Love Crystal

Out of the blue the other night, Kai decided he was going to make a love crystal. He got a jar and put in ice cubes, a heart button, a K button (for Kai), some beeswax, water and a cranberry to make it red. He said when it's done, he's going to poke a hole in it to get the love out. I was telling him that we have a quartz crystal out in front of our house, so we went and got it. He put it on top of the jar. I thought it was very sweet. Kai hasn't always been the most empathetic person. In fact, I often worried because he didn't seem to have any empathy at all. But lately, he has become incredibly empathetic and is adopting caterpillars and letting them crawl on him instead of killing them. He wakes up and gives his sister a kiss and tells her how cute she is. And on and on. It's a miracle!

What begins with B? bubbles, bicycles, balloons and babies...

That's what happens when the sun comes out and the woods and the world around us explode with green and amazing flowers--you don't hear from me. I've got spring fever! If only I had some sort of way to compose things in my head and have them automatically go to my blog. I've written many posts in my head in the month that I haven't posted (and don't worry, I'm sure they're working on the technology that will take the thoughts out of your head and put them on your computer but I won't have any part of it).

What are the three greatest things about being a kid (in my opinion?): bubbles, bicycles and balloons. Seriously, what makes a kid happier? We've been enjoying all of those things lately, along with the sunshine. And speaking of bicycles, I have been on a quest for many years to find another cool old-fashioned looking bike to replace the one I stole from Jevon. "Old Red" was sitting out in front of his trailer when I moved in, all rusty, but with a lovely fat seat with springs, fenders over the wheels, a chain guard and all of those things that spell classic bicycle, even though it was made in the 80s. I immediately stole the bike (he wasn't riding it) and put a basket on the front and became the stereotypical English teacher riding to class with my students' papers in my trusty basket.

I digress... Anyway, I found a mate for Old Red a while back while driving to the park. It was sitting out with the garbage and as I drove by, I nearly died from the shock. I have never taken any freebies from the curb. Were they really giving this away? I told myself if it was there on my way home from the park, I would take it. It was. But I drove by. Then I pulled into my driveway, turned around and went back and knocked on their door. No answer. Went home and called Jevon and told him to get it. He grumbled and I figured he wouldn't. He did and was thrilled. "Old Blue" is a Murray bike from the 80s with all parts made in the USA! All it needed was a tube and a screw and it's ready to ride! We felt like kids riding around the neighborhood on our bikes that night. Tea and Kai squealed with glee from the bike trailer. Oh, didn't I mention that these bikes have no gears? Oof.... what workout!

And speaking of the Universe listening to my requests. I have been drooling over really nice cameras for a year now, but have had a dream since high school to really develop my photography skills. Well, the timing was right and my friend Deanna, who is a professional photographer, sold me her Nikon D70 for a really great price. You'll see some photos from that very soon.

Kai has been biking machine on his red Radio Flyer tricycle. Every night he pedals madly through the neighborhood while we follow behind. Usually that means he passes out from exhaustion--usually....

Tea's had some great one-liners lately. The most embarrassing one luckily was not heard by the recipient:
"Hey mailman, I'm nakey butt. Know dat?"

And yesterday, when discussing camping on the way to South Dakota, Tea said,
"I don't want to go camping. I'll get dirty!" Where did she get that?

The little photo sequence above was too sweet not to include.

More soon, I promise. It won't be a month this time!

Conversations with Tea

"Mommy, why did Kai dump my oatmeal into his bowl?"
"Because you weren't going to eat it."
"Oh.... But I wanted it!"
"Sorry! I thought you were done."
"But I wanted it!"
"I will get you some after your nap."
"Okay... But why did he eat it???"

Leaving Isabelle's house:
"I miss Isabelle."
"You really like her."
"Yeah, I hug her."
"You can hug her the next time we see her."
"Okay. I love Isabelle!"

Walking out on the deck to address the neighbor's dog:
"Doggie, what are you woofing about?"

Driving home from the Farmer's Market:
"Hey Mama, look at those balloons!"
Long pause
(In a quiet little voice) "Maybe I could have one?"

My Baby Turned Two!

Springtime, the time of birth in our house for sure! I thought it was neat that the kids had birthdays so close together until this year when we had a bigger party for both of them. Jevon's mom and sister Tracey were in town and we had them over once the week before her birthday and then went to the Lake of the Ozarks to visit his aunt Pat the day before Tea's birthday. We were completely exhausted that night and still had to get ready for her party. I had been working on homemade decorations all week, luckily. But we still had to wrap and get the decorations up.

Tea woke up early to pee and probably would have gone back to sleep but brother was too excited. "Tea, it's your birthday! Let's go open your presents!" Okay, she shouted and off they went! He wanted her to open it all but I wanted to spread it out a bit. I had her place at the table set up with the birthday hat, Happy Kid flower essence, a picture book about spring, a pink plate for her birthday breakfast and some other goodies that are escaping me right now.

I made silver dollar hots from Joy of Cooking for breakfast--tiny little pancakes made with mostly yogurt. They are much more delicate than regular pancakes so writing Tea's name was harder and then she started eating before I got a picture! She got to help me make them and I let her grind the coffee too--boy did that make Kai mad. I was worried that was how the rest of our day would go too. He really likes to help cook but she should get to as well. The balancing act one must do with two kids!! After breakfast, the kids played in Kai's room and listened to the Happy Birthday song on the CD player over and over.

Grandma Janice and Tracey showed up shortly after breakfast and they were just in time to sing Happy Birthday to her at her official birth time of 10:32 a.m. I am such a bad mom that I don't have her birth story written yet--it's in my journal, the memories are there. It's just not in a lovely form like Kai's. Oh, the second child. Poor things they are. Loved no less but sometimes they get the shaft. Anyway, we lit a candle and sang Happy Birthday. It will never cease to amaze me how a child lights up when they hear that song, even one year olds. They know it's special and just for them!

Next, we headed to Rock Bridge State Park to hike the stairs and visit Devil's Ice Box cave. This was a significant place when I was 9 days past my "due date" and desperate to get my baby out. I had two overnights of labor that petered out every morning when I woke up and heard my dad puttering about. I was afraid to go into labor with him here because I knew I'd be loud. He didn't quite understand. The day before I actually had Tea, Jevon and I decided to go have some alone time, at Dr. Allemann's suggestion and we hiked all of the stairs at Rock Bridge. I had contractions every 30 minutes to 1 hour and in the car ride home while having contractions, I wondered how women ever drive to the hospital in labor. It was hard to be in the car.

I wore Tea in the backpack as we started to hike, and nearly died! How did I ever carry 50 extra pounds of body weight and hike? Luckily, Tea was being very "two" that day and wanted to walk up the stairs herself. It was a lovely day and the mossy green everywhere gave us hope for spring (which is quite late in arriving this year).

Lunch was outside at Flatbranch. Tea's not so much a pizza gal like Kai. My little "meat eat girl," as Kai calls her, enjoyed some of my bratwurst and applesauce. Back at home, we rushed to make a buttery spice cake with honey lemon glaze, fresh raspberries and Sun Drops, while Tea took a little snooze. Tracey arrived, Tea and I headed to get balloons, and then it was cake and more presents. Tea managed to wear her "cutey" dress long enough for me to snap some pictures. The kids had a blast with the punch balloons and then our guests left.

Then after the kids fell asleep, Jevon and I collapsed from pure exhaustion!

April Fool's

Geesh, how many holidays are there in Spring? We've never done much with April Fool's before but Kai seems to understand humorous things more now so it seemed like a good time to introduce it. We went to Family Fun's website (sorry can't figure out how to link it--www.familyfun.com) and printed out silly name tags such as "Harry Legs," "Ivana Fart," "Olive Yu," "Anita Shower" etc and the kids wore some. Then just before Daddy came home, we found a cute trick to play on him. We were in such a hurry that I didn't really think he'd go for it. As we peeked over the couch to see his reaction, I was surprised to see him looking over the chair to see if it really was me. "What the heck?" he said. Look at the first picture in this post to see if you get the joke. ;)

That night it was finally dry so we built a fire outside and grilled hotdogs and marshmallows. I wanted to do that on Kai's birthday but it was raining. As we were sitting on the old stumps by the fire, Tea kept saying "Ivana fart" and broke into laughter.

Quite the silly day!

Birth Day Remembered

I'm a bit behind on posting, so forgive me! Kai turned 5 on March 30. I can't believe it! It was fun to remember the day he was born and go back through old photos. I feel blessed that the memories of his birth are pleasant.

The days leading up to his birthday are almost unbearable for Kai. There's so much that's unknown, such as what presents will I get, what will we do on my birthday? Even though I work hard to make his birthday more than about presents, it's still what he looks forward to. So this year, I asked his friends to bring a recycled or homemade gift, a book, or a packet of seeds to his party. I wanted his presents to be small and meaningful.

Kai woke up at 5:40 am on his birthday, ready to go! He and Tea share a room, so he woke her up too, and said, "Tea, it's my birthday and there's going to be lots of presents and I'll share them with you." He went into his old room, which is now the craft room and beneath a purple playsilk, he found some beautiful handmade wooden squirrels hovering over a felted acorn. There was also a book called Spring filled with stories songs and poems of spring. My friend Chris made the squirrels and I felted the acorn the night before. We then ventured to the kitchen where another silk hid a plate with a birthday hat, a bottle of Happy Kid flower essence and a red plate (his favorite color) for his breakfast. I made pancakes and spelled his name with them.

Jevon and I spent the entire evening before his birthday decorating the downstairs and wrapping presents. I made a birthday banner, which you'll see in Tea's birthday pictures and folded about 40 paper airplanes and strung them up (I didn't take a picture of that yet). Oh, you can only imagine how much Kai loved that! He said "Oh, it's so pretty down here!!"

Lunch was at CiCi's pizza buffet. I think we've gone out for pizza every year for Kai's birthday, so this was a must!! Kai ate way more than he ever does at home. Then to the Party Outlet for balloons. There were no jet balloons so we got a Lightening McQueen balloon and five regular helium balloons.

Kai's friends Isabelle, Henry, Logan, Savannah, Aubrielle, and Grant came to his party. They had a wild time and Kai was kind enough to give a paper airplane folding lesson! Kai could hardly wait for the present opening so we went ahead with that earlier than scheduled, but before we did that, I read a story of how he chose us as parents and a little snippet from each year for the first five years of his life. Let me just add a little sidenote here because it's such an amazing story. Just a couple nights before his birthday, I was putting Kai to bed and somehow we got on the subject of his birth. He said, "Mom did you feel my finger pointing at you?" "When?" I said. "When I was in heaven," he said. "Why were you pointing at me?" "I wanted you to be my Mommy! Did you feel my arms around you?" Did I nearly melt? Oh yes! What a surreal moment. That was the third conversation I've had with Kai about his birth or things beforehand. He's also told me what it was like when he was in my belly.

Present opening was a blast and Kai happily shared his gifts (this mama let out a big sigh of relief!)

Then onto cake--at least it looked pretty. It was a bit dry because Kai wanted a strawberry jam frosting with fresh raspberries and Sun Drops chocolate chips. The candles were extra long and quite lovely. And more wild playing and eventually the party was over. A fun day for Kai!!

Even though he isn't smiling in many of those pictures, he did have a fun day!!

Easter Bunny Pays a Visit

Whew! Are you sick of reading yet? Last night Kai realized that the Easter Bunny has never brought him a present--he has always hidden eggs though. Easter is always right around his birthday and I never thought to buy him more "stuff"!

Well, this year, I decided it would be okay if the Easter Bunny left what I thought would be tasteful and meaningful presents. Kai wrote the Easter Bunny a note and left him some carrots and lettuce (we figured out EB might not have left gifts because we weren't feeding him). The note to EB was Kai's first attempt at a joke: "Easter Bunny, Have you ever seen an Easter Bunny bringing tulips home?" We won't see Kai on Comedy Central anytime soon, but I thought it was an adorable little note!

Easter Bunny left each kid a lovely potted flower and he even got into my wool (according to Kai) and sewed and felted some little surprises: caterpillars in a leaf and little chicks. He was also nice enough to only leave each child 5 pieces of candy. Kai knew he had to wait to eat it until after breakfast, but Tea found her candy and ate it all at 7 am!

We started the day with a breakfast of creamed hardboiled eggs on toast. My all-time favorite breakfast! The rest of the day was LONG since Kai woke up at 6 am, but we had a good time and I'm glad it's over. Now I have to get ready for Kai's 5th birthday next Sunday and Tea's 2nd birthday the Sunday after that!!