Art Project...

...gone totally awry.

Swim Trunks

It's 42 degrees out. Matthew is wearing Spiderman swim trunks. He feels it's the perfect outfit for sidewalk chalk drawing. It might be a long day!

On Moms

Matthew: ...but I want my mom.
Me: You want me? (said as I was teasing him.)
Matthew: (delivered as an adult would) Do I have another mom?

The kid kills me. He gets funnier every day.

Looking forward

Matthew is already looking ahead to Valentine's Day and making a huge chain to decorate the whole house with. We've been talking together about making 70 valentines to give out at our various schools. And in my own head I've been wondering why it feels like everyone around me is pregnant. At least 2 moms at school and 3 people of blogs I read. I know that isn't close to everyone around me everyday, but it does touch on the biggest question in my mind. To get pregnant or to never be pregnant again, that's the question. One that I don't know if I'll ever get the bottom of.

Cotton Bowl

Fight you K-State Wildcats, for alma mater fight!

Sigh

Congratulations Jayhawks! You won this round.

Thanksgiving and Christmas

At preschool this year they made thankful lists at Thanksgiving and lists of what Christmas was about. Here are the highlights or giggles.

Thanksgiving Thankful list:
Under "books, toys, and games": train with animals on it (he doesn't have one-saw a baby one in the store!)
Under "the best things about home": taking a nap (really that's the best part?)
Under "tv and movies": my poppas news I like alot of them (hehe)
Under "trips I've enjoyed": to Kansas City-we ate strawberry icecream (did you feed him icecream Auntie?)

About Christmas list:
It snows because it's Christmas
People play snowball fights which I've never played before
My favorite Christmas song-"Over the Rainbow"
I'll get my mom a star wars movie and my dad would like one too
Santa comes
He lives at the northpole and of course his elves make presents, they are busy

There was many more of course, but I thought these were some of the cutest.

Winter garden

My assistant gardener is having many problems with his snout lately. I don't know how he manages such things. Cuts all the way up the snout, feet that he keeps slicing open (a whole paw pad sliced in half last spring), I just give up. I may have to hire a less accident prone assistant. Moving on to the real story...

Because I'm such an awesome dedicated gardener I always clean up the garden immediately in the fall. I wouldn't have soaker hoses still down or ornamental garden stakes all over the ground. I'd certainly never leave frost killed plants in the ground. *insert sound of clearing of the throat here*

Ok, so I hardly ever clean up the garden, but it might have finally paid off. I found a carrot yesterday! People laughed at how thickly Matthew sown them. By the end of the summer, they weren't even close to being ready, but now they are looking a little like carrots, 8 months later. We'll have to see if we till up full sized baby carrots in the spring.

Exercise, trains, and more excercise

Happy New Year everyone!

Holiday season

It has been a long holiday season. One that ended up overwhelming me. There just wasn't enough time to get stuff done!

It started with hiking, when there was a spare moment.


Matthew played outside in the warm weather.

Dec. 20th we got our first snowfall that stuck. A dusting, but it gave Matthew an excuse to use his Spiderman snow boots.

Christmas Eve day Matthew had a great time hanging out with his Auntie. He got 2 pairs of overalls from her and they have been a huge hit. He wore a pair to Christmas Eve service!

Auntie, Matthew, and I went to Christmas Eve brunch where my Grandmom lives. She has been having a really rough time since the stroke. Probably a combo of the stress of surgery and stroke back to back, cold turkeying off depression meds, dementia, and lots of new meds. As they try to figure out what meds work and are needed, we never know what kind of a day she'll be having. Luckily, she had a good day Christmas Eve.

I realized I never took 1 picture of Phil being home or Christmas. The part of me that craves having photographic memories is very sad, but the part of me that feels I miss out on memories by spending some much time behind the lens, doesn't. We had Phil for 5 blissful days. Matthew and I took him to the airport yesterday morning. I was worn out by Christmas Day, but I rallied. My Mom was sick with the flu Thursday night till Monday. We all got tons of lovely things this year. I still have Christmas packages to send out. My motto this Christmas is, "A day late, dollar short." Sigh. One of Matthew's favorite gifts is this track set. It is out a significant amount of time every day!