April 22, 2013

Bandages

Jakey's awesome preschool teacher does all sorts of great projects and things. One thing they're doing this month is having parents come in and talk about their jobs.

Last week Anna went in and talked about writing books, and the kids did an amazing job of writing and illustrating their own little books. I wasn't there, but I heard Jake's was about something like a robot bear falling in the ocean and getting eaten by a shark... Replete with amazing illustrations.

Today was my turn! We talked all about skin, hair, and nails (the kids' answers are in parentheses); what it does (protects you from sharp things, keeps you healthy, gets goosebumps if you are cold or sweat if you are hot), what can happen to it that's bad (bug bites, mosquito bites, bee stings, skunks' spray making it smelly, boo-boos, cuts, scrapes, splinters, sharks can bite it, sun burn), and ways to fix it- and then we played doctor and bandaged up stuffed animals that the kids brought in. They each had to make up what happened to hurt their animal and then bandage it up.

Jakey brought in his buffalo (which we call beefalo buffalo), and said "it hurt its horn when it hit into a star and got cuts on all four feet!" Never fear, o buffalo who roamed too close to the sun- Dr. Jakey is here to fix you up! Jake loved all the different bandages and materials, and his buffalo will be better in 100 minutes according to Dr. Jake.






April 16, 2013

Successories

The new morning motivational tool around here? Nail art. Can you guess whose hands are whose?

April 15, 2013

Underground Art



Hooray, hooray, say mom and dad.
You wonder - wherefore are they glad?
Why 'tis that down below their pad
There's now an art space, lush and rad.
A brand new space for girl and lad
To draw, to paint, in stripe or plaid -
And keep their mess away. Not bad!



(Made from a tabletop and table-attached shelf from IKEA and tapered legs from Home Depot cut to about 22". Assembled by a crackerjack team of small children wielding power tools. After seeing that photo of the 11 month old hacking some fruit open with a machete, I decided it's never to early to start learning to keep your fingers away from sharp rotating objects.)

April 14, 2013

At the Arboretum

Perfect weekend weather? Check.



Gorgeous flowering trees? Check.



Adorable siblings frolicking in the sunshine? Check.



Glorious views in every direction? Check.



But also amazing giant wooden bug sculptures all over the place? Are you kidding?




April 13, 2013

Pants

Anna has mocked me for owning too many pants.
There are a bunch of categories though, which she doesn't understand- work pants, pants I wish I still fit in, pants I hope to be cool enough to wear, etc.

Also- I have pants like these, which have had the pockets rip and get resewn at least 4 times.

Today they died.

The good news?

I got new pants too.


A Little Light Reading


April 12, 2013

For the Birds

Well, it looks like the birds in our back yard have finally wised up. I hung two feeders from the tree branches a couple of weeks ago, and they have fed nothing but squirrels since then. Have you ever seen Cirque du Soleil? Those acrobats have got nothing on the ridiculous stunts the squirrels have been pulling to get into these things. Like, full-on upside-down one-handed dangling contortionist trapeze nonsense. But this morning, I walked out to find:



Ta-da! An actual bird! Excellent. Now fly down and start eating all those delicious mosquito larvae that are no doubt getting ready to torment us all summer.

April 11, 2013

Spring Shot



Sometimes you just need some yellow and orange ranunculus in your life.

April 10, 2013

The Dresser Finds Its Place

At first we thought we would do it ourselves. How hard could it be? We're strong - and plus we just carried it in from the Zip-truck! And come on - just three flights of stairs? It's not like it's a solid wooden piece of furniture that does not come apart in any way... oh, wait. Yes, it is.

And that was the end of the carry-the-dresser-upstairs-by-ourselves adventure. And I freely admit that I was the weak link in the scenario, and so I was the one who ended up calling the nice people at Broad Street Movers (our go-to moving company). They had dudes over within the hour and it took them... oh, I'd say all of 6 minutes to super-gently deposit the dresser where we wanted it to go.

And then I went out and bought a plant to be its friend and companion:



Oh, and summer weather = summer blanket. Yay!

April 4, 2013

A Girl and Her Monkey

Check out what Lara made - entirely by herself!



She sewed and stuffed the monkey, made a pattern and sewed the dress, and then knitted the little hat. How cute is this thing?

April 3, 2013

Dresser Re-dress!

Ok - after 9 months of trolling Craigslist for a new dresser to replace the IKEA workhorse that has seen us through three moves and is now thus merely a shadow of its former self, I got lucky. Super lucky. Might I even say, crazy lucky? Seriously, you guys - check out this amazing $225 dresser, and then feel even happier that its former owner was a totally delightful person to deal with:



Ah, but that is after a day of scrubbing and restoring and buffing and waxing the wood to bring the glory back. It was in excellent shape, and survived its trip back to our house in the bed of a Zipcar-ed pickup quite well. But still. Scratches, nicks, heat rings, and a little dust were obscuring the full beauty here.



Here's a shot-to-shot comparison of the before:



... and the after (after a little vinegar, super-fine steel wool, Magic Eraser, and Howard's cleaner and wax):



All the shine! And that wood grain! And all those different inlays and veneers!





And the carved legs? And the casters?



Now, to get it up three flights of stairs...