March 2013

March was a busy month!  The weather was still not warm, but we managed to get outside quite a bit. We got to go to Portland to visit cousins.  That was a lot of fun and we spent time in museums and around the house with them.  From Oregon we flew to DC to visit Dad.

The month started off with snow!  There wasn't enough to do much in it, but the boys took advantage of the last snowfall before getting ready for spring.  It's just fun to play in I guess.

The boys made a little "house" on the corner of the deck.  They have fun playing with random things they can find in and around the yard.

Transporting snow in the truck.

A variety of pictures the boys made one morning.  They enjoy paint.

Patterns!  If Justin does it, Ryan wants to do it too.

Once again, Ryan must do what Justin does.  :)

Justin has trouble with these words for some reason.  Maybe a bit of glitter glue will help glue them in his head.

I would explain this picture, but I don't know that I can.  Justin has made up some sort of game.  He loves using dice, spinners, game boards, and random toys to make all sorts of games to play.  Creativity can be a bit of a mess sometimes.

At Justin's school the boys participated in a balloon race.  Note: do NOT overinflate the balloons.  When they pop, it can scare everyone!

Ryan, Justin, and I went with my mom to the Mobius Science Museum in Spokane.  We had gone there with Rob in January.

St Patrick's Day is as exciting as other holidays.  The boys spent days working on their leprechaun traps.  This was our second year trying to catch a leprechaun.  We were still unsuccessful. :(

One of many leprechaun traps.

Yet another trap.

A simple trap with a note promising treasure.

Justin sorted 3-D shapes by color and shape.  He then multiplied to find out how many there were all together.  Ryan, Justin, and I looked for 2D and 3D shapes in the environment and they took pictures of some they found around the house.

Tinkertoys are always fun to build with.

Justin sequenced the "I have, who has" cards using his math skills.

We went to Oregon to visit our cousins.  They played a little ball in the backyard.

Justin found that he likes marshmallows beter straight out of the bag.  It's nice to sit by the fire though.

We made paper rockets and shot them off of a pvc pipe launcher attached to an air compressor.

September 2012

The big news for September?  Justin started kindergarten!  It is only a half day program here in Idaho so we still get plenty of time with him at home.  Ryan misses him, but the mornings go by pretty quickly.  Here he is on the first day of school.

Ryan does enjoy some alone time with Mommy.  Here he is riding around the block while I run beside him.  There are quite a few ups and downs that I don't really notice when I walk.  Somehow they are much more noticeable when I am pulling him along or slowing him down.

The boys both got the chance to play soccer.  Ryan did pretty well.  Unfortunately, when other kids would start to have separation anxiety he would join in.

Justin with the ball!  He has two practices a week plus games.  It gets old fast for me, but hey.

This playground is quite close to my parents' house.  Ryan and I spent an entire morning here while Justin was in school one morning.  Ryan loved it, but of course Justin was jealous when he found out.  We even got to see fire fighters practicing with their hoses.  One came over and gave us some stickers.

Of course why play on the playground when you can walk on rocks?  My boys can always find something to do.

I said it was too cold to go swimming, but that doesn't stop us from getting wet.

The boys take a rest at a table along the world's longest boardwalk.

Ryan was "helping" my mom to clean things.  He decided that his job involved filling up things with water and pouring the water somewhere else.  Many containers were filled, including his shoes.  It is amazing how much fun kids can have with water.

Justin got to help my dad stain the ladder.  He had so much fun with the project.  The quality of his work was questionable, but his method was quite entertaining.  I don't know if anyone has ever danced around so much painting a ladder.

The marbles were left out on the floor and Justin couldn't resist sorting them.  Ice cube trays are so much for for a lot of different things.

Leaves colored Fall colors and sequenced from largest to smallest.  Ryan's cutting isn't exactly on the lines yet, but that's okay.

The boys had so much fun this month with Tinkertoys.  They even enjoyed playing bird family with the big red plastic part stuck on a stick making up a bird.  There were various family members, but usually a Little Sis.  They boys made all sorts of swings, beds, forts, boats, and more for Little Sis.