Unfortunately he came home to one cranky kid, who had such a day that he actually did this;
He hasn’t fallen asleep at the table in ages! But the 2 year old attitude will certainly wear a person out.
It definetily seems like Jack has been the news-maker lately, and he has. So I want to give some props to Ry, for being an AMAZING big brother lately. You have done your mom’s heart good lately, kiddo!
We did it! We got out of dodge, made our way to the water, enjoying the warmth of the…car. 🙂 It really wasn’t too bad outside-50’s in Maine this time of year is flat-out wonderful. But it did eventually get a bit chilly on the beach, so I had to usher a couple of very reluctant boys back into the car. Here is how our day panned out…
Completely by chance, we drove near Bucksport just in time to see what all the fuss was about (there were so many people out and about!) Any little boy would be delighted to see this:
Excuse my technical terms, but Cianbro built about 50 of these massive thingamajigs that, I believe, have something to do with oil pumping or something, and I think they are going by sea to Texas. Heh. I saw the news report a few weeks ago and my memory is incredibly fuzzy. All I know is that it was a mighty big contraption and they’ll be taking quite a few of these trips to get them all to their final destination! It was a big hit today; there were crowds of people all up and down the coast watching it go by. Pretty interesting.
After that stop, we made our way to Searsport, and the kiddos played on the playground (first time this year!) and threw the obligatory rocks in the water. Then momma’s ears started to freeze, so it was time to pack up and go. But what fun it was!
We made it back home around 1:30; it was a full morning but absolutely wonderful.
A few minutes ago I finally put pictures in my frames, and I changed up my kitchen walls a bit. This is what it was before, but it bugged me; our kitchen has no symmetry at all, which makes decorating difficult, but I hope this looks a wee bit better.
(Sorry so dim! Flash or no, I couldn’t get it lighter. Just to give you an idea…)
The daisies are from my mom, and they have absolutely convinced me to keep fresh flowers in our house non-stop this year!
Off to pick up Erick, and then to go to my painting class; hopefully I’ll have a masterpiece to share with you soon! 😉
Anyway, after a day of mainly inside, we are ready for a day of mainly outside, even if that outside is really in-the-car-outside. So momma is taking daddy to work tomorrow and we are headed for the coast. If only for a glimpse! We’ll get out and run around a bit if the weather holds; after all, it is supposed to reach 50 something, yay! I’ll try to remember my camera if getting out of the car is actually an option. I’m just aching to see some salt water. Does the spirit good!
It’s true…Mainers are an interesting group of people. This is one example of why.
First day of spring, Gifford’s Ice Cream (locally made, totally delicious) gives out free ice cream cones during a particular time of day. This year it was 6-9pm, so Erick and I thought the boys might enjoy the trip into the big city. However, after getting there, and having supper, and shopping around a bit, in the FREEZING weather, we weren’t in the mood (hello, freezing?) but the boys were! They weren’t going to give it up, no sir! So onto Giffords we go, around 7:30 pm, only to find absolute masses of people standing in line. Masses! And Giffords is not the walk inside and sit down type of joint-it’s the walk up to the window, grab and go. Were we willing to stand in those lines? Um….no. (We aren’t that desperate to save a couple of bucks, good grief!) So we decide to shoot down the road to Dairy Queen; obviously multitudes of other parents had the same idea because it was so packed, the line of cars was out into the street. Strike out number 2. Fortunately, the thought occurred to us to visit What’s the Scoop?…a delightful cold-stone-creamery kind of place that is amazing, and I guess we were lucky because there was only one other family there that evening. And it was delicious. Chocolate Fudge with reeces cups and m&ms. Um, yes. Score! 3 bucks=happiness in a warm cafe!
Well, I’m over at mom and dad’s right now and just found this picture-it’s typical Jack. The look on his face is “Not me! I didn’t do that!” Fortunately he didn’t really do anything; the boys were just goofing off and Ry is on the floor because he wanted to be. 🙂
For about 3 days I was a woman with a focus…a drive…to transform the boys room from minty-green paint (over layers of wallpaper)
to this, well, peachy paint color with some kind of splotchy-plaster-something or another look.
(Amazing what you find underneath, isn’t it?) Now we have to patch and sand and prime, but I figured I’d give it a break and actually give my children some attention. Because who can resist these cuties?
We spent a day in a messy house, making lemon bars together:
(so summery!) and dancing in the kitchen to Chris Rice’s song Lemonade…
over and over and over again. And playing hide n seek, and racing cars, and wrestling on the bed…and I decided that I need to hire someone else to fix my house! And clean it, for that matter, because I would love to just play full time!
(By the way, sorry about the link in my previous post to the Il Divo video; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t! It’s worth a look up on youtube though!)
To get to this weekend’s story, we took the boys bowling for the first time. They LOVED it. It was candlepin, so they could hold the balls easily, and of course we opted for the bumpers. Hilarious thing was that Ryan beat my score, and Jack wasn’t too far behind me. I think it will become tradition for us. Awful thing was that not too far from the end of the game, Jack somehow cut his chin open. Ugh, it was awful. I’ve never been good with blood, although for some reason when Ry cut his head on a rock a few years ago, I breezed through that until the very end when they started to stitch him up. I had to sit down because I because I felt a little woozy. But THIS time, I didn’t do well at all. Good grief. I think it was partly because I’d hardly had a thing to eat all day except for a bowl of grapenuts at 10 o’clock in the morning and a handful of saltines around 5 pm. Anyway, I fared worse than my son. The workers at the bowling alley had to help me into the car, and I looked like death warmed over. We went straight to mom and dads house to really check it out and see if it was hospital worthy…of course I let them and Erick take that part over while I planted myself onto the couch. They cleaned him up and bandaged him…and I’ve yet to really look at it, because it still brings up those woozy feelings when I think about it! Praise God for a husband with a stomach of steel! Anyway, our little Jackster will have a whopper of a scar, but what can you do. Probably not the last one he’ll get.
We did get a free night of bowling out of that whole experience, and the workers were some of the most generous people! They gave the boys lollipops and told us to send them the hospital bill; I’m glad that they won’t have to worry about that. So thanks, everyone at Newport Entertainment Center! We’ll start patronizing often, hopefully minus the crisis aspect!
Yesterday was in the 50’s…can’t tell you how wonderful that was. Didn’t need a coat, even cracked our sunroof on the way home from church. Come on spring!
I’m suffering from time poverty today! As soon as I wrap this up I’m off to scrape wallpaper in the boys’ room. But I do have some good stuff for you today…
This video is a must see, people. It’ll knock your socks off. IL Divo’s rendition of Amazing Grace at, of all places, the Colosseum in Rome. WOW!!!! I promise you that it is worth watching; it gets better as you go.
If you live in Maine, hello…make a trip! If not, they mail, and they certainly are divine. It’s a new favorite stop.
While we were in Freeport, we stopped at our second home, LL Bean. And I discovered a new-to-me photographer, Ron Schmidt, owner of Loose Leashes. Even if you aren’t a dog lover, these will no doubt make you smile. Go visit his site to see more!
Adorable! What a talent! And speaking of art, I had my second landscape painting class last night, which I am loving. Yesterday I had my art supplies in the car, and Jack, my little artist, was determined to paint. He would not stop saying “I be a painter! I want to paint!” On and on he goes while we are toodling around Bangor, browsing through shops. Finally out of frustration, he tells my mom “I just can’t handle it. I have to paint.” Ha!
Alright, to wrap up, I believe the last number I heard was that over 1.6 million dollars was raised during Global Food Crises Day sponsored by Compassion International on the 11th. Wow! On that note, I found another cause that is very worthy; click on the picture to learn more.
Living Water International canvases the globe, supplying wells for clean drinking water to those who don’t have it. I can’t imagine being there to see the joy that clean water would bring.
I could smell it on Saturday. I could! Spring is somewhere out there. 🙂 And how about seeing the light continue to linger until 7 pm? I’ll give up an hour any day to experience that!
Saturday the boys were finally able to build a snowman. It’s about time! The weather was perfect, and we had some happy kiddos on our hands.
See that ground beneath the trees? Hopefully we see some more snow melt between today and tomorrow with the temps we are expecting. Can you believe we still have 5 foot drifts in our backyard?
And this is completely random, but I thought it was funny; we knew Jack was lurking in the kitchen, we couldn’t see him but he did have the fridge open. We asked him to close it, and this is what happened:
I was just glad he hadn’t started to partake of my coffee creamer the way he guzzled the syrup a few weeks ago! And before it gets lost in the jumble of memories, he calls Peanut Butter and Jelly “Peepee budder and helly”.
And quickly, for my dear friends who have commented and I have yet to reply too…I was absent from the house most of Wednesday through most of yesterday; I haven’t forgotten about you!
Ok, getting to that productive snow day I had earlier in the week. I’m slowly but surely making our house a home; it’s so nice to walk in and see things on the walls. Why has it taken me since May to get to all of this?
I started off in our hall, and found a great tip that mentioned tracing your frames on newspaper and taping those to the walls before officially putting a hole in the drywall. It was a lightbulb moment; I’m so glad I came across it because, quite honestly, the thought off all the math and measuring involved made me not want to get around to it. But this little trick worked wonders!
Check out the pricetag; I was giddy to find these 20 dollar Bed, Bath and Beyond frames for 4 bucks at The Christmas Tree Shop.
The result:
(Now I actually have to buy some 5×7’s to insert…but we are halfway there, right?)
Also, dad finished the frame for my Alan Claude print. He used poplar, and painted, sanded, painted, sanded, painted, sanded to get this incredibly smooth finish. The picture is a bit blurry because I didn’t have my flash on, but you get the idea:
I decided to pop this on the wall too; I have a fascination for old windows and a few years ago I glued some starfish on.
Wide angle:
Honestly it looks a little out of proportion now that I’m viewing it like this, but I have a plan for the wall on the left side of my lighthouse print that will even everything out. And I need a window treatment. And we need to paint the ceiling, and paint the wainscotting, and, and, and. There is always another and. But one step at a time, right?