An Ever-Powerful Word

Gavin has picked up a new favorite word, the ever-powerful word "hate". Dan was out of town last week when he added it to his vocabulary. I spent much of the week explaining acceptable vs. unacceptable uses of the word. For example, it's okay to hate mushrooms or dirt. It's not okay to hate Jolie. Gavin had to sit on the stairs a few times for testing various applications of the word. (To which he replied that he "hates sitting on the stairs").

Well, Dan was home with us Saturday and after doing our chores, I got out the nail polish to paint Jolie's nails. Gavin wanted a piece of the action. Since we were using crimson red nail polish I determined that doing Gavin's nails was probably not a good option. Dan agreed, and when Gavin asked why, he said something about gender roles. Gavin very dramatically replied, "I HATE GENDER ROLES!" Ofcourse he had no idea what the term meant, but he knew that whatever it was, it was preventing him from having brilliant red fingernails.

The best part was seeing Dan's reaction since he hadn't been around to hear Gavin's incessant use of the word "hate". He had to stifle a big burst of laughter.

Ughhhh, Yard Work!

The season is upon us. Yard work season, that is...

When we bought our house three years ago, we knew the yard needed some work. It was obvious that the former owners put the yard in years ago and then let it grow like a tropical rainforest. They did a nice job of watering and keeping the grass mowed, but I'm not sure they did much more than that. It all made for a huge amount of work for us. This time last year (or was it the year before?) we pulled all of the overgrown shrubs out of the front yard and we continued doing demolition throughout the summer.

Well, we've only just begun. We're in the process of securing a landscape architect who will draft a master plan for us. In the meantime, we'll continue with the demolition. We're going to keep all of our big trees and pull out most everything else. We may also change the approach to the front door, but that would involve re-doing a large share of the sprinklers in the front yard. We're not sure how much of that we want to get into.

Here are a few photos of Dan and his trusty jack, pulling stuff out yesterday. He was out there most of the day and cleared maybe 8' of space. The sad thing is that you can hardly tell the difference when looking at the yard, but the trailer is completely full.

It's going to be a long season...

Another Visit From the Toothfairy

The toothfairy paid us a visit last night but this time it was for Jolie! She lost her first tooth at school yesterday. She said a boy talked her into twisting it during class and out it came!

I picked Jolie and her friend, Kayla, up from the bus stop to take them to ballet yesterday afternoon and I heard all the sordid details. The most exciting part of the whole affair was that Jolie got to put her picture on the "toothboard" which is apparently quite an honor in kindergarten. Kayla hasn't lost any teeth but she said she once had a dream that she had. She can't wait until it happens to her!

Jolie put her little tooth in our very special tooth pillow which we only pull out at these special occasions. It was passed down from Grandma Daughtrey and is the same one my sisters and I used back in "the day".

This morning Jolie was up at 6:00 a.m. because Tristan just HAD to know what the toothfairy brought her. He woke her up while groping under her pillow. Ofcourse once she found the $2 there she couldn't go back to sleep.

Spring Fever

This morning Gavin came downstairs and dumped a plastic bin of Noah's Arc toys onto the carpet in the family room. Instead of it being a random dumping it was an act that seemed to have purpose. That should have been my first clue that something was up. I was busy making Tristan's lunch and getting him off to school, so I ignored Gavin when he carried the bin out of the room and started up the stairs with it (did I mention that the bin is larger than he is?)

Before long, Tristan came in to tell me that Gavin was upstairs getting into mischief. Again, I didn't think much of it because that's par for the course. A few minutes later Jolie reported that there was water involved. I hurried up to see what was going on (water = large clean up for me). Gavin had gotten into the bathroom cupboard where we store the bath toys and he was repeatedly filling a small boat with water from the faucet and dumping it into the huge toy bin which was on the floor. I asked him what he was doing and he said "the sharks need water!" I could tell this was a serious matter for him, so I carried the bin downstairs and filled it with 3 or 4 inches of water. I told him he could play with the sharks and the water as long as he left the bin on the kitchen tile.

Well, after he grew tired of the animals, Gavin removed his pajamas and climbed inside the bin. Jolie disrobed and joined him! I take this as a sign that they're ready for summer. The poor children saw four inches of water as an opportunity to take off their winter fleece and go for a swim!

I caught spring fever myself today. I've been enjoying our loads and loads of new snow from last week but for some reason, I was done with it today. I looked outside and decided I was sick of this nasty weather and I was ready for spring! Let's hope it's not too long before my wish arrives...