Ice Cream Festival!!

 Mom and Dad are taking us to the Ice Cream Festival in Worcester!  Even though one of us doesn't like ice cream, we're still pretty psyched!

 Mom and Dad are pretty psyched too.  After all, it's not every day that there's all-you-can-eat ice cream, AND you get to benefit a local organization.  :)

Mr. "Ice Cream is too cold for me" changed his mind and tried some raspberry chocolate chip.  He liked it so much he requested it the second time we went under the ice cream tent.

 Mom with her goofy kids.  Love the hats and the sunglasses.

 Horsing around with Dad in the park....taking a break from the bounce house and the ice cream.

 Daddy is the best tickler in the world.  And I think Will's hungry again.  

And let's end the day with a train ride.  This just keeps getting better.  :)

This was a ridiculous amount of fun, on a lovely Saturday.  We've already put the "Big Dipper Ice Cream Festival" on the calendar for next summer.  

The Last Box

It's done.

7.  send a box of handmade baby items to Stitches from the Heart every six months (6/29/14)

The last box is packed.  

This time it's 24 hats, three blankets, and one little pants and hooded sweater set for a lucky preemie boy.

I shouldn't call this "the last box" because it isn't.  I'll still mail hats and blankets to Stitches from the Heart.  After all, I've made 169 hats total and I'm not sure how many blankets and have no intention of stopping.

However, after the frigid winter we had this past year, I want to make some things for older kids.  So, I'm attempting to organize a group effort from my knitting group to a homeless shelter in the city.  I sent an email to one of the bigger shelters on Friday afternoon to inquire about how many people approximately to knit for, to donate to this November.  My knitting friends that I meet up with on Wednesday nights are on board, and it's going to be fun!  I'm on a hat-making binge, having just started an adult pink hat at 11:59pm on Friday night and binding it off this afternoon.  And mittens!  Kids need warm hands.  So do their moms and dads.  Warmth=kindness, and that's what we're spreading.  Who doesn't need a little kindness!  

At the Car Wash

The boys and I are weird in the sense that we find a car wash to be very relaxing.  I've felt like this since I was a kid...there's something about scrubbing and the auto passage thru the tunnel, getting rid of all of the dead bugs on the windshield.  Followed by the "rain" and then the dryers sucking the water off the car.  It's a mood changer, it really is.  And afterwards, your car smells like lemon polish.  :)

Last Day of First Grade!!

For the last day of school today, let's show the evolvement of a photo.

 Yes, I know that you're sad this morning.  Let's be happy for a minute and do our annual "End of the School Year" photo.  Remember, this summer we're going on vacation, and you have a list of things that you want to do that you wrote yourself?  Focus on that for a minute.

 Cheese!  What, you don't want Dad in the picture?  C'mon buddy, a little smile.  We're gonna watch the last Star Wars movie today!  I only take pics a few times a year.  Indulge your mother, huh?

 Ah, you perk up at Star Wars huh?  Awesome.  Now let's work on a smile that doesn't belong on a robot.

He's laughing because I said "Great.  Now give me a smile that doesn't look like The Joker from Batman." And we have our winner:  a big natural smile from a kid that's looking forward to summer.

It's been a long year with a lot of adjustments.  But we're coming through the tunnel on the other end of the school year and we all survived.  And there's lots of good things that happened this year, too.   I can't believe this kid is going to Second Grade in August.  (Is it me, or are summers shorter than when I was a kid??)

Happy Last Day of School, everyone!

Robots and Planes

What a busy Saturday!  First there was Sean's last soccer game of the season.  Then there was a Spring Fair Day at karate to benefit the American Cancer Society.  Each class had to count how many kicks they could do in 45 seconds and then people sponsored them.  Yours truly held a kicking pad and counted out a couple of kids, including Will.  He got 47 kicks in 45 seconds!  And that is the only acceptable time to kick your mother!  :)

Then, we still felt like going out.  So we headed over to the "Touch Tomorrow" event at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a free fun day showcasing the technology of tomorrow.  It was all about the robots, but had other stuff, too.  We listened to robotic music (drums and guitar strings) and visited a machine shop.  Saw robotic stuff in the medical field, such as surgical devices and a "smart" wheelchair.  It was a lot of fun.

And I finally got to cross off this Day Zero List Item:

21.  Fold a paper airplane (6/14/14)

That's my plane that Sean's holding.  They had a booth set up on engineering paper planes.  Mine didn't fly well, but IT's A PLANE!!

"Deal or No Deal"

Last night's "deal" for getting the kids to clean up their room:  a "Thomas Couch Camp-Out" as a reward.

End Result:  (mostly) clean floor, two happy kids and an easy bedtime.

Win, WIN!

Sweaters for Summer

Why is it....that as soon as the weather turns summer-like, I get the urge to knit a sweater??  I can count on it like clockwork....mid-June and BAM!  It's sweater-time.

Still working on my Day Zero list...and on it is an item to knit sweaters for my husband and children.  I made Sean's at Christmastime.....so as soon as I bind off the "Up to You" shawl  I am going to make one of these two sweaters:

 This one is called "Chili Pepper."  It's a British pattern so it requires a little tweaking.  I bought yarn for this two years ago (Yes, really) that's a really cool twist of black and gray.  Very masculine.  :)

This one looks small for Will but it comes in sizes from baby to adult.  It's a really popular pattern called the Wonderful Wallaby, and it looks kind of like a hooded sweatshirt.  Very versatile.  The yarn for this has been kickin' in my stash for about a year (no judging!) and it's a charcoal gray wool/acrylic blend.  That means that it can go in the washer and dryer, which for kids' garments is a very good thing.

I don't know if I can finish both of these by the fall.  But I can try, right?

Snuggle Buds

Both of my boys love to snuggle.  There's nothing they like more than sitting with Mom or Dad (or both!) on the couch with me having an arm around each one, watching Pokemon.  (Which OH MY GOD DO I HATE.  That show makes me want to hide under a rock.)  Or we'll snuggle on my bed while I read to them.  Each one has to have a different book, they rarely agree on reading material.

But lately, they also like to snuggle with each other.  They love nothing more than sharing Sean's bottom bunk, talking late at night.  I check in on them and Will usually has an arm flung over Sean and they're snoozing peacefully.  I'd take a picture but that would probably embarrass them.  That, and the light at night in their room is awful.  :)

Lately though, we've put the kibbosh on bed sharing on school nights.  Because they go to bed way too late, they're too busy talking to actually sleep.  On weekends we don't care.  Share all you want!  Stay up late comparing lego creations and books and funny stories.  They're 4 and 7...they're not going to want to do this forever so let's let them enjoy each other's company.

Will was carrying his stuff up to the top bunk last night, saying it's too much for him.  So I'm handing him his pillow and blanket, his Angry Bird Han Solo, one of a million stuffed dogs.  Finally I say  "Ok, anything else?"  He says "Yeah.  My brother!"

This is the kind of thing that I'm going to miss someday.

Random Summer Stuff

-It's June!  It's finally getting warm.  I mean really, we had to turn on the heat at the campground on Memorial Day weekend.  Not much is colder than sleeping on an air mattress and having to wear your sweatshirt to bed.  Nevermind the fact that I woke up at 3am because I was cold and hunted for socks in the dark.

-School ends in three weeks.  We are rapidly approaching the "I cannot muster any enthusiasm" phase that parents get to at the end of the school year.  But we'll get thru Spree Day and the American Cancer Society fundraiser that Will is participating in at karate.  And whatever else life throws at us.  Right now I'm working on summer camps.  Please somebody tell me....why does school get out on the 23rd but the earliest camp I can find starts the Monday after Independence Day??  Or why camp lets out a week before school starts?

-Brian and I got to have dinner on the deck last night, while our kids had dinner at a friend's.  That's pretty cool.  My deck boxes that I planted herbs in are drowned, which is certainly not cool.  Something to do with the heavy dirt that I used (dirt is DIRT, I thought) and the rain doesn't drain from the boxes.  So no fresh basil, garlic chives or thyme for us, unless it comes from the grocery store.

And this guy?  He's loving a good time at the Fitness Festival at Will's school over the weekend.  I mean, what four-year-old wouldn't?  He got to play with a police siren and a fire hose in one afternoon.

It's not too often you tell your kids to hold on, because you want a pic of them fighting.  :)

Will and his balloon sword and puppy-paw face.  Brian and I vetoed his first choice:  black scars so he could be a zombie.  Naturally, the kid next door came over yesterday with that look.  Nice.

Hello, Summer.  It sure is nice to see you again!