That Time We Let the Boys Watch Star Wars

We let the boys watch Star Wars. It took us about a week and a half about a month ago, but we got through the three original movies from the 1970's- early '80's. They loved them, though they will confidently and a little condescendingly tell you that movie four was far inferior to movie five, because it, "moved so quickly, not slow like the first one. It was the greatest one." The boys are constantly talking about the characters and the plot and acting out every scene they can think of. This includes doing Jedi training upside down and breathing like Darth Vader.

Here are the best, randomly overheard quotes from our Star Wars binge:

"I'm not going to play with you anymore if you don't stop pretending to be R2D2."

"I'm Yoda and I can break dance and play the piano.”

"I will light sabe you in 4..3..2..1"

"Fine! YOU cut MY hand off!"

"Here’s a picture of the Emperor when he was a football player." (freezes into a still shot) "He was SO tall."

Brian: "What do you guys want for Christmas?" Cal: "Everything Star Wars that talks and is plastic."

They have spent time "flying" in duffle bags with their hockey helmets on and arrows sticking out the sides. They beep and move slowly like R2D2 when I tell them to do things. Clark created Darth Vader out of a mortar board and batman mask. I can't find my camera or I'd post a picture of it. So great. Every day there are light saber wars on the way to and from school, usually with dangerously long sticks.

And then there was the night Calvin drew the characters on the board:

Yoda

Han Solo, Darth Vader, Princess Leia 

Jobba the Hut

Soldier for the Empire

For some reason my pictures of Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi won't load. It was a fantastic display.

Tonight Cal drew the cover of the DVD case:

Obsession has always been a strong suit of theirs. Ceiling fans, NASA space robots, astronauts, et. al.

I'm going with it and discussing plot with them-- the characters, setting, conflict, and such.

They are getting the newer movies under the Christmas tree next week and there will be a couple little Star Wars Lego sets in their stockings. My favorite is the Star Wars art that I see in my future.

Fourth of July Projects/ Ode to Pinterest

Wow, I knew I hadn't written a post for awhile but I didn't realize it had been almost a month. Sheesh. I've been busy doing your typical mom things and I still can't say I truly have free time to write, but I wanted to share a couple things we did around the Fourth of July that were fun and crafty.

First of all, Pinterest is amazing. It makes it so easy to categorize and save links for awesome ideas for...everything you could ever want. I am a better mom because of Pinterest...I think. I love that so many people share the clever things they've done so that others can get great ideas as well. All that to say that over Independence Day weekend I used two ideas I got off Pinterest, and that I'd like to pay it forward by taking some pictures of what we did and maybe someone will benefit from them. Almost two years ago I made astronaut costumes for Cal and Clark, and the pins I have of various pictures have been repinned tons of times. I know it's maybe silly, but I hope that my ideas helped others in the very important first world problem of what to do for your kids' Halloween costumes.

The first Pinterest-inspired Fourth of July project we did was that we made fireworks in a bottle. This was the easiest thing, but the boys loved it and it gave me a much-needed break from the shrieking of wrestling and the other typical loud soundtrack of our days. They simply shoved red, white, and blue things into a bottle: pipe cleaners, pom-poms, glitter, and their homemade "foam confetti." Then we added water, glued the lids shut, and flipped them upside-down over and over for our own little "fireworks." The boys loved making them as well as flipping them over and over, snowglobe-style, for their own silent fireworks.

Secondly, on the Fourth we made t-shirts with handprint flags. It's another idea from Pinterest. Pretty self-explanatory. We were at the lake house and made these with Gammy and Poppy. We actually all have one with one of the boys' handprints on each, though the rest of us aren't as photogenic as the kids, so we only have kids' pictures.

They were two fun projects, and the bottle one was especially easy.

Clark stuffing his bottle...quietly

Just add glitter

Water added, lids glued closed (note: use school glue, not hot glue)
These provided intermittent  fun for a couple days
and then I threw them out-- the perfect project.

Teddy was not a big fan of gooey hand printing. 

I made the lines with the paint and the boys spread them out.

Aerial view

I put the date and each boys' name on each shirt.

Just getting them all together on a couch is complicated.

I think that qualifies as three smiles!

Practicing sparklers for nighttime

Reluctant models

...and again

Calvin's World

Things Calvin Finds Beautiful

1. flashing police lights
2. all flowers
3. fall leaves
4. gasoline in mud puddles
5. sunsets
6. paintings with lots of colors
7. rainbows
8. long hair
9. me when I wear anything besides a t-shirt and jeans
10. bubbles
11. colorful clothing and toys
12. the blue sky
13. clouds in the sky
14. the moon
15. nail polish
16. turning wheels on cars
17. reflections of all of the above

A conversation with Calvin this morning:

Hey, Mom my feet are asleep. I know because they feel like they're on fire. My feet are nocturnal! Because they're asleep in the day so they must be awake at night! I have nocturnal feet. They're owl feet! I have owl feet, Mom!

We might have an artist on our hands.

Thursday Thesicle

There are good days and there are 

good, show-your-baby-brother-how-to-watercolor-on-the-balcony good days. 

(and paint your fingers and toes with watercolors days)

Easy Easter Decoration

I've done this super-easy art project with the boys before-- last time we made planets-- but I hadn't thought of it as an Easter decoration option until my friend Emily wrote about it over at Two-Way Street. Thought I'd share too.

The boys colored coffee filters with markers, used medicine droppers to get them wet and let the colors run together, we let them dry, and I cut them into shapes roughly resembling eggs. Then we put them on the window. So easy. Not very messy. My boys loved it.

Coloring filters

Clark was very intense. This took him probably 30 minutes.

Medicine dropper with water- super cool

My egg shapes

Eggs on the window

Other Easter ideas:

1. Our natural Easter egg dye adventure from last year
                       
2. My paper Easter baskets from last year

How Buzz Lightyear Underwear in My Purse Made My Day- and Other Little Happy Things

I've always had a bit of a poetic fascination and delight in the little things in life. I always get excited about that first moment in fall when you can see your breath, and the first tulip blooms of the spring- things like that. After Brian and I got married I wrote a poem about how much I loved waking up and seeing our slippers next to each other. Seriously.

But having kids makes me even more that way because they get excited about the little things too. And our day-to-day life is filled with little things.

I've been trying to keep mental notes of which little things make me happy after an experience the other day; Cal had a little mini accident in the bathroom at a friend's house. It wasn't a change-everything-and-hop-in-the-bath accident, or even a change-everything-below-the-waist accident. No, it was only a need-to-slip-into-a-clean-pair-of-underwear-and-go-on-with-my-life accident. And I was actually excited, because I had been carrying around this annoying pair of Buzz Lightyear underwear in my purse for about four months. I was vindicated! I was a prepared! Yessss! It rarely seems like I'm a mom prepared, but it did that day.

Another thing that has made me happy the past few days is our new dining room table. It's amazing. And my Valentine's tulips on top make it even better. We sold our other table that had big chairs and was just a stationary, standard table and bought one from Ikea that folds up into a tiny shelf. We bought respectable folding chairs at Costco and with those changes, our dining room has become awesome. When we're done eating we can fold the table down, or at least fold it halfway down, and open up the whole room. When the table is open all the way we can easily fit six chairs around it, and probably eight if we squished. Before, fitting five or six around our old table (which was almost the exact same size) was nearly impossible. Also- there are drawers in the table. Yes. Drawers. Six drawers! Simply exhilarating. They now hold kids bowls and snack containers, bibs, placemats, a I think one drawer is still empty! Props to my awesome husband for the selling and the buying and the moving that made our dining room much more user-friendly.

Half table

half table, different angle

Full table

Folded table- open room!

Here are some other little things that have delighted me lately:

• Newly ripped holes down low in the fencing around the construction site by our house. The boys can look through at the workers and the work without me picking them up!  
• Three nights in a row of no wet beds! 
• Little kindnesses I've experienced from people after my last seizure
• When Clark said the other day, "I'm sure happy that this family is getting another baby." 
• The peapod outfit that my friend Aimee dropped off for Peapod (picture below)
• Being woken up every morning by two happy boys who want to snuggle
• Baseball spring training starting

The boys love little things too. Cal notices the smallest details, it's astonishing. He remembers what clothes people wore the last time we saw them and things like that. They both often comment on how beautiful the weather is, the sky is, the flowers are, and that makes me happy. One day Cal used up several crayons coloring a piece of poster board different shades of blue and declared it to be his Beautiful Blue Sky. He wanted to tape it on the ceiling. It's been taped to our ceiling (with beautiful blue painter's tape) for probably around three months.

So anyway, that dumb pair of Buzz Lightyear underwear in my purse not only made me feel like a prepared mom, it also gave me some other things to think about being thankful for. Which reminds me, I need to replace that pair of underwear in my purse...

Cal's beautiful blue sky

This peapod outfit, complete with knitted hat, was a gift for our little Peapod!

How Valentine's Day Rocked: Kids, Bacon, and Baseball

Today we had a Valentine's Day party at our house. We spent time decorating for it the past couple days. The boys' art teacher had them make heart mobiles with contact paper, tissue paper, and glitter last week. So we made more of those in heart shapes and put them on windows, stuck Charlie Brown Valentines on windows, and the boys made construction paper hearts and taped them all over as well.

Art class mobile

Making our own

This one we made into a big heart for the window.

Our guest of honor was none other than Alexandra.

At our party we did a little art: scribbled markers on coffee filters cut in heart shapes and then dripped water on them with medicine droppers. The colors slowly spread out, giving them sort of a tie-dyed look. Super easy thing to do with little ones.

Markers on coffee filters

Finished hearts- I also tied yarn or ribbon through the holes I punched
at the tops so they could be displayed.

Next we did some experimenting with candy hearts: The kids took turns dropping candy hearts into various liquids and we observed what happened. We tried cold water, hot water, lemon juice, and water with baking soda that we added vinegar to. The cool one was the soda and vinegar because the hearts danced and flipped around in all the fizz. The hot water melted chunks of the hearts off, and color from the hearts slowly dissolved in the cold water and lemon juice. In case you were curious.

Philip and Alex check out the hearts and liquids.

Everyone was so curious!

Pouring vinegar on them made the hearts dance!

Next, the eight kids had a picnic on the living room floor. Grilled cheese, strawberries, and banana chips. The other three moms and I actually were able to sit down at the table and talk for a few minutes over some soup and sandwiches. The kids were awesome. Even after having mini cupcakes and Rice Krispie treats, they sat on the couch and humored us for some pictures of them all in their reds, pinks, and purples.

Picnic in February!

Rice Krispie treats on sticks with strawberry cake mix,
hearts, and mini cupcakes

Yum!

Can you say Red and Pink and Purple?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Besties

After the party dust settled, I made my gift for Brian: bacon roses.

Yes.

That's what I said.

I saw the picture here online and modified the instructions. I did not take a drill to a perfectly good mini muffin tin as they suggested (to account for bacon grease), but I microwaved the bacon a minute and a half first, and then rolled it into rolls and stuffed them in small cookie cutters on top of the broiler pan, like this:

I found some fake flowers and cut them off and stuck the bacon roses on.

This. Just. Happened.

Brian approved. Then he laced his leftover grilled cheese sandwich with bacon roses and I had made his dinner as well! Pretty sure I just won an award.

Then mini Nationals Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg gave me some tulips for the balcony. Super romantic.

And my gift from Brian was a subscription to MLB.TV, so we will be able to watch the Nationals even though we got rid of cable!

After my tulip gift, we took the boys to the playground. They ran around like crazy monkeys, hit baseballs off their new tee, and got covered in mud. Then it was bath time, dinner, and bed.

It's taken Brian and I nine years of knowing each other, but I think we've finally gotten this holiday right: kids, bacon, and baseball.

This was one of my favorite Valentine's Days ever.