The Smith Family Adventures

We were supposed to go to a MOMS club seed planting event this morning. I had been telling Elias about it for a week or so now. He was very excited. However, Simon just hasn’t been able to fully kick whatever virus he had. I thought he was over it for a few days, and now it seems to be hanging around or coming back. Plus, there was sickness in the hosts house over the weekend, and I didn’t want him exposed with his weak immune system.

So…we had a slow morning. All of a sudden, Elias said to me, “It’s Tuesday. It’s seaweed planting day!” I felt so bad and guilty! We piled in the car, dropped off a forgotten lunch to a certain Daddy, and then headed to Fred Meyers. I let Elias choose any seeds he wanted, and he went a bit wild. I think we left the place with about 15 seed packets….enough seeds to last 50 years!

After Simon went down for his nap, we found a (very short) break in the rain, and went out for the dirt. Elias was very excited to “play” in the dirt.

For the second tray, Elias became king of the dirt pile. He had to climb all the way to the top for each spadeful.

Then we went inside to plant. Elias first chose yellow pear tomato. Who knows what those are. I certainly had never seen one before. I guess we’ll find out! He was very interested in the seeds, and looking at the different sizes, shapes, and colors.

Here he is making a little bed for his seeds:

And planting the seeds…..

It amazes me again and again how such tiny seeds will produce such beautiful life with only dirt, water, and sunlight:

And….onto watermelon! At first, Elias was convinced that this was kiwi. I don’t know how I finally convinced him that it is actually watermelon. But he eventually gave in. It was a miracle.

Here is Elias…proud of his finished product. He planted brocolli, yellow pear tomato, regular tomato, green bean, lettuce, pumpkin, watermelon (2 types), carrot, radish, coleus, zinnia, some other flower I don’t know, and probably a few more I have forgotten.

Elias was very excited to water his seeds so I let him do so.

Now I am just praying that they grow. I’m so bad with plants, and while Elias did most of the work, I had my hand in it too. I’d love for him to see this whole process through transplanting, and picking the fruits of his labor. Good job, little man!

This is my boy:

I love how perfectly this picture sums him up. Rough and tumble. Grabs life by the horns. Just look at him. Dirty, scraped face, but leaning forward, charging into life. He’s got places to be. Things to see. He’s got ideas. He doesn’t let things like face plants into mud or concrete stop him. He doesn’t let mommies with cameras stop him. He goes for it. And when he stumbles he gets right back up for more.

I love him.

This afternoon was a gorgeous one, so when Simon woke up from his nap I took the boys outside to play. Elias went for a bit of baseball, and then we got out the sidewalk chalk.

I’ve known that Elias has the skills to write his own name for a long time. But for whatever reason, he has been very stubborn. Every time I bring it up, he just scribbles or refuses outright. I stopped pushing it because he is only three and I don’t want him to feel pressured or negative feelings towards writing/drawing. I’ve been trying to do a bit of pre writing to help his fine motor control, but I’ve been very laid back about it.

Imagine my surprise, then, when yesterday afternoon he called me over saying, “Mommy! Look what I did!”

He was very proud that he wrote his own name. Since then, he’s written his name a few more times. He wrote it with chalk again, wrote it with his finger on my back, and wrote it on Uncle Scott’s birthday card earlier today. He seems to get frustrated when it doesn’t look exactly like he pictured it. I’m trying not to make a huge deal of it, but it’s still a fun milestone! Too bad his first name writing attempt will wash away with the next rain. At least I snapped the picture!

A few days ago around noon, I noticed that Simon was very sleepy. He usually goes down for his nap around 1:00 so I was hoping to get some lunch in him before he napped. I considered just putting him down because he’s been sick and he looked so tired, but decided against it.

I chose wrong.

The poor little guy ate a few strawberries off of his plate, but kept nodding off into his food. Finally, I decided to try feeding him yogurt instead of the lunch I had prepared so that he didn’t have to do so much work. I shoveled spoonfuls into his mouth a couple times. With his eyes closed he would open his mouth, take in the yogurt, and slowly…oh so slowly…get it to the back of his mouth and swallow it. He never opened his eyes through the whole process. It was so pitiful I was half laughing and half feeling like a terrible mother.

Finally, he just conked out with yogurt hanging out of his mouth. Nothing I did could rouse him enough to eat anything. I took him upstairs dreading that he would wake up in thirty minutes hungry, set him in the crib, and let him rest….but not before snapping this picture:

He ended up sleeping for about an hour…his only nap for the day. Needless to say, he was ready for bedtime!

Spring has sprung here in the Smith household…inside!

We are getting buds on many of our trees and plants, and flowers/shoots are starting to pop out of the soil. It’s so much fun to watch. I’d like my boys to have an awareness of all the beauty of spring, and the life cycles of plants. So…even though we were stuck inside due to sickness, we celebrated spring with some artwork!

While Simon was napping, I showed Elias a picture of a hyacinth. We actually had a live one in our house not too long ago, but it went the way most plants do in my house….I’m trying to learn how to care for them.

Anyway, we talked about the stem and leaves and flowers. I had Elias glue the stem and leaves to the paper (with my guidance on placement). Then I showed him how to use his finger to make the flowers with paint. (This again took some guidance). They really turned out beautiful:

Then, as always, I let him have free play art time. He could do whatever he wanted rather than my guided/structured hyacinth activity. He still wanted to make flowers so I cut him some more stems and leaves. He slathered them with glue, and placed them on the paper:

And…he actually still wanted to use his fingers rather than a brush. I guess he liked my project more than I had thought!

Elias had a lot of fun counting dots of different colors, and making beautiful spring flowers. Here are his creations:

After these three, he decided he just wanted to do dots. He made a few papers with thirty dots of each color. By that time, Simon had woken up and it was time for some lunch! Now we have some beautiful spring artwork for our display area!

Both boys are sick right now. Elias has horrible croup and a fever. Simon’s nose is spilling more gunk than niagra falls, and he has teeth coming in so he is quite cranky. But today was beautifully sunny, and it was warm so I thought there was no harm in taking the boys outside.

There’s nothing quite like feeling the sun on your back after what seems like a long winter. I enjoyed every second of the bat and ball, stroller walk, dirt digging, and other activities I participated in with my boys. I was in the sun!

The boys had fun too.

There’s nothing quite like some dirt and a tonka truck to make you feel like a little boy.

This truck is a hand-me down from Uncles Scott and Greg. It’s a real toy. Durable. Heavy. Metal. It will still be around for years and years. Elias was very excited when he saw it in the garage. He immediately asked for his spades, settled in the dirt/mud, and got to digging. He transported the dirt to the middle of our driveway and started making a pile. His pants were dirty in seconds, as were his hands. But I was so happy watching him.

There’s nothing quite like spilling your goldfish in the grass and mud and eating them anyway to know you are a little boy.

Simon found this snack cup in the bottom of the stroller from a walk earlier in the day (I had forgotten it was there). He picked it up and carried it around with him while he watched his big brother. I thought it was better than eating dirt…but then he did a little of that later too. After the remaining goldfish were gone, Simon got right in there in the mud as well.

There’s nothing quite like having a brother to play with on a sunny day.

They don’t often play together…mostly just near each other. And they didn’t for long today either. But they are growing together and learning every day. It’s fun to watch their relationship grow.

We had a lot of fun outside, but about 30 minutes after we came in, Elias had a fever over 102. Poor little guy. I hope it isn’t my fault for taking him outside. After some tylenol, though, he was doing much better and went to bed in good spirits and an almost normal temperature.

Elias really enjoys geography lately. We have a big world map hanging in our living room, and he always wants to look at it together. He knows all of his continents. I want to start doing a little geography with him each day similar to the letter crafts and exercises I used to do with him. I also would like to help him with his fine motor skills and direction following a bit :). So….I combined all of those into one fun map art project.

I printed out a free blank map of the continents, and got out a box of crayons. Usually, Elias likes to scribble all over the page, not paying attention to any lines on there. Any attempt at getting him to color within the lines or drawing something more than just a scribble is met with resistance. So I wasn’t sure how this would go, but it actually went quite well!

I told Elias that he needed to color each continent a different color. I asked him to find a continent. (He picked South America first) Then I told him to choose a color (he chose pink) and to color only South America pink. We went through each continent that way. He even remembered Antarctica when it wasn’t even drawn on the map. Afterward, I labeled the map and hung it on the wall. He was very proud.

Then, I gave him another world map, and told him he could paint it however he wanted. He chose red:

What did Simon do while we were working on these art projects, you ask? Well…first he helped me reorganize my ziplocs:

Then I gave him a snack with which he trashed his shirt. But don’t worry, he helped clean up:

We had scheduled Simon’s first birthday party for February 8th. We invited a bunch of his little friends over and were excited for some fun play time and celebration. Unfortunately, it snowed and we had to cancel the party.

We were able to reschedule the party for March 1st, and luckily, many of his friends were still able to come. We had a light lunch and mostly just chatted while all the kids played. I think Simon had a good time, and everything went well. Here are some pictures of the fun:

Simon played lincoln logs for a bit. Many of the kids enjoyed them:

Simon enjoyed more chocolate cake:

Afterward, Simon was pretty tired, but we let him open presents before nap time. Here he is letting Elias “help” on a difficult one:

Playing with his new toy:

It’s fun to get presents we can all enjoy together:

Thanks everyone for helping make Simon’s day special!