School

I have been so bad in posting! We had a wonderful, busy summer, and, as all good things do, it has come to an end. School started on Wednesday.

Caleb started high school. I can hardly believe he is a freshman!

Calvin is at the top of the totem pole this year, starting 5th grade. Middle school next year!

Connor is in 1st grade, and will be having his first experience going to school all day. He's loving it so far, telling me it's fun to eat lunch at school, and that he LOVES recess.

As for me, I am now home alone during the day for the first time in a long long time. I do go to the elementary school every day for noon hour recess supervision, but otherwise, I am on my own. I have grand plans for my time. Maybe I'll finally get those living and dining room curtains finished, the halls repainted, my sewing room cleaned, and some clothes made. :D

First Day of School

School started on Tuesday. I don't really look forward to new school years. I like my kids hanging around and having lazy mornings. :) But, start it did, and here are the requisite pictures:
Caleb is an eighth grader now, has decided to play football this year (along with soccer), is now much bigger than me, and still gets annoyed that I want to take his photo on the first day of school. I did say I would be happy to walk him to school too but he declined. :)

Calvin is now in fourth grade, and also is now getting tired of the traditional first day of school photo. This year our neighbor up the street is in his class, which is pretty nice.

Connor had his very first first day of school! He is now going to senior kindergarten, in the mornings. What the photo doesn't show is how excited he was to go, and he made a friend the very first day and had a playdate planned with said friend 2 days later! There are only 10 kids in his class, which I think is great.

Now I have the mornings to myself for the first time in a long time. It's kinda weird, but I'll surely find lots to keep me occupied, like the quilt that has to be done next weekend. It's been all cut out and ten of the sixteen rows are already together.

June Adventures

Oh my, June has zipped by and we're almost halfway through July! Time to catch-up:

Caleb built some alternative energy models for the Human Ecology Fair at school. This is a hydroelectric generator. When they ran water down the chute, it generated enough electricity to make a buzzer go off.

We spent Father's Day at the Boerner Botanical Gardens. David's dad and wife came to visit also.

I took five boys with me on our annual camping trip....

....where they got to make ice cream, along with spending a day playing on the beach, general hiking around, and all around fun.

Caleb left for a week to camp with his Boy Scout troop.

I turned 39, and to celebrate....

....we went to pick strawberries....

....and peas....

....and made a lot of jam.

Halloween

Here in Milwaukee, trick-or-treat is always held on the Sunday before Halloween, in the afternoon. It's always been that way (I don't know why); I never trick-or-treated in the dark on Halloween as a child. Anyway, here are the boys:
Caleb was a biker. He was going to be the Joker, but I didn't get a costume done in time, and it actually turned out for the best, as we had to quickly leave town a few days later for a family funeral (having green hair at the funeral probably wouldn't have been the best thing. ^_^)

Calvin was Zorro, Connor was a ghost. He was going to be a doctor again like last year, but at the absolute last minute he wanted to be a ghost. It's a good thing I keep a bolt of muslin on hand at all times.

As I mentioned above, we had to go to Iowa for a funeral. They do trick-or-treat there at night, usually on Halloween (it was on the 30th this year, and they call it Beggar's Night instead). My FIL dressed up as a clown, Caleb decided to go as a pirate this time, and Connor decided to skip the whole thing and stay home to play with trains. One of the traditions in Iowa is that you have to tell a joke to get your candy. Calvin told everyone that he doesn't do jokes, he does tricks. So he'd go into the person's yard and do a running roundoff into a backhandspring. In a cape. It looked pretty darn cool. People were pretty impressed, and would give him extra candy. He scored big on the candy in Iowa!

I used Butterick 5656 for Calvin's Zorro cape, adding 10" to the length, and using the collar piece from the tunic. To finish off the collar, I stitched it on as if I were making a dress shirt collar stand. It's sewn all around the neck and front edges, leaving the top open.

I then trimmed and clipped the collar. After pressing it, I turned under the open edge on the top.

To finish it off and close the opening, I edgestitched all around. A finished collar, with all edges enclosed!

A Birthday Surprise

Connor's birthday surprise was A Day Out With Thomas! My brother told me about it in March or April, and when I realized that one of the days was Connor's 4th birthday, well, you know I had to get tickets. All Connor knew was that we were doing something very special on his birthday.

Needless to say, when we arrived and he saw what his surprise was, he was THRILLED.

My brother and his family met us there, and Connor was so excited and wouldn't stop talking about all the different trains.

There was a LEGO Thomas to play on.

Thomas himself gave rides to everyone with a ticket.

You bet we had ours!

There were also other trains and engines to look at; we got to play in some sleeper cars, and see trains from long ago.

We even got to play on train tracks!

Tomorrow we'll have a little bit of cake, and on Monday, 3 friends are coming over for Connor's first "kid" birthday party. Wow, turning 4 is pretty cool!

Four!

Four years ago a very special someone was born. FOUR YEARS OLD?!?!

We have a very special day planned, and it's quite the surprise. I can't wait to see his reaction.

(also, how cool is it that I can plan this post to publish at the time he was born?)

I.Am.Obsessed.

I've become obsessed with bento lunches, and it's all Rowena's fault. It all started innocently enough. About a year ago, I found out about Vegan Lunch Box. While we are not vegan, or even vegetarian, I enjoyed seeing the lunches she made for Schmoo, and got lots of ideas for the lunches I was making every day for Caleb. I started using containers and getting thermoses, and tried making lunches that had as little waste as possible.

About a week ago, someone asked for lunch ideas on one of my email lists. Since this year I now make two lunches a day (Calvin's school has no hot lunch program. Caleb's does, but it's expensive, and he wasn't too keen on the selections), I thought I'd play, and listed a bunch of my ideas. Then Rowena had to go and post her Sunday Morning shoutouts. I looked at BabyHopes Domesticity Flickr Album. Do you see them? Do you? The darling little cow and piggy hard boiled eggs??? Oh my, I had to try that!

Through BabyHopes, I found the Lunch In A Box blog a few days ago. Oh. My. Goodness! This site is packed (hee!) with information! Tips! Tutorials! Ideas! Recipes! Yesterday I went out to Wal-Mart to get the ice-cream molds, and they still had them! (I was afraid I had missed out, since it's now September, and it seems the stores get rid of seasonal stuff so fast). I bought 6! I got home, and had a note from Lori that our Williams-Sonoma had the same molds that were on the Lunch In A Box blog on sale! I went and got those too! I boiled eggs right away! I am obsessed!

Two piggys and two cows cooling in their ice bath, plus an extra boiled egg. I wanted to do the star mold too, but couldn't find another rubber band. Here is how you mold boiled eggs.

Aren't they cute?? The top molds are the WS ones, the bottoms are the Wal-Mart ones. Calvin is getting a cow for his snack this morning, and it's a surprise. I stuck some paprika in the eyes and mouth on his for contrast. He's going to love it.

After I unmolded them (the Wal-Mart ones unmolded a bit easier than the WS ones. Next time I will spray the faces with butter spray, or rub a bit of oil on them), Connor wanted a 'piggy-egg' right away.

Next to try: Make your own jello/fruit cups (I bought white grape/peach juice for this. Yum!).

After that: yaki onigiri

Calvin will eat just about anything, and doesn't really care for sandwiches, so I am going to have so much fun making neat little lunches for him this year. :) Connor and I will have to start having bentos too!

Well Children

Since Calvin's and Connor's birthdays are only 2 weeks apart, I always schedule their well-child checkups at the same time.

Here are the details:

Calvin ~
almost 8 years old (next week!)
51.8 lbs (25th percentile)
47.5" tall (10th percentile)
86/50 blood pressure (first time, he thought it was funny)
clean bill of health. :)

Connor ~
3 years old!
33.9 lbs (75th percentile)
39" tall (50th percentile)
clean bill of health.

"I two. No, fee."

Wednesday was Connor's third birthday! Since we were in Chicago then, we celebrated with cake last night.

Connor loves Thomas the Tank Engine, and said he wanted an "Emily" cake (Emily is one of his favorite characters). I made a triple layered chocolate cake which I frosted with a butter frosting and put Emily (and Salty) on top. Voila! An Emily cake! ;)

He got a few Thomas toys, and played with this Duplo set all evening. Wednesday night we told him his birth story and looked at pictures from when he was born. That was a lot of fun.

Summer Camping

We had our annual group camping trip on Monday. It was wonderful. We camp in the Northern Unit of the Kettle Moraine Forest. Tuesday we spend the day at the beach in Elkhart Lake. Wednesday we go on a group hike before heading home. This year it was really hot and we didn't get rained out. This is the best group of families to go with, and the kids are fantastic. We had 21 kids this year, and all get along really well.






I'm already revising my camping checklist and looking forward to next year.

The End of an Era?

I think diapers are a thing of the past in this household.

These are the only diapers I have used and washed in the past 8 days. About 2-3 weeks ago, Connor had a little bit of a rash, so I was letting him go either nakey, or just in a diaper with no cover. First he started telling me right when he was wet, and would take his diaper off. Then he started telling me that he had to go "pee toilet!", and run in the bathroom. He stayed dry through the night. He even stayed dry on our 7 hour drive to Iowa on Memorial Day weekend (both ways!).

This is a bit bittersweet. I'm pleased he's growing up, but I've never really minded diapers. Yeah, they can be stinky, but hey, it's part of parenthood. I've never had to deal with 2 children in diapers at the same time, and I've had fairly long diaper-free time between kidlets. Diaper changes are one of the few times I have the child still and just with me. We have our little silly belly kissing and games of peek-a-boo. We'll still play these silly games, of course, but no diapers also means my littlest baby is growing up, and doing it too fast for his mama. :)

It also means a little less laundry, and I am grateful for that.

Lions! Tigers! Bears!

Calvin had a class at the zoo today, and we spent some time looking around afterwards. We saw lots of animals (including lions and tigers. His class was all about bears). Connor was thrilled to see the elephants (he has an elephant obsession).

We saw giraffes. I didn't know this, but they can go for a week without a drink!

We spent a lot of time watching this little guy. It was moving around, and we were hoping to see it change color. (it didn't, as it stayed on the leaves)

It was cool to see the green tree python baby. We read Verdi quite often, so to see a real one was neat. The mama (I think? an adult one) was hanging out on a branch in the habitat too.

However, the MOST coolest thing was the new cat house. The cats can come right up to the glass, and you are inches away from them. The lioness was pretty attracted to Calvin - we think she kept noticing the reflection of his glasses:

I didn't get it on the video, but she even snarled and snapped, which made everyone jump the first time.

¡Fin!

I stitched the binding down on Thursday night, and slipstitched it to the back yesterday. Here's a shot of the fun fabric I picked for the back: sock monkeys with the numbers one through five! It's a lightweight flannel, and I have enough leftover for some boxer shorts for Calvin. He's pretty excited about that.
The egg hunt was today, and it was literally freezing. When we pulled up, the car said it was 24 degrees outside -- I'm sure it was quite a bit colder with the wind chill. Still, we had a good time getting eggs. After getting about 10, Connor decided he was done, and wanted to go sit in the car. :) Not many people stayed for the raffle, and I have no idea who will get the quilt. I won a gift certifcate to Applebees.

Serenades

This week has been crazy busy, but tomorrow is the last hectic day, and then some normalcy (or at least what passes for that here). For now, some music:



and



both sung to me while waiting for Calvin's gymnastics class to end. Yes, he has the hiccups. :)

Naps

(gratuitous baby picture post)

Connor has been dropping his naps. Most days he makes it until about 5 or 6, and then either crashes on his own (sleeping for an hour or so, which totally screws up the bedtime), or he'll be kinda crabby, but won't fall asleep until 7:30 or so (but then he's usually out for the night).However, there are some days where he'll take a nap around 2:00 or so. I love these days -- a small break for me, and a normal bedtime!

BTW -- the superhero cape and cowl was a HUGE hit. I guess a few of the other kids at the party asked for one for their birthdays too. Definitely a successful gift!

Sleepy Baby

Connor has been starting to drop his naps. I thought Saturday was going to be a no-nap day, but after a full meal of roast chicken, mashed potatoes/gravy, and green beans, he just couldn't stay awake:

He missed the apple pie for dessert.

Trick or Treat!

Sunday was trick-or-treat here (it's always the Sunday before Halloween, since at least 1977 when I moved here). Caleb was a Mad Scientist, Connor was Superman, and Calvin was an Archery Guy (NOT Robin Hood). They got lots of candy, and we're going again tonight, in a friend's neighborhood that does an organized night trick-or-treat. Pictures of that later, as there will be different costumes. Can't wear the same thing twice, now, can we?

Darnit, I didn't get pictures of the kids in their costumes last night. David had the presence of mind to get a picture of the mamas, though. I was a pirate, and you can't see them here, but I had some killer boots. :) It was quite cold and Connor only lasted for half a block. Calvin made it a bit longer, and all the older boys stayed out almost the whole time. We have TONS of candy!