Autumn Under Construction

Summer has been full of construction education in our neck of the woods!
Babe-O has never been so interested in construction and construction equipment before. (His fourth birthday cake was a delicious chocolaty construction site. I used a decorating pack like this one to make the cake below.) Anise is also fascinated with the big machines. We have never known so much about various construction vehicles before. I feel privileged to now be able to name most vehicles we encounter on daily trips in the car! (Thanks to Babe-O and Mighty Machines videos).  We spent a considerable amount of time this summer camped out by construction sites to watch the action.

As summer construction slows down, we decided to do some construction of our own.
 Step 1: Rake up a few leaves.
 Step 2: Gather up a few mighty machines!
 Step 3: Construct away!

Simple, fun, helpful even (at least motivation for getting the raking started) and definitely a BEST THING!

Here are a few of our favorite construction resources (and a few that we dream about):



p.s. I am not ignoring the fact that I have been M.I.A. A post is soon to come on The Top Five Reasons Excuses for My Absence. But if I start there I'll never start blogging again. So I chose to start with a few shorter posts to get myself going while I work on my re-entry piece. Hope you'll understand and re-join me on this journey.

Winter Lemonade

We are the kind of people who wait until the last minute to do things.
Not really.
But mostly.
And mostly when the things we need to do are really important.
Like sledding (and taxes).

You might call us procrastinators.
I choose to define it otherwise.
There is a certain kind of energy that comes with doing things at the last minute.
And doing things at the last minute provides a challenge, either to get it done at the same quality you would if you had spent more time or to make the best of what you've got.
Sometimes, waiting till the last minute takes the boring out of everyday tasks or things that have lost their luster, like snow related activities. 

Today we made the best of what we got.
We have been sledding this year (over Christmas break, because sledding with a three year old and a ten month old is not a job for one person. I don't care who you are.)
But we wanted to go again before all the snow melts.
So today was the day.
It is the first day that Diet Coke Papa is on Spring Break and the last day we will have snow on the ground, because this whole week is forecast  in the high 40's.

We packed a lunch and some hot chocolate, our sled, some firewood, extra warm clothes (because in our thawing brains it is still -72 degrees) and headed for the hills.
A park we had never been to, complete with a sledding hill, and warming house.
It was gorgeous!

An amazing feeling to breathe in the wild, open air, hear the bird calls, and feel the wind smack you in the face and snow fly all around you and make it's way into all the hermetically sealed seams of your snowsuit as you speed down the hill, grasping onto your blue plastic sled and your three year old for dear life. (NOTE TO SELF: a really good sled is on next year's Christmas list.)

Yeah,well.
 We had the wide white open and fresh air.
 Birds were everywhere and so was the sound of dripping melting snow.
It was magical.
Just not sled worthy.
(NOTE TO SELF: It has to be cold and snowy to sled. Like below 40 degrees.) 

But we are nothing if not great at making lemonade.
(I'll share a recipe sometime. Or maybe I should keep that a family secret?
There that suspense should keep you coming back to the blog.)

Anyway, turns out, wet, drippy snow makes for a slow, slow, very, very slow ride.
 Like slug slow.
Definitely not exciting enough to keep a toddler interested in anything but the warming house, where Diet Coke Papa had built a raging fire designed to keep us warm from...
the already warm temperatures causing us to sweat (a totally unfamiliar experience).

 And that's cool because let me tell you, this warming house is my new dream house! (Babe-O's too).

(Go ahead laugh. But, I am NOT kidding people. My dream is to live in a little log cabin in the middle of nowhere).

So after a few failed attempts at zooming down the hill on our butts, (and even Diet Coke Papa tried, because that's what you do when you have a torn hamstring)...

It got serious!

I am talking about Mama showing off her Olympic luge skills, like running starts, and belly sledding.

Even Babe-O tried! Note the disappointment in speed as he bows his head down toward the end of the ride.

You know what? We laughed, we played, we explored, we drank hot chocolate by a fire.

BEST sledding trip EVER.

And for some reason, during this panoply of my sledding and gymnastic abilities, I kept hearing my Dad’s voice,“Nothing embarrasses me.” He used to say this to us when we were kids after he had just done something potentially embarrassing but probably mostly intended to make us laugh.
It’s true.
I am not embarrassed.
I am not embarrassed that I don't know enough about sledding to have known that we wouldn't be able to really call what we did sledding.
I am not embarrassed that I "slugged" down that hill on my belly (and at times I was as terrified as I would have been if I would have been flying).
I am not embarrassed.
Not one bit.

Because Babe-O and Diet Coke Papa, even Babe-ala laughed their guts out. And we came home warm, happy, full of endorphins, with sore cheeks and smelling like campfire (oh, we LOVE that smell). 

So there you have it.
Procrastination pays.
Or maybe it’s more like: Have fun where you are with what you’ve got.

Because YOU are exactly what they need
YOU with all your procrastinating tendencies, with your tangled hair and smelly arm pits,
YOU with your unending supply of patience, peanut butter and jelly, and hugs
YOU and ONLY YOU can make them laugh so loud the birds fly out of the trees
YOU and ONLY YOU hold the secret recipe to THE BEST Lemonade on the planet!

And now I can honestly say I have had enough winter AND I can't wait to sled again with my Fam-O!

Cabin. Fever.

We are stuck in the cabin. 

We have fever(s). 

We want OUT! 

We want spring. We want the park and picnics. 

We want long walks and bike rides. 

We are crawling up the walls (as best we can with our reoccurring colds)

and dreaming and dreaming of nicer days ahead. 

So at some point we made a choice. 

We could embrace winter. Snuggle in and do wintry things.

Or we could stick our tongues out at winter and be BAD!  

We decided to be BAD! 

Do all kinds of things we aren't "supposed" to do in the winter (or maybe when your sick)! 

We took snowy/melty scooter and bike rides on a few days when the windchill was above zero. 

We played with our food! 

A beach made out of  blue jello and graham cracker crumbs!  Some cut up cucumber, orange slices, and potatoes make up the Great Barrier Reef. A few cut grapes stand in as jelly fish. Our trusty hammerhead shark swims in the water just off the shore while Wonder Woman takes in some sun. 

Couldn't resist feeding Babe-ala the shark! 

We had a midnight rock n' roll session with the kitchen pots and pans in the dark!  

Being sick really throws off our already way off sleep schedule! Nothing beats a VERY loud jam session except a jam session in the dark! (Oh and we had glowing balloons but they popped right away. Boo!)

Great idea Babe-O! 

We are pretty good at being bad! 

This is what we've been up to lately. How about you? 

Nothing could be better than a walk around the pond with YOU.

It's 20 degrees today! A heat wave!
We have to get out of this house!

Babe-O has had a cold and with Diet Coke Papa's injury we have been holed up for a while.

This morning the birds were eating the remains of our bird cookies and when we opened the door to check the weather we could hear the calls of our old woodpecker friend.

So, when Babe-O wanted to go outside I quickly got us into our coats and boots ignoring the fact that we were still in our pajamas. We headed to the pond to search for birds and other winter treasures (and to peek at the train tracks that run behind the pond). Walks around the pond with Babe-O, Babe-ala, and Diet Coke Papa when he is home is my favorite thing in the world.

With cold noses and lots of energy we trekked around the pond and found the spot where all the birds were singing, the hole in the big oak tree where some squirrels live, we explored the pier, and the untouched areas of snow, and we saw a train car with special equipment for cutting down branches close to the train tracks.

Babe-O found some branches to make "a new house". So we drug them home with us. And...

well...

we built a new house.

No house work done today. No dinner made. Just a breath of fresh air and an amazing outside/inside structure to snuggle under and read books tonight... all the Babe-O's idea!

Bub Bub Bubbles!

It is cold. Freezing. Below freezing. -13 with a windchill of -25 to be exact.
What else is there to do than play with bubbles?

We saw this experiment here. So we had to give it a try during Babe-ala's naptime since it was a "snow/extreme cold day" and Diet Coke Papa was home.

Truth be told, Babe-O was interested for the first one or two bubbles, then his cheeks got too cold and he went inside to observe from the window. Papa and I had the most fun with this one. Although Babe-O was fascinated when the bubbles didn't pop as they landed on the snow.

We made our own bubble solution with dish soap and water. We added a few drops of food coloring just for the added fun and beauty of rainbow bubbles. We also had a bottle of Crayola colored bubbles. The Crayola bubbles worked the best: more bubbles per blow and they froze more quickly without popping first. We will be experimenting with our cold weather bubble recipe. We'll let you know if we perfect it.

We have also been blowing a lot of bubbles indoors these days because, well, honestly, what is better than babies and bubbles? 

Nothing. Nothing is better than babies and bubbles.

"We really let winter in!"

We have been reading Owl At Home by Arnold Lobel.

I confess. I picked it out at the library because it looked like one of those books that would put Elias to sleep at night. It's a chapter book and it's kind of a "quiet" read (not like the current favorite Batman, The Story of the Dark Night). I thought if I used my monotone voice it would be a good sleepy-time book.

Wrong. By the time we got to the story "Upstairs Downstairs" we were scream laughing!

Anyway, the first story is called The Guest. Winter pounds on Owl's door and he kindly invites Winter in for a warm up. Winter behaves badly, running around the house, blowing snow and wind all over. Owl has to throw winter out so he can get toasty warm in front of his fire once again. (Sorry I ruined the story for you.)

"Winter, you can't come in!"

It is brutally cold here. -12 degrees with windchill making it feel like -46. Yes, "ladies and jungelman" the Arctic Front is upon us! What better day is there to invite winter in to get warmed up?

We brought snow in on a baking sheet. Put on our best snowball makin' gloves and played with winter at the dining room table. (Messy and cold! But if your house looks anything like mine, you won't mind if snow and paint get on the floor cuz it will give you some motivation to finally wash it.)

Babe-O kept saying, "We really let winter in!"

To liven things up even more, we decided to make glowing space snow! We have done a few glowing projects in the past. Thanks to the awesome blog
Growing A Jeweled Rose and their recipes for all things glowing. We made some glow in the dark and fluorescent paint watercolors, added a black light, and got to "glowing up" our snow balls.

We stuck googly eyes and tooth picks into our snow balls. We built a little glowing snowman. Before long we had to smash winter out of our house! Babe-O had fun whacking the snowballs and our little snowman to pieces with tongs. Very messy and very fun!

Babe-ala also loved this project.She was enthralled with the radioactive nature of things when the black light was turned on. Here is a few pics of glowing Babe-o and his robot and outer space jams AND glowing baby!