Worth the Effort

Last spring one of Luke's coworkers gave us some pepper and tomato seedlings. Since we don't eat fresh tomatoes here, I used the tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce to freeze. It was a long, messy, putzy process - partly because the tomatoes weren't the type of tomatoes typically used to make sauces with. When I finished, I had serious doubts about whether I wanted to plant tomatoes again - it seemed like an awful lot of work for the amount of spaghetti sauce I got.

After eating the homemade spaghetti sauce all winter, seeing the boys take seconds and thirds every time we had it, and learning from my friend Cheryl that Roma-type tomatoes are better for sauce, we decided to go ahead and try again.





I guess those happy grins and messy faces are worth the effort!

Jet Packs

A while back I saw instructions for a simple rocket pack on this blog, and thought it would be fun for the boys. We covered ours with paper so they could decorate them with markers, but we added tin foil accents. Benny seems to think he's pretty awesome, don't you think?


They raced up and down the hallway ... note the multipurpose space/police helmets.


And who would go into space unarmed? Certainly not Ethan!




Balloon break! (Benny told me today that he "wuvs pink".)


Ethan and Alex teamed up to explore space, only to be stranded on Planet X. Thankfully they made it back before lunch.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

We usually start our school day off with Ethan selecting a book from the book basket and reading for 20 minutes. The books coordinate roughly with the era of history we're studying, and it's a nicer beginning to his day than starting with something like math. The other day I had told him to begin his reading while I was cleaning up the kitchen. I glanced into the living room and found all three of the boys doing their morning reading. Benny is reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan ... yes, he's pretty advanced for a two-year-old!


Alex selected Uncle Remus Stories.



And Ethan was reading G.A. Henty's In Virginia with Lee.

Play-dough

Alex and Ben have been favoring play-dough this week. They got out the cans of play-doh and found that they don't like it as well as the homemade version. The homemade playdough (if kept in the refrigerator) lasts longer, is nicer to work with, and doesn't leave quite so many crumbles all over the floor.


They don't always use their play-dough toys with it ... sometimes they prefer just rolling pins, cookie cutters, and various toys to stick into it. This week they've wanted to use our bucket of play-dough toys, though.


Benny wanted to wear a tie to church Sunday, but he didn't decide that until we were on our way out the door. To compensate for being told "no", he decided to wear one Monday. Along with his Thomas underwear and no pants. He's quite the trendsetter, that boy.


I love that this can keep them occupied for an hour or more these days.


More pictures here.

Ethan's birthday

Ethan turned nine in January! He was up at 5:00 in the morning, excited to go with Dad to get donuts and come back to open gifts.



Monopoly Jr looks like fun ...


But what's this?


A totally cool robot that is the envy of his little brothers. Alex keeps asking if he'll get one on his birthday.


Lunch at Grandma and Grandpa's, a flag cake, and the AWANA Fair rounded out the day.


Happy Birthday, Ethan! We're proud of the young man you're becoming!

Reading

Alex-isms

As we were standing in line at Walmart, waiting to check out, he turned to me and said, "Know what would be really cool, Mom? If I could turn into a big vacuum and suck up all the frosting and pie. And also muffins."

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He's recently discovered Go, Diego, Go! I was sitting with him as he was watching an episode on Saturday. If you've never seen the show, they encourage children to participate by answering questions, doing motions, and so on. He wasn't participating much, and I thought maybe if I answered the questions he'd be more comfortable doing so as well. I had responded a couple of times, and at the next opportunity to do so I started to answer again. Without even looking at me, he said, "Not gonna happen."

I stifled a laugh and asked, "You don't want to answer the questions?"

He still didn't take his eyes off the screen. "Nope."

All righty then.

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When he's being affectionate. he likes to pat me and say, "Mama, you're too adorable."

Benny's Birthday

Benny's birthday was back in December (yes, I know ... I've been terrible about getting anything posted lately!). We started the day with our tradition of Dad taking the birthday boy to Piggly Wiggly to get donuts and a birthday balloon.


His birthday was on a Friday, and we went down to the N.E.W. Zoo that evening to see their special Christmas displays and take a horse-drawn sleigh-ride. It was cold, but everyone enjoyed the evening!


The next day we had a birthday lunch with Grandma and Grandpa ... and presents! Alex was a very willing helper when it came to opening gifts. He and Ethan had picked out a rubber snake for Benny.


Grandma and Grandpa got him a basket of babies, which he loves!



We got him a ramp racer ... two-sided ramp racer to minimize fighting over it and maximize playing together.


Maybe it should have been three-sided!

The birthday boy and the froggy cake he wanted:


He loves blowing candles out!


It's so hard to believe he's two already. We're so thankful for his lively, funny, entertaining presence in our lives!

Babies

Benny loves to take his "Brr" and pretend he's a "bebe".



He wraps him up in a blanket and carries him around carefully. He's a good little daddy.


(Except when he throws the baby down the basement steps. But we won't talk about that!)

Helper Boy

I put my kids to work early. By two they're experts at doing laundry. Benny's been working so hard he had to turn his hat around.

It's rough being a kid here.



Or maybe he thinks pulling the laundry out and throwing it in the basket is fun ... you never know. But I'll tell you what is definitely fun: pushing the button that turns the dryer light off. Pushing it repeatedly.

Oooh, and dryer balls! Dryer balls are lots of fun.

Blast Off!

You may remember the last time we built a rocket with straws and connectors. Then again, you may not ... it was three years ago! Alex brought me the box of the straws and connectors today and asked if we could pleeeeeease make something ... so we decided on the rocket ship. He loved it, and of course he wanted to get in it and fly to the moon ...


Benny had to have his turn as well. This is the face I got when I asked him to look at me and smile. (And of course, this is why real photographers don't tell kids to smile!)


So we decided to send 'em both to the moon! Here they are blasting off.


Ethan was almost too big for the rocket this time.


This is my somewhat pitiful attempt to get all three of them in a picture together. Well, they're all in the picture, but only Alex is actually looking at the camera, and he has a pretty cheesy grin.


You may notice that Benny is disassembling the rocket. He completed that project shortly after the picture-taking ended, much to Alex's chagrin. It's hard to have a destructive little brother!

Clippity Clop

The boys have a new game they play. They call it Clippity Clop - well, Alex does. Benny's not talking enough yet to call it anything. It's easy to play, though. They each put on one rubber boot and chase each other up and down the hallway.

Notice how they both have their boot on the same foot?



They think it's extremely funny.


On this particular morning, Ethan got into the game with them. That, of course, meant Yellow wanted to play too.


I'm not sure what exactly Ethan is doing here, but he certainly seems to be having a good time!

Vacation

Luke had a week of vacation in September, and one of the things we did was go over to the Mall of America to visit the Aquarium (and the Lego store!). The boys loved the aquarium. (Luke and I thought it was overpriced for as small as it was, but that may be because we're cheap and old.)

They loved the tanks of jellyfish.

Here's Benny trying to hug some!

There were lots of oohs and aahs and pointing, although it was a little challenging to capture it because there was always something else just as exciting coming up!

The Lego store was closed for remodeling, but Ethan was a trooper and enjoyed browsing through the much smaller version they had open. We also got to stop on the way home at Cousin Trevor's football game!