Cultivating Childhood

Remember the great Mother's Day cards that Phil made with the boys?  Oh, yah, I totally forgot to do that with the boys for Father's Day.  Whoops!  Mommy-fail.  So, as a last ditch effort, I decided to ask the boys why the like having their dad as their dad at dinner.... Buddy: I like my dad because he's really tall, and he's a lot smarter than you, Mom. Me (slightly offended, but mostly cracking up): Wow.  Okay, I think I need to video this. Buddy (while I'm out of the room to Daddy): Is that true?  Are you smarter than Mommy? Daddy: Mommy is smarter at some things, and Daddy is smarter in other things like electronics. Then I got back with my camera, and here is what they said then.... And then it was Button's turn: For Father's Day, we volunteered at church, and then headed down south to spend the day with Phil's aunt, uncle, cousin and grandma.  We had a lovely BBQ and fellowship with them.  For some reason, I'm always terri...

My Mother's Day welcomed me with my oldest snuggling with me in my bed until it was time to wake up.  He rarely does this anymore, so it was a real treat. Once everyone was up, the boys were super excited about their "secret" cards they made me for Mother's Day.  Buddy explained that they were secret because I don't know what they look like, but it was okay that he told me that they had made cards.  Also, he added, "There may or may not be a heart on it.  You'll just have to wait and see!"  Button made a similar statement about happy faces.  =)  Well, I'm happy to report that I got two wonderful cards which not surprisingly feature hearts and smiley faces. Then, they gave me their gift.  I've written before about my future engineers , but this was beyond special.  With Daddy's help of course, they made me a light up LED heart.  So cool!  Daddy also gave me some chocolates that we shared. After church, we looked th...

This week has been warm and sunny, so we got to pull out the tent.  On Tuesday, we decided to have an outdoor campout.  As we were preparing for our time, Button looked at Daddy and asked "How are we going to get our beds in the tent?"  He sort of figured it out when we all got in our sleeping bags to go to sleep, but around 9:30PM he begged us to let him go to bed.  So much for his first overnighter outside!  Next time, little guy!  Buddy, on the other hand, slept 11 hours straight. Also, this week, our church hosted a Parents Night Out.  Our kids were left with some awesome people and we parents got to go out on a date.  Woohoo!  Thanks Bethany North !  The boys are usually great with being left for short amounts of time, so I was surprised when I got a call during our dinner from the church.  Apparently, they were going to show a g-rated movie, and Buddy told them that he wasn't allowed to watch that movie because in his word...

During the holidays I've really enjoyed spending more time with you two, both down out of town and at home. Slowing down the pace of life offers a welcome chance to catch up and rediscover who you are turning out to be. We've had lots of chances for adventures and your enthusiastic outdoor explorations. But you're also starting to pick up some more fun inside toys—already throwing aside the Lego instruction booklet and putting together whatever kind of spaceships or trucks you can come up with. You love making up songs and tunes, but some of the funniest things you've made up are the stories. One day at lunch you both started telling me about Peanut Town. Apparently it's a place you can visit where everything is made out of peanuts (except the water; it's made of peanut butter.) You told me all about the people who live there, what kinds of things they have in their town, and how it's down the road to the south of Californi...

(I usually post these things on Facebook, but as I'll be taking a break from that particular social network site, I thought I'd put this here.) Buddy hands Button a couple of olives that I gave him. Me to Button: What do you say? Button: Tanks! Me to Buddy: What do you say back? Buddy: You're welcome! Obviously thinking that there must be another response to this, Button adds: I forgive you.