Trucks and Cuts

Yoda LOVES trucks

Here he is driving his truck in-to and out-of the recycling bin.  We think he was pretending to be Lightning McQueen driving in-to and out-of Mack Truck--like this:

As you can see he really needed a hair cut.  So we took care of that. 

Here he is in his famous truck pj's and sporting his new hair cut. 

But we also had some cool truck visitors this week.  In this shot, (I know it's tough to see--if you click on the picture it may get bigger) the tree trimmers were hard at work cutting random branches from our big tree and our 2 small trees.  You may also see the guy on the porch in a yellow hard hat.  Yoda was in heaven, but Mimi cried a lot.  She kept reassuring herself by saying that it's just like a hair cut for the trees. 

 Here's our trees after their "hair cut".

And here they are exactly 2 years and 1 day ago.  We loved the shade (there's not much of that anymore) and we love the leaves to jump in, but apparently the grass and the little trees need some sunshine too--so needy.  Also there were some loose limbs that could have fallen at any time--yeah! for saving the car!  

Speaking of the car--we had a bonus truck visit our house.  Mimi stuck a pencil in the ignition of our little car.  We couldn't get the key in the slot, so we called AAA.  The guy got the car started, but by the next morning it was not reliably turning on (it would turn on sometimes / not turn on other times).  So when we were able to get it working, we took it in.  The people at the shop said that we had too many different keys and the pencil may have put us over the edge, but eventually this would have happened anyway.  That's our Mimi, so efficient! 

Some quotes

Greg and I heard footsteps and were surprised to see Parker out of bed after 9 pm.
Parker:"I'm sorry I'm in this room at this hour."
Me and Greg *giggling*
Parker went on to explain that he was scared.
*Later*
Parker:"Is mom going to put it on the blog that I said that I'm sorry that I'm up at this hour?"
yum, yeah...
__________

Talking about the Orzo with Cherry Tomatoes
Greg:"What do you want for lunch?"
Parker:"The leftover orzo we had with Sonya.  And who else was with us?"
Greg:"Who do you mean?  No one else was here."
Parker:"But Cherry Tomatoes?  Who's that?"
__________

While driving down a road with Starfleet Automotive, Moore Comics, a store called Star Base, Greg stated:"This is the BEST street EVER!  If it just had a place to play chess..."
__________


When Yoda was much littler I heard this from the other room.
Mimi playing with Baby C:"punch...punch...punch"
Indiana:"Don't punch him, let him punch you!"
Me:"Ahh!"

3 years and Apples

That's how long we've lived in this house and the LONGEST we, as a couple, have lived anywhere.  The actual anniversary of our house-closing is also the anniversary of the birth of Johnny Appleseed.  I like to think that has some sort of significance--growing for the future, etc.  (Also, 3 years is pretty close to the longest Greg has lived in any one house, at all, his whole life.)  It got me thinking about the places we have lived and decided to post about it.  Not much to do with the kiddos, but it's fun for me, since that's another thing this blog is about:)

The first place we lived on our own was our home in Provo, UT.  Our friends (hello Anneka and Jeremy!) found us this great place while we still lived in NJ.  We lived there for 2 years while Greg and I finished our bachelors.  I finished before Greg and worked at a nearby school while he finished up.  It had a perfect price, location, and lots of great neighbors.  It had been a single-family home before the then/current? owner tore it down and put up this duplex.  All the houses around us were cute and that made me happy, even if our home wasn't as picturesque.  We were sad but ready to go.  In the picture, right behind my behind is my first attempt at a garden.  It didn't move with us but it blessed some of our neighbors with tomatoes after we left.  

Next up is Belchertown, Ma.  Fun name, huh?  We lived in this beauty for (again) 2 years while Greg started and finished his Masters in Math at UMass Amherst and I taught at a daycare down the road.  This was an interesting place.  It was twice the price of our apartment in Provo and that freaked us out, but it was by far the cheapest place that we could find.  Law office below us, Bed and Breakfast and Chinese food on either side of us, Italian food across the street and Common.  It was next to the intersection of the 2 busiest streets and 1 of the 2 traffic lights in town.  There was a biker-bar just a few yards away, so during good weather we could hear motorcycles for minutes at a time roaring past our windows.

What you see was our front door, it lead directly to the staircase that lead up to our apartment.  Parker was born while we lived here.  His room was tiny and was right above the front door and was a converted hallway.  Our room was gigantic, the living room was normal, but the kitchen was again tiny and the bathroom was right off of the kitchen--Sonya loved that--not.  Nothing normal about this house.  It had clearly seen decades of families/owners who did funny things, like say seal off the (probably) creepy attic and turn the staircase into a creepy closet.  But living there was an amazing blessing, we enjoyed living there, again good neighbors, free public transportation to school (socialism at its finest), the rent was low for the area, and I found a great job close by.  We lived well below the poverty level but lived happy.  I tried container gardening again, with the same result, I left it behind. 

While we lived in Belchertown Greg got his first real-life job in Boston.  We moved the 2 hours east and found an apartment that we lived in for (another) 2 years.  It had lots of green grass and other kiddos for Parker to run around on and with.  Greg's commute was again free!  It was small and cramped, but since it was right next to a busy train station (Boston calls it the "T") Parker was very happy.  He would sit next to the window and yell:"bye train!", just like Yoda yells:"bye truck!" today.  I tried an indoor garden and it didn't do too well until my biologist friend told me I had to hand-cross-polinate the plants.  After that it worked ok. 


Then we found out that Mimi was on the way and we needed a bigger place.  I know other families do it with less space, but we just needed a change.

This is the best picture I could find, weird.

So we moved to a nearby town with more space, our own driveway and a lawn.  We lived there for a whopping 3 years.  We had 3 bedrooms and a basement.  This is also where I started blogging so you can see more of the house if you start at the beginning of the blog.  Again we had amazing neighbors, like some of the best-to-date.  But we also had 2 of the WORST neighbors imaginable.  Picture high schoolers at 2 in the morning partying and urinating on your lawn or Celine Dion pumped into the air while the listeners sang off-key at the top of their lungs.  It got so bad we didn't go outside unless we were leaving.  But our good neighbors made up for bad ones, big time!   We had AMPLE space for a garden and we loved it!  Even though it was a rental, the landlords didn't mind that I churned up the yard and put in the garden.  I did however put grass back in before we moved away. 

Greg had a terrible commute for the first time in his adult life, but then he had a job change and started to take the commuter train to Back Bay/part of Boston.  So his commute became the most expensive ever, but also very convenient.  This is the time in my life where I considered myself a single parent.  Greg worked a lot and barely saw us.  We needed a change-badly.

Everything is a long story, this blog post included, but Greg found the right mixture of work/family life in Ohio and so we came here. 

Not my dream home, but it has things I did dream of wanting: fenced-in back yard, a good commute for Greg, walking to the elementary school, and lots of space to run around in.  Good, quiet neighbors and a big-ol'-garden spot with lots of sun.  It's new enough that it's not yet falling apart--I don't think we're up for major renovations yet, although I am looking forward a few someday, in a different house.  But it's old enough (20+ years) to get a few facelifts, and we can learn as we go.  Yoda was born here and I'm realizing that this is probably the home that the kiddos will most associate with their childhood.  That's weird to me.  This isn't what I pictured for us in some ways, but in other ways it's not a bad way to grow up. 

Three more years?  I don't know, we'll see.

Stories

Mimi (random quote):"That brings me tired."

__________

My mom is here visiting and since she has curly hair, Mimi asked if she could have curly hair too.  We went that night to get some sponge curlers. 

She didn't love how they felt...

But she (and we) LOVED how it looked. 

Sonya came too!  The kiddos are in heaven.

Mom hard at work on the floor cloth. 

Yoda pretending to work on it too. 

The school had a walk-a-thon, Greg's mom walked with Parker. 

And Greg walked with Mimi.  

It was a beautiful day.

__________

After running errands I came home to tell everyone about it. 

Me:"Let me tell you about the Wild-Goose-Chase I just went on!"

I told everyone about how crazy it was to try and find a working car wash and dropped quarters and how it all worked out in the end. 

Parker looked at me, mesmerized. 

Me:"Are you amazed?"

Parker:"I thought there was supposed to be real geese!" 

The Middle

I wish this post was titled "the end", meaning the end of the kitchen redo.  But it's not, it's the middle.

Things are moving along, but slowly.  I'm trying to keep things from getting too messy, so that I can keep the kitchen fully functioning, but sometimes it's tough.  I don't want to double the cost of fixing up the kitchen with going out to eat at every meal...

  Here's the room with some paint stripped off, some still in place.

Greg took the kiddos for most of a whole Saturday so that I could sand down the inside cabinets.  Yoda gets really upset by the sound of the sander, and unplugs it.  It makes for some frustrating sanding.

The final appliance to get the switch was the microwave--so we did that, too. Of course something as simple as switching out a microwave should only take someone 3 minutes-- it took us more like 20.  It's like a curse.

Long before we moved in, one of the previous owners moved some of the kitchen cabinets to the garage.  Our plan is to move one of them back in.  The cabinet's plan is to make that as difficult as possible.  Greg helped me take this beast down.  Again, something that would take a normal person 5 minutes, took us close to an hour.  Ugh.  

This is close to where we are right now, although the microwave is no longer on the floor.  There's still that lovely hole in the linoleum that brings horror to all those that visit.  I have big plans for the floor and they change from week to week.  This week it's to make a floor cloth to cover it until I decide what to do permanently. Good thing my mom is here to help! 

 Here's Yoda covered in paint, he's a cute, little distraction.  

 Here's a random shot of some of my favorite tools for this painting job.  Sanding block, so that I can sand without disturbing Yoda, small roller brush, yellow paint funnel thingy, and paint-can key.  The only thing missing is the hard rubber mallet that I use to close up the paint cans.  I'm crazy about keeping paint cans clean and easy to open and close.  So the yellow paint funnel thingy, key and mallet help with that. 

I made the kiddos help empty the cupboards...

Here's the pile of stuff that we put in the family room so the stuff would avoid getting dusty. 
__________

Just to refresh your memory, here's what the kitchen used to look like...

And if you want to see more of the redo, click here.  Wish us luck on the next part! 

Money

Mimi is figuring out money. She got some from the tooth fairy. She's got some change from other places. The money resides in her piggy bank. She shakes the bank for fun.

Back on the half birthday she asked if she could bring some money and come with Parker and me to the store. I said yes. She went upstairs and picked out her money like she's choosing a soccer team, not at all concerned about how much money is in her hand. She came down the stairs with $2.53.

At Toys R Us, she was looking for something to buy. She saw some Littlest Pet Shop animals for about $3.50. I told her the price, and she moved on. I said she had more money in her bank. She told me, "I'm not giving them any of that."

The next time we went to Toys R Us she came down with $3.68 and a 2 Euro coin.

While in the car on the way to church, she asked the woman riding with us, "Do you have moneys?"

The woman said yes.

Mimi said "I have more coins than the green long paper ones."

The woman said, "Me too."

And in case you thought all this mature money talk has changed her style. The picture below is the counterargument.

Shopping and Shel Silverstein

Greg, asking Parker how his new pants look: "How do they look?
Parker: "Pretty snazzy!"

*Later*

Parker putting on his new shoes: "These are snazzy!"
__________

Mimi, while looking over my shoulder at a scribbled-note that I'm writing: "How can Dad read it?  That's not read-ish!"
__________

Greg, describing the new pj's that he bought for Yoda: "Well, he liked them so much that when he started licking them, I decided we better buy them."
__________

While listening to an NPR story (found here) about Shel Silverstein, Yoda was so excited to listen to the poems, he pulled up a chair to get closer to the radio.  (The radio is on the counter and not bolted to the underside of the cabinet because of the continuing kitchen reno--more on that soon.)

Two Very Serious Robots

It's not like I caught them while they weren't smiling.  They put on this very serious face while acting like robots.  They also stand really still for a few moments.  It's like they aren't my kiddos for just that brief time.  As anybody knows, that knows my kiddos, they don't act serious, or stay still for anything or anyone at anytime--unless they are asleep.

Trucks

Update:
I forgot to add that on Green Day Mimi called herself Green-a-lishious, she's pretty funny.

__________

As we drove past a truck like this

Yoda:"Truck! Truck!"
Me:"Yes, it's a big truck."
Parker:"Say 'Big Truck' -- 'BIG'"
Yoda:"BIG"
Parker:"TRUCK"
Yoda:"TRUCK"
Parker:"BIG TRUCK"
Yoda:"BIG TRUCK"
Me:"Yeah!  A 2-word sentence"

***later, as we drove home past the same truck***

Yoda:"Bye, BIG TRUCK!"
Me:"Wow!  A 3-word sentence!"
Mimi:"What if he said a 4-word sentence -- HI LITTLE TRUCK MAYONNAISE -- ?

Yoda taking over

With Parker and Mimi off to school for much of the day, Yoda might be the star of the show for a while, we'll see....The catch is, he's a baby of few words, and what he says doesn't make much sense unless you have me or Greg to translate.  Here's a few videos (I think they are like 10 seconds or so) of Yoda and his funny words.

The Ballad of Mimi's start of Kindergarten

Get comfortable, it's a long story.  It started a few days before the first day of school. 

She went to meet her teacher and walk around to get a feel for the classroom and school.  This day was called show-what-you-know, just a 20 minute conference with just her and her teacher.  When I explained what would happen that day, I neglected to say that the teacher would ask the questions and that Mimi would tell her the answers.

What ended up happening was Mimi marched in with her backpack full of school supplies, sat down, and started telling her teacher exactly what she knew!

Mimi:"There are different kinds of dinosaurs, bipods and quadrupeds.  Some dinosaurs are herbivores and some are carnivores..."

The teacher looks to me for help at the same time that I realize Mimi is not stopping.  So I gently tell Mimi to listen what her teacher is going to ask and then she can show what she knows about those questions.  BTW, she's does fine and knows just what she should know for a girl her age.

Next, it's a week or so later and it's the first day of school.  Mimi is in afternoon Kindergarten meaning she doesn't need to be ready for school until about 11am.  Not what I envisioned for her or me, but it's working out nicely.  After we walk Parker to school that cold and chilly morning, we get her home and ready for school.  This is the outfit that she picked out for herself.  

The school does something called gentle start.  On the first day about 1/3 of the class goes to class, on the second day another 1/3 of the class goes, and then on the 3rd day (you guessed it!) the last 1/3 of the class has their first day of school.  So we show up and there will be just 4 students that day, and Mimi knows 2 of them!  One from church and one from preschool.  She was ready to go! 

Life would not be complete without a random, short-lived illness thrown in the mix.  Mimi did not feel well the next day, but since she didn't have to go to school, she just sleeps it off and is feeling better by Monday.  Here she is curled up in a quilt from Grandma Eunice, by far the warmest one we have in our house.  It's fitting that she is using a quilt made for Greg for when he started College and Mimi is started school herself.  Also, it was the roof to the blanket-fort we had built that morning. 

This was the first day of school with all the students in the classroom, so I drive her to school (normally she will take the mid-day bus).  She was again jumping out of her skin to get there.  

I wanted to get a picture of her in her red shirt.  Each day of the first 2 weeks the students are supposed to wear a specific color that they will be learning about.  This day was red, and she picked a red and white stripped shirt.  

Mimi:"I bet I'll be the only one like a Zebra!"  But she was TOO excited to get there and I couldn't keep up with her at the same time as take a picture, so this is the best I could do. 

And here's Green Day.

She called herself "Green-a-lishious"

Green Day--I enjoyed calling it that, but the kiddos were clueless why it made me happy when we actually heard a Green Day song on the radio on the way home from school.



I'm just realizing that I don't have a photo of her getting on the bus, hopefully I won't leave it until the last day of school like I did for Parker.