Legos

When I was a little girl, I remember loving to build with Legos.  My siblings and I would spend hours--days even--creating the perfect Lego masterpieces.  Granted, we sometimes disagreed on the meaning of  "Masterpiece".  (My brothers spent most of their time building cool spaceships and guns, while my sister and I built Lego Mansions.)

These days I often find all three of my children playing nicely around a huge pile of Duplo Legos. (No regular Legos for now...  I am not ready to find my heals in pain from stepping on teensie weensie Lego pieces).

This morning the task at hand was building a Lego tower taller than Ashlyn...  Once that was accomplished, the goal was taller than Ezra and then Eliza.  

But, soon after that goal was met, their thirst for the "tallest Lego tower ever" began.  

And, while thee didn't quite meet that lofty goal, they did create something taller than me. And for them, that was like winning the lottery.  Go kids. :)

A Monster of a Project.... But done nonetheless!

I spent the last 6 weeks designing, coding, and re-coding an eCommerce Shop and Blog for a very nice lady named Janae of Thoughts in Vinyl.  I created a custom design and then seamlessly integrated it between a brand new Magento installation and a Wordpress Blog.  She had to create over 400 new products for her store that were formerly on her husband's construction store, poor lady.  But now she has a sweet new shop!  And, did I mention that we transferred all her posts from her Blogger blog to her Wordpress Blog and then redirected them seamlessly so that she didn't lose any links or traffic?  Oh yeah! Check it out:

Not to be Out-Done

Apparently Eliza decided that she couldn't let her little brother learn to ride a bike without her.  She requested her pedals be put on at the first available moment.  We were out the next day with her brand new pedals and she got on and rode away!

Who says a little competition among siblings can't be a good thing?!

Ezra on two wheels

It's always nice when your kids surprise you with new skills.  We've spent a lot of time at the park lately so as to give Eliza and Ezra plenty of cruising-time on their pedal-less bikes.  The theory was that if they get enough time balancing without their pedals then by the time we put the pedals back on, they are equipped with the right skills.

I had my doubts.

Ezra has proven a more eager student--possibly because he has no fear of trying new things.  And, it helps that his best friend took his pedals off of his bike to learn too.

Well, just a few days ago Ezra's best friend decided he was ready, and learned to ride sans his pedals!  Upon seeing him ride around the park for a few minutes, Ezra came to me and stated, "Mom, can we go home now?  I think I am ready to put my pedals back on."

It was suggested that perhaps his friend would give him a turn on the bike with pedals.  So, Ezra gladly got on his friend's bike, pushed off and started to ride!!  It was amazing!  He looked like a pro right from the start!

Here he is just minutes later:

I am so glad we skipped the whole training wheels and holding-onto-the-back-of-the-seat bit.  That looks exhausting.

Happy Valentines!

Despite the fact that I had a million other things to do this week, I decided to complicate my life by attempting to bake.  Oh yes.  Me.  Baking.  It's not that I am a horrible cook.  I can follow a recipe if I have one, but I don't have the experience  in the kitchen that lends to "instinct".  Thus, I spent a few more hours failing in the kitchen in the last 24  hours than I'd like.  But, in the end, the Preschool Valentines party was a success.  I enjoyed myself, and the kids did too.  Here's a sample of the goodies I made...  can you smell the chocolate wafting through the screen?? 

Can you spot a cupid's arrow?

Brownie Pops dipped in melted candy.  Not the prettiest.  Well, let's be honest, they are down-right messy.  But...mmm....

A colorful array of sugar, don't you think?

Growing Peach Trees and Kids

Well, it's time for my monthly post.  Seems I don't get a chance to post as often as I'd like, nor do I take as many pictures of my kids as I used to. (Ashlyn's childhood is seriously lacking in documentation so far!)  But, I do what I can.

The last few weeks I have been marking my time by the growth of my peach tree.  See, a couple of weeks ago I took the advice of a nice man from Minnesota ("dontcha kno'?") who made an infomative 8 minute YouTube video on how to prune peach trees.  He pruned an entire peach tree in 4 minutes flat and it looked like an upside-down  broken umbrella when he was done (on purpose, mind).  I was a little shocked at how much of the growth he cut off--everything skinnier than a "pencil" got chopped off completely and then he cut just about everything else back by about half!  I had to give myself a little pep-talk before I made that kind of dramatic sheering on my little 3-year-old tree.  But, before I knew it, I was hacking away!  My peach tree went from a huge bush of "sticks" to a skeleton.  Shocking.  Eliza kept saying, "Mom, but how will the tree grow if you keep cutting it back?"

Fantastic question, Eliza.

I was so tempted to get into a beautiful speech about the importance of pruning back the unnecessary things in our lives to make room for growth of the essentials, but I didn't.  I simply said, "Sometimes you gotta cut the tree back to help it grow later."

And so, for days I held my breath to see how my little peach tree would fair.  Did I kill it?  Is it too shocked at losing so much of it's appendages??  I was so worried that I had cut too much...  

Then, about a week ago, Eliza screamed from the yard for me to come see the tree.  (Apparently I wasn't the only one worried about the poor thing!)

I came out and saw this:

Not only was the tree alive, but it has started to blossom!

{Exhale}


Looks like I did right.

In other news, Ezra is growing up.  It's so surreal for me how much of little man he is now instead of a toddler.  Just recently he threw a fit about something (it escapes me what it was about...) and so I sent him to his room and told him he could come back when he was calm.

He got quiet in there a few minutes later so I went to check on him (thinking he'd cried himself to sleep), but he was just lying on the floor with his blanket sucking his thumb.  He looked so sweet and childlike in that position.  But then, he defied my assessment by sitting up and looking straight into my eyes and with tears welling up in them he said, "Mom, I am really, really sorry.  I shouldn't have thrown a fit like that." And then he gave me a great big hug and a sweet, sincere kiss on the cheek.

{Heart clenching}

He has come a long way.  Even months before he wouldn't have acted with that type of maturity to understand his folly and try to make restitution.   

I'll happily log this Mommy Moment away in my "Jewels" file.

Somebody just got a Wacom

I am beaming.

I am staring at this beautiful, shiny black tablet with awe and excitement.  It's all mine: a Wacom Intuous4 Tablet.  Don't know what that is?

Take a gander...



This baby is going to make my life in web design expand to a life in graphic design, which then will make my life in web design sooo much easier.

That is, after I learn how to use it.  {Insert belly laugh}