My love/hate relationship with leaves

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Tessa

I have a love/hate relationship with leaves. Yes, funny I know, but true. The leaves fall, the kids are thrilled, we have fun… but then someone has to actually remove them! Lex was worried yesterday that if we didn’t rake all the leaves in one afternoon then there wouldn’t be any more. I promised him that we have many, many more weeks of leaves! Many! Our 12yr old neighbor came over yesterday and said, “You are so lucky! You have the biggest leaf pile EVER!” Yay me! Sadly that “biggest leaf pile every” came from raking about a third of the leaves that have fallen from just one (of three) trees in the yard.

I’m forever trying to figure out a good solution for them. One that involves not too much work or money. Last year, mid November, I gave up and hired a crew to remove them. This year I’m trying to do the mulching thing again, but wondering if maybe we would all be happier (me and the kids anyway!) if I just played in the leaves with them and hired the crew again. Tempting!

A few pics from today

Posted on October 3, 2010 by Tessa

Eve picked up a book and snuggled in with Snoopy Dog to read for awhile. She's so sweet. I posted Lex's comment on the Quotes page.

They were so sweet this morning! They had a birthday party for Eve's doggie. They brought all this stuff up, sang to doggie, played music, etc. It was soooo sweet!

Let the raking begin! Lex was sad we couldn't get all the raking done today, but I promised him we would have a good 6-8 more weeks of raking! He thinks that's a good thing :)

Mommy Hero

Posted on October 3, 2010 by Tessa

Possibly the sweetest thing I’ve heard in a long time is Eve calling me a hero. Why, I don’t know, she just does. It started a few days ago. At lunch one day she said she wanted to make me a nameplate with a string to go around my neck and it says Hero on it. We were just sitting there eating lunch. Now she says it several times a day. Always kind of randomly. “Mommy, you’re a hero.” She also tells me I’m her best friend and reminds me that “friends are treasures you hold on to forever,” a quote from a book she has. So sweet! Tonight we had dinner at Panera Bread after a great time at the playground and a practice 5K for me. While eating dinner she told me she loves my cooking, and that I have a good green thumb, and that I’m a hero. Very random, but I’ll take it!

Mountain climbing and party going

Posted on October 2, 2010 by Tessa

We went mountain climbing today. Really, seriously. Jim, Julie and Molly were in the area celebrating their 10 year anniversary (congrats to them!) and we met up at the base of Mt. Cardigan. This is our second time climbing and my second time being totally under-prepared. Sigh. We all had fun anyway. Bundled up as best we could (it was chilly at the bottom and COLD at the top!) Lex and Eve made it all the way to the top with the promise of exploring the fire watch tower at the top. Sadly the fire watch tower was closed today! Maybe for the season, who knows. So we spent about five minutes at the tip top, rearranging clothing for better bundling, snapping a few quick picks, then back down we went. Good times!

Lex led the way up.

Look at this path we climbed!

Snack break on the way up.

See the fire watch tower way up there, on the bald top of the mountain!

We made it!! And yes, that is a towel around Eve's neck. I have one too. Like I said, I'm always underprepared for this hike! It was COLD and windy up there!!

Snack time on the way down.

Cute kids. Eve making her angry face (just to be silly) and Lex about to hide because I brought out the camera!

Guess what we did after the hike? We went to a birthday party! The second week of school Lex came home and told me about his new friend Calvin. That weekend he was disappointed because the two boys had arranged a playdate but I told him the grown-ups need to coordinate. I sent a note home with Calvin and never heard back from his parents. Imagine our happiness when we received a birthday party invite this week. Lex picked out a present (which was a big hit!) and wrapped the present himself and was super excited to go to the party. They held it at the playground and it was lots of fun. Running, jumping, eating cake and candy. Fun, fun.

I love the Lex doesn't need fancy paper or expensive cards. This his how he prefers to wrap presents.

Eve and the girls

Lex and the boys

I love this picture.

Eve takes a turn at the pinata

Haha... Lex and his friend checking out their candy score from the pinata. They got a lot of candy!

Partygoers (I think this was supposed to be invited partygoers, but Eve snuck her way in too).

A fun and busy day. Can you guess what the best part was? They were both fed, bathed, and in bed asleep by 6:45!!

Selling the baby stuff

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Tessa

Since we’ve decided not to have another baby I’m going to sell our baby stuff. This has been a tough process, but for the best. I thought I’d post here in case anyone needs anything or knows anyone with, or having, a baby.

View list sorted by category: http://tessa.datdec.com/forsale.htm (includes photos and details)
View by photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/tessa.johnson/BabyItemsForSale?feat=directlink (includes details)

PS. For those of you who gave us things, know that it has been a hard task to assign dollar values to treasured memories. I had a friend laughing at me when I was almost in tears over a snowsuit.

Red Cross Red

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Tessa

I donated blood yesterday. Did I mention this? I had a few extra minutes after picking Eve up from school and I saw they were doing a blood drive right then and there, so on impulse I decided to donate blood. It ended up being a much bigger process than I was anticipating and my “few minutes” turned into almost an hour and a half! Despite the long duration, it was a pretty pleasant experience. Eve was with me, mask on her head, and everyone was super friendly with her. The high school students loved her, some guy brought her a box of crayons and paper, the doc helping me was super nice to her, and Eve was a star! She was sweet and behaved and friendly and just plain adorable. At one point the doctor said she was a perfect child and asked if she was always so perfect. I said, “Yes, except when she isn’t.” :) But she was. Like the picture she drew? Please ignore my poor spelling of prehistoric names.

Eve's "Tyrannosaurus Rex under a rainbow"

After I was done with the blood draw we sat down for the required 15 minutes of sitting down and ate a snack. Eve had cookies, I had fruit. Ok, I shared her cookies! :) While we were hanging out they offered Eve a weird blood drop toy, which she declined, and they offered me Red Cross Red nail polish. Heck yeah. You like? Please ignore my poor pedi skills. It was a 2 minute job while dinner was cooking.

Red Cross Red

The greatest train set ever!

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Tessa

Today was like Christmas in September. A dream come true. For Lex. A guy I know was selling his kids’ train set. Apparently they don’t play with it. Crazy, huh?! He said he had a bunch of track pieces and engines. I picked them up this afternoon and found he also had a roundhouse and turntable! Lex has been asking for those two things forever! Imagine how excited he was when he came home to this:

This is just the new stuff!

VERY excited! That’s how excited he was! He has thanked me about a thousand times this afternoon and evening. He said it is the greatest train set ever! He has been pretty lovey lately, but today he couldn’t tell me enough how much he loved me and his new train set. He is so sweet. Guess what he did all afternoon?

Tunnels!

Laying the first tracks. Lex told me that the round house is "even better than the one at the toy store!"

Gaining steam, the track is growing.

Spencer, Lex's new favorite engine.

Eve made it for awhile with the trains and then lost interest, moving instead to the box the engines came in. She took out her markers and decorated the “car.” Then we made construction paper money, which she put in her purse and went grocery shopping with Snoopy Dog. :) They both did a fabulous job entertaining themselves this afternoon. I floated back and forth between them and just relaxed for the afternoon.

Eve working hard to turn a cardboard box into a car so she could go grocery shopping.

Believe it or not, the evening got even better. I’ve been cleaning out, organizing, sorting baby stuff from storage and the other day I brought out a box of bath toys I had put away. The kids were thrilled in the tub tonight. Their favorite toy was a floating xylophone, which consists of six interlocking pieces. They split it in half and made “music” and sang and had a blast. I tried to get a video but they got pretty quiet when they saw the camera.

Playing music in the tub.

Open House

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Tessa

Lex’s school had Open House tonight. We went to Open House for pre-k and it was a disaster. He was hot, tired, and overwhelmed and had a total meltdown in the lobby. People in the parking lot could hear him screaming! Tonight went significantly better! I asked him this weekend if he wanted to go and he said yes. He came home from school today and was super excited about it. He kept bouncing around and telling me about all the things he wanted to show me. He’s so cute! We went tonight and it was great. Saw lots of stuff, saw his adorable little classmates waving to him and saying hi, saw his various rooms (classroom, art room, etc.) and it was fun. He was soooo happy! :)