Ice Cream Truck



We live on a street with houses only on one side, so the ice cream truck doesn't come by too often.  I think he doesn't feel it is worth his time.  This works out fine for us because we don't really need more ice cream in our lives.  But one day we were cleaning the garage with Reese and Jessenia, while Brisbane was sleeping, and decided to let Reese and Jessenia in on the ice cream truck secret.  I think before this they just assumed that there was a nice man driving a truck around in the neighborhood that makes people happy with music. 

We let them choose the ice cream they wanted and not surprisingly they unknowingly chose the ice cream with bubble gum eyes.



 Jessenia admiring her Tweety Bird ice cream.

 Reese contemplating getting the ice cream eyes out of his Ninja Turtle.

About thirty seconds after these smiles I made Jessenia cry uncontrollably.  Apparently when I asked if I could have a taste of hers and she said yes, it didn't mean that I could have a bite.  One lick was all she was allowing.  Oops.  We did recover however and I think they are excited for their next ice cream man adventure.

Chalkin' It Up

To end our Valentine's Day, we went out on the driveway to draw with chalk while we waited for Daddy to come home.

 Jessenia always enjoys drawing with chalk the most (or maybe she just has the longest attention span).  She also always gets the messiest.

 I love it when they are all drawing together.  This moment doesn't last long.  I don't remember, but would bet money that Jessenia called for me to get Brisbane less than ten seconds later.

 I started by drawing a sun, and so naturally the kids followed suit.  This is Reese laying next to his sun.  It's pretty good, I think.  You can see he tried to give his glasses, just like mine.

 I drew a hopscotch board and tried to teach Reese some basic hopscotch technique.  He tried.  It was adorable.

And then when they got tired of drawing, they just went and sat on the curb to wait for Dad.  All men should be so lucky to have a wife and kids waiting for them with baited breath when they walk through the door (or pull up in their car). 

Valentine's Day

We celebrated Valentine's Day a week late this year.  Our kids don't know the difference, they just think that there are fifteen different Valentine's Days between preschool and home.  We were driving to Snowflake on the real Valentine's Day and so to maximize the fun, we decided to celebrate it late when Mack was back from his rotation.

 Heart shaped cinnamon rolls for breakfast this year.  I consider that a major step up from the heart shaped toast and honey I gave them last year.  Plus it was no harder to make than regular cinnamon rolls.

 Despite that face, Brisbane liked them.

 And the other kids must have liked them too.  I mean look at Jessenia, she is eating hers like a cave woman. (And yes, we did offer to cut it up for her.  And yes, she declined.)

 Then began our yearly scavenger hunt for the Valentine's.  We were hoping they would be slightly better at it this year.  Jessenia seemed quick to understand that even if you don't see it the first time, you just need to look harder.  Brisbane obviously improved because this year he could walk.  And Reese...

 let's just say that he looked at the television for a good minute before he realized that just because it wasn't taped to the front, it might still be there.  It was hilarious.

 This is them looking for the car.  Zippy is wondering what is wrong with them and why are they in the kitchen.  Fair point, Zip, fair point.

See it taped to the passenger window?  Yeah, they didn't.

 Jessenia got the slide, lickety-split.

 The fridge one was also tricky, even though you can see the card righ under Jessenia's nose there.

 But drawing a bed on the card totally blew their minds.  Most of them wanted to give up after the first bed.

 But they kept looking...

 Until finally...

 Success!

I got smart this time and put each of their things in their own bag and then labelled each of their items with their names.  Santa needs to take a lesson from me, labelling the candy is way better because it gets confusing ten minutes later when some are empty, some are half empty, and some are full.  Inevitably the owner of the empty candy is going to claim that the full one is theirs.  What can I say?  Momma didn't raise any dummies in this house!
Another successful Valentine's Day.  No craft this year, but it had been a long month without Mack and we went a little more low key.  This year I think I am embracing low key.  And it feels good.

D is for Dot

For the reading faithful (aka Mom and Mom), have no fear.  It has not taken us two months to get from B is for Bubble Bath to D is for Dot.  I am just THAT behind in blogging.  Ooops. 

The boys got the dot party started in a serious way.



You can see that they were both intensely focused on their painting.

Until Brisbane quickly lost focus of making dots on his D and switched to paint on his hands.

 Reese kept right on trucking.

 And then flashed his mother that winning grin.  Be still my beating heart. 

Jessenia got in on the action a little later than the boys (by being the slowest eater in the universe) but she seemed to have a good time.

Snowflake Rotation

Mack has been gone a few times this school year for rotations.  He had his third and final 'away' rotation in February.  We were really lucky that he got a rotation near his parents' home in Snowflake.  It saved us money on rent (and food....thanks Mom) and also meant that the kids, Zippy, and I could go and stay for a little while. 

 Brisbane loves everything Grandpa.  Both of his Grandpa's seem to hold a special place in his heart.  He found Grandpa's work gloves and hat one day.

 Then Grandpa and he tossed a ball back and forth.  This was Brisbane's favorite game to play with both Grandma and Grandpa on this trip...and he got quite good at it.

 Any work that needs to be done?  Hat?  Check.  Gloves?  Check.  Flannel?  Check.

 Grandma holds a special place in Reese's heart because of that I-Pad.  Both sets of grandparents own I-Pads and Reese thinks that is the best part because his grandparents don't set unrealistic limits on gadgets like his mother does.

We enjoyed lots of Daddy time to.  We missed Mack while he was away and are glad that he doesn't have any more away rotations this school year.  We won't talk about next school year though.... ok we will talk about it for just a minute.  Three away rotations in a row.  Reese is Kindergarten so we can't go with him the whole time.  And one Mommy who is tired just thinking about it.  Sounds fun, eh?

Pre-Valentine's Day

I think I have mentioned on the blog before that we are all about festivals at our house.  If you can't celebrate a birthday, holiday, or other spcial occassion on the actual day, you just create a festival and spread the fun over as many days as necessary.  This year we were driving to Snowflake on Valentine's Day and so we did our big family fun a week later.  But here are some of the things we did before we left.

 Grandma and Grandpa sent the kids Valentines again this year.

 Kids love getting mail, so of course they were thrilled.  (Pardon the fact that Jessenia appears homeless in this picture, she is in fact well taken care of.)

 Even at the age of almost two, Brisbane knows that the most important part is the money.

 All three children put their money into their collection jar.  They are working their way to earning a trip to Disneyland.  I am not sure Brisbane had much of a choice as to whether or not his money was included but he didn't seem to mind.

 The kids both had Valentine's Day parties at school. Of cours I remembered the kids needed to assemble valentines the night of the craziest day ever.  So late at night I had my little elves working their fingers off to get their valentines ready.

 They of course thought that all of the kids in their classes would be bringing the exact same valentines and that they were going to end up with millions of Skittles.  And naturally, they did not see any problem with that.

Thankfully however, that was not the case and they walked away with a wide variety of candy, not just ten pound of Skittles.

Finger Painting

Brisbane often gets the short end of the stick.  While the other kids are living it up at preschool he is usually sitting in a shopping cart.  Preschool time is my only time to run errands with one child.  I hate running too many errands in the evening since it is my only time with Mack.  So I try to limit my errand running to one day a week and do activities with Brisbane on the other days.  I thought Brisbane would enjoy some good old fashioned finger painting.

 I gave him two colors to start with. 

He immediately wanted to wash his hands.  Brisbane is the kid who anytime we walk outside, immediately squats down and grabs two fistfuls of dirt.  I never would have imagined that he wouldn't like getting dirtified with paint. 

I convinced him to stay in his high chair, although he preferred to get paint on his chair and not on the paper.



 Eventually he got into it a bit more, but I am convinced this was more for my benefit than because he actually enjoyed it.

"Have I done it enough, Mom?  Can I get down?"

Maybe we will try again in a month or two.  Maybe.



Fire Pit Fun

I kind of married a pyro.  He likes to burn things.  He once burned a stump out of the ground in our backyard (I am not sure it was the most effective way to remove the stump, but once he found out it was an option, it was the only option).  We have some friends who have a fire pit and Mack has been a bit jealous.  So for Christmas, I pulled off a pretty good surprise and got him a fire pit.

One day in late January, we finally got the fire pit put together for some fun family time.



 Good thing we have massive amounts of fire wood from the trees we cut down in the backyard.

 Brisbane saw Mack blowing on the fire to get it going and so he joined in.  Then anytime we told him to back away from the fire because it was hot, he blowed on it.  Made good sense to him since he blows on his hot food at dinner.

 The kids basically had a blast just sitting watching the fire...

 And then I busted out the Smores making stuff, and they were in heaven.  I will admit that most of the marshmallows they roasted ended up as soot in the bottom of the fire pit.  Not the best marshmallow roasters out there.  But Mom and Dad came to the rescue.



And boy were they yummy!
Then we busted out the flashlights and you would have thought we had gone to an amusement park.  Flashlights are the ultimate form of entertainment for toddlers in the dark.