QOTD: Park edition

It was 77 degrees yesterday! What a welcome relief to the chilly beginning to fall we've had. We headed to the park in the afternoon to run off some energy.

Ben showed me a new trick: climbing up the slide! My months of redirecting have finally worn off; now he won't listen when I say "down the slide, up the back." I blame the older kids we saw at the park last week!

Anyway, Ben's Quote of the Day:

After climbing to the top of the slide, proudly:
"I did it!"

Silly boy.

I didn't quite catch the climbing on video, but I got close:

And, I'd like to declare a 2nd QOTD from the video. You have to listen carefully, but you can hear Ben say "Climbing backward."

Silly boy!

Oh, the Lord is good to me

Did anyone else sing the "Johnny Appleseed" prayer when they were younger? We always sang it at Girl Scout camp. It was one of my favorites.

Oh, the Lord is good to me

And so I thank the Lord

For giving me

The things I need

The sun and the rain and the appleseed

The Lord is good to me. 

Amen

Amen

Amen, Amen, Amen.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah-MEN!

Saturday I could NOT get that song out of my head after we visited Minnetonka Orchards. Even with the chilly morning and the LONG drive out there (45 minutes! We really were out in the country!), it was a most wonderful fall morning!

First stop: apple donuts! Ben is a lover of donuts. Kid ate like 3 all by himself!

After we filled up on donuts, we headed out to the orchard to pick apples. Mode of transportation was a fun hay ride! Both kids loved riding the tractor, of course. And, we learned a big lesson: don't pick your apples first, not if you plan to do other orchard activities later. A peck of Cortlands is HEAVY!

Our mode of transportation

You can't really even tell, but we ARE on the hayride!

 Kids enjoyed picking the apples, even though they kept filling the bag with rotten apples from the ground! Oh well, we pulled those out when they weren't looking and moved on.

The orchard had other fun things to do, like a play train, a sand box, a little choo-choo wagon, a petting zoo, a hay pile to climb, and facepainting. But, by the time we picked apples and made our way toward the extras, it was creeping up on naptime, so we didn't participate much. Though, we did take our "How tall this fall?" Photos! Unfortunately, B&H both thought the "apple happy" was so cute that they just wanted to stare at it and not turn around for the picture. :)

It was a wonderful day. Oh yes, the Lord IS good to me!

Pure Joy

When you are 1-3/4 years old, Pure Joy is running down a hill at top speed.

When you're 30-some years old, Pure Joy is watching these faces come barreling at you, ready for a hug.

FDP - the very delayed edition

Holy Moly.

It's been like 2 months since I did a Friday Phone Dump. Whoops. Here's a smattering of recent photos to enjoy!

Clockwise from top right:
- Momma & Daddy at the Twins game
- Ben being sassy during breakfast
- Hannah loves Play-Do day!
- Three buddies (B, H, and Mary) watch the leaves blow around
- Hannah enjoys storytime
- Hannah & Daddy outside on a chilly morn
- Ben eating snack at the mall
- B&H shaking glitter at our art class

Here's hopin' I don't wait 2 months again before doing another phone dump!

Quote of the Day

Recently, I saw this book called My Quotable Kid at a few cute little stores around town. I very nearly bought it. I thought with the rate Ben & Hannah are learning new words and phrases, it would come in handy. But then I remembered the nearly-empty pregnancy journal I have and the barely-filled-in baby books for the kids. So, I didn't buy it.

 Instead, I'm going to take a cue from our neighbor Kati (who is Callie's mom, and Callie happens to be one of B&H's favorite people because she's such a big kid - she's 2.5!). Kati started documenting funny things Callie says on her blog, so I'm following suit! Introducing B&H's first Quote of the Day entry!

Backstory:
Lately, Ben has been really interested in pulling my shirt out and looking down it. Sometimes he even sticks his hands down my shirt. Once he was doing that and I said, "You don't need to touch mom's boobs."

To which Ben spent about 1/2 hour saying, "Momma has boobs. Momma has boobs." And when he said "Daddy has boobs" I corrected him. The QOTD then became, "Momma has boobs. Daddy no boobs."

Who knew I was teaching anatomy over here?!

No doubt saying something sassy at breakfast

Keep Your Day

Photo (c) Cider Press Studios, Oct. 2011.

This week marked the beginning of another fun year of meetings with my Moms of Multiples group. We meet once a month - usually we have a speaker come to teach us something. Usually, the speakers are ... OK... just good enough to get out of the house for a night and whisper in the back with your friends.

Not this month. Oh no.

This month Willow Sweeney came to talk to us. I first heard Willow speak at the Minnesota Mothers of Multiples yearly convention in April. She's dynamic. She's engaging. She has a powerful message. I'm beyond happy that our club brought her to our meeting this week. Writing simple sentences about how great she is doesn't really do her any justice. She's great. Trust me.

I've been on a "Willow High" this week, particularly on one point she made: Keep Your Day. In a nutshell, Keep Your Day means that we're all going to die and our days on earth are limited. So why waste a day with negative thinking?

I took this one step further and thought that not only are my days numbered (hopefully, I have a VERY LARGE number of days left, though), but more important, the days when my kids are toddlers are numbered. I mean, the days when they were infants are already gone. Soon they won't be toddlers anymore - they'll be in school, they'll be driving, they'll go to college, soon they'll be married and on their own. Their days as children are numbered.

And here I go again - back to the "my kids are growing up too fast" sob story. But seriously. This will all be gone and over before I know it. In a blink of an eye, they will be grown.

So, I've spent this week "keeping my days" with them. We kept to our regular routine. YMCA, storytime class, ECFE, walks around the block, and so on. But I opened my eyes. I looked around. I hugged and held hands. I kissed and got kissed. I tickled. I played. I sat on the floor and built blocks for an hour. I watched them go up and down the slide. I lay under the trees and watched the clouds. I picked up sticks. I read extra stories. I loved and loved and loved.

It was a great week. I encourage you to Keep Your Days with your kid(s), too. It's worth it.

And, it just so happened that I found this quote above on Pinterest this week.  It fit perfectly with my feelings from this week! Someone else had created a photo with the quote written on it. I wanted to put the picture on this post, so I made my own! I have very elementary skills at photo editing, but I think it turned it out OK.

Fall Evenings

Since last summer, I've made it a point to get the kids out of the house after supper and before bedtime. I am convinced the fresh air is good for us all and helps them sleep. In 2010, our "outside" time was putting B&H in a stroller and going for a walk. That's when they were babies. Now they are toddlers. They don't wanna sit in a stroller, like, ever.

So, we have spent the summer walking (they walk) up and down the block, saying hi to neighbors, coloring with sidewalk chalk, going through the sprinkler, and just hanging around outside.

Tonight, both B&H said "backyard" - so out we went to play. They literally did this for 45 minutes.

Next time they say "backyard" I'm going to bring a book and a glass of lemonade with me!