Stay home sick day

LAD was running a fever this morning, I thought he felt warm overnight last night and suspicions were confirmed this morning. This was at 12:30. He munched a few cherios but that's about it. He has been drinking juice and water, so that's good anyhow. You know he's sick when he leaves Tubby Toast untouched!! We took a pretty good nap this afternoon.

Zoe is camped out near the bird feeder. I don't think the birds were ever in real danger!

Soggy Sunday

It's been raining off and on all day today, so we have stayed inside. Thunderstorms and the whole works. Looks like more is on the way. The power blipped once during the day, just enough to get all the clocks blinking!
Harry will endure (almost) anything. No danger of LAD being bitten, Harry has very few teeth left, at least in the front! (not that Harry would be inclined to bite) However, he might slime you with his icky chin. It's almost as gross as this. Anything for attention.

Is it child labor when they WANT to work? Works for me! He made most of the mess, afterall.












After working in my new art journals recently I've been inspired to break out the watercolors. These things are antiques. Holy crap I'm getting old. I've probably had most of these for at least 22 or 23 years. Some are hardened completely, but most have some juicyness left to them. I've actually been hunting for them for a while and finally ran across them while digging for something else. I had considered buying some new ones but they weren't on sale at Hobby Lobby when I was there looking and they cost at least double or more of these that I already have, so we'll go with these for now. I scrubbed out the old paint crusted in this palette and two others that are larger. Thought I'd just start with this on and see how it goes...
Yeah, pliers required. Left a spot for another green of some sort. The Thalo Green I had was hard as a rock!

CONGRATULATIONS MA!

Ma (probably) takes more pictures than I do. And I take a lot...And I thought I had a lot of cameras. Ha.













Tulips from the neighbors back yard.

An army of 3...

How many cameras does it take to take to capture the everyday? At least 3, not counting the cell phone camera and the "real" video camera, or Randy's camera, or the ancient film cameras...

Our week

LAD found this old headset in the cedar chest. Ready for take off.

LAD and I came up with a new kind of pizza..."Pepperoni on the side". Ooops, I forgot to put it on until it was 2 minutes from being done baking. Oh well, he didn't mind!

LAD and I had dentist appointments this week. Our appointments were at 2:15 and LAD didn't take a nap at all at daycare, not that he didn't have the opportunity to do so. I was worried he might be a little grouchy, but he was a trooper and did a fine job. She cleaned us all up and the dentist checked us out and we were good to go! The hygienist started talking about bugs, the sugar bugs, so that's been the new term and incentive for brushing this week. Got to get those sugar bugs out. LAD's all about getting the bugs out.

We subscribe to Turtle magazine and the latest issue had instructions to make a rocket. So we finally finished a roll of paper towels and were in the rocket business. It is also adorned with Lightning McQueen and friends stickers. And a few butterflies and ladybugs thrown in for good measure.

New babies are arriving at the ISU horse barns...

LAD and friends art of the day.

Today, Saturday, we drove to Des Moines, rainy, soggy. No plowing today.

LAD endured a trip to the scrapbook store, so this was my endurance. A learning/toy store next door to the SB store, how convenient. Coming here was bribery to keep him in the stroller while I shopped. We actually didn't buy a thing, not like he needs anything. They had a lot of demo toys out. Of course LAD eventually found the train table.

He also found a scooter, like this, and he hopped on the thing and rode it, just like the horse, like he had been riding it his whole life. Not sure if he's rode one at day care or not, I've never seen any there, but he certainly knew what and how to do it. There was another girl riding it before he hopped on it, maybe that was enough.

Preparing for Inspired Artist Workshop. It will be interesting packing all this stuff to carry on the airline...

Veisha at ISU

This weekend was Veisha. What is Veisha, you ask. I found this description here...

"VEISHEA is a celebration of Iowa State University--it's students, faculty members, and surrounding community. Founded in 1922, VEISHEA has had an exciting history. Learn more on the History Page!"

Usually I try to avoid Ames like the plague when Veisha is going on, so I've never been. And since I didn't go to college here, I haven't felt too connected to the event. Until the ladies at work said "What, you're not taking LAD to the parade". "Well I hadn't planned on it..."...crap " Oh all right". So Saturday morning when LAD was confident it was a "stay home day" as compared to a "Daycare day" and it didn't look like it was going to be downpouring rain right away, I asked him if he wanted to go to a parade. "Oh yes, I love parades." yeah, just as I figured... So we loaded up and went to the parade. We actually sat in front of the building I work in. It was a pretty fancy parade, with big balloons too. And of course no parade is complete without a few green tractors. There were red ones too. And a 10 passenger bike. Yikes. It threatened rain, and there was a sustained shower after about half way but it did nothing to dampen the spirits of all attending or parading. LAD spent most of the pre-parade waiting playing with the umbrella.

This bottom center picture, with all the ISU band sitting on it must have been the longest flat bed trailer ever made. I have no idea how long it was, but much longer than any I had ever seen before. Pulled by a dually pickup with two sets of dual wheels on the trailer.

After the parade we walked around a bit, went to the petting zoo of farm animals, and household pets, such as gerbils, ferrets and snakes. yeah, snakes. We bought ice cream from the dairy club, it's home made and we had chocolate, of course! Very tasty.

The Equestrian club was giving rides and I asked LAD if he would like to ride a horse "Oh yes, I love horses" . I see a pattern here. I asked him several times and the answer was always yes. I had my doubts he would really ride it, but he seemed to have no hesitation. So I shucked out my 6 bucks, yes 6.

He found a helmet, we waited our turn, rather patiently, I might add, and when it was his turn, he just hopped on up there like he had done it his whole life. No fear, no hesitation. They proceeded to circle the pen a dozen or so times and I think he talked non-stop. He was relaxed and just went with the flow. His homely steed was named Flash and he got a giant hug after the ride was over.

After we had all of Veisha we could stand we went to Hobby Lobby, where we found a "treasure chest". It is now full of parade candy. This nap on the way home was the first passey/blankey free event. Whoo Hoo, maybe we're on the downhill slide...

Let's talk.

Random snippets from this week...
LAD: Tell me about this creature, mom.

ME: You mean Ronald McDonald?

LAD: Yeah.

Can you tell this was his first visit to McD's?

I guess in his defense the Happy Meal toy was some sort of alien, from the new alien movie that's out. No idea what it's called.

This afternoon, after school/work...
I gave him some chex mix stuff and a bottle of water.
LAD: This is wonderful mom.















I got a box in the mail today and it had this giant sheet of kraft paper for packing. I told LAD we could make a map out of it. Winnie the Pooh and friends have a great adventure (movie) and Little Einsteins (book) go on a treasure hunt so he's been interested in maps lately.
LAD: Draw skullasaurus Mom.
ME: OK (thinking what the hell is skullasaurus and how the hell might you spell it.)
This seemed to satisfy him. Had to also draw all the Pooh crew.












He talked so much this evening it would have filled an entire book.

He cracks me up!

Happy Easter

A chilly morning makes for cold boy posing for photo shoot!

It looks like he was trying to make a break for it the way we're holding on to him!

His belly wasn't this clean when we finished the whole dozen!

He counted 14...

Yep, he managed to get them all picked up at once!

Beautiful Saturday

Saturday was a perfect spring day. 60s, sunny and not much wind!

He's figuring it out...

Practicing up to go see G'ma Airplane...

Hopeful... If you water dirt, what grows? We'll see soon enough. This is what you get when you don't water rocks...

See G'pa Airplane, he's not lazy. He's just 3. We moved the sandbox from the garden to the playground.

What's more fun to play in, a sand-box or a sand-barrow?

More work...

Look ma, no hands...

Hope you had a nice day too!

Dependable...

Roses are red,
Violets are blue;
But they don't get around
Like the dandelions do.
~Slim Acres

28 days to break a habit?

Is that how many days it takes to break a habit? If so , we're half way there! Blanky and Passey have been relegated to the bed only. It started quite by accident last week. We left daycare without blanky (passey stays in car, he has a "sleep passey" -for naptime- that we leave at daycare). So we discussed it, it was a slightly one sided conversation, and I suggested we leave a "sleep blankey" at daycare and leave his "regular" passey and blanky at home on his bed every morning and then he can have it back at bed time. There was pretty much silence on his part... I'm sure he was thinking it over very seriously...yeah right!


















So that was almost two weeks ago and that's what we've been doing ever since. He has a hard time in the car, still asks for it, I think for more of a boredom buster than anything. He has been a little moody these past days, but it's getting easier I think.

He doesn't have too much problem not getting it in the evening when we get home because I tell him if he gets it he has to go to bed, and that's the LAST thing he would possibly want to do. However I have heard him mention "getting tired" and "let's go to bed" a few more times recently! So we'll see how it goes.

Cute shoes?

Did you know you could design your own shoes?
But it will cost you...

Snow, No Foolin'!

Yesterday it was 60 degrees and pleasant. Today, it snowed. All Day. We probably got about 6 inches. This was about 8 am, just getting a good start at sleety drizzle stuff. Notice the pesky squirrel at the bottom. We had to raise the squirrel deterent up a little higher, but i noticed later in the day he managed to get up to the feeder and shake out all the seed.

This poor bird was hanging out on the downwind side of the storm. I stalked it for a good while before I figured out what kind it finally was. When I first saw it I at first thought woodpecker family and turns out, that's correct, she, because there is no mustache, which according to my bird book, girls don't have, is a Common Flicker. She has a pretty unique pattern on her chest which is all fluffed out. Finally after viewing her thru the lens several times I caught the red color at the back of her neck and that clenched it. It was so gray out it was almost like a trick to the eye to be sure it was really red!

Here you can see her profile towards the bottom of the tree on the left side of the photo.

Harry joined in the bird stalking as well. He looks kind of torqued here, but he really wasn't. LAD had just finished petting him and his ear was bent funny, I think he needed it scratched.

This Robin is probably thinking why the hell did I came back so soon!

Another bird stalker, not enough activity for him!

I think she was trying to catch a nap here, she tucked her head in for a short snooze.

Here you can really see the red. I finally cracked open the east window and could just barely see her from that angle.

Did you know that bubbles actually do pretty well in the snow. They don't pop immediately when they land on it. Quite fascinating actually. That's a large one LAD is reaching for in this photo.

Blowing bubbles.

We built a snow man. Actually he was more of a snow blob. But he did have arms, 3, a hat and a rocket launcher nose.

Here you can see the Snow Man Blob in the upper part. He was the driveway guardian. Red rocked in foreground. LAD and Rocket also went sledding, but it was not so good, too wet.

It'll probably all be gone tomorrow. And good riddance!