Pink Floyd Lessons

Something I learned today:

When selecting Pink Floyd albums to share with your children, select carefully.

"Ummagumma - Studio Album" does not go over very well. A much better choice is "A Momentary Lapse of Reason."

It's odd, isn't it? ;)

If you don't know, Ummagumma is a kind of trippy, sit-back-and-let-the-music-sink-in type of album. Not really geared towards those in the under-5 age group. "Momentary Lapse" has more listener-friendly "radio-ready" music. Much better for the air guitarists in our house.

Our favorite shirts

The color of beer

This morning the boys and I were talking about their favorite colors,
prompted by Nile who declared, "I don't like pink."

Nate's favorite colors: red and blue
Nile's favorites: red and green

I asked what they thought Tom's favorite color was. Nate's answer?

"Brown. Because brown is the color of beer!"

He knows his dad pretty well, doesn't he?

Big Breakfast

I think this should hold him.

Craft Time!

Foam sticky shapes can bring anyone together, even two boys who have been at each other all morning.

Caught in the act

Reading together!

Play-Doh Explosion

We are at home for another snow day, which means no preschool, no babysitting room at the gym, and because it's so cold out, no playing outside. So I am looking for ideas to entertain these two for a whole day. Remember we just had two straight weeks at home. You would think that with all the new Christmas presents they would have plenty to do. But...the first thing they asked for was the old standby, the Play-Doh table.

What mom wouldn't trade 20 minutes of cleanup for an hour of peaceful playtime? I was able to start two loads of laundry (one is in the dryer, another in the washer), put waterproof mattress covers on the boys' beds, get some Facebook and CafeMom time, and I'm even blogging...all before 9:15 am!

Unfortunately, this is all before 9:15 am, and we still have two hours before lunch and even longer before Tom gets home... I'm still thinking about ideas for things to do later.

But...back to the Play-Doh.

Nate made me a Play-Doh cookie, caramel apple, and pretzel.

I have no idea what Nile is doing here.

Below is the aftermath. This is just a shot of the table. In the picture at the end, you may be able to see some of the thousands (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but there had to be hundreds) of tiny pieces of Play-Doh that are on the floor.

It was quite messy.

I got a small lightweight stick vacuum from Tom's mom for Christmas. I have used it every day. But no day have I been more thankful for it than today. What would have taken me a long time to pick up by hand was actually not too bad.

Now, off to figure out entertainment for the next few hours.

Bunk Bed Heaven

Nile got a new bed. It's a bunk bed from IKEA. It took the whole family three hours to put together this morning - probably could have been done a bit faster without two "helpers."

I couldn't convince him to sit on it for a picture, but here it is anyway, without him.

He must like it well enough now - although at first he didn't want to nap in it (he wanted to lay on the floor), I was able to convince him that it was better to sleep on a mattress actually IN a frame. (Since we moved in, he has been sleeping on a mattress on the floor.)

Nate, on the other hand, is resting in his room in his new tent, after we had to tell him he couldn't nap on the top bunk today.

New Year's Madness

We went to the home of our friends the DeBaene's for New Year's Eve. Their daughter, Emma, is three and Nate and Nile love visiting her house - mostly for her really cool toys.

Nate loved dressing up in Emma's "superhero" stuff. He started out as Robin, wore that for an hour, then changed into Captain America for a few hours. Finally he finished off with the Spiderman gloves and mask (we did draw the line when he asked to wear the sparkly Spider-Girl outfit).

Here he is as Captain America.


Nile put on a guitar concert for the kids. Basically he was playing with Emma's Barbie guitar and microphone, so the rest of the kids set up chairs and pretended they were at a concert. I think he was oblivious to them. But...maybe he did know what was going on. Either way he entertained them for quite a while.


We got home late (really late) and Nate was worried that he hadn't gotten to open the "poppers" that the boys had made with Grandma Elaine at the Bettendorf Children's Museum. So, on New Year's Day, right after breakfast, they were excited to find out "what was inside" them. (Although they made them, so they knew what they had put inside...)




We spent the rest of New Year's Day hanging out at home with Grandma, Papa, and Becky and watching four college football games. And of course, we ate our lucky black-eyed peas.