toys today

My mom called to wish us a happy new year. We talked and laughed. It was refreshing. I've missed having her here every day like she was the week before Christmas. Since then it's been so quiet here. You know, as quiet as it can be with a bunch of new Christmas presents to entertain us....er I mean THEM. We are pretty much housebound with the weather and the need to catch up on work that I couldn't do when I was so sick. It's easy to get discouraged. I'm easily distracted and bored. I'm tired all the time because I'm not sleeping well at night. Anyone else deal with waking constantly at night while pregnant? I expect the 2-3 times a night to use the bathroom, but HOURLY waking is killing me! It's been going on for a month. Ugh. See? Easily distracted....I meant to write about the toys the kids are enjoying these days.

I have three words for you.

Remote.

Control.

Helicoptor.


The boy is in love and I don't think daddy minds showing how it works. We are excited to take it out when the snow is gone so we can fly it out in the open instead of our dining room.


Another favorite?

Bowling ball and pin set.

It's meant for toddlers but with our wide long hallway upstairs we have the perfect bowling alley. Sam keeps score - great for learning addition and the practice writing doesn't hurt either. it's a big hit with everyone.

Nerf guns.

It adds a new element to the "school" game the kids play with daddy. Wait. That doesn't sound good. It really isn't school like so don't worry :)

There is no shortage of imaginative play, good old fashioned art projects, and plenty of sibling squabbles to keep us on our toes.

Plenty to keep them busy until school starts again.

The case has been solved.

No, not the one about our missing garage sale signs, but the one about our apple tree. Ever since we discovered there is an apple tree in our park I've been trying to figure out what kind of apples our tree produces and thanks to my mom, who helped us pick the remaining apples from our tree this week (thanks Mom!), I was able to connect with an apple expert and get some answers.

Turns out they do get a little more red than I thought, but JP Jacobson of Pine Tree Apple Orchard knew without even tasting a piece of the apple we brought to the State Fair Ag Building with us today what kind they were. He sampled a piece and confirmed that they are indeed "an early pie apple" known as "FOLWELL" Finally an answer! Considering we can harvest apples as early as mid August I would certainly call that an early apple. They hold up nicely in pies and don't turn to mush - even though they are a soft apple to eat.

One thing that isn't a mystery around here is what kind of pies we'll be bringing for Thanksgiving Dinner!

Our weekend in a nutshell

Saturday we did a lot of this....


Sunday we did a lot of this (thanks Mom for the blocks!)


and we saw lots of these because


once you let your butterflies (thanks Rena!) go they tend to hang around for a few days.


Our Father's Day was pretty low key - kabobs, biscuits, and seasoned fries for dinner and lots and lots of outside time. We're selling our sandbox so the kids had one last hurrah in Tuggy2 by turning it into a swimming pool. While Daddy was at the office tonight we went around the park and collected the first of the black raspberries so we could surprise him with a tasty ice cream treat for dessert.

For more "how I spent my summer vacation" posts click here.


****Also wanted to say congrats to Jessica - her comment was chosen by random.org as the winner of the Piece of Pizza Fractions set. I'll be in touch soon with how to redeem your prize!******