Henry and Wade came to pick me up from work tonight. The sky was completely clear and the stars were bright and Henry, not being someone that is typically out after dark, noticed the stars. He could not believe how pretty they were. We decided to make a wish on a star. So we said the little star wishing poem, "Star light star bright first star I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight." Henry's wish, "I wish that we all stay together forever and always love each other."
We hugged and headed inside to brush teeth and go to bed. Mid-brush he realized that he had another wish for the star tonight. We ran back outside. Said the poem. Henry's wish, "I wish that there were no mosquitoes or ants in or around our house." We headed back into the living room only for Henry to realize that he had yet another 2 wishes. The first one was that the trees would start to change to orange, yellow and blue tomorrow. The second was that everyone have sufficient (his word) air and water and to help the Earth stay healthy and green.
Uncle John, Wade's brother, got married on Saturday. I explained to Henry that we wouldn't see John for a little while because he was going on a honeymoon. "What's a honeymoon?" Henry asked. "Well, it is a vacation that two people that just got married take to spend time together." That seemed to satisfy his curiosity. Then, that night when Henry and I were saying our bed time prayers, Henry said, "Take care of Uncle John and Lydia on their honeymoon. And help Uncle John to find lots of honey on the moon."
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Weekly Update 9.26.10
"Without the sour you can't appreciate the sweet"
This quote applies to many things in life. It certainly applies to raising children. I think I am going to petition for it to be that state motto for Kansas (or maybe just Lawrence because often times I feel like Lawrence is a pocket of sweet surrounded by a flat land of sour). This morning I walked outside and could see my breath and yesterday the sun shined but the air was cool and we had to grab jackets for our bike ride and THAT is the sweet of Kansas. After 3 months of hot, humid, buggy, sour, the onset of Autumn feels like a cool drink after a day of laying hot asphalt. Three cheers for sweater weather!
Yesterday Henry and I went mum shopping. Henry is not easy to shop with because he feels very strongly that we should buy every single thing that we show any interest in. He cries. He yells. He even stiff-legs it, so that we get to be THAT parent: the one that is dragging their tear soaked preschooler by the hood of his sweatshirt, with his unbendable legs stretched out behind him. Henry felt that we needed at least 8 mums. One of each color. I explained to him that we would have to put each mum that we purchased into the ground, to which he said, "That's okay Mama. I worked hard today and now you can work hard too." Humph. So we walked out with 2 mums, 3 temper tantrums, and 1 Mama feeling slightly under appreciated. Wade spent most of Sunday doing yard work while Henry and I (emphasis on I, despite what the 4 year old tells you) cleaned the house. I'm not going to lie, it was a pit. Every single weekend this month we have either had a wedding or family in town, or both. Last weekend I don't think we spent more than a couple of hours at home. So we gave it a thorough scrubbing and now it feels like home again. Yesterday we also squeezed in a bike ride, a trip to the grocery store and a soccer game.
On Saturday we attended John and Lydia's wedding. Wade was a groomsman and Henry was the ring bearer. Henry did a good job...and so did Wade. He was very nervous ahead of time (Henry, not Wade) but he pulled it together and even sat pretty still during the ceremony. I'll post pictures when we have some. For now you can enjoy this one from Wade's phone. The wedding was lovely and they were a very sweet couple. Cheers!
Friday was jam packed with the rehearsal dinner and work and school. We got it all done but it wasn't pretty. Henry still needed a tie and jacket (which we couldn't find so we went with a tie only). Wade needed a black suit. I had to make a red velvet cake and buy a glass cake stand. Henry and Wade both needed black shoes. Basically, it was chaos. We dropped Henry off at Gigi and Grandpa's house after the rehearsal so that we could get all that shopping done quickly and when I returned to pick him up I found all three of them up on the bed reading stories. Grandpa was almost asleep. Gigi was wearing her new reading glasses and Henry was snuggled in under her arm in his jammies. It was so sweet I hated to interrupt them.
Our plans for this week involve mostly just trying to do as little as possible to make up for the chaos of the past month. We need to move a lot of plants in our yard and put up the frames for our garden. We need to take evening bike rides to enjoy this time of year, when the sun is still up in evening but the air is cool and the leaves are changing color. There really is no better time to be on a bike. We love to ride in Old West Lawrence, with it's tree lined brick streets and big old houses. Henry and I have some mum's to plant and a Halloween costume to start planning. I was hoping we would have one more year of fun homemade costume but it looks like we might be unable to dissuade him from the plastic Transformers costume at Target. Bummer. Any-hoo. This weekend or next weekend the local apple orchard will open for picking and I can't wait to stock my shelves with applesauce and apple butter and maybe an apple pie, or two.
I'll try to post some mid-week photos from the wedding and our bike rides, since this post is almost picture-less and, really, mostly just me rambling on for way too long, with questionsable grammar skills and far too many comma's and "ands". Have a great week blog friends. Try to enjoy the sour and the sweet.
This quote applies to many things in life. It certainly applies to raising children. I think I am going to petition for it to be that state motto for Kansas (or maybe just Lawrence because often times I feel like Lawrence is a pocket of sweet surrounded by a flat land of sour). This morning I walked outside and could see my breath and yesterday the sun shined but the air was cool and we had to grab jackets for our bike ride and THAT is the sweet of Kansas. After 3 months of hot, humid, buggy, sour, the onset of Autumn feels like a cool drink after a day of laying hot asphalt. Three cheers for sweater weather!
Yesterday Henry and I went mum shopping. Henry is not easy to shop with because he feels very strongly that we should buy every single thing that we show any interest in. He cries. He yells. He even stiff-legs it, so that we get to be THAT parent: the one that is dragging their tear soaked preschooler by the hood of his sweatshirt, with his unbendable legs stretched out behind him. Henry felt that we needed at least 8 mums. One of each color. I explained to him that we would have to put each mum that we purchased into the ground, to which he said, "That's okay Mama. I worked hard today and now you can work hard too." Humph. So we walked out with 2 mums, 3 temper tantrums, and 1 Mama feeling slightly under appreciated. Wade spent most of Sunday doing yard work while Henry and I (emphasis on I, despite what the 4 year old tells you) cleaned the house. I'm not going to lie, it was a pit. Every single weekend this month we have either had a wedding or family in town, or both. Last weekend I don't think we spent more than a couple of hours at home. So we gave it a thorough scrubbing and now it feels like home again. Yesterday we also squeezed in a bike ride, a trip to the grocery store and a soccer game.
On Saturday we attended John and Lydia's wedding. Wade was a groomsman and Henry was the ring bearer. Henry did a good job...and so did Wade. He was very nervous ahead of time (Henry, not Wade) but he pulled it together and even sat pretty still during the ceremony. I'll post pictures when we have some. For now you can enjoy this one from Wade's phone. The wedding was lovely and they were a very sweet couple. Cheers!
Friday was jam packed with the rehearsal dinner and work and school. We got it all done but it wasn't pretty. Henry still needed a tie and jacket (which we couldn't find so we went with a tie only). Wade needed a black suit. I had to make a red velvet cake and buy a glass cake stand. Henry and Wade both needed black shoes. Basically, it was chaos. We dropped Henry off at Gigi and Grandpa's house after the rehearsal so that we could get all that shopping done quickly and when I returned to pick him up I found all three of them up on the bed reading stories. Grandpa was almost asleep. Gigi was wearing her new reading glasses and Henry was snuggled in under her arm in his jammies. It was so sweet I hated to interrupt them.
Our plans for this week involve mostly just trying to do as little as possible to make up for the chaos of the past month. We need to move a lot of plants in our yard and put up the frames for our garden. We need to take evening bike rides to enjoy this time of year, when the sun is still up in evening but the air is cool and the leaves are changing color. There really is no better time to be on a bike. We love to ride in Old West Lawrence, with it's tree lined brick streets and big old houses. Henry and I have some mum's to plant and a Halloween costume to start planning. I was hoping we would have one more year of fun homemade costume but it looks like we might be unable to dissuade him from the plastic Transformers costume at Target. Bummer. Any-hoo. This weekend or next weekend the local apple orchard will open for picking and I can't wait to stock my shelves with applesauce and apple butter and maybe an apple pie, or two.
I'll try to post some mid-week photos from the wedding and our bike rides, since this post is almost picture-less and, really, mostly just me rambling on for way too long, with questionsable grammar skills and far too many comma's and "ands". Have a great week blog friends. Try to enjoy the sour and the sweet.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Weekly Update 9.19.10
Good morning. Yes, it is 11 am on Sunday and yes, my family is just getting started with the day. Wade stayed up super late working on a flier for his mom last night and I took the opportunity to watch a chick flick without having to listen to him moaning or making rude comments about how unrealistic chick-flicks are. Lately Henry has been sleeping in until 9ish on the weekends. I think he is growing. I mean he sleeps 12 hours a night and I swear every morning he looks taller. I read in my "What to Expect: The toddler years" book that kids actually do grow overnight, in bursts, and I believe it.Sorry about the skipped post last week, but I'll bring you up to date. It was actually a very difficult week for our family. We had to put down our little girl cat, Girlfriend. She was injured over the summer and just was not recovering. It was impacting her quality of life. It was really hard for Wade. Susie and Ted were in town and Henry got to spend a lot of quality time with Susie. He loves Susie, they have a special relationship. Henry also got to go on a field trip with his class last week. They have been talking about neighborhoods so the teacher arranged for them to visit the post office and mail themselves a post card. The school is right in downtown so the post office was just a short walk away for the kiddos. They watched the sorting machine and checked out all the other equipment and postal vehicles. We got Henry's postcard the next day and he was super excited. Here it is: 
The next day the kids walked to a landscape business and got to see more big vehicles and play in the dirt. Then they headed back to school to pick grapes from the school garden to squeeze to make juice for snack. They planted the seeds from their grapes along the west side fence of the school. Henry thought that was very cool. On Friday the kids talked about bugs and one of the parents brought in some bugs for them to check out. For snack that day...chocolate covered crickets. Henry did not try one, but several of the other kids did.
Now on to this week. On Monday Wade helped at Henry's school. There is a little boy in his class that is not talking and is struggling with some behavior problems. He seems to respond to Henry and Henry took note of it and has been playing with him and teaching him words. It's pretty amazing to watch the little boy engage with Henry in a way that he hasn't with other people. We are so proud of our little dude for helping him out.
On Tuesday I woke up early to go to the gym and decided to walk out on our front porch to enjoy the amazing orange and pink sunrise. I proceeded to step on a rusty nail which resulted in a trip to the Prompt Care for an emergency tetanus booster. The good news is that I don't have to worry about tetanus until I am 42. Bad news: now both my foot and my arm hurt. The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. I had an exam on Thursday night I spent most of Thursday in the library. Henry and I built a fort on Friday and we decided to sleep in it all weekend. I have some more photos from my phone that I cannot download at the moment. When I can I'll post them. For now here is Henry and Ray Ray in the fort this morning.
Enjoy the first week of fall.
The next day the kids walked to a landscape business and got to see more big vehicles and play in the dirt. Then they headed back to school to pick grapes from the school garden to squeeze to make juice for snack. They planted the seeds from their grapes along the west side fence of the school. Henry thought that was very cool. On Friday the kids talked about bugs and one of the parents brought in some bugs for them to check out. For snack that day...chocolate covered crickets. Henry did not try one, but several of the other kids did.Now on to this week. On Monday Wade helped at Henry's school. There is a little boy in his class that is not talking and is struggling with some behavior problems. He seems to respond to Henry and Henry took note of it and has been playing with him and teaching him words. It's pretty amazing to watch the little boy engage with Henry in a way that he hasn't with other people. We are so proud of our little dude for helping him out.
On Tuesday I woke up early to go to the gym and decided to walk out on our front porch to enjoy the amazing orange and pink sunrise. I proceeded to step on a rusty nail which resulted in a trip to the Prompt Care for an emergency tetanus booster. The good news is that I don't have to worry about tetanus until I am 42. Bad news: now both my foot and my arm hurt. The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. I had an exam on Thursday night I spent most of Thursday in the library. Henry and I built a fort on Friday and we decided to sleep in it all weekend. I have some more photos from my phone that I cannot download at the moment. When I can I'll post them. For now here is Henry and Ray Ray in the fort this morning.
Enjoy the first week of fall.
Monday, September 06, 2010
Weekly Update 9.6.10
Oh man, are we making up the lack of photos last week???? Yes sir we are. Prepare for a feast for your eyes. But I think we'll take it in reverse order because, frankly, I can only remember the weekend.Today we woke up early and Henry played outside for an hour or so while Mama sat on the front porch drinking coffee and loving life. We also snacked on some apple cider donuts that we picked up the day before during our official "First cool day almost Fall tradition" which involves driving 30 minutes to drink fresh apple cider and eat fresh donuts. But now I am jumping ahead. Here we are devouring the donuts this morning. 
Yes, we were still in our jammies. Henry likes to eat his donuts pirate style. 
Then we headed over to Gigi and Grandpa's for a barbecue celebrating Susie and Ted's visit. Susie and I attempted to make the super epic rainbow cake. I like to call it the Super Epic Rainbow Flop. Here is what it should have looked like. 
Here it what it actually looked like. 
We had a fantastic meal with the family and Henry came home sugar high and having met his yearly requirement for food coloring.
Sunday was a pretty fun day. We slept in, of course, and then hung around the house, cleaning and playing and possibly cooking some food for future use (I may have a stocking the freeze addiction). Then, while we were outside playing with water balloons, we decided that we definitely felt a cool fall breeze which can only mean one thing in our house, time for the First cool breeze, almost Fall tradition which means a trip to Rees Fruit Farm. With the windows down we drove to Topeka and partook of the delightful treat. Evidently Henry likes to drink his apple cider slushes pirate style as well. Arrgh.
Next stop, the sunflower field. Henry had a great time finding trails among the rows of sunflowers. 
On Saturday we went out for an early morning bike ride and then headed over to Gigi and Grandpa's house to say hi to Susie, Ted and Bagel. 
Henry got to pick the restaurant and then, when we got home Henry had his feet done on the porch. What a life! Look at this kid. 
It has been a wonderful, long, relaxing weekend. Now it is time to get started on a new week. Susie is in town all week, so Henry will get to spend his mornings with Susie and Bagel and his afternoons back at school. Mama has yet another week of work and school, and Papa has a busy week ahead of him with several meetings for the fundraiser for Henry's school plus playing music and being an all around great guy. Hope your week is wonderful. Now I am going to try to scrub off some of this food coloring. Hugs.
Yes, we were still in our jammies. Henry likes to eat his donuts pirate style. 
Then we headed over to Gigi and Grandpa's for a barbecue celebrating Susie and Ted's visit. Susie and I attempted to make the super epic rainbow cake. I like to call it the Super Epic Rainbow Flop. Here is what it should have looked like. 
Here it what it actually looked like. 
We had a fantastic meal with the family and Henry came home sugar high and having met his yearly requirement for food coloring.Sunday was a pretty fun day. We slept in, of course, and then hung around the house, cleaning and playing and possibly cooking some food for future use (I may have a stocking the freeze addiction). Then, while we were outside playing with water balloons, we decided that we definitely felt a cool fall breeze which can only mean one thing in our house, time for the First cool breeze, almost Fall tradition which means a trip to Rees Fruit Farm. With the windows down we drove to Topeka and partook of the delightful treat. Evidently Henry likes to drink his apple cider slushes pirate style as well. Arrgh.
Next stop, the sunflower field. Henry had a great time finding trails among the rows of sunflowers. 
On Saturday we went out for an early morning bike ride and then headed over to Gigi and Grandpa's house to say hi to Susie, Ted and Bagel. 
Henry got to pick the restaurant and then, when we got home Henry had his feet done on the porch. What a life! Look at this kid. 
It has been a wonderful, long, relaxing weekend. Now it is time to get started on a new week. Susie is in town all week, so Henry will get to spend his mornings with Susie and Bagel and his afternoons back at school. Mama has yet another week of work and school, and Papa has a busy week ahead of him with several meetings for the fundraiser for Henry's school plus playing music and being an all around great guy. Hope your week is wonderful. Now I am going to try to scrub off some of this food coloring. Hugs.
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