Hardware Buds

These boys and their tools; they play tools and then the USE tools.  

Here's Lukey playing at his tool bench...

It's Tool Time!

This picture makes me laugh out loud

And then here is Elijah USING his tools at another Lowe's Building project. This time he made Thor's Chariot

Sneaker Post....

... This is a product placement post....

If you want to jump in to Gram's house in one instant, all you need to do is press a pump of this in your hand, and rinse with water. You will be immediately transported in to a warm home, filled with pictures and lovely memories and of a beautiful woman, with a smile on her face.

Orchids and Mint - is the new found "transport scent" - and my new favorite hand soap that may never be replaced.  Bet you didn't know that was your scent Gram! haha!

Love you Gram!

p.s. Katie, mom and Vicki go pick a bottle of this up and then tell me if you agree. I am going to laugh if  you don't. Gram you might as well pick up a bottle too and see if you like the scent. If you don't I am going to laugh even harder, because it will mean I have some serious nose smelling issues. LOL. However Aaron likes it, so that's a good sign.

First Day of Pre-School...Again!

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Well, its back-to-school again.  Elijah is in his second and final year of preschool. He loves his pre-school and his teachers. We love his teacher's too. This summer we had the chance to become closer with the lead teacher too, which was nice for both parties I think as it gives us both more insight in to the inner workings of each other.

So back to Elijah.  He had a great first day of school.  Our friend's Erin and Sean have their son Cohen attending the same preschool this year. Cohen is a year younger than Elijah.  We have been looking forward to Cohen's arrival all summer. It turns out that Elijah took Cohen by the hand and lead him to his spot on circle time and then proceeded to show all around the classroom and make him comfortable! WHAT A SWEET BOY!  Erin told me today, that when she dropped Cohen off on Friday, his second day, he was really clingy  and Elijah came back around and got Cohen and took him to the cars and then Erin was able to slip out.  Clearly this boy is a nurturer. Im melting a little.

We met Lizzie at the front of the school and took our obligatory photos.  So here they are for you to indulge in.  Can't believe how big he has gotten!!!!!

Just spotted Lizzie!

...the difference of one year:

2014

2015

2014

2015

First Homework Assignment

(yeah, I'm slacking big time. Sorry. No excuses...get ready, I plan to write back to back posts and have one go up once a day for as many I as I can come up with.)

Today Elijah and I did his first homework project together. It revealed a whole heck of a lot to me.

1. I have (ahem, yes I already knew this) a huge perfectionist issue with myself. - I reigned it all in and tried to let Elijah do as much of it as possible.
2. Elijah has a huge perfectionist issue with himself.- like mother, like son you say.
3. Control is hard to let go of for one of us.
4. Attention spans wain midway through homework- I see a lot of tears and late nights in our future- on both sides of the table- all of it.
5. We make a pretty good team.


So the long and the short is. I reeled in my perfectionism. I let him do as much of the work as possible, and offered suggestions. He picked out which pictures to use (with a little direction on types that needed to be included, but I gave him lots of options) and where to put them and I cut them all down so that they would all fit. He did the gluing (though he wanted me to do it, and I told him that it was his project and his job) and we made it easier for his perfectionism by drawing lines and shapes on the back of the picture to where the glue should be placed.

And it came out looking darling!  He insisted on writing his name as well. So cute.

The artist at work

Our glue-by-shapes work

The finished product!

...oh the first day of school you say? Yeah that would have been smart to post first. Ok! tomorrow!

Poncho's!

Because we are flying today, and really there isn't much to post, I wrote this to auto-post while we are in the air, so you can have something to read until I post again, which is God knows when, but like always I will try hard!

Aaron wear's this poncho, daily, that a friend had given him from Mexico. It's becoming his trademark, and all his friends know about it, hell I think the whole world practically knows that Aaron lives and breathes in this thing.

So when we were in Mesilla the other day, looking for Hot Sauce and another poncho, we came across kid ponchos. I looked at Aaron and said, we have to get these for the boys. At $8.95 it was a no brainer.

Here are the kids in their poncho's just like dad. Granted its not something they really wanted to put on, let alone wear in 90 degree weather. I will see if I can get some cuter pictures of the three of them in their ponchos once we get home and the weather cools down.

Wow I had to go all the way back to Nov. to find a picture of Aaron in his poncho!

Quick Post on "How to Quiet Noisy Children when Company is Over"

Shark Boys

The boys decided to wear matching SHARK! shirts in anticipation of our company, Jim and Mary, coming over. Really Elijah picked the shirt and Luke said "I wear shark too!". So because they were wearing shark shirts and because they were excited for our company,  they were rather loud..to say the least.  I moved them to another section of the patio and when that didn't work I asked if they wanted to watch a show. Of course they did want to watch a show, so they set quietly on the couch for a while and then Luke decided that he wanted to be out with the adults...in his tent. So we pulled it out and set him down with an ipad (Frozen was playing) and ear phones, while Elijah set inside watching his NikTunes show. It was cute, so I had to take some pictures.

Quiet Elijah

Quiet Lucas

P.S. Oma suffered a shark attack....:

More Swimming Milestones and mmm mmm Good Pizza

When we got home we jumped in the pool, of course. Lucas made our post-worthy milestone today and decided to dive for diving sticks today! WHAT?! Yes, with a little help from dad, this boy can dive and grab his diving sticks, no problem.  He's mastered the holding breath thing and is almost a full fledged swimmer. WOW!

Since we ate at 230? We had a late dinner and ordered in Pizza- VERY GOOD pizza from a shop down the road and around the corner.  What was so good about this pizza? Well it was a Hatch Green Chile, Chicken Enchilada pizza. and I really shouldn't have to say anything more on that.

The best Pie around

Then we played our nightly round of cards (sans kids) and I lost absolutely, completely, miserably. Mom had a hysterical giggle fest at round 9 of me losing, every single damn hand. I think I won three hands in the whole freaking game. I blame Aaron who was tired of losing last night, so instead of going back down (we were playing oh hell), we started all over. Here is the score card- top is the night before last, bottom is last night. Go ahead....laugh...it's alright....I was laughing too, in spite of myself, but I still wasn't happy about it.

that's me "K" with a whopping 16 pts and "A" for Aaron at 114 pts.- abysmal.

A Day Behind

E on the way home from Sparkys

My delayed posts and end of the night posts are causing me to be a day behind. So You will get one for today, tonight, and two for today tomorrow, and then maybe tomorrow you'll get tomorrow's at the end of the day and we will be all caught up, in time for our trek home...oh well.

Ok so our highlight and adventure for today, was our trek out to Sparky's World Famous Hamburgers in Hatch. We headed out later than I think we initially had planned, but mom and Emery gave Aaron and I separate tennis lessons, which took up more of the morning than we had thought it would. So about 12:30 we headed out to Sparky's about an hour a way. We waited in the 30 minute line and then got our food fairly quickly. Mom plays tennis with the proprietor and we got to meet her too, which was pretty neat.  

The place was an eclectic compilation of past roadside memorabilia, and more. From a Buffalo head above our table, to a "Registered Restroom" sign from Texaco Services, long time ago. There was a Ronald McDonald statue out front and a collection of Bob's Big Boy family member statues on the top of the building.

I thought about taking this picture a little too late, but I think you can still see it.

Trying to get a shot of one part of the inside

They have live music Saturday and Sunday's and we were there to see it. The kids LOVED it, especially Lucas. Here are some super cute videos to end the post on .

I love this video!

P.S. Their food was mmm mmm good!!

We Finally Made it to White Sands!

After multiple day delays, we finally had clear weather and made it to White Sands. I think we spent more time in  the car than we did on the dunes, but everyone had fun, none-the-less.
We only had one injury....from a red fire ant. Lucas got bit when we were lunching. Poor guy was in pain for a while, but with the miracle work of a pacifier and the ipad it distracted him enough to make him forget the pain for a while. This morning he is doing much better.

Me and Lucas Sledding - Go Pro Style

Aaron hauling the sleds back up the hill. You can see the dot that
is Elijah, midway up in the back ground. 

Elijah Sledding

Luke

 Aaron getting tricky.

Elijah wanted to go exploring

Aaron and Elijah coming back from Exploring

Big Milestones for Elijah!

Little Brother Taking a Break

*Disclaimer: I wrote this last night and forgot to upload the videos, then forgot this morning. So its a day late!


This afternoon's second swim of the day, marked two BIG milestones for Elijah's swim life:
 1. He gained the confidence to put his face under water and swim a short distance.
 2. He gained the confidence to jump off the side of the pool - and then do it with Daddy!

When we all said he did so great and did it all by himself he, matter-of-factly said "no, Oma taught me." And that she did. Her swim lessons have paid off, and it was this last little bit of  "private" lessons he got, while Lucas was sleeping, that really catapulted him in to this milestone.

Getting Ready for his Lesson- Elijah

He's now showing us that he can hold his breath for fairly long spurts of time, he's getting better at kicking, and he likes (not loves, yet) jumping off the side of the pool.  I really love video below of him and Aaron jumping off together. He asked Aaron specifically if he would jump with him, and, no pun in intended, Aaron jumped on the opportunity.  I'm pretty sure that Elijah asked Aaron once he had a couple jumps under him,  because he's been watching Aaron jump with Lucas CANON BALL style these last couple of days.  It was so darling, and made my heart full.

Oma catapulting out of the water, having fun with Elijah

Tomorrow, we are going to try for Whitesands again, so should be looking at hopefully two posts, first to come mid afternoon, and one later in the night, if we get some more things in.

Here's the first Milestone  for Elijah

And the second one- Jumping with Daddy!

The family that swims together...

Lollipop Break for Lucas

He's a little on the tired side still - post-nap