Truck Obsessed

So many developments with the little boy these days, it seems like a new skill, sign, or word every day. The newest word around this house is 'truck'. It comes out more like 'dtouck', a little d with the t sound and a little deeper in the middle, like 'truck' with a german accent maybe? So now everything is a 'truck', cars, fire engines, trains, tractors, really anything with wheels is a truck in Q's eyes.

Fortunately, a few weeks ago someone gave away a bunch of toys that had been outside toys for their twins and part of what we got were trucks! lots and lots of toy trucks.

We're Home...

from a very long weekend away. I'll write some about our adventures later this week but now, guess what I came home to?

a bloom!

there has been a bee on it since it opened up, constant, drunk on the pollen

and there is a smaller sunflower following close behind, I think it will open up by the end of the week

{This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soulemama.

Playroom Part 1

We're working on making the catch-all room between the kitchen and the screened porch into a playroom. I've finally gone through and stored away most of the baby toys, and started to sort through stuff we have and separate it into separate baskets and themes. Still not really sure what I'm doing, just trying to start somewhere though. There is so much amazing inspiration online for playrooms - it's overwhelming! We just need something functional, simple, and inexpensive! Right now the room has bookcases, our comfy chair and a piano in it - these will stay. It also has some craft supplies that need to get moved out and some various little tables and whatnot that will leave as well.

I'm trying come up with ideas for inexpensive ways to jazz up the room, I think dealing with the floor is priority #1. It's crappy off white wall to wall carpet that's stained and just ick. We've had a rug on it that's been handed down in our family and it needs something more kid friendly. Ideally I would love to have hardwood in there, but that's not an option right now so it's going to be some sort of mat, or kid friendly rug or something. I've been checking Craigslist and I think we'll be able to check out Ikea this week also so maybe we'll have good luck finding something. I'm really wondering if I should paint the room, it sounds time consuming but I think it really would make a big difference.

There are some bigger things I want to get for the room too - a kids table and chair set, I'm thinking this one from Ikea will fit the bill. I also want to get some shelves like we had in our old house, they're from Ikea again and we still have the baskets that we used to store CDs, now we can fill them with toys and art supplies and stuff.

Here are some photos of some of the stuff that we've accumulated that will stay in the room for now...

some musical instruments

puzzles and stackers

blocks, babies

books, more books, only one shelf of our books. My boy loves his 'boops'

the beginning of our play kitchen. Veggie soup anyone? please disregard the cookie in the soup

Time

Sorry for the absence again, I really should just stop apologizing, blogging just doesn't happen as much with my energetic toddler and the crazy summer heat. I find that we've been going out a lot more to make up for not being able to spend time in the garden - YMCA, playdates, La Leche League and spending time with the new baby in our family have kept us busy. Even though we've been inside, we're still watching the garden and reaping the benefits on our dinner table. Here is the most exciting thing happening in our garden right now

We're waiting on our biggest sunflower to give us it's first bloom, and unfortunately we're leaving town for a little while right as it looks like it may happen. I'll update with a picture next week when we're home again.

My Weekend Conundrum

We spent most of the spring going out of town every weekend, it was really fun but exhausting and it took its toll on all of us. But for the past few weeks we've had open weekends, usually we have one or two things we need to do but they're around the area and don't require overnight stays. Even more recently we've had a couple weekends in a row with no real plans, it's been such a relief. Or has it? I'm having a conundrum I'm hoping you all can help me with.

My conundrum is this - when I see that we have a weekend that has no real plans - do I make some? My inclination is to see what my friends are up to, is there stuff going on around town, is this our chance to go check out that cool park, see if we can squeeze in a date night or make a day trip to the beach or some other local attraction. Generally, I like to do. Especially right now, there is sooo much cool stuff happening in our area. But I know that having a weekend where we stay home and piddle around the house, cook meals and eat them together, go for walks around the block and generally do nothing has a lot of value as well. B would prefer more of the stay home and piddle weekends I'm sure, but he enjoys the stuff going on around town as well. So what do I do? How do I find some balance? If I don't stay home and piddle when I get the chance, those weekends will be long gone and I'll want them back. But when I see and hear about stuff going on that I want to do, it's hard to give it up to stay home and do 'nothing'. Isn't the 'nothing' unstructured time where some sweet family memories are made though?

Does anyone else struggle with this?

Sweetness

I never mean to stay away this long, but it seems to happen every time my calendar reaches a critical mass. Needless to say, we've been keeping busy. This past week started with a long holiday weekend and welcoming a new nephew to the world.

during the week I practiced taking care of an infant and my toddler. The infant handled it better than the toddler by a long shot. I couldn't have done it at all without babywearing.

This weekend that's already almost over has been filled with fun. Blueberry picking, playing with friends, time in the garden and some new baby snuggles.

{This Moment}

Jumping on the Soulemama bandwagon to start a new Friday ritual - {this moment}. I love checking blogs on Friday and seeing all of these and so I wanted to join in.

{this moment} - A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

The Zoo

We're having a break in the hot weather this week and we took advantage of it today with a trip to the zoo. We woke up bright and early, grabbed our picnic and water bottles and spent most of the day walking around looking at animals.

Q is so into animals lately, a good 90% of his words right now are animals. He says fish, squirrel, bird, dog, kitty, bunny... He has no fear of animals and loves to watch them anytime he gets. His favorite books are the ones with pictures of real animals in them, we'll go back and forth over certain pages all day while he points and learns their names. I just knew he would love the zoo.

and he did.

Besides one startling incident with the chimpanzees we had a great time. We walked the whole zoo, took lots of pictures, got down and ran, visited our favorites (sea lions, bears) multiple times and ended the day with running around in a kids play area that gave us lots of inspiration for our yard.

A great way to spend a cool summer day.