Oh No

Ezra falling asleep on the couch at 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon is never a good thing.

Then Ezra

His temp was 100.8 when I put him to bed. Let’s hope the Motrin brings that down a bit.

Cookie Cooker

Finn and I made some vanilla scones this morning. I made the first batch (triangles) and he made the second:

Finn's cookie scones

I particularly like the plane, which is a pancake mold but worked just fine for our purposes. He loved making shapes and kept insisting that his weren’t scones — they were cookies. And he is a cookie cooker.

He went on to work with the leftover dough until it was all over the counter, ladder and floor. But he had a good time, and what’s a little cleanup?

Little baker

Easter

We spent the afternoon of Easter at Bob and Vanessa’s, where we had a delicious dinner and Vanessa saved my unprepared butt by providing baskets, egg dyeing and an egg hunt for the kids.

Finn got a new fire truck for his birthday; here he and Thomas bond, sort of, over trucks.

Fire trucks

Egg dyeing.

Egg dyeing

At dinner, Thomas cracked me up by man-handling some lamb. I think he liked it.

Thomas enjoys the lamb

Then came the egg hunt and all three boys started inhaling sugar. Thomas liked the jelly beans.

There's candy!

Ezra and Finn showed Papa and Uncle Bob what they’d collected (always a dangerous proposition as the older Moisions enjoy sugar, too).

Showing off their loot

Ezra made quick work of his chocolate bunny.

Ezra devours the bunny

And then we hit the road with two little boys jibber-jabbering the whole ride home.

Meanwhile Back at Home …

… I had two days to fill with the Moision junior hooligans. Friday was a pretty standard school day, but Saturday we needed an activity. So, we took a trip to the local “wilderness” of Kidspace. Here Ezra plucks a plastic lemon from the stream.

Ezra gets the lemon

The lemon provided about an hour of entertainment; Finn especially was very interested in putting it at the top of the stream and watching the current carry it down. Here he points out where it is.

Get it!

He originally was waiting for Ezra to help but finally rolled up his pants and waded in himself. He was very proud of his catch.

The prized lemon

They also like this water gun drum contraption.

Finn's happy place

And Ezra did a little archaeology.

Archaeology

Then we got to have Finn’s pre-departure meltdown followed by him passing out in the car about two seconds after I started the engine. A successful trip!

Bruce’s Anza Borrego

Bruce and his friend Peter went on a two-day backpacking trip last weekend and he snapped some great pictures. Unfortunately, the camera’s memory card was almost filled up with the kids’ photos (he took the camera they’re allowed to use) and neither of us thought to erase them before he left. So, there are only a few shots, but they’re a good representation of his trip.

First up, this rattler. He saw three snakes. I’m glad I wasn’t there.

Bruce's friend

Several waterfalls early in their route.

Landscape

A well-camouflaged frog.

Well camouflaged frog

His little tent in the wilderness.

Camp

Their climb. Again, glad I wasn’t there.

Landscape

With all the rain earlier this year, the desert is in full bloom.

Desert flowers

Professor Ezra

The kids in Ezra’s class were invited to prepare presentations about any traveling they did over Spring Break. Ezra was very excited about this project and this morning I got to stay and watch him present pictures and information about our Anza Borrego trip to his class. Finn got to come, too, and sit on the rug with the rest of the kindergartners. Here they are patiently waiting as Ms. Jessica takes attendance.

Waiting patiently

Then it was Ezra’s turn. He read the title: Anza Borrego.

Reading the title: Anza Borrego

And talked about the different pictures.

Ezra presenting

And he told them about the Desert Threadsnake we saw.

Showing them the snake info

He’s totally in his element up in front of the class.

Ezra presenting

Here’s a video of part of the presentation.

After Ezra was done, Ms. Jessica led a discussion about Earth Day and the children gave their ideas about recycling, cleaning up the earth, etc. It was all very cute. Here is Ezra talking about picking up trash and Finn waiting for his turn with his hand up.

Ezra talks, Finn raises his hand

I thought my heart was going to burst with pride this morning. Not only was Ezra so confident and adorable up there, but Finn was also extremely well-behaved and cute as a button. (I apologize for my indulgent moment of bragging.)

Mulch!

We got a mulch delivery this week. It’s a LOT of mulch.

Mulch!

And it’s hot and steaming.

Wow

First thing Ezra did when he saw it was climb right up on top.

Didn't take long for Ezra to climb the mulch pile

First thing Bruce did? Yep, you guessed it.

King of the pile

They are two peas in a pod.

Finn’s Four Year Checkup

Finn has his four year checkup (or “check-out” as he calls it) this week and it went pretty well. He grew three inches and gained five-and-a-half pounds over the last year. Dr. Rodarte gave him a clean bill of health, said his weight and height curves remain steady and described him as “solid.” At 40.5 inches tall and 44.7 pounds, I’d say that’s a fair assessment. (For comparison, Ezra is 44.25 inches tall and weighs 43.4 pounds.)

He also had hearing and eye testing done. I snapped a picture of him doing the eye test because it was just so darn cute. They do it in the hallway and everyone walking by oohed and aahed at him — even one of the other doctors said, “He’s so cute!”, which never happens.

Finn takes an eye exam

He had a little trouble with the letters, but once they switched to the shapes chart he was fine.

He also got two shots, which didn’t go so smoothly. Usually he’s pretty stoic, but not this time. He just cried and cried — so much so that the nurse came back in with four stickers for him. Later he was happy about that but there was no consoling him when we were in the office. The whole ordeal must have really worn him out because he fell asleep in the car a couple of hours later and slept for almost three hours.

Ezra’s Boat/Jet/Submarine

The other night just before bath time Ezra asked me if we could get some new bath toys. Since we already have two bins of bath toys, I said no and explained that we have enough. Then he disappeared into his room for a little while. When he emerged he had with him a boat/jet/submarine made of Lego.

Ezra's boat/jet/submarine

He made me take pictures of it from every angle, but I’ll just post the one.

After bath a couple of the pieces fell off and rather than put them back together, he drew instructions for me to do it.

Step 1 (put the long front piece back on):

Step 1

Step 2 (put the little man back in his chair):

Step 2

And here’s my proud builder.

The builder

Back to School

Ezra’s two-week Spring break ended and he went back to school on Monday. Here he is all ready to go Monday morning. (It was drizzling, thus the hoodie.)

Ready to go back to school after spring break

Yesterday after school he worked on a project to share with his class about our camping trip to Anza Borrego. It includes pictures from the trip as well as some information on the scorpion and snake we saw.

Ezra's Anza Borrego project

Finn wanted to do a project, too, so he cut out some pictures.

Finn's project

Good to know that our big dining room table is good for something!

Projects!

Weekend Warriors

Over the weekend, Bruce finished building Finn’s shelf for his closet (actually, this time he’s building two units so they are easier to maneuver into the closet). The boys got to paint, which they love.

Ezra rollers

Finn paints

And use the shop vac, which they love even more.

Finn vacuums

Ezra vacuums

Here they are conferring over whose turn it is.

Discussion

Finn’s New Bike

Filling in some posts out of order here. For some reason, I just wasn’t in the mood to blog last week.

At any rate, Finn got a new bike for his birthday. It’s a little big for him — he’s sort of in between a good size for his old Skuut balance bike and the new one. Here’s a quick video of him and Ezra riding at the park.

We’ve had a few crashes, including one incident where he rode down our driveway and right into the street before crashing, but so far he’s survived. I’m not sure my nerves will, though.

Cottage Special Visitor’s Day 2011

We have a guest blogger for today’s entry: Jamma!

4-19-11 Special Visitor’s Day at Cottage

There are no pictures with this posting because Jamma never has her camera and if she does, it is never charged. Bad Jamma.

Other than that, excellent day at Cottage. Finn was excited to see me, barefoot, dirty and wet to his knees. He did decide that taking me inside was better than making sand “cement.” Jamma needs overalls for Cottage visits. Inside we went where Finn made me a beautiful lavender bouquet with a red and green ribbon. It made my car smell so nice all the way home. Next was snack time, which Finn loved. Snacks were particularly good today at Cottage. There were muffins (blueberry and corn) and bagels and creme cheese, quiches, and another hot egg dish, as well as tangerines and juices. Finn particularly loved the corn muffins (2) which he had after he ate the blueberry one. He needed the extra energy because it was a very speed intensive day at Cottage with a race track in the big yard on the trike spinners. Finn was particularly helpful picking up all the scattered toys that interfered with the pursuit of speed. Next we swung until it was time to sing the “goodbye song.” Finn kissed Jamma goodbye and lickety-split headed for his lunch box and was diving in before I even hit the door.

Finn’s lunch looked good, but Jamma prefers the adult food or restaurants, so she and Christy had a lovely lunch. Then Jamma drove home.

Yeah Finn, thanks for inviting me to Special Visitor’s Day at Cottage.

Jamma

Finn’s 4th Birthday

Finn turned four on Tuesday and we had a little party for his school friends on Monday at Amy’s Indoor Playground. It’s my favorite of the local indoor playgrounds, but it’s usually packed and it’s kind of small. But we got private use of it for two hours — the kids were in heaven. Here are Ezra and Finn (up in the pink tunnel) while it was empty (the 15 minutes before the party started).

Empty Amy's

It filled up with friends and siblings.

Getting busier

The kids ran around crazily for the entire time — except for quick breaks for pizza and, of course, cake. We decided since we were farming out the party this year we’d make the cake ourselves. Here’s my masterpiece. Finn liked the Batman candle — and the vanilla buttercream frosting — the best.

Cake

And here are a couple of pictures of the kids waiting patiently.

Admiring the cake

Cutest picture of Finn

I cut off the happy birthday song, but here’s what I got.

It was a fun party, although we felt a little detached not having it at our house. Hopefully by next year, we’ll be more prepared for Moision birthday season.

This Weekend in Busytown

We had one of those weekends that seemed to be over before it started and kept us moving the whole time. After a long week of 12+ hour days (including working on his supposed day off Friday), Bruce was itching to get the shelf for Finn’s closet put together, so he worked in the garage for most of the day. The boys were pretty good about playing while I made some preparations for Finn’s upcoming birthday party.

By Saturday afternoon, frustration was running high — Bruce because the shelf was not coming together as nicely as he had planned and me because, well, 12+ hour days for Bruce mean the same for me and I was needing a break from the madness. Bruce decided to take the boys off my hands and get started on our vegetable garden. It meant he got to use his tiller, which makes him happy. Finn helped out with the digger.

Bruce finally gets to use his tiller again

The ground was pretty well prepared by Sunday, but we had a native garden tour to go to (trying to get more ideas for our yard) and our friends Rob and Juliet had given us their tickets to the Angel game so we had a busy day ahead. The garden tour was really good; the last house, in particular, was spectacular. The boys were not all that interested, but they did find some entertaining things. Finn made himself right at home at this house in La Canada, for instance.

Finn makes himself at home

Then we were off to Anaheim for the game. The seats were great!

Great seats!

Ezra and Finn don’t know much about baseball, but they did enjoy the peanuts and ice cream.

Finn likes peanuts

Ice cream at the game

When asked if they had fun at the game, Ezra replied, “Yes! The ice cream was so yummy!”

When we got home, I took off for Trader Joe’s and the boys started working in the garden. They had to put up a little fence as a reminder that there are plants trying to grow.

Starting the vegetable garden

By the time I got back, they had planted everything and made signs where the seeds were. These are Ezra’s signs.

Ezra's signs

And this one is Finn’s (it says Radish). He hasn’t really written letters before, so this is very exciting!

Finn's sign -- Radish

Ezra was also hard at work on a mud pie.

Ezra's mud

Once the pie was formed, he gathered sawdust from the driveway to use as sprinkles.

Gathering "sprinkles"

Ezra makes Finn a mud pie (with sprinkles)

He was making a cake for Finn.