Swings!

We got lucky enough to find a swingset for our backyard a couple weeks ago! Being the kind, patient, ever-supportive husband and father he is, Dan got roped into driving to take down the swingset from someone's yard and bring it home to our yard and reassemble it for us. Thank you, freecycle. And thank you, random kind stranger-getting-rid-of-a-swingset. And thank you, Dan, for doing the work. The kids thank you. And I thank you for the freedom given me to send them out back to swing while I'm cooking, cleaning, or just in need of a kid-less moment. Swingsets are heaven!

For your enjoyment--this little video clip from earlier this evening had Anna and David giggling incessantly for the longest time while repeatedly watching:

"i" and "o"

"i" and "o" are the two letters that David surprised me by recognizing and naming while we were at the mall today! We were playing at the indoor mall playground, and I had stopped to have Anna name all the letters in the name of the mall printed on the wall--you know, being that good proactive mom trying to help her daughter get ready for kindergarten and all that good stuff. She was busy identifying "w" when David reached out, pointed to "i", and named it. Then the 3 different o's in the name too. He can't identify many colors or shapes yet, but his ABC's? He's got them! (Or at least starting to "get" them--I guess he pays attention a lot more than I realized.) Color me proud of this cute little guy!

April Fools!

Happy April Fools' Day!

Anna, David, and I had fun making spaghetti cupcakes to trick Dan tonight.

Then we had meatloaf cupcakes frosted with mashed potatoes. Tasty, but didn't turn out very realistic looking.

But the real kicker was my own private joke--jello in their juice glasses! Anna especially found it hilarious to be tricked when I said, "April Fools'!" to her after she tried to drink it. It's fun making these cute kids laugh!


It took David a little bit to figure out why his juice "won't work". He got over it pretty quickly, as jello is a huge favorite with him.
Dan had his own fun with his "juice"...
Hope you all had a fun April Fools' Day!

Nothing sweeter

From where I stand at this moment, there's nothing cuter and sweeter than 2 sleeping children at 2:45 in the afternoon. How I miss regular naptimes!

It's good to have a nice (sleeping!) reminder of what sweet little angels I have.

Go Texan!

March is Rodeo month in Houston, and Anna's preschool had their fun "Go Texan!" day to go right along with it. So, "Go Texan!" she did, as much as our limited supply at home allowed.

Poor little cowgirl had to make do with the tiny play hat she got at school as a party favor. I think we might need to buy our kids real cowboy/girl hats now that we are getting into the big-time school Texas-pride days. And I mean Texas Pride with a capital P. It's hard to live here and not feel it, native Texan or not.
Maybe by next year's rodeo celebration she'll be lucky enough to have a pair of boots too. What self-respecting cowgirl in TX doesn't have boots, anyway? I want some boots too. Heck, I'm fixin' to outfit the whole family--y'all should be proud! Does this mean we're putting down roots? 4 years in a couple months, wow time sure flies.

Bluebonnets, the Texas state flower, preschool-style!
And they did some panning for gold activity and Anna brought home her pieces of gold she found.
We love preschool!

Flower stems are fun

This was one of my favorite pastimes when I was little. I remember playing with my best childhood friend, picking dandelions or other "flowers", and then spending hours curling the stems. I had a fun walk down memory lane today watching Anna light up as I taught her how much fun these flower stems can be!

Items needed:

Dandelions, spring yard "flowers" (aka weeds)
An enthusiastic helper!Nice workspace where you can use a bowl of water--oh, and some paper towels are helpfulStep 1: Choose a flower with a nice long stemStep 2: Pinch off the flower head to remove from the stem.Step 3: Peel the stem in half lengthwise, starting at one end like so... peel all the way down so you have two pieces.Step 4: Put each piece of the stems in a bowl of water.Let them float around...Watch the magic for a while!Step 5: Remove from the bowl of water and let dry on a paper towel. Behold the beauty of curled flower stems! Despite the fact that they have no real useful purpose but to make you smile as you watch... Although, we were tempted to make a green picture with them for St. Patrick's Day this week. We may still do that tomorrow.

So tell me, did you like to curl stems of dandelions as a child? Or maybe you did more of another memory I have--pinching the head of a dandelion off while singing, "Mama had a baby and the head popped off!" Yeah, I think I'll hold off on teaching that one to Anna and David. But I'd be willing to bet they'll learn it from some other children, much the same way I learned it. Isn't it great that some things will never change?

Edited to add:
After I posted this I did a google search to see how popular this idea is and I found this blog post about it with actual dandelions.
Dandelion Curls
We don't have actual dandelions in our yard, so we had to made do with smaller stemmed weeds.

Every Little Girl

needs the thrill of picking flowers in her backyard.

And every mother needs a little girl to bring her bouquets of them to keep in a juice glass on the kitchen windowsill--just like she did for her mother when she was a little girl.