Mother's Day is every day

Yeah, right.  Actually, I'm just way behind on my posts and wanted to get some pics in.  

Me and my mum :)

Todd with his mom and bro:

Me with my mini muffins, post 1/2 marathon and post mulching...

Aw, sometimes we have fun :). Both kids are really into taking selfies, right now, so unfortunately I have more of the goofy face pics than anyone needs or wants.  It's funny how they want to look through them and laugh--"remember that face I made, mom?"  I'd like to remember their faces smiling happily!!  I'll have to get those pics on the sly, I guess.

Mini updates and random photos

I love volunteering at Boden's school when it works in my schedule.  If I could turn it into a job, I'd do it.  I thought my favorite thing was helping out in the library but then Boden had a roller skating unit in phy Ed--being a parent volunteer for this is easily my favorite.  I got to roller skate, listen to music, and see Boden having fun.  He's becoming a really good skater!  Can't wait to take him to the Rollergarden, again.  

Random bathtub silliness--to get them both smiling and holding still at the same time is nearly impossible.

August seems to enjoy winter as a spectator.  I don't know what he does at school but when we're outside he demands to be chauffeured around via sled.  Good workout for me but I hope he finds his snow legs next year.

They had these fun photo props at Starbucks.  I tried for a selfie with all three of us but it wasn't happening :(

First giggles are so sweet

The only time we've heard August really giggle was in his sleep--not sure what you dream of when you're 3-4 months old, but apparently it's funny stuff.  So, it came as a nice surprise when August, Boden and I were hanging out one afternoon, and Boden, a natural born silly guy, was the first one to get August to giggle while awake.  The camera work is not great, but the giggles sure are.  I dare you not to smile.

Which is which?

I happened to find a photo of Boden taken about the same age as August is now. So I put a picture of each one below:  One of the babies is Boden and one is August.  Can you tell which is which?  Given that both were/are nearly bald, it's a bit of a toss-up.  Boden has a distinguishing feature but I'm not sure everyone would remember it--extra credit if you know it :)

He's baaack!

Sammy, the Elf, that is.  While technically, the Elves on the Shelves aren't deployed by Santa until Thanksgiving, we'd been hearing that neighboring elves were making their annual appearances starting in early November.  Even the pre-school class elf, Candy, arrived early (she even checked in on the kids this summer!!).  So, we weren't terribly surprised when Sammy showed up in the mud room the other morning.  

Boden has a hard time staying in bed until 6 every morning because he's so excited to find Sammy.  Given that Augist is up at four and down for a "nap" at 6, the timing is not working out in my favor! But, this gives me and Todd a little time to figure out what Sammy is going to be up to and how creative we want to be,  there's a Pinterest page on all the places Elves have shown up... people can be quite creative.  We're just happy when we are able to stay one step ahead of Boden and get Sammy to his new perch before the hunt begins.

Eviction Notice

Dear sweet unborn child of mine,  I regret to inform you that your lease on this womb is coming to an end and is not up for renewal.  

While you have two weeks remaining on your lease, there are many benefits to advancing your move-out date. In fact, we have some very nice accommodations awaiting you and a hospitable crew looking forward to attending to your every need.  

As I understand, your current space is becoming quite crowded.  I assure you your new home is quite roomy by comparison; with lots of room for extras, like toys and clothes.  

Please let me know at your earliest convenience when you plan to move out.  I need to schedule some renovations for your current dwelling, and want to get started ASAP following your move.

Hope to see you soon!

Warmest regards,

Your mom

How hot is it?

It's so hot out, the squirrels are putting ice on their nuts.  I told Boden this joke and he laughed and laughed, then asked, while still chuckling, "how are the squirrels going to get ice?".  Good question.  I said that's why we better lock our doors tonight, so the squirrels don't come in and steal our ice.  More laughing, "But they don't know how to use the ice maker."  I didn't know this joke was funny on so many levels!

The pride and perils of geocaching

Given Boden's interest in pirates and "treasure", I thought now would be a good time to try out geocaching--searching for hidden treasure!  A fellow gymnastics mom told me a bit about it and showed me the app she used so I downloaded it and we got started on a weekend day when Todd needed a little time for home improvement.  Our first search was successful--it took a little time to find but we met an older lady and her granddaughter whom Boden quickly recruited.  The lady had been geocaching with her husband and knew the cache we were in search of, so we knew we were in the right area.  Finally, we stumbled upon it!  With the confidence of finding our first cache under our belt, I checked the app for another hidden treasure and we headed out.  The second one was a bit of a walk into Carver Park.  After the 5th minute of constant whining about how far we'd walked and "I wish it was closer"s, I was wishing i had brought the stroller (geocaching tip:  have the stroller on hand if the kiddo is going to be helping with the search.).  As my tolerance was wearing thin, the map indicated we were close.  Per the map, we needed to do a little off-roading so we headed up the embankment and started looking high and low (the first one was hanging from a tree, so I thought anything was possible).  There were some downed trees that looked like the perfect place so we zeroed in on that area...then I felt something painful on my leg, looked down, thought it was a huge ant, then Boden yelled--I had stepped on a hornet's nest and they weren't happy.  Boden was getting stung, I was getting stung and trying to get them off him, and we were running and swatting and yelling.  It was awful.  At the end of it all, I had lost my sunglasses, we didn't find the cache, i had at least 15 stings, Boden had about 5 and I was carrying my crying little dude back to the car trying to explain the hornets' behavior and that wouldn't happen every time we went geocaching.  Luckily, we redeemed ourselves 2 days later when I popped Boden in a stroller and we headed off in search of the same cache and my sunglasses.  We found the cache about 15 feet from the hornet spot...but my sunglasses are still out there.  :(

Photo:  our first cache!!

Ahoy matey!

Spurred by a trip to a park which fashioned their play set after a pirate ship, Boden has been all about pirates and building his own ship.  He even drafted his own pirate ship construction plan and assigned roles to Todd and I.  Each day (multiple times) he asked Todd if he ordered the materials so he could start building.  So, we purchased a cardboard replica to appease him...he quickly informed us this was just a starter ship until he could get the building materials for his construction plan.  So smart.

Picture 1:  pirate ship construction plan Picture 2: starter ship christened "the Plundering Guppy"

Fireman Boden

This past weekend, Boden got invited to spend the evening at the Chanhassen fire house by one of his pre-school classmates whose dad is on the force.  While we were there, he got to check out some of the fire men's fire protecting gear and rescue vehicles, turn the hose on and clean off the driveway, and ride in the fire truck (Todd got ride along, too) with the lights on.  The fire marshal of Edina also stopped by and the kids all got to turn on his vehicle's lights and sirens.  He thought it was all very cool and it was fun to see his excitement.

Waiting for the big one!

Our neighbor was over the other day fishing off the dock.  He was kind enough (and patient enough!) to help Boden with a few casts which led to him catching several sunfish.  Boden was really excited --"we caught another one!!--and had such a good time that Todd bought him a new rod and reel.  After noticing his much improved casting skills compared to last year, Todd got him some wax worms, a bobber and turned the budding fisherman loose on the dock.  He didn't pull up anything big (not sure you can even see the fish in the picture!) but he sure enjoyed it.  They also took the fishing boat out and caught two bigger fish (crappies, maybe).  It seemed like they were out for quite awhile--I'm sure it was a good exercise in patience for both of them. 

Where exactly is New Hamster, again?

Well, it's right between Maine and Vermont, silly.  Todd was in New Hampshire this week, and every time Boden would say something about where dad was (e.g. When Dad comes back from...), he would say New Hamster.  Super cute, super funny, super silly.

I went up to put my belt on...

Boden went upstairs to put a belt on, came down the steps, and said "um mom, i went upstairs to put my belt on, and THIS happened." He had his belt half on and his arm was sticking out the neckhole of his shirt with his shoulder exposed. In this case, a picture would have been worth a thousand words, but after we were done laughing our butts off (boden, too), Todd fixed the situation so I don't have a picture to share. Trust me when I say it was ridiculously funny. We can only imagine why his arm needed to come out of his shirt to get the belt in place...4 yr old logic, I guess.

Vacation Ready

We've been gearing up for and counting down to vacation since about January. To help keep our enthusiasm alive, we had a "beach day" one afternoon using our bedroom rug as the beach. Not even close to the real thing but he sure looked cute in his beach attire :)

Stop calling me, okay?

Tuesdaay was the Boden's first Snow Day (of many, I presume, barring significant climate change) which, as usual, was not very convenient for anyone.  But, in an attmept to get some work done and make sure Boden got plenty of play time in, I called up a babysitter who, thankfully, also was enjoying a Snow Day. 

As it goes with teenage girls who always have lots of plans and need to seriously consider whether or not they want to give up a luxurious afternoon of the first Snow Day of the winter, she couldn't give me an answer right away and needed to call me back.  No problem.  I told Boden that his babysitter would be calling back to let us know if she could come play with him in the afternoon while mommy worked. 

While we waited his Mickey Mouse play phone started "ringing" (according to him) and here's what I heard:
Boden: "Hello, Dr. Seuss, why are you calling me?"
I'm assuming Dr. Seuss responded because Boden seemed to be listening.
Boden: "Okay, well I'm waiting for my babysitter to call so I don't have time for this."
More pausing while Dr. Seuss is potentially pleading for Boden to, I don't know, read a draft of his new book??
Boden: "Dr. Seuss, please don't call me again, okay.  I gotta go."
Click.
I'm sure Dr. Seuss was stunned by this abruptness.

With a kind of straight face I asked, "what was that all about?  Why was Dr. Seuss calling you?".  Boden answered with a very serious expression, "I don't want him calling me.  I'm waiting for a call."

Okay, then.  I feel like maybe I need to take some action against Dr. Seuss.  I mean who does he think he is calling up my son to go on and on?  I'm looking into options for blocking his calls to the Mickey Mouse phone.

Frozen Fun

This month started off with Boden's first official entry in a race--the Lifetime Commitment Day Run on New Year's Day.  It was about 5 degrees out and we had him as bundled up as we could possibly get him (a la Ralphie's little brother in "A Christmas Story") and still pack him into the stroller.  It was a 5k RUN/WALK and Todd and I did our best to finish the race as fast as possible while pushing the stroller to get him to the finish and back in the car. 

We also kicked off the new year by starting swimming lessons on Wednesday nights.  I'm not enthused about the timing because it makes for a long and hectic evening, but we've been to three lessons so far and Boden seems to be enjoying them.  It seems like a much different experience from when I took swimming lessons (yes, they had pools 30 years ago). 

Learning the Backstroke

Todd also got a snowmobile this year--something I never thought I'd say since I've known him almost 20 years and I never would have pictured it.  As it turns out, Boden loves riding with his dad which makes Todd love it even more.  Below is a pic of Todd and Mini Me before they headed out on an after work, before bed ride.

During a recent and heavy snowfall, Boden and I decided to build a snowman.  Being an fiercely independent (read: bullheaded) pre-schooler, I was barely allowed to help and few of my ideas were taken into consideration because what on Earth would I know about building a snowman??  Uck--I just know this is payback for being a know-it-all, sassy kid!  Anyway, Boden was happy with his very first snowperson...sadly, Frosty expired today due to extreme heat stroke. 

Man-Lifts and Water Skis

Now it might seem, based on blog postings, that we didn't do anything in July, but I assure you we were quite busy...and quite hot.  The biggest news was that we got Boden up on the ski trainer and he did awesome--didn't want to stop and might have gone around the lake in circles indefinitely if Todd hadn't called a halt.  ( Note:  Please excuse my finger in the video!! I was a camera person doubling as the shore-start ski helper--I was more concerned about my second job duties :))

Secondly, Todd cut down some branches in our yard and Boden was more than happy to get out his construction gear and be part of the action.  See pics below:

Setting up the cones "so no one gets hurt"

"Helping" Dad in the man-lift

I have a little turtle...

I didn't know this song until Boden sang it to me.  I think it's well-known, though, because even my Panamanian friend said she learned it when she was a little girl.  She now thinks I was raised by a pack of wolves--the only plausible explanation for not knowing this tune, I guess.  Anyway, prepare yourself for cuteness.

You're So Vain

This photo captures one of the few times in nearly 3 1/2 years where we were able to wash Boden's hair without a complete and totally irrational breakdown.  Todd's the one with the Midas touch for this--it's taken awhile and it's not always foolproof, but "styling" Boden's hair and then letting him check out his 'do in the mirror helps to mitigate the apparent trauma of having his hair washed.  It's not a sure-fire technique; I still have a hard time getting through a bath time without Boden having a tantrum over something related to getting his hair washed.  I'm nearly positive that if I left it up to Boden, he would never voluntarily get his hair washed.  but moments like this give me hope that he's not "headed" down the path of dread locks!

Time to Put Away the Skis

This is as close as Boden got to skiing this year--maybe next year!

Boden and Dad waiting for Sloan to swim back to the boat.

Boden is an excellent tuber--an ability innate to most kids

Summer is over...well, at least the boat is pulled and we are prepared for summer to be over despite the warm, warm Fall!  Boden didn't make it up on skis behind the boat (but did plenty of lawn skiing) so maybe next year he'll be ready for the real thing!  I, on the other hand, did get up on skis for the first time in my thirty plus years.  I had never tried before and assumed I would hate it, but as it turns out, I found it to be quite fun...so next year, looks like we will both be perfecting our ski skills.