Little moments

With all of chaos of new job, mom's surgery, moving, and trying to sell the house, I have really tried to find little moments each day to appreciate.  These just seem to be a minute or two where the universe goes. .. "Here.  Chill out.  Look at this at just be for a few seconds."   

In return, my soul feels better afterwards, even if it is just by a little bit.

Examples of late :

Damselfly flitting over the orchids

A green frog hanging out on a leaf

Two herons flying close by

Two hawks sitting on the telephone wire a few miles apart

A bald eagle flying close enough to see that it was a bald eagle

A wonderfully beautiful seashell

And then sometimes the universe laughs in my face...

Tamlin has taught Jude how to make fart sounds.

Where hippies go to retire

Our new time has a very laid-back vibe to it...

Very relaxed...

There are lots of people with longish hair

There are lots of tattoos showing

There are bikes on sidewalks that are not chained up and not stolen

There is support for music

Many people make eye contact, smile, and say hello...

I joke that I think this is where hippies all congregate when they retire...

What sealed this thought was a bit of graffitti on a bench in one of the parks in town

It wasn't a swear word...
Or that Joe loves Sue 4-ever..
Or that Class of 2012 rules...

Carved simply into the wood was that "It's better to burn out than fade away"
Thank you, Neil Young.

Games

When I get home from work, I often have time to play with the boys before dinner.  Sometimes we play with the wooden trains, or Geotrax (big favorite), or racing games on the wii.  We also play board games too...well, Tamlin and I follow the rules and Jude makes up his own.  More often than not, the rule is let everyone play and stay happy.

Our current favorites are...


Ants in a can
Gift from the Aunts for Christmas

Goal: push on plastic ants to hop them into Oscar's garbage can. 

How we play:  get the ants in the can by any means before Jude grabs them and dumps them into the can by the fistful.

What it evolves into:  Dropping the ants into the can by any silly means, including jumping, hopping, or dropping them from over your head...and then dump them out on your brother.


Hullabaloo
Picked up at the second hand store

Goal:  Listen to the voice say what color, shape, or theme to card to move to in some silly fashion.  Randomly calls stop and declares a winner.  It is like a funky twist on musical chairs.

How we play:  listen and move to the correct shape in the most fun way possible.  Jude just runs around in circles.  Be funky!

What it evolves into:  Lots of silly dance moves and Tamlin re-arranging the shapes.  Jude really likes this game so he is up to playing it over and over and over again.




Don't sink in the sink.
Tam picked this one off the shelf at the second-hand store

 Goal: move your dudes from one side of the board to the other by placing them in slots.  However, some of the slots allow the dude to slide through to the bottom of the sink. 

How we play:  Jude gets all the left-over dudes and randomly places them in the slots.  Tam and I try to move our dudes across the board and maneuvering around Jude's dudes.

What it evolves into:  Jude eventually runs out of dudes by putting them all into the "sink" slots...he may try to take someone else's  dudes that are on the board.  Tam tries to "feel out" the slots and changes his mind if his dudes start to sink.  Sometimes someone wins, but other times it is all about seeing how many dudes fall into the sink.

Kerplunk
Bought cheap at a church rummage sale

Goal:  The sticks go through the center of the plastic tube creating a webbing that holds up marbles.  Players take turns pulling out the sticks and avoiding dropping the marbles.

How we play:  First we see how fast we can all put the sticks in before Jude gets tired of sticks and starts dumping in the marbles.  Then we take turns pulling out the sticks, but the winner is who gets the most marbles, not the least.

What it evolves into: Tam and I try to get all the marbles to fall before Jude decides to stop pulling sticks and instead decides to scoop up the marbles to put them back in the tube.  Sometimes it breaks down into seeing how many sticks they can drop into the tube or how many marbles they can get stuck in the tube with the falling sticks.  Game ends when someone tries to eat a stick or marble.


Good times :-)

Lorrain County Fair

We hit up our second county fair for the season, the Lorain county fair. 
We went after work on Wednesday, so it wasn't too crowded.  This is one of the larger fairs, and was a combination of adult and junior showings.  We walked through the junior animal barns and the boys had fun talking to the animals.  At the time we were there, the ponies were being shown with their kid riders.   Tam was fascinated at being that close to horses being ridden around the field (he was at the fence).  Jude kept insisting that the mottled horses were cows.  When I corrected him, he would make his horse sound..."hee-haw."

 Jude: Tractor! Tractor!  My Tractor!

Translated: Can we take this tractor home? 

 Tamlin:  Look at these huge wheels!  Take my picture in the wheel, mom!  Look I'm a bridge!
Translated: I'm cute; Mom, you always take our picture in the big tractor wheels.

Me:  Hey, boys, let's get a photo of you two together in the wheel...
(This is the only shot of a dozen where they are looking at me at the same time.)

Of course, we had to get greasy fair food...like a bucket of fries and fresh squeezed lemonade.
And then Brian found...
Fried Cheese Curds made with Wisconsin Cheese!
We haven't eaten good cheese curds since Minnesota...they are so decadent and so bad for you.
Yummy!

Tamlin tried one and decided they weren't for him.  Jude, however, thought they were awesome.

We walked all over the fair and ended up in the game and ride area right before going home.  We usually never play the games (all rigged and giving away crap prizes).  However, there was skee-ball...and it was only a quarter for a game.  I, for once, had 25 cents.  Tam has played before, but mostly on the iPad.  He wasn't ready for it to be such an incline and Jude tried to climb up the track after the ball.  The two boys got a grand score of zero, but had fun.

 The rides were expensive and we weren't willing to pop for two wristbands for unlimited riding.  We compromised with 5 rides and told Tam to choose 4 (and hoped to find one for Jude).  Tam LOVES rides already and really wants to try the big rides too.  Thankfully, he isn't quite big enough for those yet, but soon.  He choose a mix of roller-coaster-like rides and swing-like rides.  Here is a bus that rotates in a circle up into the air.  Tamlin loved this and was grinning from ear to ear.
Jude wasn't as happy...  "My swing!  My swing!  Jude swing!" 

Right at the end, we found a ride that allowed little ones over 30" ride without an adult.  It was a scrambler-like ride but went pretty slow (no flinging the kids against the side of the cars).  Jude was super excited that he could ride, and super upset that he couldn't ride RIGHT NOW but had to wait in the short line for his turn. 

 Jude doesn't look so sure about this now.  

He did not want to ride with Tamlin but insisted on his own car.

 Once the ride started moving, Jude LOVED it.  He smiled the entire time!

 Tamlin had fun too...

 Tam insisted on making car sounds and funny faces whenever we waved at him :-)

Overall, the fairs were hits, though, I am sure we will have to budget more for rides in the future :-)

Bunk Beds

We got bunkbeds

...

Well, we had bunkbeds, but only had had one of the beds set up...

then we lost the screws to the other bed...

and then asked the company to send us new ones...

which they did...

and then we put the bunkbeds together.

And we tried to tell Jude not to climb up to the top bunk...

but this failed...

Jude still sleeps on the bottom bunk and Tamlin is on the top bunk ...
and so far it seems to be working out and Tam is ok with sharing his space during play time :-)

Family visits

This past weekend Nana Margie and Papa John visited (Brian's mom and step-dad).  They adored the only 2.5 hour drive instead of 7 hours. They came in on Friday and left Sunday afternoon.  I know our house is a little smaller here, but the weather was so nice we spent much of the time outdoors.

Tam spent much of the visit playing racing games with his Papa on the Wii.  I think Papa quite enjoyed it too.  They called each other "racing buddies."  Jude spent time enjoying all the attention and love from everyone.  I know I liked just having family here to hang out with and just share are fun little town with. 

Our friend Tom and his family came in on Saturday too...but they brought their own pop-up trailer to sleep in :-)  It was a bit of chaos, but a good chaos.




We walked to the beach down the road several times.  The waves were rough on Friday and Saturday, but calmed down greatly by Sunday morning.  The water was mostly clear and rather warm = great for wading and swimming.  With the wave action, our nearby beach was more rock than beach...but there was lots of driftwood for the picking.  The waves scared off any swimming, but we did have fun combing the beach for wood, beach glass, cool rocks, and treasure.  Both boys are fairly fascinated with rocks and create large piles of them (I have to limit how many can come home).  Tom collected drift wood for a decorating project for his house.  John was selected several sea bricks to become candle holders and Margie found some beach glass.

Tam insisted on wearing his goggles. 




However, on Sunday we went to the town beach and the water was much calmer.  Lots of swimming and splashing was done by the kiddos.  I couldn't believe how much Jude LOVED the water.  He waded right in without any prompting except to follow his brother.  And he kept on wading...until the water was right under his chin!  We all kept a very close eye on him, since it seems his fear of water has dissipated.  He even fell once or twice and pushed himself right back up off the bottom of the Lake.  We so need to get him lessons soon.

   

Kick, Kick, Kick, Jude!

Saturday night we roasted marshmellows over the grill and played with sparklers.  I wasn't even sure the sparklers would light since they were left from a mega-pack I bought way back in Minnesota in 2003.  The kiddos quite enjoyed staying up until dark, sugary marshmellows, and fireworks :-)



We did spend time at the farmer's market and showing off our quaint little town.  Tam did a good job pointing out the candy shop.  Jude did fairly well with an outing in underwear (potty-training success)...Here I'm jetting across the road to the bathrooms with the little guy.

We also insisted on getting ice cream and malts at the soda fountain...I think Tamlin got most of his into his mouth and not all over it.

 

The kids also showed off the swings in the park and the best places to watch the boats come in and out of the channel.  Brian and I had fun of dreaming of the day we could own one of the boats to cruise around the lake in :-)