May 2014

At the beginning of May, Caleb's school had an end-of-the-year program that they worked hard practicing and learning songs for.  The all looked so cute dressed up nice, and with little paper doggy ears on, though they sort of acted like a horse's side blinders as Caleb's gaze wandered around the room at different people instead of looking forward and focusing on the program.  We did see him do some of the hand motions and sing some of the song lyrics, but we could tell this is so not his thing, not at this stage of development anyway.  After their songs a slideshow played with pictures from throughout the school year - a fun window to gaze into since most moms and dads don't see them doing their thing at school when we aren't watching!

At Caleb's preschool each child gets to be 'Star of the Week', generally very close to their birthdays. Well since Caleb has a summer birthday his turn came this month instead.  We filled out this poster (below) to tell his classmate about himself and his family.  Caleb's answers were surprising to me - not the things I would have answered if I had to guess, but we wrote down what he told us...  After more than a year of everything needing to be blue (many clothes, shoes, forks, plates, cups, etc), his new favorite color seems to be GREEN.

Construction Zone!  Our neighborhood has been under major construction since the beginning of the month for the installation of new water pipes and water meters. Its a dusty mess, and since the boys (mostly Caleb) aren't so into the construction stuff any more, its not nearly as entertaining for them as I imagined it would be.  Here is a peek at some of the work...

Installing our new water meter 

The rumble of the machines shook our house as they got started at 7am this day...

They seem to be nearing the end of work in our neighborhood, which is kind of nice.  I'm ready to wash the dust off my car!


What Caleb is into:  Green anything, Flip-flops, Transformer-type toys (animals into vehicles, etc), building with the little Legos, the Lego Movie, Paw Patrol (a show on NickJr.), a kids book that is essentially a dictionary with pictures!, and the Lilo and Stitch surfing song.

What Landon is into:  Singing the Pete the Cat song in the car, building with the (little size) Legos, the color Yellow, telling us that Paw Patrol is "on Nick Jr.", riding his bike and the scooter, playing play-doh, and (as of my return from Mexico), calling me "mama" instead of mommy - so cute how he says it!


My Spring session of Spanish classes ended in the beginning of May, and I decided it was time to commit to potty training Landon (2 1/2).  He has been wearing pull-ups and showing plenty of signs during the past several months, so I felt pretty confident that he was ready... thankfully I was right!  I can confidently say that after a week he was trained.  Hooray!!

He put on daddy's slippers and grabbed the swiffer and said "I go to work now." :)

Several of you have seen this on my Facebook, but this was what Caleb said about me for Mother's Day... hilarious!

Garage Sales!  I have only ever done one garage sale, and my part of it was quite small.  A girlfriend and I decided to get rid of a bunch of stuff, and it turned out we had a ton between the two of us!  This was the night before Sale #1.

Even after getting rid of stuff for the first sale, I continued finding things we needed to move on, and at the end of the month another girlfriend and I joined our stuff for another sale.  Call me crazy, two garage sales in a month!  No pictures taken, but our things combined with some contributions from family filled a very long driveway!


Fun times at Harney Lane Winery's pick-up party - the boys got to enjoy some delicious miniature ice cream cones.

Micke Grove Zoo outing and picnic with the Elsons

One of Jimmy's stocking stuffers at Christmas this year was a subscription to Games magazine, something he used to love when he was young.  There are tons of puzzles, brain teasers, and the like, and he was more excited about that one gift than anything else we gave him.  I love it.  He is one happy camper when the new issue arrives each month!

Swimming at Grandpa Howard's birthday party with C & L's second cousins (Chantel's kids) - the boys were jumping into the spa with the floatie rings, submerging their heads under water for a long time that day - good warm-up for the upcoming swim lessons!

Zach and the boys are all very into 'Paw Patrol' right now, a show on Nick Jr. Here they are watching it after swimming.

Landon's only real haircuts in the past nine months have all occurred when I have been out of town and the boys are with Jimmy for the weekend - once in October, once in January, and we finally got him to sort of allow the hairdresser to give him a trim last weekend when the girls and I were having our garage sale.  There must be something about not having mommy in his frame of thinking that makes him more willing to cooperate...  So glad it worked!!  Cutting sections here and there while he sleeps is NOT fun!

High energy playtime with our cousins!

Super Caleb and Super Landon!

Swim lessons!  This year is pretty much the first time the boys have had any swim lessons.  I had no idea what to expect from them, and prepared their teacher, Haley, for the worst on day one just in case. To my pleasant surprise they have done amazingly well, with no resistance from Caleb and just a little from Landon.  We are almost to the end of week two, and I can see Caleb getting close... I think he will be swimming on his own before the end of the summer!

Happy boy after his first lesson!

Park play date!  

After our baby bath tub was recently returned to us, the boys (mostly Landon) have loved playing in it and driving it around calling it a boat.

I have some cute videos that I wanted to include in this post, but am having trouble getting them into the right format to upload.  (They are IMG files in iPhoto, so it won't let me upload...)  If anyone knows how to change this, let me know!

Can't leave out one of the biggest things during the month of May for me - my house building trip to Mexico!  More on that in the next post...