He's feeling better

Yeah, he is feeling better!

So I think he is feeling a little better.  Gabe was told he needed to help clean up a bit.  Since his throat is still tender, he ran and got a piece of paper and wrote this:

It says: "I'm not cleen in up!" 

I think this is first ever sentence he is written all on his own. (It supposed to say "I'm not cleaning up!)  

New Glasses!

After our visit to UVA last week, we learned Grayson's vision had improved slightly.  We had noticed he was looking over his glasses a lot and the doctor said the new script should help.  We went to pick out his glasses on Friday.

He got two pairs (because they get broken pretty often) and he was THRILLED that he found TWO pairs that were blue:

Chilling with Grayson

It's time for another overnight trip to UVA with Grayson.  Even though this involves going one doctor to another to another - he loves it.  Leading up to the trip he kept asking when we were going to go to the "show and tell--" (hotel.) For reasons only a 5 year old can understand, staying in a hotel is the BEST thing ever.  His favorite things about the hotel are the unlimited access to the tub (he stayed in for over an hour!) and getting to use the iPad all by himself.  We packed snacks and just spent some quiet time together after a really busy day.  

He also thinks the second bed is for him to put his "stuff," because he is thrilled with the fact he can sleep in the big bed with me.  

Other exciting things about this trip - getting to go to a restaurant.  Of course, he gets to do this at home - but going all by himself with Mommy makes it super special.

While I don't really like having to travel and spend two days visiting various doctors - I do enjoy the time spent with Grayson by himself.  Without his brothers around to compete with his super sweet personality really shines.  The meltdowns and "grumpy" fits are pretty much non-existent. 

I love him so much :)  I hope he stays this sweet forever.

Windmills

Today we took a quick drive to take the boys skiing/snowboarding.  Gabe was really enthralled with the windmills along the mountain ridge during the drive.  Later that night he drew these.

He's a pretty cool kid.

Strep followed by another mystery illness

So all the boys tested positive for step the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  Woo Hoo!  Thankfully, after a few days of antibiotics they seemed to all be feeling better.  But then this happened...

Gabe gets sent to the nurse at school on Tuesday a week later with 101 fever - while still on his meds for strep.  Then his eyes start swelling up...geez.  So back to the doctor we go.  The poor kids endures 3 more days of 101-103 fever (while on Ibuprofen, mind you) and another round of bigger, uglier, drugs.  His poor system is not handling Kindergarten well.  He has now been on antibiotics four times since school started - about 100 days ago! This is totally not cool for his little body.  And now it has been officially deemed required that we get his horribly over-sized (3+) tonsils/adenoids out so he can breathe at night.  He is not thrilled.

After two days at home with mom taking it easy and doing quiet work, he has started to perk back up.  Apparently, his hair has, too.

Let the ear infections begin...

...and Gabe wins the prize for the first ear infection of the school year.  He woke up in the middle of the night saying his ear hurt.  We got him to the doctor the next morning and he was so worn out he put himself to bed when we got home and he slept half the afternoon.

Too much sugar...too much fun...

Sometimes good days a great all the way to the very end when exhausted children fall asleep peacefully  - on the ride home, on the couch, in your lap, in their bed.  The key thing here is PEACEFULLY piece of the equation.

Then there are other days.  Days that start out good, maybe even have a good long run, but then at some point something goes terribly wrong.  Today, sadly, was one of those days.  We had a good morning, loaded up for a fun day at the park where the boys would get to go to a birthday party.  The boys were thrilled at the jungle gym at the picnic shelter, thought the birthday cake was the coolest thing EVER (it was a rocket ship, what is not to love?), and then they ate and played some more.

Doesn't sound bad, does it?  Well, what happened next looks something like this:

This is what too much sugar, too much playing, and an exhausted little boy still hyped up on sugar looks like.  It was a GREAT ride home.  

Marshmallow Mustache

Reece is addicted to marshmallows....

Puddles

I got these photos in an email from Doug with the subject line: "It's good to have  me as a dad..."

It has been raining for almost a week.  Everything is wet and muddy and the boys are really sick and tired of being cooped up inside.  Inside recess simply does not cut it.















Doug decided to just let the boys have fun in the massive mud puddles at school.  It was gross - and they loved it.  And yes, they roped in another kid - luckily whom we know the parents - to join them.

Catching up!

Wow, I am so behind in keeping the blog up to date!  I have not yet adjusted to life with the twins in school full time and I am really behind in everything these days.  I keep telling myself it will settle into a groove and things will be ok, but we haven't found the groove yet!

Here is a quick post about the complete cluster that drop off is in the morning at school for Doug.  The system pretty much is mediocre, but because of the complete lack of planning on the part of the folks that designed the parking and the car/bus lanes - it is a nightmare every single morning.  The kids have to be dropped off or park and walked across at least two lanes of traffic to get to the sidewalk!  Brilliant.  (Smack head.)

Because of this traffic nightmare, the school really wants kids to ride the bus - because the bus drops kids off on the sidewalk.  But here is the rub.  We live 3 minutes from the school.  3 minutes - seriously - but there are no sidewalks for half the trip. So we looked into the bus.  It is a K-12 bus. This means 5 year olds are on the bus with 17 year olds.  This is not good.  It gets better - we would be the first pick up of the morning, so my kids would be on the bus 45 minutes. And in the afternoon - we are the last drop off.  So again 45 minutes on the bust to go what is literally 3 minutes from our house by car.

So Doug fights the traffic everyday to drop them off and we pay our nanny to fight the traffic every day to pick them up. The pick up is no better.  It requires you get out of the car (with Reece in tow) go into the building, sign in with ID, go down a hall to the holding area, get the twins from the madness, then take all three back out to the car - crossing the multiple lanes of traffic.  EVERY SINGLE DAY.

And today...it was raining.  So the adults weren't outside helping unload cars and shuffling kids across the traffic!  So Doug parked the car, walked the twins in, then stood in the rain and helped unload kids for half an hour - and Reece helped.  Reece worked for permission to jump in puddles until he was soaked.

Busy Morning

Grayson headed into school

Doug continues to drop the twins off in the morning.  Some mornings they walk in together, some they get the kiss and ride lane.  Today they walked in with Doug so he snapped a quick picture of Grayson on the way in.

When did he grow up??

Reece working hard!

After the twins are dropped off Doug and Reece have about 30 minutes they can blow before they really have to be on their way to drop Reece off at his school.  I love the fact that Doug uses this time to let him explore and do cool kid stuff.  They have been digging a retaining pond on the way out of town and we have stopped wit hall the boys to let them climb the mountains of dirt and rocks and look at all the heavy equipment.  Today they were actually working on it and Doug stopped and let Reece watch.  This, apparently inspired him to get out his own tools and help!

Super Hero

Sometimes, you just have to bust out the super hero and take care of business...

Gabe on a mission...

Boys will be Boys

It is becoming increasingly obvious that I am living in a house full of little boys - and the ring leader is the really big boy they call Daddy.

Yesterday I asked Doug to get home first so I could go to the store on the way home.  He was 'home alone' with them less than 90 minutes.  The amount of dirt and grunge that managed to adhere to these boys in that time was shocking.

Clearly, in the world of little boys more dirt = more fun.

Vine Ripe Farm CSA : Week 2

Green garlic and Olive Oil Pasta

Another green week from our CSA!  I took Gabe with me this week to pick up our share at the farm.  He thought it was very cool.  So this week our share  includes:

• 2 bags of washed mixed lettuce
• 1 bunch of red kale
• 1 bunch of green garlic (a different variety than last week)
• 1 bag of arugula
• 1 large bunch of rainbow chard

So obviously salads will be on tap again at our house!  With the holiday weekend still up in the air I haven;t had a chance to menu plan for the upcoming week - but I know we will have salads with grilled stuff and I'll get to take salads for lunch, too.  We have figured out that one bag of the lettuce makes 4-5 large dinner sized salads.  The kids eat it, too - just in much smaller amounts.  So I know we'll have salad for dinner twice - and probably a side salad at least once.

I am thinking I'll use the arugula in a pasta with blue cheese and walnuts (obviously Gabe can't have this), most likely.

I used this recipe: Sauteed Rainbow Chard as a starting point for our chard adventure.  I changes it up a little - we did not have pine nuts, so I used toasted pecans instead.  I also started the saute with some finely diced onion and pancetta diced up really small - then followed the recipe from there.  We also decided to put the Parmesan cheese into a nice bowl of polenta instead of on top.  So we swerved the sauteed greens over top the polenta and called it dinner.

Four Eyes

I wish I had better pictures of this - but at lease I have a fuzzy picture!  We were tucking the boys into bed and Grayson asked my why I always had my glasses on.  I told him because they helped me see better.  A few minutes later he had pulled some little googly eyes off something in the room and stuck them to help face - and was giggling up a storm.  He said - look I have FOUR EYES so I can see better!!  He clearly knew this was funny.

I don't have pictures of the silliness that followed, but it involved him taking them and sticking them to me so I could see better, too.  (Laughing hysterically the entire time.)

Week One : Vine Ripe Farm CSA

As the first week of our CSA membership comes to a close and I am thinking about how excited I am about what I might get tomorrow when I pick up my Week 2 share, I realize I really should have taken pictures of what I got and what I made!  (Lesson learned, I'll be sure to do it this week.)

So, sans photos - Here is how week one 'looked'

Filling for Enchiladas

• 1 bag of loose leaf lettuce (it made 4 big dinner salads)
• 1 head of red leaf lettuce
• 1 bunch of Russian kale
• 1 large bunch of chives
• 1 bag of spinach
• 1 small bunch of green garlic
• 1 medium 'head?' of pac choi 

From this share we have enjoyed:

• 4 large (Applebee's copycat) oriental chicken style salads (meal size) (2 dinners, and left overs the next day)
• 3 medium lunch sized Greek salads
• Dinner veggie and herb fritatta (Grayson's request!)
• 2 dinners + lunch leftovers for 1 - Korean Vegetable Pancakes (packed full of chives and grilled pac choi)
• Saute of kale, Italian sausage, and gnocchi  (we made a few small changes, but this is a great starting point recipe)(enough for dinner and left overs)

We haven't used thee green garlic yet, but I am thinking it will go on the grill this weekend along side some steaks.

Walk in the Backyard

Top of the hill

Wow - I haven't posted in a long time!  It has been a crazy spring and I havent had a moment to even begin to sit down and write.  In fact, this is going to be quick!  Just a few pictures of our stroll through the backyard at the Hupp House as slowly work at getting things under control.

Path to the Bee Hives

Goat's Beard

We are mostly working on cutting down dead wood, thinning the massive amount of prickly pear, and getting rid of the trash trees that have over taken what were clearly once nice flower beds and groves of trees and wild flowers.  

We are leaving most of the land "natural", so the sea of native grass is being left to seed (in the top picture.)  This has resulted in pretty patches of purple and even occasional odd flowers - like the yellow Goat's Beard, which is actually a biannual.  (Though Gabe picked it before it could seed - so we may not see it again!)

Boys in a Box

Just playing in the box...

New Bees - hard at work!

Doug's bees arrived a few weeks ago and he got them set up in two hives behind the Hupp House.  Now he is obsessively checking them to make sure they are OK and working to their potential.  One hive seems pretty laid back, while the other is apparently a "mad hive" and really aggressive every time he goes in.  

Both hives are laying new combs and making new bees - so it looks good so far.  The brand new combs are the lightest color ones.

Bees Hard at Work!! 

There's Corn in There!

Sometimes I think we forget that our kids are still brand new in the scope of things.  Yes - I know the twins are almost 5, but really- they are still pretty much brand new.  There are a TON of every day things that are still mysterious to them.  There is still so much to be discovered.

I have recently fallen victim to looking though Pinterest for ideas for the kids and I am always seeing elaborate things that there is no way I can pull off in my current life situation. So I stepped away from the computer and decided that I needed to focus on the basics.  Cool things that are just everyday life things.

Enter - ears of corn still in the husk....

I sat the kids down at the table and handed them each an ear, and while we have had corn on the cob dozen of times, they had never seen me clean an ear of corn - so they had no idea what I had just given them!  Of course, they asked - repeatedly.  But I stuck to my guns and wouldn't tell them.  I told them they had to 'open them up' and find out.

The amount of concentration on their faces as they started peeling away the husks was amazing.  They were doing some serious exploring.

As they peeled away the layers there was lots of chatter - and when Grayson hit the silks he was very interested in the "strings" - what are they? what are they for? why are there so many?

When started to see the corn kernels there was immediate recognition and literally shouts of "It's corn!  It's corn!  Look, it's corn!!"

By the time we finished they had husked 6 ears of corn and then we put a big pot of water on the stove and we pulled up some chairs and they each carefully put their ears in to cook.  Needless to say, we had corn on the cob for dinner - along with the request that we do it again....tomorrow.