Jude's Shoe Obsession

 This is Jude....
He has opinions...
Strong opinions...
One such opinion is about shoes...
Shoes!
He will not wear boots. Either the boots that fit or the boots that are slightly too big.  I gave up on boots this winter.
He would wear his blue Croc shoes all the time if we let him.
Blue shoes!
His previous favorite shoes were pink Croc shoes that I had picked up at a rummage sale.
Pink shoes!
Crocs!
Well, the favorite blue shoes are growing worn and I fear they won't last through the spring, let alone the summer.  The stores are already gearing up for the summer months, so sandals are all out and on sale currently.  We decided to go ahead and pick up some shoes for the boys for our future beach adventures (as soon as the weather warms a bit).  We found some off-brand croc-like shoes.  Tamlin picked out a pair of red ones.
And Jude?
Well...
Jude picked out the pink alligator / triceratops ones.

Brian and I looked at each other and shrugged.  I told Brian that I didn't mind our son in pink shoes if he didn't.  It certainly isn't a battle I care to fight and I have to problem letting him express himself as long as he wears shoes. Brian didn't care about the color either.

So Jude now owns pink alligator shoes.

We needed cookies

 We needed cookies in the house.  I had raspberry Hershey kisses that were just screaming to be used.  The boys helped with adding the ingredients and working the mixer.  Tamlin is getting good at actually helping.   Though sharing the tasks evenly between two boys can be difficult...especially if both want to dump in the same ingredient.  However, being the clever momma, I now divide the portion called for in the recipe into two so that each boy can add some.  Takes a bit longer, but way less fits.  Tamlin did want to add sprinkles, but I didn't think that was needed this time :-)

Just a simple sugar cookie with the kiss in the middle.  Next time I think I will try a chocolate cookie to compliment the kisses.

They were gobbled up quickly!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Mom Sale

 First Mom Sales of the season...and my first Mom Sale in our new area.  I had the Saturday off so I decided to take Tamlin out to sales.  We were going to hit two sales, the first of which was a "big kid" sale, only 5T and larger.  (I was pretty stoked to go to this one).  I decided to have Tam come with me as an outing for the two of us.  I gave him his little jean bag and $6 to spend.  Tam is gaining the hang of snagging the deals, so I was confident in his price saviness.  He's become so trained that he is always looking for sales at the stores too..."Look, mom,  this toy has a red arrow and sale sign, can we get it?"  or "Oh, mom.  I want this one...oh, no sale...maybe next time, mom"  (too cute).

How did we do?
Total score!  $50 and about 50 items...included needed shorts and summer pajamas, several books, a couple of transformers, a few cars,a video game, and ...
A bucket of hexbugs (Tam's score)
and...
A telescope! (my score).
The lady selling the telescope said her daughter only used it a couple of times when she was around 12years old.  I scooped it up, figuring even if it didn't work or was missing a lens, $8 wouldn't be too much of a loss.  Well, the telescope totally works wonderfully...we just haven't had a clear night yet to actually look at the stars instead of just our trees.

The hexbugs were sold by a lady that didn't know their worth.  Just one of those little beasties is sold for $5 at the store...and here was four bugs and a bunch of track.  The concept of these is simple...little buggies that jitter around a little course that you can modify easily.  Simple as they are, both boy really enjoy playing with them.

Can't wait for the next sale!

I love that little Jude's tongue sticks out when he is thinking really hard.