Earth Day 2013

Happy Earth Day!
(well, yesterday, but it's Earth Day Everyday, right?!)

It's amazing how beautiful and complex plants and flowers can be.
As an ode to the day, I went around the yard and snapped a few shots of the flowers that are blooming in my garden right now. 


The climbing Jasmine is my current favorite because it smells so unbelievably fantastic.  We have a whole hedge worth, so it permeates the entire yard.

The Jasmine has started climbing up one of the near by Chinaberry trees.

 An elephant ear still holding some of the day's moisture

 

A Solenia Begonia with a big bloom.

Bush Daisies.  I just made this garden but they are a "Florida friendly" plant so they should tolerate a drought and a light freeze.    Trial and Error is how I learn when it comes to what I can plant.

 Tiny marigolds are good for the soil.

I found this bad boy at Lowe's this spring.  It's a Picassa petunia.  Cool, huh?  I have them in my planters and they are trailing and blooming fantastically.

A milkweed that I'm hoping multiplies like crazy.  These guys will keep Monarch butterflies coming to your yard year after year.

There is more, but it's all not blooming right now.   Which is good, I wouldn't want to put all my eggs in one basket.  I like a show for as many months as possible.  The amaryllis just got done their post winter show and the day lilies and lily of the Nile are about to start theirs.  My hubby's mom also scored some Easter lilies the day after for 50 cents each! Their bloom period is short and only once a year, but they do come back year after year.  And who could resist a deal like that?!  ( I got 12 )
Speaking of shows, if you live in Florida and want a plant that blooms a lot, is drought tolerant and can stand a freeze I would recommend double knock out roses.  The only complaint I've heard is the thorns, which of course, is just what you get with any rose. They are great.  Practically no maintenance.  Here's one that's started a new bud.

We also started a salad garden for Ryder.  He got a kit from Growums.com.  Very kid friendly, with free little cartoon veggie videos that narrate what should be happening week by week. He's already asking for the "stir fry" garden.  So, if you wanna promote some gardening skills or healthy eating check 'um' out.

After 6 yrs of living in this plant zone, I think I have finally figured out what does and does not make it here.  This year's garden should be the best yet, as mostly everything I planted last year came back!

As a special little treat, I got a few shots of this red-bellied woodpecker coming to and from his nest.   It's really fun to watch the male and female alternate feeding the babies.  You can barely hear the little peeps from the ground.  This Chinaberry tree has several nest holes where they have come back year after year.

Before I head out to plant some African Iris that my hubby's mom got for me yesterday, I leave you with an image of the wildest, ferocious, car chasing beast I know. 

A quick upcycle project

With the baby now totally mobile, our older son was having a hard time getting on the computer without little fingers trying to press, push or rip off the keys, mouse or screen.  This meant I was going to have to do a project....(yay!)
Conveniently, I had just purchased an old sewing machine desk at the thrift store for $15 AND had some gray paint in the garage waiting to bring new life to something!!
Sanding, priming and painting all went slowly, but smoothly.
I put the desk in place and it fit perfectly.  I grabbed our old computer chair out of the garage and........oopsie.....it doesn't fit under the leg space.  Not gonna work, now what?
I crossed my fingers and called my mother in law.  She had recently replaced her computer chair and I was hoping she still had the smaller wooden one.  I was in luck, she did.
Later that day, my husband grabbed one of the old beat up stools he used at his work bench in the garage and put it at the desk for a quick fix.
After staring at it, I realized it was perfect!  I could tuck it all the way under when it wasn't in use and it was less bulky that a chair with a back.
I had more paint from the desk, so all I needed was some fabric to cover the hideous, faded green pleather that was currently there.  My first option was just shy of enough to cover, so I went on the hunt.  I knew I had some left over outdoor fabric from years ago, that would be fine.  But, what I found instead would be much, much cooler. 
Old Jeans!
I split the inseam and it was just enough, not a millimeter to spare.  So perfect for a boys playroom stool!

Here is the Before....

 and After....

Cute, yet masculine, right?!  I totally love it!

My husband liked it so much, I did the other one too.  Now his work area in the garage looks cool, too.

There's the old sewing desk.  (Pardon the face, I took this pic on a day he was home sick)

Turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.  Now, I'm looking all over the house to see if there is anything else I can cover in old jeans.
;)

Keepin' it current

.....well, current in our minds.
We are in our mid-thirties and we like to think we are still hip.  I'm starting to sense that our infinite coolness may be slipping away from us, since we still like mostly the same things we liked before we were 30.  :/ 
Both boys have baby books with pictures and things that happened in their first year of life, who the President was, how much a stamp was, etc.
I sort of forget to update them after that, but who needs to when I have the internet.
Today, I'm gonna add some current commercials that make us giggle.
You never know what's gonna be on TV when they grow up.  I mean, when we were kids Mtv actually played music.....crazy, right?

So the insurance commercials seem to dominate right now. But at least they are competing with humor.  There's the Mayhem guy and the "everything on the internet is true."
I always get a chuckle from the "no mas pantalones". 

My other half likes "discount double check"

Ryder's favorite is probably the hamsters dancing.  He makes us rewind it when he sees it.

Tyce is only 1, so he's not into TV yet, but he loves the Fresh Beat Band, which isn't technically a commercial, but they do play little snip-its on Nick Jr.

He also just loves to dance, so if you play anything especially Bluegrass he'll do a jig.

If you ask us about movies, I don't think our answers today are "current", but I'll add them in because they have stayed at the top of our list.
My hubs would definitely pick The Rock.  I would have to say National Treasure.  I guess it's safe to say we like Nic Cage movies.  :)
The last thing we saw in the theater, I think was The Lorax, before that maybe Cars 2, both very hip and very current.
Our music choices are typically classic not current (Allman Bros and Grateful Dead).  Although, my hubby's favorite (Yonder Mountain String Band) is very current in the land of Bluegrass.  We do, however, tend to keep our phone ringtones or alerts hip.  This probably makes us look very, very uncool to the teens, but we think it's hilarious.
On that note, I'll leave you with my ringtone, which I'm just realizing is from last year...... 

The baby turned 1 and I haven't even had time to document it.

The baby turned 1 in January and it is clear that he is totally mobile now.  I haven't had time to sit down and type up anything about him.
The party was small, but successful.  The main event was the smash cake, of course.
Since this baby enjoys food so much, I knew our friends and family were gonna get a good show.  And the Meat didn't let us down, he practically polished off the whole cake.  It was awesome, amazing and almost sickening at the same time.

The past year has flown by and we've pretty much settled into a good daily routine.
Tyce has mastered walking and now working on running and climbing.  He can climb up the two-stair watermelon stool in the kitchen and the couch in the playroom.
He wakes up every morning anytime between 4:30 and 6:30 (obviously I prefer the latter).  Usually the first thing out of his mouth is, "Whrrraderr", which is baby for Ryder.  It's for sure the clearest and most used word in his vocabulary.  He also says, "Cat." and attempts to say "ooottsie" (Bootsie), which is the cat's real name.  "Hat" is the other clear word, but you can definitely distinguish between the two.  Most everything else is baby jabber, but he is pretty successful in getting his point across.
I would say his favorite thing to do is anything that his big brother is doing.  They have actually started playing together.  It's so amazingly cute and it melts my heart every single time.  His second favorite thing to do is eat and he is usually toting a cookie and/or his milk around with him.
As more words are spoken I'm hoping I have time to get on here and write it all down, but for now I can't waste anymore of this precious nap time on the computer.
Except to add a bunch of pics......

Oh yeah,
And....
I got a new camera for Christmas!!!!!
Best gift ever!
But that's a whole 'nother blog for another nap time.

Teacher Christmas Gift: DIY Crayon Wreath

Trying to come up with an original, heartfelt teacher gift can be tough.
Here's a fairly easy, super thoughtful craft that would look great hanging in the classroom. 
A Crayon Wreath.

It's colorful and you can add any cute, personalized kid art.

This particular wreath has two wooden embroidery hoops (6 and 10 inch),
two and a half 24 pack crayons, some ribbon, a few wooden shapes and plenty of hot glue.

I made one of these last year for his preschool teacher and gave it as an "end of the year" gift.
I basically used the same technique, with a few minor changes.
This time I tied the ribbon that would be used to hang the wreath to the actual hoop.  Last year I hot glued it.  Ryder colored the wooden heart, added his name and picked out the apple and owl to personalize it. 
Definitely lay out all the crayons first to make sure they are straight and you have enough.  I had to dig in to our reserves, as I only bought two boxes.  Luckily I had some unused ones on hand.
And be careful not to touch the tip of the hot glue gun to the crayon wax. I learned the hard way that the color will transfer to anything else it touches.
It came out great and I know she will love it!  
I think rulers and/or pencils would be cute too.  Maybe next time.....

Major Milestone

I believe I've said before that if given the opportunity The Meat would win a speed crawling contest.  The boy is fast and only getting faster.

But..... 

we may cross over to an upright position before he reaches top crawl speeds of 88 miles per hour. 

This week he's been standing...

On his own...

For almost whole minutes at a time.

He's 9 and a half months, so think it's safe to say he will be walking before his first birthday. 

 

  SO BIG.

 

We say, "How big is Tyce? (pause) Soooo Biggg!"  

He raises his arms above his head to show us just how big he is.  

We used to do the same thing with Ryder when he was a little tike.

It is one of the absolute cutest things of all time.  

What's even cuter is when his big brother says it out of the blue while he's using the playroom couch for leverage. Right on cue, he just raises 'em up.

  Just like that he's standing!  

On his own!

 The look of surprise on Ryder's face is priceless....it says it all.

Our very first kindergarten parent teacher conference

Ryder.  He's such an amazing child.
As a baby Ryder was very needy.  As in, always "needing" attention, always wanting to be engaged in an activity with another person and always wanting to learn.  He is still like that.  He loves to interact and share his findings and information.  He is constantly memorizing names of creatures and habitats. Whether he's learning about ocean animals or fictional moshlings, it's amazing to see his little brain stock piling all the information in front of him.
He started playing on the computer when he was two.  And back then it was mostly playing.  I would have to sit with him and navigate the pages.  He quickly caught on to the mouse and playing simple games on websites like pbskids and nickjr.  By four years old he was pretty much self sufficient.  Occasionally he needed a parent to read a tidbit or two, but that was it.  Words like 'log in, scroll down, click, website and .com' were in his everyday vocabulary. 
He would sit and listen to as many books as you would read.  Sometimes 4 or 5 in a row, fully attentive the entire time.  It's quite remarkable.  Now with a few months of kindergarten under his belt, he's learning to read.  I believe his desire to play all the computer and nintendo ds games on his own motivate him more.  I can hear him sounding out words from the other room on his own without being prompted.  It makes me so so proud.  Words cannot really justify the feeling, Like a peacock all puffed up showing off his feathers, that's how I feel.
Math seems to come easy as well.  I think all the sesame street and nick jr helped jump start this as well.  The basic sorting and counting that they are covering now are things Elmo and Mickey have been teaching him for years.
But there's nothing like getting the conformation from his kindergarten teacher.
As parents we think he's the smartest, funniest and best kid EVER!  When the teacher has nothing but great things to say, the proud parent feathers totally puff out.
Not only is he one of the top of his class, but he's polite, stays still and attentive and shares lots of stories with the class. 
Two stories in particular stood out with his teacher, Mrs. Pena.
One was a story about a mother chimpanzee taking care of a wound on her young.  The story was great, because Mrs. Pena was having a teacher observation day and the subject matter was animal families.  Ryder's story was relevant and in full detail.  Good job, buddy!
The second story was also relevant and quite comical to the entire class.  They were talking about firemen and their jobs.  Ryder shared the story of a time before his second birthday, when he got a potty training toilet seat stuck on his head.  Danny was working over an hour away so my mother and I had to call the fire department to help get it off.   He remembered all the details.  From describing the seat to the fire truck.  What I remember most is that as soon as the seat came free, Ryder looked up with a tear streaked face and in the cutest tiniest, voice said, "Thank you, Mr. Fireman."

I asked how hard of a time she has getting him to sit still and stay that way.  She said, "Ryder?  I never have to remind him to sit down or stay still.  He's so well behaved.  If I could I would take him home with me."   I couldn't believe it.  He's so active, constantly dancing around.  But now it makes more sense....all day he holds all that energy in.  He's focused and engaged.  When he gets home he's got a lot to release.  (A LOT)
We also learned that he is loved by the upper class kids, teachers and staff. 
In a nutshell our first ever parent teacher conference was a smashing success.  Our oldest boy is shining like the sun.
We are thrilled for him and love him so so much.
Keep up the good work buddy!  You're the best!
 And you gotta love those huge school picture smiles. :)  "Say Cheese!"