The pool comes out

It's HOT! I mean, it's not hot like August, but it's April for goodness sake. The temperature should not be flirting with 90. It's a welcome break from the very cold spring we were having a week ago though.

Mam is likely to ask if she can "play in the water" at any ol' time of year, particularly, but not necessarily, if she's sitting in the sun in the car. Today was the first time in months that she actually got her way on this matter. Not that she doesn't get her way in almost every other area, of course.

Today, Daddy dragged out the pool and I helped the kids into their swimsuits for the first time of the season. They splashed while we gardened. And so it begins...

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Like the new look? I thought it was time for a change and somehow the previous template didn't feel so much like me. The photos look prettier on this dark background too.

So, it's spring, which means we were due for a massive gardening weekend. It turned out to be this weekend. Daddy repaired the raised beds in the garden a couple of weeks ago, so it was obviously time for me to make a trip to the nursery. I spared Daddy the torture of watching me impulsively buy as many little seedlings as I can possibly squeeze into the garden...and a few more just for fun. The fact that I spent less than $100 on plants was considered a major success.
I love this time of year. And it's not just because I get to go crazy the plant store. I love planting all those little seedlings and seeing all the new color in the garden. It's so fun to envision everything growing into a crazy, beautiful mass of colorful veggies and great big flowers.
It rarely turns out that way, of course! All the promise of the season has yet to meet my black thumb at this point. I think the snails could hear all that digging and their slimey little mouths started watering. I've created a virtual gastropod buffet. I love them that much.

I'm tired. I'm probably a little sunburned despite slathering myself in sunblock. The driplines are in. The Sluggo is on. And yeah, I'll be out there tomorrow inspecting everything over again.

School Things

It was the week before spring break, so naturally, there were "school things" last week.

First, there was Smunch's first display in the district-wide art show. They didn't pick anything all that exciting from his collection, but he was pleased to see it there and then go off to look for his friends' artwork.

Then we had the kindergarten open house. It was a really big deal for the kids. They each had a checklist of all the things to show their parents. I spend enough time in the classroom that I'd seen most of it before. So, I spent more time chasing after Mam as she visited this friend and that. The room looked great though. They do a much better job of showing of their artwork than they can do at showing off the more academic stuff, but face it amateur handwriting just isn't as pretty as a bunch of watercolor flowers on the wall.
The week was capped off by Mam's "Spring Sing" at preschool. It was as adorable as always. It never ceases to amaze me how they can get 100 preschoolers to sing a dozen songs with hand movements and everything.
And, as usual after these sing events, we all went back to the classroom for refreshments. The siblings who attended were invited to sit at the snack tables with the students. I'm not sure exactly how Mam felt about that. You?

True confession: I love my house

At many times of year, including the winter we've just come from, I forget why in the world we moved here. I wonder what possessed us to spent a ridiculous amount of money on a house we were so convinced was our dream house.

It's got some crappy layout issues. I hate to admit that the kitchen that so many people have complimented...it's really not our taste. Never was. And although the layout is great, the range is more of a beautiful kitchen decoration than a functional cooking unit. The windows leak because no one told us that they're "fake" double-paned windows, not real ones. It's cold, it's drafty, our PG&E bills are astronomical even though it's been insulated to the gills.

But then, round about now, spring comes. That day when we first saw our house was in May of 2005. It was spring. And it was the most beautiful house I'd ever seen in my life. Each year, when spring rolls around, I find myself pulling into the driveway and marveling that I live here. And then I whip out my camera and take the exact same pictures I took last year of all the same flowers and trees.



Well, this year, I planted some new flowers. Every year, the back yard is awash in forget-me-nots, so I decided to throw some tulips in there this year and see how it worked out. I need to plant more next year, but I'd call this experiment a success.
I'm looking forward to seeing this display again this year too, but we're not quite there yet...
Ah, Spring!

A Brush with Fame

A little more than a week ago, I got a phone call one evening. The voice on the other end asked if it was me. I said 'yes'. "This is Andy," he said and then because my "Oh, hi!" must not have convinced him that I knew who I was talking to, he added, "...Z."

"Oh, hi Andy! How are you?" So embarrassing to be caught out when my kids' foremost musical idol, Andy Z calls me on the phone.

Anyway, he was calling to invite the kids to a special concert he was doing at a real, live sound stage not-so-close to here. He's making a DVD as a demo and to sell, presumably.

So, no, there's not much of a brush with fame here. The closest we really got to fame was a little boy exclaiming just before filming, "I'm gonna be famous!" And, no, it wasn't Smunch.

But it felt kind of like the kids would be famous. Bright lights, high-quality video cameras, takes and re-takes. This was my view for most of the performance.
Obviously, my chair didn't afford much of a view of the proceedings, but it was so much fun hearing about 40 of Andy's biggest fans singing along, chattering in the breaks, laughing and smiling. Smunch and Mam intially stuck together like sticky bubblegum, but Mam eventually made friends with another little girl, who was probably in kindergarten. They chatted and held hands during parts of the performance. Daddy got this more comprehensive photo of the event.
The kids had a great time...and while some of the other kids had meltdowns or were waaay to hyper by the end of the show, ours behaved like little angels. It's a weird side effect of being happy and having us mostly out of their line of sight. After hugs with Andy (and a hug for Mam from her new, nameless friend, also pictured), we were off to lunch and some unsuccessful letterboxing...made successful when a freight train went over the railroad bridge we had just walked under. A good day, all in all!

A Pressing Need for Caffeine

This morning, I'd finally cajoled the kids into getting into the van...by yelling down the hall, "Bye, see you later!!!" and headed towards the door. It's one of the more foolproof bluffs I've got left in my flagging arsenal. We were going to the park, you'd think they'd be more interested.

I pulled out of the driveway and about 50 feet from the house, decided I needed to go back.

Smunch: What??

Me: I forgot my coffee. I'm backing up.

Smunch. Why is THAT so important???

Someday, my dear boy, you will understand.

A hobby just isn't a hobby without Michael's

Seriously. If you haven't spent at least $50 at Michael's for it, can you really call it a hobby...or at least a crafty hobby? (I know I can spend far more than that at REI, for instance.)

During our last letterboxing trip, I ran across a comment from a person by the trail name Wascally Wabbit. The comment sounded seriously dismayed that there weren't more hand-carved stamps in the log book. His/hers is naturally hand carved and pretty cool. It always sounded like a lot of trouble to me. I can buy something way cooler than I could possibly carve. But have you priced rubber stamps lately? Yikes! If you're going to hide letterboxes...especially those likely to disappear, like our second one...I'm thinking a cheaper alternative is a must!

So, yesterday's trip to Michael's was in search of things I could use to carve an eraser into a cool rubber stamp. Eraser? Check. Exact-o knife? Check. Uh, that's really it. I don't know how my bill got so big. Must've been all that other crap in my basket.

Last night, I searched for some clipart and other things I could use as a template for a stamp. I wanted to carve a heron because I've got plans to put a letterbox where we often see a great blue heron hanging out. So, here goes...
Hey, not bad, if I do say so myself! So I tried an easier one. This time it was the all-seeing "Eye of Horus". Wow. This is so easy, I should probably never go to Michael's again...except to buy erasers and replacement knife blades!

Random Photos

This is sort of a "Where in the World are Smunch and Mam?" kind of post. I think today will be one of our last big letterboxing forays for a while. Smunch was decidedly grumpy about the whole thing. Despite a grumbling start, I think even Smunch had fun. We went to some neat places and and the weather was beautiful...although the wind was cold. Daddy stayed home to repair my garden boxes in preparation for my planting some vegetables sometime soon. Not sure who got the better deal. At least he got freedom from uber-grouchy Smunch.

Anyway, here are some photos from today in a bunch of not-totally-local spots where we tromped around, following clues and stamping in our logbook...

Yesterday...

Yesterday, Mam was 20 months old and her eye doctor decided she should really have glasses.
What a cutie! She was still so little that even the little girl glasses kind of took over her face.

Today, Mam is 4. And this is what those exact same glasses look like on her.Not really all that bad until you notice that the "arms" are all splayed out in their attempt to get to her ears.

So, today Mam got her very first pair of big-girl glasses. She saw the box in the mailbox and couldn't contain herself. "They're here! They're here! They're here!" She loves them. They're still pink...of course!

Happy Bunny Day!

Now that I've finally gotten to blogging about our day, it's nearly over. In most respects, it's been a great one. The kids got up painfully early this morning, but when Daddy came out to check on them, they were watching Reading Rainbow. When he told them not to eat the candy in their baskets, Smunch said, "Oh, it's Easter, isn't it?" Duh.

It took them no time to work themselves up into an excited frenzy after that. So, Daddy and I were out in the backyard giving helpful suggestions and hints where to look for eggs well before 8 o'clock...an hour I consider barely civilized. I tried to take pictures of the egg hunt, but the kids were running around so fast, it looked like a blur, even in real life! Fortunately, I think it still captures their unbounded enthusiasm pretty well.
I think they must've found at least two dozen eggs. Probably more if you count the half dozen real eggs (as opposed to candy-filled plastic) they found. But it was all over in a flash. Phew. And then it was time for the great pouring of candy...out of the eggs, into a big bowl where it could be adequately oggled.
Gram and Grandpa joined us for the wonderful cinnamon rolls with waffles, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, coffee and orange juice. Once breakfast was over, I felt the need to get out of the house. Daddy felt the need to do taxes (are you kidding me???) on this beautiful day, so I piled the bikes in the mommymobile, lured the kids into the car with promises of crossing a big bridge. We took off just before noon.

And guess what we did? Oh, right. Like you didn't know already, huh? This time we got to get out on our bikes on paved trails. Mam had kind of a hard time on her little bike with training wheels. The trails may have been paved, but they weren't flat. It was a lot for a tiny pair of legs to handle.Here's the teeny tiniest letterbox I've ever seen. It was attached by magnet to the bottom of a bench. So cool.

Then we headed over to a historic farm in the area, which naturally also contained a letterbox, but of greater interest (at least to you), it was also beautiful and had a bunch of new lambs tottering around on their gangly new legs. Very, very cute.
I wish you could tell that Mam was skipping in this picture. And yes, that's her Easter dress. Yes, she went bike-riding in it. No, I couldn't get her to take it off. Whatever.
Around 2:30, we headed back over the big bridge...made even more interesting by having to stop and pay the exorbitant toll. Then we stopped at a wetlands preserve and walked around there for a while. The kids were surprisingly game for all of this. On the whole, there was very little whining. They got to see some jack rabbits, lots of small aircraft landing at the nearby airport, flocks of geese, billions of ducks...oh and a couple of runners who walked past as we were walking out of the restroom. These two guys were shirtless and Mam loudly declared, "They're NAKED!!!" They didn't seem to notice. It probably wouldn't dawn on them that a four-year-old might refer to them that way. They did, after all, have shorts and shoes on!
They had a terrific time tromping around. We didn't get home until 4 o'clock. Sleep came easily tonight!

Cinnamon Rolls

I'm not about to start a foodie blog or anything, but I'm going to take a minute here and say, I made the best cinnamon rolls for Easter! Oh, er, I mean Mam and I made the best cinnamon rolls.
Cinnamon rolls being sort of a yeasty kind of thing, I had to start them before the ballgame yesterday. And Mam helped. She watched the mixer very carefully and offered to taste the dough at just about every stage.
We'd already planned a meal of waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, but Smuch announced a few days ago that we had to have "those swirly things". Um, right. Of course. We hardly ever have those swirly things and I think I've only tried to make them once in Smunch's lifetime. They didn't turn out great. But these? Awesome!

Oh yeah, and the waffles were kinda good too.

Opening Day, Take 2

Last year, I used the event of Smunch's first day as a baseball (well, T-ball) player to start my very own blog. Opening Day seemed like the right day to do that. So, it's only appropriate that I should catalog this year's opening day as well.

This year, Smunch is playing in a new league...because PONY Baseball uses the field at his school. Of course, none of his games are actually at his school, but that's beside the point. So, we've got a new color (orange instead of teal), a new mascot (a bird instead of a snake) and a whole new lineup. I'm happy. It's a great group of kids...and more importantly, it's a great group of moms, who all have kindergarteners at the same school.

Smunch even has friends on this team...
...which means I have friends in the stands.

This year's opening day was far less painful than last year's. Instead of a big ceremony involving the entire league and hours in the hot sun, an "official" from PONY Baseball came and talked for about two minutes, the kids from both the Orioles and their opponents, the Mets, were officially introduced and it was time to PLAY BALL!...
...or to sit for a very long time squinting into the sun because a)you were put last in the batting order and b) you refuse to wear your hat.
Smunch proved last year that he's not really all that good at hitting off a tee. He's better when being pitched to, but he did pretty well...you know, considering no one keeps score.

And Mam? Well, doesn't she look like the picture of a true Oriole's fan? All thanks to her brother refusing to wear his hat, of course. What's up with that anyway???
Despite how happy she looks, Mam was bored to death by the whole affair and had a must-be-touching-Mommy-at-all times moment to top that off. It didn't matter that her Sarah was there. She would do nothing without Mommy. And poor Mommy just wanted to see her kid play baseball! Waaah!

Of course, the truth of the matter is, even Smuch, in all his sports fanatic glory, couldn't quite maintain his enthusiasm for the entire game. He looks pretty bored here, huh? He's playing third base...and check it out! He's got his hat on now that the game's almost over!