I take loads of random pictures on my camera…and what do I do with them? Post them here – with captions!

This was taken in January. We’ve been sadly lacking in the snow department this year and Brady has tried in vain to make a snow angel all year (the last one he made was basically in frost and looked like nothing more than a couple bare patches of grass among the rest of the frost-covered lawn). We got a couple decent dustings in January and Brady begged me to take a picture of this one that he was able to make on the  driveway (see the grass in the distance barely covered?)

“See mom! I made one!!”

For some reason, the day before the boys went back to school from their Winter Break, I thought it would be SUCH a fun family thing to buy a puzzle! Aiden helped me sort the straight pieces for the frame and sort of hung in there a few times helping look for specific things, but for the most part, this became a me and Brian project. It sat on our table for about three weeks until one Saturday, we sat down for 3 straight hours in PJs drinking coffee while the boys ran rampant around the house and POWERED through it. It was actually a nice experience (for the two of us). On the various occasions when we would make tea / coffee / wine and sit working on the puzzle, we would share a common goal: overwhelming frustration that we couldn’t find the ONE THING we were searching for. This is what I learned:

1. I would do this again…maybe…but not on the dining room table because we had to eat at the counter for 3 weeks.

2. I would wait a couple more years – maybe gain a couple helpers

3. Brian and I tackle these sorts of things in very different ways. I would work on a section at a time, building in from the edges while he would create these sort of satellite groupings of puzzle parts that we worked in as I filled out the design. We make a good puzzle team.

I love the little grey sea turtle  

…and the little guy with the big eye! This puzzle was called “100 Turtles and a Hare” – there was 1 rabbit in there somewhere!

This is Logan doing what he loves: using Google to search for specific images, copying and then pasting them into MS Word, moving them around and adding titles. I think it’s a nice “my first word processing” type thing. We have about 10 “books” he’s started and never finished. Tonight’s book was entitled “Red Tailed Hawks” <—his current favorite animal.

This was a series of soccer “mini posters” he created one night. I believe the one he made after this had the title “We are a Soccer Family!” on it. He hung them all on the bulletin board on the wall by his bed. So cute! Don’t tell Nike we borrowed their logo! ;)

Kindergarteners in our school were each asked to create a collection of 100 items for their 100th day of school. My rainbow-loving Aiden decided he wanted to have 100-hand-drawn rainbows.

I told him I would make a page and he could draw, say, 20 rainbows and we could copy it, but he insisted that would be cheating. So…he drew 100 of them by hand on square grids I made for him. He did, however, follow my “efficiency suggestion” and draw the red on each square, then the yellow, then the orange (oh – this boy KNOWS his rainbow color order!) It took him about three days, but he didn’t complain once!

Brady brings home some super cute projects from school. If he’s got something special in his bag, he usually tugs it out on the ride home and says something like, “you’ve got to see this COOL thing we made today!” This was a rain shower! His enthusiasm made it all the more adorable.

Brady also brings home some cute projects that mommy does NOT quite love. I save all the artwork the boys bring home from school, pile it around my house and eventually take pictures of it to make books. All cuteness and cleverness aside, ANYTHING COVERED IN GLITTER IS IMMEDITAELY THROW AWAY. I hate craft glitter. I learned this lesson LONG ago when I let a then 3-year-old-Logan play with it and subsequently banned it from my house. Dental hygiene lesson – good! Adorable teeth craft project – great! Glitter?! Oh heck no! In the trash you go!! Case in point, after I took this picture, I had to clean the counter top in the kitchen, the floor, Brady’s backpack, Brady’s face, my hands, my face and my cloths. I’m not going to post here what I call glitter…it’s not for public consumption! ;)