Birthday cakes

My cake

Fixitman & I celebrated birthdays in April which meant lots of chocolate cake! Yummy! He made a delicious one for me on my birthday and I returned the favor by making one for him on his.

Fixitman debates sharing his cake

The boys had a lot of fun getting gifts. Dinoguy gave me an egg salad sandwich he made on his own (with help from Dad) from the eggs we dyed at Easter. He told Fixitman all about it in advance and got his help/supervision to make it on my birthday. It was delicious. What a great gift! Trainboy wanted to give me a "remote controlled flower" and was very disappointed when he couldn't find one at the store. So he got me a small toy jeep with water skis on its roof rack and towing a boat.Dinoguy took this picture of me on my birthday. He's getting pretty good with the camera!

On Fixitman's birthday I took them to the store and Dinoguy picked out a paddleball for his dad while Trainboy picked a Kinex airplane kit. Just what Fixitman wanted! :D

4 months!

Munchkin has grown so quickly, she is very interactive with us now. Her squeals of laughter at her brothers' antics are so fun to hear. She loves to watch them. Earlier this month she tried to pick the flowers off the shirt of someone holding her. She lets me know if she is bored with what we are doing! She can hold her head fully upright now while on her belly. She is such a happy baby too!

Reading

Trainboy knows his letters well, and is starting to remember some short words when he sees them. Overall he still focuses on the pictures when he is reading or being read to. He does ask what things say, so he has word awareness. I didn't catch a photo of him listening to his train book on CD but this is a bit later - when he was reading the body books. He is so intent!

Dinoguy can read pretty well now. He loves his Dinosaur book on CD from his Grandparents. I thought this was such a cute moment, I grabbed the camera while he was unaware. His confidence level with reading has increased in the past few months and he'll read in front of me. It has come naturally from wanting to be independent at video and computer games as well as being able to read books to himself. We haven't done any specific reading practice. Just read a lot of books. As far as learning to read books, the best for us has been the Berenstain bears. The boys love the stories, they are cute and catchy and use great repetition. "Big bear, small bear" is genius in my humble opinion.

I keep a box of books in the car between their car seats for them to read while we're driving. Recently I heard Trainboy trying to remember the words that went with the pictures to "Big Bear Small Bear" and then I heard Dinoguy say "Here let me read it to you". What a moment! I was grinning big in the front seat.

Haiku for Headstones

My friend invited us to share haiku for our headstones on her blog. I came up with a few and enjoyed them enough that I decided I wanted to record them here too. :)

Note - I take the planning of a headstone pretty seriously - currently I want my full name listed including maiden name, birth place and death place in addition to full birth and death dates and the names of my children on the back with their birth dates. These things need to be recorded everywhere IMHO and I have life insurance that can help pay for how expensive that will be to put on stone.

But the haiku - what fun it is to write the simple poems. Here are some:

I am a mother
I changed the world for better
Raising my children

Or

You can catch a glimpse
My eternal legacy
Those who stop to visit here

Or

For my dear children
I will always cherish you
In my heart forever

Or

I learned early on
That what matters most in life
Are people we love

Kind of fun! What haiku would you write for your headstone?

Ice Play

Dinoguy has been coming up with some interesting experiments he wants to try, based on things he sees on PEEP and the Big Wide world. (Which is such a cool nature show. :D ) He built a beaver dam in the wheelbarrow this past weekend (because I wouldn't let him build a pond in the yard first, poor guy) and earlier in the week they did this ice play.

We froze some dinosaurs covered in water in the freezer and then unmolded them for them to kick and push and roll around the driveway. Throwing ensued. Then some were still not free and took a hot bath in the tub to finish escaping their icy tomb. The boys had a good time with it.

By the way, I would love to help him put a pond in the yard. But its not our yard. We're renters. Poor boy. :D

Happy Easter

3 months

Munchkin is 3 months old now. How quickly the newborn stage goes! She's gotten strong and smiley and talkative. She'll talk to me for quite a while, she loves holding conversations.

Munchkin did get sick this month and got to spend time breathing thru a nebulizer. She's healthy now. So she now chews on her stuffed cow instead.

Gelatin

I felt like I was going to overdose on gelatin briefly this weekend as we put our third jello mold in the fridge in less than 24 hours.It started with me trying out the pineapple mold for a brunch I was going to attend. The idea was such a hit with the boys - the molded jello - that we ended up making a few more at their request. I guess we're lucky to have these cool old jello molds that I usually use as decorations hanging around.

Spraining my ankle

When I was 12 or so, I volunteered as a helper in a toddler gymnastics class. I loved gymnastics and thought that teaching it could be super cool, so my coach let me help out with some of the younger kid classes.

I was demonstrating a straight jump off the balance beam to the toddlers when I over rotated my left ankle and landed on the side of my foot. Instead of showing the toddlers how easy a straight jump was, I probably scared them, especially when I cried out loud and didn't get up.

That was the beginning of my odyssey with left ankle sprains. I sprained it running by tripping on the edge of the sidewalk, falling down the front steps of my house, playing basketball, slipping on a wet floor at school, marching backwards in band and stepping on someone else's foot, tripping on nothing while running, and walking and tripping. You could say I wasn't exactly graceful as a teenager.

It was bad enough that an acquaintance of the same height, similar hair color and build told me one day that someone had yelled my name at her and "Where's your crutches?" when she was not facing them. I was on crutches more than I wasn't in middle school. It was the end of my gymnastics career, though I was reluctant to admit it. So I taped my ankle and ran distance track.

Every time you re-sprain an ankle you have to stay off of it longer to let it heal. I was having to stay on crutches for weeks at a time. I was very skilled with crutches, and could out hop people who were walking quickly. I had calluses and great arm strength from using crutches so much. It was bad enough that I did physical therapy to strengthen my ankle.

I did a brief stint as a cheerleader in middle school thinking it would be a fun way to use my gymnastics skills. One football game later I realized 2 things. First, I found cheerleading to be objectifying and embarrassing. Also, being perky for long periods of time is not something I can do well.

I tell you this because Saturday while organizing and working on my spring cleaning, I stepped funky on my ankle and twisted it badly again. For the first time in over 10 years.

After I had recovered from the initial shock I had Dinoguy get me some ice and call Fixitman to come home. Then I lay down on the bed and rested. I quickly became frustrated that I couldn't walk in trying to find an ankle brace. I realized my big project was going to have to be delayed and I was irritated. But I rested my ankle. Fixitman called a friend to get me some crutches to use.

However by Sunday night I was tired of the crutches. They hurt my hands. They were impairing my ability to do anything. I couldn't carry Munchkin and walk, I couldn't really carry anything. My house was getting messy and there was no way I was going to be on crutches for the job interview I had Monday, so I started limping around the house instead.

Monday I put on my heels and smiled thru the pain for the interview. It went well I think, no decisions for another week, thanks for asking. I should have gotten back on the crutches afterwards but I didn't. It was much more convenient to walk around. I could get things done! I could cook dinner and do laundry - you know, the things that I had to get done!

So today, as I took Aleve to cover the pain and hobble around my house while working on my cleaning project from Saturday, I thought of my mom. See, she sprained her ankle on a run with me once in high school and never really rested it, and it was hurting her for weeks. In my sage adolescent wisdom, I lectured her about how she should have taken care of it to begin with and then she'd be fine by now. She sighed and agreed.

Mom, I understand now.

Camping at the lake

We decided to go camping with friends for 2 nights this past week. Dinoguy loves camping! He was negotiating when the next camping trip would be while we were still there.There was lots of playing on the rocky lake beach. The water level is down, since we haven't gotten sufficient rain in a while, but it really hit home how much when we checked out the swimming area that is almost completely dried out. The kids are playing in what is supposed to be the deep end of the large swimming area. See the water level pole?Dinoguy really couldn't get enough of playing on the beach. He loved it. Trainboy had fun throwing the rocks in the water.
Sarge loves camping, he gets lots of games of fetch at the water and in the grass. He doesn't seem to tire out much while we're there but he was surprisingly calm for over a day when we got home. I guess he did get a bit of a workout!Munchkin did great on her first camping trip as long as she wasn't hit directly by the wind too much. She slept fine and mostly hung out looking cute.We had fun looking at the stars with my favorite star book - Find the Constellations by H.A. Rey. It is a great book to read with kids. I am starting to feel fairly competent at finding the winter constellations, can't wait to learn the Summer ones. :)

There were of course ghost stories, roasted marshmallows & hotdogs, ball games and fossil hunts. It was a grand time.