Out of the Mouths of Babes

I thought I'd change it up for this post to document some funny things that the kids are saying these days.  I have to say that between a 3 and a 6-year-old, we get amusing conversations quite often. And I love it!

Let's start with the threenager. She is painfully shy around new people, but won't stop talking in the car or singing songs during meals. She is learning a lot from her brother and from pre-school, and she loves to voice her opinion (though it's usually whatever Owen said).

Hadley's speech impediments are endearing, and I hesitate to correct her because I love them.  "Hey - fwee rhymes with fwee" - three rhymes with free, which sounded the same in her voice.

Discussing Owen's upcoming birthday party, Hadley said he needed a "cwown". "A crown? Like a birthday crown?" I said. "No. A cwown. A circus cwown," she said. Oh...

Hadley asked if we could go out to eat at "high five mans", aka "Five Guys". She often declares, "I'm firnsty! Firnsty starts with an B!" She thinks a lot of things start with a b, like "b-zert" (dessert) and "b-nastics" (gymnastics).

Hadley at dinner one night while parents were talking about something that happened on Saturday:  "no, no, it was Tuesday." while having no idea really, but so confident in her argument!

She also noticed immediately when I picked her up from school that I had a bandage on my finger.  She was concerned and asked what happened.  I told her I'd cut it making dinner for the crockpot, and she asked, "did you not know what you were doing?" What a vote of confidence!

Now, for the 6-year old who is learning to read, loving school, and asking lots of questions about everything. He currently wants to grow up and be a car designer, if he's not a stay-at-home dad. He doesn't share much about his school day unless he's pressed, and if he does elaborate a lot, then you can assume that most of what you've heard has probably been extrapolated from his imagination. 

Owen's eyes got very big when he selected a frosted Christmas tree brownie for his after-dinner dessert and he declared, "Oh, I'm going to be CRAZY after this!" We have often remarked on how the sugar from dessert seems to hit kids' bloodstreams pretty quickly and make them a little more energetic than usual, and I guess he agreed. 

Owen while volunteering to help me with some yard work, "but we'll probably end up playing behind the trees in the sticks and then asking if we can get out our scooters." Truth!  Let's just skip the pretense of doing work and just play.  :)

The kids were making birthday cards for Dad. After a while Owen looks at both cards and says "I think my card is better than Hadley's." I say, "I think they are both awesome." Owen says, "yeah, you go with that." What? Where does he get this stuff from?

Owen asked me, "how is Daniel Tiger so wise?" (This is a PBS kids show that Hadley loves; it teaches lots of life lessons in cute songs that we reference a lot.) It's true, but I had not thought of the animated pre-school tiger in a hoodie as being "wise" before. Haha!

The Sun is Back!

The sun has made a reappearance this week, and it feels so nice!  This is what we do when it's above 30 degrees and the sun is shining:

It's funny how 35 and sunny feels like spring now!  We had the car windows down the other day when it hit 40. (I've become one of those people I wondered about when we first moved here 5 years ago. The ones that had their windows open when it was 40 degrees in March.)  We've already broken out the bikes, scooters, and sidewalk chalk. Owen has a lot of faith in the groundhog that predicted spring is soon to be here.

The varying temperatures have led to some different scenery, like hoarfrost in the mornings and lots of icicles hanging off of roofs all over town.

These icicles are on our back porch almost directly over the sandbox.  The longest icicle here is probably close to 3 feet long!

And the sandbox could be an ice rink for mice.  Brr!

This icicle formed between my car bumper and the ground over the course of 5 hours or so and actually connects the two! You can also see all of the yucky dark muck, pebbles, and salt that build up under our cars in the winter from the roads. You can imagine what our garage looks like...

On a side note, this week was Spirit Week at school, which basically means that you are supposed to dress with a different theme in mind each day. The first was "Decades Day" where you pick and dress like your favorite decade. Since I'm a minimalist, we went with a cowboy from the 1880's, because that's what we had. The gun stayed at home, of course.

One day at the end of quiet time, I was visited by a beautiful princess and her obliging prince brother. Glad to see that dress is getting some use after all!

I mentioned that Owen has been doing indoor soccer this winter. He loves it! We like it too, except that it's been at 8 am nearly every Saturday since November. It just feels wrong to get going earlier on the weekend than you do for a school day. Hopefully next year, we'll get a later time slot.

Owen and I rented some cross-country skis from the local ski shop this weekend.  He tried them out in the backyard a bit last night to figure some things out.

And this morning, we ventured 5 minutes to a city park and went 1.5 miles around on tracks with friends. I think he enjoyed it, but he doesn't like to fall.  Who does?

I have to mention that all of the snow we've been getting has been great for downhill skiing!  I have gotten to go to our local ski hill a couple of times on their Ladies' Day, which only costs $26 and includes lunch!! That's me in the white helmet.  So fun!