bouncy boy

Last night we went to a party at Jen & Scott King's house to celebrate Scott completing his master's degree. Nate LOVED playing with Andrew. The two are truly kindred spirits and have very similar personalities. (It would be an understatement to say they get a tad hyper when excited)

Anyway, Andrew has an inflatable jumping thing. Nate and Nile loved it! I was able to get a short video of Nile enjoying it with my cell phone. The quality isn't so great, but you can still see the fun he was having.

artistic freedom

We gave Nate an easel for his birthday (actually it was a Christmas present for both boys that we never gave them). We've had the easel up for a week now, but today I got out the paints and let them try them out.



It's funny how different both boys' artwork is. Each of them made two paintings.

Nate's paintings both were a big blob of paint where he was mixing red and blue to make purple


Nile, on the other hand, used all four colors very abstractly, making a bunch of multicolored lines.

puddle watching

Today we had the first rain in the farmhouse. I came into the sunroom to find Nate staring intently out the window.


"Nate, what are you looking at?"

"Mom, you've got to see this puddle!"


He was entertained by this for a good 20 minutes...and luckily, the water stayed outside the house.

It's a Transformers Party!

I thought that I'd share a few of the photos from Nate's birthday party we had at the farmhouse yesterday. It was the perfect sort of party - laid back and very little work to set up!


Nate with his Transformers birthday cake.

Blowing out the candles (he did get all 4 out). Emma and Nile were very interested, notice the look on Scott and Andrew's faces - I didn't even notice at the time that Andrew was covering his ears (for what reason I do not know)...


Cake-eating kids...


And yes, he did love each and every Transformer he got! The look on his face with this one is priceless!

4 years old and still growing

As I mentioned earlier, Wednesday was our first night in our "farmhouse" and it was also Nate's birthday. We are having a small "official" party on Sunday for family and friends, but we didn't want to let his birthday go uncelebrated.

So we had a small birthday party at the farmhouse for Nate. He got to open gifts from us and enjoy some birthday cupcakes.

(By the way, huge THANK YOU to Grandma Elaine for supplying the cupcakes, and for keeping the boys overnight on Tuesday. It was an enormous help...)

The favorite gift of Wednesday? The Transformers beach towel, of course. (also from Grandma)


And here's a video of him blowing out his candles.

The face of nothing good

Nate had to go to the doctor on Friday for the third time in six weeks, to check on the progress of removing a wart on his toe. Twice it had been frozen off, and again the doctor told him it would have to be frozen again. But...they didn't have the freezing equipment and had to drive to the other office to get it.

What ensued was 15 minutes of pure terror for Nate. He laid on the examining table and cried and screamed the whole time. "Mommy, just hold me!" I could do nothing to calm him. It was one of the worst feelings of my life. He was so scared of what was coming he couldn't rationalize anything. Every time he heard footsteps in the hall, he would freak out again, thinking they were coming in to freeze it. Not even the promise of a movie night, chocolate, or a trip to the gas station.

This was a far cry from what we had had in the car on the way to the doctor. "Mommy, I'm four now. I won't need to hold your hand. I am tough."

I took this photo after it was all over and he had calmed down. See how emotionally drained he is? This is not my normal Nate.

And the result? We get to go back in two more weeks. I am hoping we don't have to go through this again. Please, stupid virus, go away.

It's been a journey

Well, yesterday was the "big move part 1.". We are now waking up from our first night in the farmhouse. We have been so busy preparing for this, that I have not had any time to think, let alone blog.

Yesterday I spent the day figuring out which outlets are connected to which switches (answer - still not quite sure), unpacking, and getting the Internet and TV set up (for we can't live a night without either). Then we celebrated Nate's 4th birthday (I will add pictures later). Nate even slept in his bed last night without a bed rail! Lots of changes going on...

I'm sure there will be lots more stories that will come out of this 2 month "adventure," but right now I have to get off to work. :)

Get ready for skinned knees...

We have officially entered shorts season!

Update at 7:30 AM: Nile fell on my mom's driveway this morning before I even left the house. I think I should start a fortune-telling business.

An update to yesterday's post

Nate continues to surprise me. Last night when I took Nile up to bed, Nate volunteered to clean up the toys. When I returned downstairs he was practically dancing with excitement. He had taken a room that was literally COVERED in toys and made it absolutely clean. He had even taken the milk cups and put them in the fridge, and had picked more toys up in our front room.

I was so surprised! He got extra hugs for this one.

observations

I'm laughing inside. Nile woke up kind of cranky and is standing halfway down the stairs where he stopped (also where I chose to leave him). He is now refusing to come down. Nate just went to "check on him" and told him "Don't you want to come downstairs?" "If you need me, Nile, just call me, I'll be right downstairs. Just let me know."

Nate's also been sitting at the table COLORING for the last 20 minutes. Nate. Coloring. This seriously never happens.

Just now: "Mommy, I have a lot of work to do. Would you mind waiting a little bit before we go outside?"

Did I pick up the wrong child from preschool today?

warning: bulldozers work very quickly!

Today we went over to check on our house, and to show Tom's mom the progress.

Last year a big storm came through the area and had really damaged the trees on our lot. We had looked at it several months ago and we had agreed that many of the trees needed to come down. I think there was some miscommunication on how many trees we wanted to remove, though. Because today when we got there, ALL the trees were gone. Our 1/2 acre of forest, gone. Completely razed to the ground, burned, and buried. There was literally nothing left. All this in just two short days. Needless to say, I was really disappointed. For the last year I have imagined roaming that little plot of forest with the boys, showing them wildflowers, and exploring it all. Now we will not have that chance. We do have a nice view of the wetland behind our yard, and there are still trees on our neighbor's lot, but ours is completely clear.

Tom and I have no desire to have a huge acre of flat green grass. That's actually the last thing I wanted. So we are probably going to embark on a project to restore prairie grass to our property. Maybe then I can at least get some of the wildflowers I wanted (even if they are prairie wildflowers instead). I have to look at the bright side and make this an opportunity, because I love our house and I want this to be our "dream" - at least as close as we can get.

On the plus side, the boys enjoyed watching the bulldozer level what remains. I got a few pictures with my cell phone of them enjoying the show. You can enjoy the "carnage" too!

(Note: We had woods up to within 5 feet of the house)

general silliness

Maybe it's the fact that I was gone for the last four days...but these two boys are incredibly goofy this morning.