My sweet boys both brought home some lovely gifts for me today that they made at school.
Finn did the art card at the top with gold glitter, a little pink and a lot of orange (his description). Ezra did the letter and bookmark.
My heart melted.
Today was Cottage’s annual trip to Lacy Park, so we packed up some snacks and Finn’s bike and headed to San Marino.
Finn, Charlie and Kai ran around like crazy people.
Later, Finn spent a little time in this tree.
The big event of the day is a “parade” around the big loop. First, all the vehicles needed to be decorated. Finn is a minimalist.
He enjoyed his two ribbons (once I assured him I’d be able to cut them of later) because they showed how fast he was going.
Other kids were much more interested in the decorations.
The parade itself turned into a very spread out ride around the loop as many times as Teacher Art could manage on his skateboard. They never stopped before the “official” beginning (the orange cone you can see them riding past) so this was the only shot I got.
Here’s Finn finishing the first loop and heading around a second time.
All in all a very successful “field trip.”
Bruce has been playing the surgery game with the boys since they were tiny. They love the game — he basically pretends he’s doing surgery on one of them while the other one assists. There’s lots of pretend sawing, grabbing, sewing and poking with needles. And lots of giggles.
Last night we decided to take advantage of Neighborhood Night at La Grande Orange and go out for dinner, but the boys were right in the middle of the surgery game when we were trying to leave the house. Apparently, Finn’s Squirrelly and Penguiny were in desperate need of some emergency surgery. So, of course, we brought them with us and continued the game at the restaurant.
We had the added bonus of the Wikki Stix they give the kids there; Bruce and the boys made a host of tools for the surgery.
And, thankfully, it looks like Squirrelly and Penquiny are going to make it.
I also caught this very sweet picture of Finn snuggling up to Bruce while we waited for our food to come. What a sweetheart he is.
We took the boys to the Arboretum on Sunday, not realizing there was a big garden and plant show going on there all weekend. We ended up buying several tomato plants for our garden, Ezra won a tape measure from one of the lumber yard vendors, and Finn got a new hat.
Oh, and Ezra fed a peacock!
I haven’t posted in a few days and I’ve got a hodgepodge of photos to share. First, after dropping off Sofia after school one day last week, I returned to the car to find Ezra in this meditative position. So peaceful.
On Friday, Bruce had the day off and spent a little time building a trough for boat races for the next woodworking class. The boys helped him with the painting.
The trough proved to be a little too narrow but the boys still had fun. Later, they filled up a bucket and put their Star Wars fighter pod guys on rafts. Finn was enraptured.
Happy Birthday, Jamma! We all hope you’re having a fabulous celebration and wish we could be with you.
(The boys couldn’t agree on how the card should be held, so we have two separate pictures. In case you can’t see the drawings, Ezra drew the Titanic and Finn drew himself in your favorite color.)
I almost forgot to post this — Finn drew me a picture to take with me on my weekend outing. He’s just starting to draw and he takes great care with his lines.
That’s me on the left and him (as Jedi master Kit Fisto) on the right, holding a lightsaber.
Finn wanted some dessert after dinner tonight but we didn’t have anything. So he started throwing out ideas: Z-Bar (no), frozen yogurt tube (no) … and finally “how about a tomato?” Well, I can’t really argue with that, especially from the boy who never met a carb he didn’t like. He usually likes to snack on cherry or grape tomatoes but I only had Roma tomatoes. That was fine with him.
We’re finally done with Spring Break and both kids are healthy enough for school — just in time for my one weekend available to sneak away and recover from the last few months. Thanks to Jamma, my friend Cari and I spent a lovely, relaxing couple of days at her condo in Palm Springs. We sat by the pool and read books for hours on end with no one to take care of but ourselves. It was wonderful. How could it not be with this view?
My three boys had a great weekend, too. They hit the carnival at the local Catholic church down the street and ate too much bad food and went on some rides. Kid paradise.
This roller coaster was “a little scary” according to Ezra. He looks kind of petrified in the picture.
And they built, among other things, this wine cork and tape launch pad.
A good time was had by all.
Last week was Sick Finn Week. It started with a fever the previous Thursday night — nothing too high (around 102) but I never gave it much of a chance to get any higher on account of the whole febrile seizure incident a year ago. The fever stuck around over the weekend and by Monday he was still coughing and full of green goopiness. As a coincidence it was time for his annual checkup on Tuesday, so the doc prescribed some antibiotics to combat the rattling in his lungs and the yellow stuff in his ears.
But, without the fever his spirits were up. He enjoyed the hearing test and looked pretty cute doing it.
Other than the infection, he’s a normal growing boy: he gained almost 6 pounds bringing his current weight to 50.6 and he grew just shy of 3 inches bringing him to 43.25 inches. He got a TB test for Kindergarten, which didn’t bother him at all, and a finger prick for a blood test that caused him to melt into a pool of tears. He was so distraught he didn’t even want the sticker the nurse offered him.
He finally recovered some time in the middle of our trip to Target to get his medicine. We went on to spend the rest of the week where we’d spent the previous few days, with his sick friend Charlie.
Here they are at our Thursday lunch date. They look terribly sick, right?
And so it was back to school for them on Friday. All is right with our little world again.
I took an early-ish walk this morning and was struck by all the beautiful flowers. It’s definitely Spring. I could have taken 50 pictures, but instead, I took just one of this monkey flower that I really love.
I got home and at the end of breakfast Ezra said, “Mommy, come quick! You have to see this! It’s an E!” His corn flakes had apparently spontaneously made an E.
A few random things this week. Finn got some Darth Vader stuff for his birthday and took some time to show it off. First, his new shirt.
Then the helmet.
On Wednesday we had a park play date that turned into dinner at the Heffs (with the Smiths) and then a group bath with Holden, Avery, Charlie and Finn. And Barbie.
Charlie and Finn cozied up on the couch after the bath.
On Thursday we did some chalk drawing on the driveway. Lucy drew a rainbow and a butterfly (I tried to get her in action but wasn’t fast enough).
Ezra drew the Titanic.
And then got out the big lens so he could try lighting some stuff on fire. Yes, it’s a cigarette butt; he found it in the grass next door.
Yeah, boys and girls are different.
We didn’t have enough mallets for the woodworking class on Friday, so Bruce made some. (Note to Jamma, he used some of your dad’s wood.) I thought they looked very cool all lined up when they were drying.
Yesterday, Finn got one out of the garage and was playing with it while we were sitting on the front porch. He was pretending to be Thor.
We had the second woodworking class / potluck yesterday and another good time was had by all. The task for this class was a little more complicated — the kids were to draw something on a piece of wood and then use chisels and mallets to carve it out. Here’s Bruce demonstrating the technique. (He makes it look much easier than it is.)
Then the kids started working.
With 90 degree heat, a more difficult project, and even more kids than last time, things were a little more chaotic and some kids lost interest. But in the end they all ended up carving, sanding and painting their projects. Here is Ezra’s E F. (He said he tried to make a plus mark but ran out of room.) Ezra did his completely on his own.
Here’s Finn’s. He had a little more help.
After the class we had dinner.
And more chaos ensued.
The kids loved the slingshots left over from Finn’s party. Here Finney and Ashlyn push (or rather pull) the surgical tubing to the limit.
Ian and Jenner took a few tries, too.
Some kids took some time to dig in our garden-to-be.
And there was a water balloon war.
Basically it was everyone against Ian and Rob. But they held their own, in part due to a great hiding spot.
At the end, most of the kids were soaked and exhausted … but still smiling.
It’s possible that I’ve worked my last shift at Cottage. But we’ll see. We are on the schedule for one more shift as snack parent (which Bruce says he’ll take), but we also have two Alternate shifts. Hopefully the odds will be ever in my favor.
Anyway, I decided to take a bunch of pictures during my shift on Monday.
This pack of kids (Finn, Charlie, Marietta and Ollie) had some meetings before they ran around for a while.
Holden’s little brother, Avery, got in on the Rainforest action.
Finn and Ollie built a structure inside. They were very proud.
Finn, Charlie and Kai dug this hole for about an hour.
Then it was music time. Teacher Art tried desperately to regain some control over the situation, which was apparently total chaos on Friday.
Finn kind of zoned out.
And I took this picture when I was parking my car across the street in front of Arlington Gardens. The poppies were striking!
