Ezra came home from school today with a lovely mother’s day card for me.
It reads: Dear Mom, I love you because you let me watch shows. He said he didn’t have room to finish — he wanted to also write “in the car.”
He loves the new minivan with its sliding doors and, more importantly, DVD system. This morning he got to watch a show on the way to school, mainly because I didn’t know how to turn it off and we were already late so I couldn’t stop to figure it out.
Goodbye sporty and fun.
Hello roomy and practical.
We made you a card, but not in time to mail it. So here’s the next best thing …
And a video of them explaining it.
Much love from all the Moisions! We hope you had a great day!
Ezra falling asleep on the couch at 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon is never a good thing.
His temp was 100.8 when I put him to bed. Let’s hope the Motrin brings that down a bit.
Finn and I made some vanilla scones this morning. I made the first batch (triangles) and he made the second:
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?
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.
Egg dyeing.
At dinner, Thomas cracked me up by man-handling some lamb. I think he liked it.
Then came the egg hunt and all three boys started inhaling sugar. Thomas liked the jelly beans.
Ezra and Finn showed Papa and Uncle Bob what they’d collected (always a dangerous proposition as the older Moisions enjoy sugar, too).
Ezra made quick work of his chocolate bunny.
And then we hit the road with two little boys jibber-jabbering the whole ride 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.
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.
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.
They also like this water gun drum contraption.
And Ezra did a little 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 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.
Several waterfalls early in their route.
A well-camouflaged frog.
His little tent in the wilderness.
Their climb. Again, glad I wasn’t there.
With all the rain earlier this year, the desert is in full bloom.
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.
Then it was Ezra’s turn. He read the title: Anza Borrego.
And talked about the different pictures.
And he told them about the Desert Threadsnake we saw.
He’s totally in his element up in front of the class.
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.
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.)
We got a mulch delivery this week. It’s a LOT of mulch.
And it’s hot and steaming.
First thing Ezra did when he saw it was climb right up on top.
First thing Bruce did? Yep, you guessed it.
They are two peas in a pod.
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.
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.
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.
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 2 (put the little man back in his chair):
And here’s my proud builder.
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.)
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.
Finn wanted to do a project, too, so he cut out some pictures.
Good to know that our big dining room table is good for something!
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.
And use the shop vac, which they love even more.
Here they are conferring over whose turn it is.
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.