I love when they have their happy, playing together moments. Here Lex decided they should draw together, so he divided up the board and wrote their names on top. He drew a tree and started writing the word, but then got distracted by Eve’s drawing. She drew snails. In the bottom picture you can see that he wrote “snal” for her :) They make me happy.
Drawing on the easel
Snails
Lex has had an artistic burst lately and now spends lots of time sitting at the table drawing pictures. Usually his pictures are just lots of color on a page, but occasionally he actually make something, like a porcupine.
A porcupine with a blue head, black tail, and lots of legs.
He also knows where we keep the tape and proudly hangs up each drawing when he’s finished with it. Our walls are covered with Lex art :)
Our own personal art gallery
Lex eagerly awaits the go-ahead to eat the cupcakes.
Notice anything different?
Notice anything different in this picture? Look closely… what’s missing?
This truck and trailer contains all of our remaining leaves and the shrubs from the front of the house!
The shrubs!!! And bonus points if you also guessed the leaves :) The dad of one of the kids in Lex’s class owns a property maintenance business and he came over to do some work for us. I’m thrilled!!! He raked and removed the remaining leaves (will be back again when the rest of the leaves are down), raked and removed the pine needle carpet in the backyard that I had pretty much given up on this season, cut back several of the flower gardens (will be back to finish the rest, I think), and cleared out the brush corner of our yard where we’ve been throwing fallen branches, Christmas trees, etc… for lack of anything better to do with them. I’m amazed at how much work three guys can get done in a short period of time. The first day they were here for 2hrs and got more done than me and my little “helpers” could have gotten done all year! Awesome :)
We had a very busy weekend. Very busy. I’m very tired now, but I know it’s been a few days so I’ll bang out a quick update :) May or may not proof-read!
Saturday was nice weather and we spent the day outside raking leaves. No kidding, it was 5hours of raking! Ridiculous! My current leaf handling solution is to put them in the leaf compost pile in an effort to make leaf mulch. Last year we shredded them up and put them in. This year I moved last year’s leaves from one pile to another (to turn them) and was disappointed at how little composting actually occurred. I guess I need to turn them more often, or something. The process of moving them all from one place to another took a long time and I did it over the course of a week or two. The process of raking and filling the big container with new leaves from this fall took about an hour! I didn’t shred them first because I can’t figure it out logistically (deep leaves, SLOW leaf blower, can’t mulch with the mower with both kids running around, etc.) so I just put them in the pile whole this year. Probably even less composting will occur :( This is our 4th fall here and I still don’t think we have a good leaf removal system. Next year (when our ship comes in!) I’d love to just pay someone to make it happen. Wouldn’t that be cool if we could rake and play in the leaves and then they would magically just disappear? I know I sound like I’m whining, but if you saw the vast amount of leaves on my lawn you’d understand. After 5yrs of dealing with it Saturday I still have a whole side yard untouched, a backyard full of pine needles, and 3 large leaf piles in the front/side yard. PLUS two giant leaf composting piles. Ugh I ran out of room in the composting piles so I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the remaining leaves.
The lawn, mid-raking
Two leaf composting piles, the one on the left is last year's leaves.
Today we got up bright and early and headed over to the hospital for their free flu shot clinic. They do several of them throughout September, October, and November, but yesterday’s newspaper said that the remaining clinics (after today) may be canceled due to a shortage of the vaccine. Sooo…. today’s clinic was INSANE!! The parking lot was packed, there was a line out the door, down the driveway and into the parking lot!! A nice guard told us that since we have young kids we could go to the kid’s clinic inside, which was nice. The line there was equally long, but at least it was inside and the kids could play in the hallways. There’s nothing like carrying heavy winter coats and bags while trying to maintain your place in line and simultaneously keep an eye on two active, excited kids in a mobbed hallway to EXHAUST a person! After about an hour it was our turn. Alan and I got shots, Eve got her with some tears of pain, and Lex got his despite a HUGE fight with tears and screaming. Fun, fun. Then we went to the cafeteria for lunch and more overexcited energy.
After the flu shot clinic we stopped at the pharmacy to pick up a “spacer” for an asthma inhaler… yes, you read that right. On Friday I took the kids to the doctor because Lex and I have had a deep cough that just won’t quit for about 10 days now. He checked us both, and Eve as well, and said that we sound fine other than the cough (no phenomena or flu or anything) and prescribed Robitussin with Codine for me (to finally sleep through the night, though it hasn’t worked yet!) and an asthma inhaler for Lex and I to use for a week. Apparently it’s a common thing to help ease a heavy cough and end the “cough cycle.” I’m now the proud owner of an Epi-Pen and asthma inhaler. How did this happen?? The spacer piece we picked up today is an adapter thing to make it easier for kids to use the inhaler. I’ll tell ya, the whole inhaler thing looks a lot easier than it really is! I’m using the spacer too! :) Hopefully by the end of the week we will all be cough free and inhaler free! Maybe in a year or two we’ll be Epi-Pen free too!!
Lex's drawing of a tree.
This picture makes me happy. After nap today the kids helped me clean the upstairs (change sheets, dust, vaccum) and then came down and drew pictures while I made dinner. Lex likes to draw abstract art, but when I asked if he could draw a picture of something, he made a tree :)
Here is how my day went. Dropped Lex off at school, dropped Eve off at daycare, went to work for 2hrs. Picked Lex up from school and dropped him off at daycare (sneakily so Eve wouldn’t see me!). Back to work for 1hr. Picked Eve up from daycare (sneakily so Lex wouldn’t see me!) and took her to her allergist appointment. Ran a few errands and headed back. Eve insisted on picking up Lex early (“I miss my brother!”), but fell asleep in the car on the way there, so instead we went home where I did some lawn chores for 45 minutes while she slept in the car. Back to daycare to pick up Lex. I felt like a taxi service today!
The good news, however, is that Eve is a superstar at doctors appointments. We met with the allergist for a checkup. Height/weight/heart/lungs, you know, the usual. He also sent us down for blood work to test Eve for tree nut allergies. Last year they did a skin test just for peanuts, and now that she’s a bit older he was ready to do a blood test for tree nuts (and peanuts). I am looking forward to the results next week! If she comes back negative for tree nuts then we can start, carefully!, feeding her almonds and walnuts and other tasty things. That would be nice. At the lab the doctor asked how Eve was with getting her blood drawn and I could honestly say I had no idea, we’ve never done that before. Turns out she is awesome!! She sat on my lap, clutching doggie, and let the doctor and nurse hold her hand/arm, feel for a vein, and draw two vials of blood! He said they prefer two but take whatever they can get with the little kids. He was amazed at how calm she was. She didn’t even cry or flinch! I think that’s pretty cool, but…
Eve has this tendency that at first was cute and now it weird me out a bit. Whenever she’s in a situation that’s uncomfortable she seems to “checkout.” Her eyes get distant and she stares off over your shoulder. It’s weird. It’s mostly weird when she does it when people are hugging or touching her. She draws attention from everyone she meets and normally she loves it, but several times I’ve seen small kids try to touch or hug her and she just stands there and glazes over. Totally weirds me out! One day last winter at a friends house her and a 1yr old boy were playing and suddenly got quiet. His mom and I found them in a corner, he was leaning his hand on her and sucking on her necklace, she was leaning against the all and looked trapped, but totally “checked out.” In the waiting room today a 3yr old boy was fascinated with her and kept following her around, trying to hug her. She made small efforts to get away and then just checked out. I’m trying to teach her to use words and tell people she doesn’t want hugs. I tell her (even right as the situation is happening) that she can always say “stop, I don’t want a hug.” I’m sure it’s just weird toddler behavior, but I can’t help feeling like I need to teach her to speak up if she doesn’t like the situation. Girl power! Anyway, I’m tired and rambling.
We got a fun box of dress-up clothes in the mail yesterday from Aunt Betty. We’ve all been having fun with the hats and grass skirts :)
Lex is so sweet. Here are a few things that make me smile.
At bedtime tonight I was laying with him and he started rubbing my eyebrows, back and forth. Weird. I asked what he was doing and he said, “Rubbing your eyebrows. Mom, they are so soft!”
After crossing off a few days on his calendar, Lex walked into the kitchen and said, “Mom, I’m sorry my writing is so wobbly.” So cute. Alan says that is from a Winnie the Pooh book. Lex has told me several times that his writing is too wobbly. I keep telling him to just keep practicing.
Also at bedtime tonight I was laying with him and after a few minutes he asked if I wanted to get under the covers. I said no thank you. Several minutes, and much coughing (we both have serious coughs lately!), Lex said “Mom, you really should get under the covers to keep your chest warm.” I tell him regularly to zip up his sweatshirt to keep his chest warm to help his cough get better. So cute to hear him echoing back, and being so concerned.
I love him!!
I like reading other people’s blogs and sometimes I discover “new” art projects that remind me of what we did growing up. Tried and true art projects that seemed to have slipped my mind (like many things do!) After reading about this leaf project on Simple Kids I decided to give it a go with the kids. We have no shortage of leaves to work with! They enjoyed it, especially the running around outside and hunting for “soft” (not dry, crinkly) leaves. Lex excitedly taped the final results to the window and I tried to get them to pose for a picture, but this is the best I got. At least he’s smiling :) (The butterfly in the middle is an old project that Lex won’t let me take down.)
"Posing" with their art project
Recipe from Parents magazine, but I can’t find it online at the moment. Maybe I’ll add it here later. Basic maple cookies with licorice “thread.” Sew cute! :) Lex wants to take them to school for his show and tell tomorrow. He did the rolling, measuring (make sure the dough is 1/4″ think) and cutting.
Button cookies
Beautiful Eve
A Halloween preview