"Mommy, Tell Me a Story About A State"

About a year ago, I bought this gigantic laminated map at Costco to hang in Teigue's room. My original purpose was to show, with push pins and embroidery thread, all the road trips and places Teigue has been in his 4 little years. It was fun fo rthe kids to point at the places on the map and ask, "Have I been there?" "Yes, see the pin? You've been to Tucson." "Here?" "See all those pins? That was the road trip we took to see Danpa in Indianapolis and then Grandma in Akron." On and on it went like this for a few weeks until the kids finally understood the places that had pins meant they had been there. Then they started to remember the places and could point to Breckenridge, Bend, San Francisco. Now the map has become a wonderful learning tool that I had never intended.

Every night after I read Janyo her mandatory four books and then snuggle, and after Brady plays dinosaurs with Teigue, reads him his three books and tells him a story or two, it is then my turn to go into Teigue's room and tell him a story about a state. There are a few rules: 

The story must be about a state that he hasn't been to and must include one bad guy with Teigue saving the day (his rules). 

Before the story is told he must tell me the states between here and there (my rule). 

Basically if he wants to hear about Florida he must tell me that he has to go through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to get there. He now knows all those states because, for about a week, he only wanted to hear stories about scorpions. The only place that I know that has a lot of scorpions is Florida. Each night he had to walk across these states to get to his scorpion story.

I love this little bonding moment that we have every night, although I sometimes find it hard to come up with stories on the spot. It is helpful that I have visited most of the states so I can sort of relate the story to  the actual state. I even busted out my pictures from my cross country trip that I took 14 years ago! with my wonderful friend Lisa. The kids thought my outfits were pretty silly- Mommy, why do you have sun glasses on top of your glasses? Well you see, I needed sunglasses and I wore glasses for driving then. You look silly! Yes, we heard that a lot... In addition to seeing how silly their mommy looked at 20 years old, they were also able to see what some of the states looked like and now want to go to a few- Hawaii in the near future, Yellowstone and Glacier when someone develops a biodiesel Winnebago type thing. Brady and I agree that a road trip with two kids in a normal car would be slightly coo coo. Or it could be fun. Either way, our kids will get to see most of (if not all) the states by the time they are teenagers.

Green Valley Lake

This past weekend we decided to beat the cold and gloom and head on up to the mountains for a little bit of camping. Brady and I both love spending time in the woods in a tent but haven't really found the time in the last couple years to go camping. Thankfully we have discovered that our kids love sleeping in the great outdoors just as much as we do. They even fell asleep in the tent- alone!

While Teigue through stick upon stick into the fire, Jayno sat back in her pink princess chair and ate some tasty s'mores. Yes, I realize her chair is pink and not purple as every single thing that we buy lately must be, but do you see the princesses? Yes, my little lady has decided that purple is tops, but if that is not to be, pink and princesses will do in a pinch.

We headed on down to the lake and showed Daddy the proper way to work a paddle boat,

escaped a treacherous Daddy Shark

and spent a whole five minutes hoping a fish would attach itself to our non hooked fishing line.

Next camping trip- Cronin Campground in Connecticut this August!

Swinging

When Jayno was born we discovered that she loved to be held...by me. If she wasn't with me she wasn't that happy of a camper. Sure, Brady would do in a pinch, but what she always wanted was me. I was really the only person or thing that could calm her little feistiness down. That is. until we discovered the glorious papasan cradle swing. This swing was heaven to us. Put Stella in it and she would just swing and swing and was so content. We spent a small fortune on batteries for the precious freedom that swing gave us. 

Although Stella is now 2 things haven't changed much. After dropping Teigue off at school we headed to the park...and played on the swings for 30 minutes. We then played for 5 and wanted right back on. After picking up Teigue we had a picnic in the park. Afterwards both kids decided the swings would be the place to digest their quesadillas. Stella stayed on for 45 minutes (thankfully the park was empty) while Teigue played baseball, slid, explored...When we were leaving she was so mad because she wanted to swing some more. It's amazing her little love affair with the swings.

Ice Cream

Today we had to head over to the doctors because little lady has a strange little bump on the back of her head. Because of her small little stitch incident, she is slightly nervous scared OK, terrified of heading to the doctors. Once we get to the actual office she is usually fine but the hour or so before we get there is filled with protests, screams and loads and loads of tears. Not fun. In order to get Stella into the truck I promised her a trip to the local ice cream place afterwards. That seemed to do the trick and we were able to make it to the doctors to discover that the doctor didn't know what the bump was, but didn't seem to think it was anything serious. It's basically going to be a wait and see game- if it goes away wonderful. If it changes in any way, we have to see a dermatologist. 

So...we headed on down to the ice cream place so the kids could enjoy a tasty cone of chocolate brownie and I could once again take some fun pictures with my new app. 

I think this may be one of my favorite pictures I have ever taken of Jayno.

Like Father Like Son

When Brady was a little boy and first learned how to write his name, he says that he wrote his name on everything. Walls, books, paper- you name it, it had Brady Fox's signature on it. Although Teigue has known how to write his name for some time now, he seems to be following in Brady's footsteps. I walked out onto the patio this morning to find my little artist proudly marking his territory on the concrete right in front of the door with non washable crayon. 

P.S. I love this new app that I discovered for my phone- Hipstamatic. Makes iPhone pictures look like old school pictures. Helpful when you leave your regular camera at a friend's house on the 4th of July.

Deconstruction

A little over 5 years ago, Brady and I walked into our house during an open house and promptly fell in love with the back deck. Right after, we headed to Palm Springs and went from shop to shop dreaming of buying new furniture and art for our hopefully new home. We went into one store and they had the most amazing outdoor set- white furniture with cushions you could nap in all day with kelly green throw pillows. We decided then that the only thing this house would need was a new coat of green paint on the back deck and the home would be perfect! On our trip to Hawaii we found more inspiration on the hikes we took. I found a moss covered rock that some pink flower petals had fallen on. We had our second color- pink! Then the house would be REALLY perfect. That is all we would need- our beautiful palace that we bought at the height of the market would welcome us in with open arms and love us to pieces because we took care of its deck. Ahhh... Then reality sunk in when we moved in and we discovered that our abode would need much more work that our minds let us remember. Jumping into homeownership after only seeing the house once- got to love it.

Well, after a new kitchen, bathroom, master suite, front porch area, garden and soon to be new windows...we have finally decided to do our back deck. Today while I was at a movie by myself...ahhh...Brady and the kids started taking down the lovely aviary that the previous owner kept his 30 birds, 5 dogs, 6 cats and God knows what else. Soon our just discovered how huge it really is back deck will be the oasis that we had originally planned- complete with pink and green accents. Just no white furniture. 

Fairy House

It seems like every day we do the same things- park, beach, zoo...fun, but posting about how we do the same things every day is not so exciting. Today, however, we did something new and discovered that new can be fun- and landscaper clippers were involved!

Today we decided to make a place for the fairy that will come and stay to watch the garden at night. We need someone to make sure the bunnies and bugs will stay off of our ripening tomatoes and edamame while we are sound asleep in our beds. Teigue thinks that Tinkerbelle will be arriving this evening while Jayno is certain Pinkerbelle will be staying at the hotel we created. We clipped sticks to make the foundation (if Teigue had his way with the clippers, Tinkerbelle would have had a mansion to stay in), picked leaves for the roof and sides and found berries for our guests to eat when they arrived. We even found a beach treasure, an empty crab claw, that we decided we could part with for our guests.

We decided that we would wake up tomorrow and make another house, just in case our fairy brings along a friend or two. Teigue seems to think that the fairy is quite popular so a few houses will be needed. When I was a kid I loved to build houses for my toys out of sticks and leaves so I know that I am very excited to start construction on our little village.