stepping stone making kit for his birthday, so today we dug it out and attempted to make it. He kept getting into the box between then and now, so now the instructions are nowhere to be found and I had to guess as to how much water to add. Hopefully it dries ok.

I think it mostly resembles the frog it was intended to resemble. Now we'll just wait 3 days (weeks, months?) for it to dry (I keep putting paper towel on the top to soak up the water that rises up). Either way, you can be sure I won't be putting it in the yard to be walked on and broken.

Back outside. I got the tricycle out for Dillon to ride on (I won't bring Att's 2-wheeler out of the house until it dries up a bit more) and the infamous 'digger'.

I may have to get another one of these diggers. Atticus would be happy with JUST this toy if that were the case, and now Dillon has clued into the fantastic-ness of the great 'digger'. And when any other little kids come over it's always this one that has the big line ups.