Love notes from Lex

Look what I found on my bed last night.

whole note

“Find the five hidden doors. :)”

A love note from my boy! Full of little windows to open. So cute!

top windows

“Dear Mom, I love you so much. Love, Lex”
“Look under your pillow for another note.”

door three

“Here’s a picture for you! Do you like it? __Yes __No”
Like anyone could say no to that?!

door four

“I love you, Mom!”
The smiley face pops up. A little trick he learned in a book and loves putting in cards.

door five

“Read my note!” The note says “I <3 U" and was tucked inside a little pocket he made with tape and paper.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_8710" align="aligncenter" width="500"]under the pillow front Here is the note that was under my pillow. It says “I love you”

under the pillow inside

Who could for ask for more!?!

Is that not the sweetest thing ever?! Truth be told I knew he was working on it. He spent hours on it yesterday morning, not-so-sneakily hiding it each time I got near him. I love how much effort he puts into his projects. I love the beautiful colors. I love Lex!

Paint markers

image

These things have provided MANY hours of creative play. Right now they have a whole game around their painting. They are artists, puppies and passwords are involved, it’s all very complex and keeping them quite busy. Thanks again Kirkwoods!

Hello veggies!

Lex ate almost an entire bowl (grown-up sized bowl, not a little kid snack bowl!) of snow peas before dinner (Eve ate the rest) and this evening, as we were cuddling on the couch watching TV because he couldn’t sleep, he ate a ton of baby carrots!  I was sharing the carrots and when we got near the end he took a the rest as a big handful!

I think that is more veggies than he’s eaten in the entire rest of this year!!  Add that to the watermelon at lunch, pear at snack, and smoothie popsicle for dessert and I think the boy got his nutrients for the day!  Finally!! 

Numbers

In a book we have there is a reference to “number one” and “number two” in the bathroom. I had to explain it to her since we use real words around here. She thought it was hysterical and decided to start using numbers instead of words. The real hysterical thing though is that she can’t remember what number means what!! From the bathroom yesterday I hear her yelling, “Mom, what is the number you go poop with?” She cracks me up!

New neighbors

We seem to have a family of yellow jackets living in the compost pile. I was hoping they were just dining there, but there are A LOT of them and they never seem to leave. :/

yellow jackets

Sorry for the close up of the compost pile. These are yellow jackets, right?

This is my consequence for neglecting the poor compost pile for so long. I have spent hours today reading about how to get rid of them. I have learned that they swarm when agitated, apparently loud noise like the lawn mower can agitate them, and reading all that makes me itchy and twitchy all over! Ugh. I was painting on the back porch and swatted three of them with the paint brush! Good thing their buddies didn’t swarm!

On another note, the kids found the dirt garden again this evening. They went outside to play tag, wore themselves out, and settled in the dirt.

dirty birds

Dirty birds!

eve

Eve found a worm and was eager to show me.

lex

Playing with trucks in the dirt. Still a little boy.

They both came in covered with bug bites! Maybe not covered, but they each had six or seven swollen bites. I was worried they were stings at first, but neither of them noticed getting bitten and I think they would have noticed if they’d been stung by yellow jackets six times!

Weird afternoon. New neighbors and new stairs… we’re movin’ on… up?

Any advice how to remove yellow jackets?

Cub Scouts, Wolf Pack

After our first cub scout meeting, the Valley Quest outing, and a summer to think about it, Lex is still super excited about joining Cub Scouts. So we did. Tonight was the first meeting. It was a bit chaotic, but mostly because the pack leader was trying to talk to the parents for awhile. Now that the details are out of the way, he promises next meeting will be much more controlled. They had a snack, went outside to play soccer for awhile (which Lex LOVED!) and then just ran around while the parents did a little more paperwork. The leader has two boys, one in Lex’s group, and seems really with it. This is his first year in charge. I was told he was an assistant last year. He seemed great. Lex had a great time so I filled out the paperwork and wrote the check. I guess you’ll find us at scout meetings on Wednesday nights for awhile!

A sneak peek of a busy day

I won a photo shoot and 8’x10′ picture in a silent raffle at school last spring. Does it count as “winning” if you have to pay for it? I paid $5 or something. I was excited. Last month I noticed that it expired in September so I called to set up the appointment. After clicking around their website a bit I was less excited. The photo poses were all quite dull. After talking to the woman on the phone and finding out that there is no way to get the digital copies I was even less excited. I told her I was hoping to use one for Christmas cards and she said, “Don’t worry, we sell Christmas cards.” Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about!

I made the appointment for two weeks ago but had to reschedule because Alan was really sick. Rescheduled for today. So my day went like this. Rush the whole family out the door at 7:55. Drop kids off at school. Drop Alan off at work. Bring myself to work. Of course it is cold and raining through all of this. Then I went out of my way to go to the Dunkin Donuts that sells cheap iced tea (this momma needs her caffeine!) only to find that they had raised their prices. Sigh. Made it to work anyway. Busy, but productive day. Home in time to get the kids off the bus. Eve was a mess. She’s so high and low. She ran home, yelling happily, jumping in puddles… then ended up collapsed in the living room in tears. Why? She couldn’t tell me. She said her body just needed to cry. Which, funny enough, was almost the same thing Lex told me in bed tonight as he was in tears. Sigh.

I got her calmed down, we all had snack, then started the effort of finding coordinating clothes for a family photo. Can you see how unexcited I was about this?! :) No fancy shoes or manicures. We just got somewhat matching clothes and headed out. The lady at the (sketchy looking) place asked me a half a dozen times if I needed to use the powder room to freshen up my make-up. I was kind of offended, but mostly just didn’t care. Lex put up a fuss about going, but I bribed encouraged him with the promise of Panera for dinner so he cooperated and overall the photo shoot went well.

Turns out the owners/photographers are the parents of the one kid in school Lex doesn’t like. Luckily for all of us Lex chose to keep his opinions to himself when they told us who their kid was.

Panera for dinner turned out to be exhausting. The kids were uber silly and loud. Wore me right out. Home for a late bedtime. Back at it tomorrow!

We go back next week to look through the photos and pick one for our 8’x10′. I’ll post a picture of it when we get it. :)