Hats

The kids got crowns at Joy School this week, and Skyler wanted to make one for Jonah. Jonah likes it so long as it doesn't fall down into his eyes.

Skyler was jealous of Jordan's UA hat and wanted to make a "wildcat" hat for himself.  He did the front part (copying the wildcat that was on Jordan's hat) and the band, and then wanted me to make something that would cover his hair.  So, with our combined efforts, this is what we came up with.

Duck Pond

Today, Jordan had the morning off, so we spent the morning at the Duck Pond at UNM.  Primarily because Jordan wanted to take a picture of the clock tower there at a specific time so he could contribute it to something called the World Clock Project, but we also went because it would be fun.  It was a great spot that I'm sure we'll return to.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We wore green.

 It's blurry, and the darn vacuum is in the way, but oh how I love Jonah's cheesy grin.

We picked up all the green toys in Skyler's room.*

We pulled out a green playing piece from another game so Skyler and I could both have green pieces when we played Candyland.

We ate green pasta and chicken (spinach pesto pasta with chicken)

We made green cupcakes.

Trust me, they are green.  Sort of green.  They looked greener before I baked them.

I was too lazy to make frosting, so after awhile I just topped one with whipped cream and sprinkles.  Skyler approved.

*Skyler picked up the green things.  I picked up everything else.  Fun St. Patrick's Day activity or clever way to get Skyler to clean his room?  You decide.

This Week

And by "this week", I mean since the last post.

We visited a new to us park.

Most nights, Skyler and Jonah grabbed their little notebooks and took mine and Jordan's "dinner after dinner" orders.  Jonah just mimics everything that Skyler does (in this case, not always) and it's just adorable.  Jonah will come up to me or Jordan and say things like "drink?" or "treat?" and then after we respond, he'll scribble something on his notepad.  Then he and Skyler go off to their play kitchen and cook our food.  Sometimes.  Sometimes they just take our orders.

Jonah calls Skyler "that". I wonder what it is that makes him call him that.  At first I thought maybe it's because we always say, "Jonah, who's that?" and point at Skyler.  But we use the same format for me and Jordan and Jonah will always respond with a daddy or mommy.

I blew the dust off of one of my Tae Bo DVDs and Skyler did it with me.  He's now slightly obsessed.  Jonah is even asking to watch it.  Jonah just watches Skyler and me exercise, so maybe he just thinks we look funny and enjoys watching us?

Skyler went out for a run with Jordan on Sunday afternoon.

Jonah says "Mommy, are you?"  when he's trying to find me.  It's so dang cute right now that I don't know if I should run out and give him a big hug or stay hidden so I can listen to him say it longer.

Skyler is in a big independence phase.  He is really into making his own sandwiches.  On Sunday morning, Jordan came downstairs and there were four turkey sandwiches on the counter for Skyler and Jonah to eat for breakfast.  He likes these things to be a surprise, so he gets mad each morning if he wakes up after me or Jordan because he says he can't make breakfast if we are already awake.

Making a Treat

Last night, the boys helped me make some rice krispy treats. I had some stale marshmallows that wouldn't even work in the marshmallow shooters. Apparently the stale ones don't measure the same as the fresh ones because there wasn't nearly enough melted marshmallow to go around, and the marshmallows appeared to harden right back up after they cooled. So we just ate most of them right away, nothing wrong with that, right?

Pennsylvania

Jordan had some training in Pennsylvania (where we lived for two years while he was going to school), and the boys and I were lucky enough to be able to tag along. Getting there was quite a headache (and ended up cutting our trip a day short) but once we made it we had a wonderful time.

One of the last things we did was visit the creek (that's a river to you Arizonans) that we spent a lot of time at when we lived there. The yellow house peeking out through the trees is where we used to live.

 

And just because I'm nostalgic like that:

 

Hands On House

While in Pennsylvania, I took the boys to Hands on House.  A neat children's museum that I never took Skyler to when we lived there because I didn't think he was quite old enough to appreciate it!

 

Afterwards, I took some pictures of Skyler enjoying the snow, this is definitely a first!  Perhaps we've always just had him bundled up too much, seeing as it was no more than 30 degrees out and he refused to put his jacket on. 

  

And this is Jonah chilling at the hotel eating some chocolate.  The first picture didn't turn out great (the flash was off) but the re-creation just isn't quite as cute. 

 

Bowling

One night in Pennsylvania we went bowling.  It was the first time for the kids, and we wanted to surprise Skyler, so we didn't tell him what we were doing until we got there.  That really annoyed him!  He did a great job and was so sweet to let Jonah have some of his turns.

You Can't Forget About the Chocolate!

One afternoon we drove up to Hershey to go to Chocolate World, where there is a ride that is essentially a fake tour of the factory.  At the end, you get a free piece of candy.  It's something we did quite a bit when we lived there.  Apparently we felt that a 30 minute drive was worth a free piece of candy?  There's also a store full of candy that isn't out on the market yet, so that's always fun to check out.  At one time, there were these Hershey bars with raspberry chips in them.  Apparently we didn't buy enough, because I never saw them in stores. 

The boys thought the ride was a lot of fun and spent the whole time just staring.

Then we did this factory experience thing that is really quite lame, but Skyler thought it was fun.  You just watch the hershey kisses go down a conveyor belt and the push a button to let some out to fill your container.  Then you put them on another conveyor belt.  It's probably about as exciting as working in the actual factory.  Anyway, that's all free (and so is the hat), but if you want the packaged candy and the factory worker tag, they can be yours for a small price.  I remember once when my family came to visit, my mom bought the package because Skyler was just too cute in his picture for the tag.  What a waste, I thought, but then I succumbed this time around!  We were on vacation after all.  I'll have to dig out the tag from when Skyler was a baby to show it to him.

And from back in the day:

Hershey is good and all, but all of Lititz knows that Wilbur Chocolate is where it's at.  We had to stop by their shop and pick up some to take home.  Here's Jonah admiring the candy confections and Skyler checking out his chocolate fortune.

There was so much that we just didn't get to do, but still we had a great time.  We did have the opportunity to visit with some friends (the ones who weren't sick!) which was lots of fun.  I was sad that the snow never really melted - I had wanted to take the boys to the park.  I guess they'll just have to experience playing on a clean and graffiti free park another time.