Arts and Crafts

Maybe it's all kids. Maybe it's that I only have boys and have instilled in them a love to do "girly" things like crafts, cooking, sewing, etc. since I have no girls to share these things with me. Maybe my kids are just strange (well, we know they are given their parents), but my boys love, love, love doing crafts. Ezra will cut a piece of paper in half and then say "look Mommy, I made a craft." Holidays are an especially good time to do crafts. This week we have been particularly busy with making turkey-type items.

Asher loves to use the glue-stick. He doesn't care too much about how elaborate a craft is... really, he's happy just gluing two pieces of paper together. But it's especially fun when the two pieces of paper glued together make something cool.
Obed just likes to do whatever the big boys are doing.
We made paper turkeys out of tracing their hands and feet.

We also made place mats for the table using hand prints. Ezra decided that since Obed's hand print was the smallest, he should have the smallest turkey eyeballs. Asher got the medium turkey eyeballs, and Ezra got the biggest turkey eyeballs. The great thing about holiday crafts is that I can convince the boys it's okay to throw them away since there's another holiday coming up soon and we need to make room for more crafts (you know, since they tend to have a bit of "pack-rat-itis").

Just Curious

I am just wondering at what age does one become aware that he has food smeared all over his face? Clearly it's not at 2 years of age...

Nor is it at 3 (almost 4) years of age.

Letters

There is a certain amount of grieving done every time we move from one place to another (or when others move away). The grief is over the loss of relationships; leaving behind (or being left behind by) people whom we have come to dearly love. As time moves on, the grief lessens, but there is always a small hole in our hearts, missing our friends. I have found this to be especially true when we have lived in places with no family, since our friends, in essence, become our family; our network of support.

The boys have experienced this several times. When Ezra's little buddy, Ingrid, moved away, he wept bitterly and was so very sad. Although he has not seen Ingrid for 3 years, he still talks about her and loves getting letters from her, looking at her family's blog, etc.

The boys have adjusted well to our move, but they are still terribly missing their buddies, Kate, Henry and Addy from North Dakota. Rarely does a day go by that one of the boys doesn't mention their ND buddies in some way or another. So, imagine the jubilation in the house when all three boys got letters and pictures in the mail!

The boys quickly got out their markers and crayons in order to respond. What fun to have highlights like letters from dear friends!

Three Months Young

Solomon was three months young on Sunday. Just a few sweet pictures of our beloved, chubby son.

The Reservoir

We went up to the Reservoir they call Horse Tooth this past weekend - a mere 15 minutes from our house! It was crazy windy, but lovely nonetheless.

Look Who's Pedaling

Asher has been pedaling his trikes and big wheels for several months. Today, he decided he could also pedal his big boy bike. He's doing great and is so proud of himself!

A Birthday For the Boys

Today is Vince's birthday. I'm quite certain what he would have enjoyed most today would have been a hike up in the mountains, browsing through REI, eating some good Mexican food or pizza, taking at least a 3 hour nap, followed by another 2 hour nap, and then maybe just sitting down and playing on his computer for a bit. Instead, being the loving father that he is, he chose to do all kid-friendly activities to make his birthday as fun as possible for the boys... great dad! So, after breakfast, we packed a picnic lunch, loaded up in the van, and headed about an hour south to the Denver Zoo.

Today was a special day at the zoo, so they had all sorts of exhibits and things for the kids to do. The boys got to color stripes on their very own tigers.

There were all sorts of animal pelts to touch. Ezra and Asher got to touch a giraffe pelt, and also learned that a giraffe tongue is as long as Ezra's arm.
They learned that a polar bear's foot is bigger than Asher's head.
Solomon spent most of the time asleep... but I wanted to include him in our family outing pictures, so here he is.
Obed and daddy in one of the tropical exhibits.

This tropical exhibit had mist machines that kicked on and off to make it humid... Ezra and Asher loved the mist.

We had a picnic next to the sea lions, or...

as Asher called them... "sea camels."

Then it was home to celebrate Vince's birthday. Every year, I make a new cheesecake for Vince for his birthday. This year it was a white chocolate lemon cheesecake with a shortbread crust. It's one for the recipe box for sure!

Asher wore his party hat for all of dinner.
Then it was time to play super heroes. Last week I let each of the boys pick out whatever material they wanted in order to make a super-hero cape. Ezra picked out Spiderman. Asher picked out race cars. Obed picked out Lightening McQueen. Then, when we were getting cards for daddy for his birthday, the boys decided daddy needed a super-hero cape in order to play super-heroes with them. After much discussion, the boys all agreed that daddy needed a super-hero cape with balls on it, so they settled on basketballs. And his super-hero name, as dubbed by the boys? Well, Captain Balls of course (no comment) because of the basketballs. His super-hero job? Well, he gathers all sorts of balls for little boys and girls to play with - basketballs, soccer balls, tennis balls, boccie balls - you name it, it's Captain Ball's job.

Obed tires easily of super-heroes, so tonight, Warnie decided to be Captain McQueen.

Discovery

Today, we discovered there is a park about 2 blocks from our house, tucked away in a neighborhood. There's a huge climbing tree...

a bench for resting...

playground equipment...
and a slide that apparently makes Asher look constipated.

Strolling

Solomon went for his first ride in the ginormous triple-catrople stroller.

He seemed really excited, see?

Biking Boy

At times, I feel bad for Ezra. He wants so badly to be out riding, but with Solomon as small as he is and still eating rather frequently, Asher still not quite able to pedal long distances (nor ride a 2-wheeler), and Obed limited in his stamina, Ezra often gets stuck doing what the smaller boys want/need to do. The other day was a beautiful day. After Vince finished working for the day, he put the two middle boys in the bike trailer, and then he and Ezra pedaled off on an adventure. The city is a very bike-friendly community; there are bike lanes on almost all of the streets and bike trails all over the city. The "big boys" rode up to a coffee shop about a mile away, got a snack, and rode back home. I'm thankful for those special outings for the boys... especially for Ezra.