Alouette and Shamrock Floats

Mimi has been ridiculously curious about holidays lately.  She wants to know their history and what we do to celebrate them.  I feel bad disappointing her, how do you celebrate a holiday like St. Patrick's Day for a 6-yr-old?  Shamrock Floats = green sherbert ice cream + 7up!
Here's Yoda requesting "too much!"

Parker had his piano recital this weekend.  Very fun. 

Parker was actually a little nervous, it takes a lot to get him nervous.  He did pretty well, relaxed a bit and hammed it up in the end.

All the children have been singing and playing this song for months.  Here's 12 seconds of Mimi and Yoda having a go at it.

Project: Finish Projects on hold until my cold is gone...

Children running
Parker:"Wait, why am I chasing you?"
Mimi:"Because you want to tickle me!"
Parker:"Oh yeah!"
Continued running

_________

Mimi:"Your heart is kind of like a lunch box."
Me:"How?"
Mimi:"Well, when you don't love others, you loose your lunch."
*LAUGHTER!*

Project: Finish Projects, well half a project

It was a beautiful day so we all headed outside to play.  My play was a little different then the kiddos' play. 

The kiddos were on the swings.

And I was on sanding down my awesome picnic table for the first time.  It really needs more work, but this was a great start.  Here's the picnic table from a year and a half ago. 

Zoo

Me:"What animals do you want to see at the zoo?"
Yoda:"Dinosaur!"

Me:"Well, there aren't any Dinosaurs, but we could see a dragon?" (Komodo Dragon)

Yoda:"No, Scared!"

*Later*

Yoda:"Dragon!"

He didn't want to leave.  

 The Polar Bears were particularly fun this day!

Project: Finish Projects Continues

When we first moved in and painted the laundry room, I wanted to hang up these guys (the marionette puppet and mask).  Well, I finally did--it only took me 3+ years!  They add to the color in the place.  And it strikes something else off my list.

Project: Finish Projects

March is my month to check some things off my list. Especially now that the kitchen floor is finished, I can really work on and finish the kitchen. But even as I type this, my littlest distraction (Yoda) is trying to stop me from putting up this post. I'll do my best, we'll see.

Here's the first thing I worked on: a memo board for Parker's room.  He needed something to hang up random kid stuff.  Cork board=dropped pins=danger.  Therefore I decided on a magnet board.  But all the magnet boards I found were either too feminine for a 9-year-old boy's room, or too office-like.  So I found some ideas on-line, put my own spin on the ideas and came up with this thing. 

It started as a sheet of metal that a guy at the hardware store helped me find.  He found a magnet and started sticking it to stuff around the store.  This is for making pipe for venting, something like that, but more importantly it was cheap and flat.  First I trimmed off the folded end with my tin snips. Then I covered the sharp edge black duct tape.  Last I poked some holes along the top. 

Now I just have to hang it in Parker's room.  My hope is to have his room finished this weekend.   Here's to finished projects!

Blast off

For Parker's Birthday he got a rocket. Valerie helped him assemble it.
Yoda helped too.

Mimi posed for a picture.

We launched the rocket when Sonya was in town.

Some video.



Yoda summing up the experience.

Old Floor/New Floor

Here's the old floor that covered the kitchen, entry hall (pictured above), eating area (pictured below), laundry room, and the 1/2 bathroom.  In total 444 square feet in our house. 

And here's the new floor.  Very similar, brownish, faux tile, vinyl flooring.  It took me weeks to scrape off the old stuff and it took the installers 8+ hours to put in the new stuff.  

Here's a close up.  Also this picture shows Yoda crushing Cheerios with a Han Solo action figure.

SOOO glad this part is over with.  Just a few more touch ups before we're done with the kitchen!

Pop Rocks

For Valentine's Day the kiddos got Pop Rocks for Valentines. 

100

We enjoy meeting new friends at Chick-fila play place.  Last time we were there we ran into an 8 year old girl who was very interested in role playing Harry Potter adventures. She had a terrible English accent and recruited Mimi and Parker to play along.

HP Girl to Parker, "You be Harry. I'll be Hermione."
Parker's response,  ...  (he's not very verbal, but he immediately started playing along.)
HP Girl to Mimi, "Who do you want to be?"
Mimi's response, "I don't know but I want to be BAD!"
HP Girl -  "You can be Bellatrix Lestrange."
Mimi - "Great" and begins to chase Harry and Hermione.

========================
In other news, this week marked the 100th day of Kindergarten for Mimi.  She brought in 100 things to celebrate.

Tearing it up

We've been saving up since we bought the house to put in new flooring on the first floor.  The old vinyl was old and torn in places.  I'm glad we waited and redid the kitchen first, I like the layout so much better now.  Wouldn't it have been terrible to redo the floors, just to redo them again when we redid the cabinets and counter-tops?  There is value in procrastination!

I'm taking a little break today from ripping out the old stuff, to post these videos.  The first is to show (almost) how much floor we have to replace.

 The second is to show my favorite part of the whole process.  I've been listening to fun music to keep we going, occasionally Mimi joins me and dances.  And here's Mimi dancing to one of her favorite songs, with Yoda trying desperately to get her to come and play with him. 

Eventually Yoda came around and started dancing once David Bowie was on the radio. 

And here's a picture of some of what I've been up to.  You don't always have to pull up vinyl flooring if all you want is new vinyl flooring, but in our case we did.  Since moving the cabinets left a large hole in the vinyl, the only solution was either rip up everything, or put a thin layer of plywood down and then the new vinyl.  And since that would mean our floors would be about a 1/2 inch taller and a bunch more money, I opted for this option.  Wish me luck!

UPDATE:
the bottles are two games.  One makes a tornado in the water and the other is a fountain.  Neither has anything to do with the floor.  Yoda just decided to put them right in the middle of the camera shot before he went down in the basement. 

Yoda's Haircut

I've tried to keep his hair trimmed, but he fights too much.  So it was time for a real cut and we headed to the 'hair-cut-store'.  Mimi decided to wear her shirt that matches Yoda's, so she was in the BEFORE shot (also pictured is Finn McMissile from Cars2). 

I thought he would fight it, but he was much more cooperative for a stranger.  Or course the video helped, but I also tried the exact same video at home and it never worked for me. 

Here the stylist was telling me this is the only sad part of her job, cutting off baby locks.  

AFTER 

She kept some of the length and I love it.  

Here he is on a normal day. He's saying CHEESE. 

And just to keep it fun, here's Parker at 2 years, 2 months, just like Yoda is right now.  I kept his hair trimmed much more, and didn't go to a 'hair-cut-store' until he was like 5 or 6 years old = he didn't fight a hair cut. 

And here's Mimi at the same age too.  I kept her hair trimmed too, only just in the back.  In this photo she's also saying CHEESE! Isn't it crazy how different their hair is?