Treehouse!

Happy birthday, boys!

Before...

During...

And after construction!

Harrison hanging from the pole just above the slide -- I knew he'd love that thing!

Watch Out!

Caffeinated toddler on the loose...

Grandaddy

Brave Grandaddy stepped up to the plate this week! Chris went to New York on Sunday afternoon and will be gone until Friday morning, so Grandaddy stayed with Mama and the boys a few days to help corral two crazy toddlers. The crazy toddlers loved it. Grandaddy drove the boys to school each morning that he was here and then was a stand-in dad for the afternoons and evenings. We did lots of little events -- "projects" in the yard (Harrison's first exposure to Quikrete -- he was like a cement mixer truck!), inspections of the fort being built in the backyard (but only after the workers had left and taken their noisy saws and nailguns with them), special Harrison-Grandaddy outings to the playground, bike riding and wild games of chase in the parking lot and yard of the church across the street, gardening, a trip to the pet store, and a dinner at Willy's. We settled into a nice routine in the evenings of Mama taking Harrison up for a bath and pajamas while Grandaddy helped Hewitt (safely) do naughty things, then Harrison and Grandaddy had some quiet time together (watching cartoons or reading books) while Mama washed Hew and put him to bed, then Mama did the rest of Harrison's bedtime while Grandaddy recovered.

Let me tell you this : Grandaddy was not afraid to get down in the trenches -- he'd be embarrassed if he knew I was telling you this, but I actually caught him emptying a little boy potty into the big potty. Now that is commitment!

Exploring ice at dinner -- watch for the shiver :)

Testing out the half-built fort

A trip to the pet store (our personal indoor zoo)
Watch out -- student drivers! :)


Hewie and his cart


Harrison doing some dance "moobes" (moves) with his cart -- there was music playing in the store

Hewitt asked for a salamander. Mama said "No."

Harrison asked for a salamander. Mama said "No" again. I have no place in my heart for reptiles -- sorry, guys.

Standing above the air vent in the parking lot -- WINDY!

Thank you, Grandaddy -- now get some rest!

Bedtime With Harrison

Bedtimes with Harrison have been so fun the past few nights. He's a real chatter right now and can just talk and talk and talk! His diatribes are very stream-of-conscious, and although I can usually follow how he got from one topic to the next, there are a few times when his train of thought completely derails and jumps to another track. :) So, given that, I will now do my best to recap tonight's informative discussions (which took place with Harrison in his bed and Mama sitting beside the bed, holding hands while he told me everything on his mind)...

(Note : Recap will be done in English rather than in Harrison, which would take ALOT of time to type and also which might confuse some of my readers. Call me if you want me to tell it to you in Harrison -- I love to speak Harrison.)

"Mama, is it 9 o'clock? (Mama : "No, it is 8 o'clock. We know that because this black line right here (the hour hand on the clock in his room) is pointing to the number 8.") Oh. It is 8 o'clock. I go to bed at 8 o'clock. Hewitt goes to bed at 9 o'clock. (Mama : "No, Hewitt is already asleep, he went to bed before 8 o'clock.") Oh. I go to bed at 8 o'clock. Hewitt does not go to bed at 9 o'clock. Pee and penis and potty all start with P. And so does Preston. Dada saw a bug. It was a grasshopper. It was in the garage. It was gross. It was a mosquito. Mosquitos bite. Chiggers also bite. We saw ants in the garden. There is a fort in my backyard. The workers will come back tomorrow to finish it and then the house will have walls. Me and Grandaddy and Hewitt got in the fort today. Grandaddy went to the store. He went to get gas and some flip flops. I have flip flops. They are green. Hewitt does not have flip flops. He is too little. He has other shoes. I have fast running shoes and Hewitt has fast running shoes. Tigers like to play with toys. I saw a picture of a tiger playing with a ball. Tigers lick. Dogs lick. Boys lick. Lizards lick. Lions do not lick. Bears do not lick. Tigers lick like this (insert rapid licking). Lizards lick like this (insert more rapid licking). Some people lick ice cream. They put it in a thing with a hole (an ice cream cone) and lick it. I do not lick ice cream. I bite it with my teeth. Lions do not lick. Lions roar. Bears do not lick. Bears bite. Bears and lions bite food. I roared like a lion at school. I woke Grant up. He cried. One day I did not roar like a lion and I let Grant sleep and he did not cry. If you listen to the teacher at school you get a sticker. Dada is in New York. Today I saw a fish that had this (insert waving hand motion) on its head and this (insert waving hand motion) on its tail. Do you know what it was called? A lion fish. A lion fish goes fast like this (insert fast swimming motion). A whale shark goes slow. It goes like this (insert slow swimming motion). Sometimes fish do not move. They are scared. When they are afraid, they are still and they try to hide. But then we find them and we point at them and they move. (We took a family field trip to the pet store today, where we did see a lion fish and where we did point to some fish that thought they were hiding.) Hewitt saw dogs at the store. Hewitt thought he saw a dog when we were in the car after school but it was a school bus. Silly Hewitt. That was funny. Hewitt is funny. Juh-juh-jellyfish. Juh-juh-jellybean. Juh-juh-jelly. Juh-juh-Jonathon (a boy from school). Juh-juh-Genady (another boy from school). Llama rhymes with Mama. What fish rhymes with Harrison? (A very good question, son, what fish does rhyme with Harrison?) Larrison. Larrison rhymes with Harrison. (True, but...) Today Emilee and Tre (kids from school) put paint in their mouth and Ms. Marvi came over and took the paint away and washed their faces. They did not get to paint anymore. I did not put paint in my mouth. Jonathan and me painted a giraffe today. We painted it orange. Mama, is it 9 o'clock now? (Mama : "Almost.") Sometimes I ride on Dada's bike and sometimes I ride on my bike. I go fast on my bike. I go fast like this (insert really fast bike riding motions). I ride my bike and get exercise. At school sometimes I ride my bike on the grass and sometimes on the track. I saw a man riding his bike in the street. I saw a man with a scooter-bike. I saw a cat running across the street. It was running fast like this (insert fast airplane-take-off hand motion). Me and Grandaddy rode a bike. I rode in the front and he rode in the back (Harrison's bike seat is on the front of Chris' bike -- mounted to the handlebars). We rode Dada's bike. We went to the playground. There was a party there. There was not a bear there."

After 45 supremely entertaining minutes of this, I finally interrupted and said, "Harrison, honey, it is late now, so it is time for you to sleep. You have lots of interesting things to talk about, and I have really enjoyed hearing you tell me so much. Thank you for sharing with me -- I like to hear you talk. Will you tell me more tomorrow?" He said, "Yes, Mama. Okay. Goodnight!"

The Birthday Party!

The boys shared their birthday party this year -- Harrison's big 3-year celebration and Hewitt's big 1-year celebration!

Happy birthday, boys!

Taking the birthday balloons for a ride

He looks like such a big boy!

Playing "together" with the new auto-roll cars

A cute little profile shot of the brothers

Hewie chasing a windup car -- leg sweep!

Because any guy with a guitar can pick up chicks -- especially a cute guy like this one

He's a natural!

The other member of the band -- playing xylophone with one mallet and one breadstick

Cupcakes! Turned out much, much better than the hedgehogs

A pack of turtles out for a nice walk -- little do they know what's about to happen to them!

Blowing out the candles (each boy had his own candle -- Harrison blew both out -- spittle was also used for ultimate fire extinguishing safety)

Hewitt stepped on the cupcake he wanted -- see the frosting on his foot?

"No, Mama, this is not the one I wanted."

Mouthful of cupcake!

Who Knew These Things Were Still Around?

Took the boys to Trader Joe's (a grocery store) to get the goods for this weekend's birthday party and realized once we were in the parking lot that Harrison was not wearing any shoes... So we walked into a store next door called Richard's Variety Store on the off chance that they might stock some toddler size 6s. They do not, but they did have an unexpectedly large inventory of other things, including a ride-on horse!

There was an impressive display of toy trucks that the boys just couldn't seem to pull themselves away from for a picture.

Sorry about the upside-down video -- I took it on my phone and get confused about which way to hold it while I'm filming.

Harrison went to the store in his socks. Took ruining his dinner with an hour's worth of snacking, but he stayed in the cart the whole time!

Happy Birthday, Harrison!

Mama did something very, very bold and took some Sharpie markers to a white t-shirt to make a surprise birthday shirt for Harrison.

(There was a bit of a disagreement on whether Harrison's bedhead should be tamed for all the birthday pictures. He won the debate, obviously.)

Doing a birthday dance in his special shirt!

Got the shirt in this one but forgot to include the birthday boy's face. Oops, sorry, Bug!

He's 3!

The School Birthday Party

My fears were unfounded -- the cupcakes were consumed with much appreciation! Picking all the candies off was half the fun. :)

The official presentation

The smiling birthday boy :)

I think the girl on the end actually blew the candle out!

Preview

Dig in, kids!

Junior Gardener

We planted a bunch of flowers and grasses in the pots in the backyard today. Harrison was a huge help (seriously!) -- he even got to be the leader for one of the pots. :) Then Big H went on break and Little H came out to help. Unfortunately for him, all that was left to do was cleanup, so he and all the empty plastic pots got loaded into the wagon to get pulled around to the recycle bin. Poor Hewie -- he's thinking, "Really, Mama -- you needed my help with this?"

Not the Cake Boss!

Back when I sometimes watched TV (for those few hours each week when Harrison napped while I was hugely pregnant with Hewitt), I had a thing for watching cake-baking shows. These people are amazing. One show on TLC was called "Cake Boss" and followed a bakery in New Jersey as they made all sorts of specialty-ordered cakes for different occasions. Side note : The Cake Boss made a Coca-Cola cake for the shareowners meeting this year. Another side note : I liked "Ace of Cakes" better than "Cake Boss," but "Ace of Cakes" isn't available on On Demand anymore. Just putting that out there...

Some examples of the amazing stuff the Cake Boss has made...

Garfield and friends

A building

Sushi

A burning building and some firefighters

Anyway, I got inspired for Harrison's second birthday (nearly Hewitt's zeroth birthday) and found instructions on how to make an airplane cake, which turned out really well, if I do say so myself! Thanks again to Grandmom.

For Christmas this past year, Great Grandmama Nell (Chris' grandmother) gave me a book with a thousand ideas on how to make specialty cupcakes. Harrison chose hedgehogs for this year's school birthday party (something else for his birthday party at home).

What the book promised...

What a cute little hedgehog!

What my efforts produced...

Aaahhh! What the flip is that? Borderline horrifying is what it is... Why is their hedgehog so much rounder? Why are their spikes so much thinner? Why are their eyes so much rounder and so much less bug-eyed? Where did they get those nice silicone cupcake holder with little feet on them? Why did I think that adding a red mouth would make mine look better?

Not any cuter when there is a plateful of them.

After some kind remarks about "All that matters is that Harrison likes them" and junk like that, Chris finally acknowledged that they were scary. Huh... Now, I have seen a birthday party in Harrison's classroom at preschool and I have seen the result of Elmo walking in -- serious freaking out. I promise you that every adult in the room had at least one crying kid clinging to them in desperation (Harrison was the one hanging off of me). In those kids' defense, I was pretty disturbed by Elmo, as well. So the obvious questions are...

1. What will Harrison think when he sees these things but is expecting the cute hedgehogs in the picture from the book?
2. What will the rest of the kids think when Harrison brings in scary cupcakes for his birthday party?
3. What will the school administrators think when Harrison's mom shows up with demonic cupcakes for a kid turning 3?

Answer to question 1 is "Wow! Mama made hedgehogs!"

Answers to questions 2 and 3 to come tomorrow around 3pm...

PDK Airport and Playground

There's a small airport in Atlanta called Peachtree-DeKalb Airport -- it's used by little planes (4-6 seaters), for flights lessons, etc. There's a playground on the grounds of the airport, so Dada and I took the boys for their first visit this weekend, and it was a huge hit! There's a hangar that you can reserve for parties, and there's even a tiny stadium on the far corner of the playground where you can sit and watch the little planes come and go.

I want to go to there!

I have another photo of the boys on the pretend plane that is cuter of all three of them but that includes a fairly gratuitous shot of bosoms from the lady in the pink shirt. This is a family-friendly blog, so I decided to go with the more conservative picture.

Almost But Not Quite...

Harrison told me the other day, "Don't bop those field bunnies on the head, little cotton tail." Huh? What is he talking about?

Took me little while, but I realized that he was merging Little Bunny Foo Foo and Peter Cotton Tail. :) I love that kid! What other funny stuff is rolling around up in his head?

Here We Go Round...

The mulberry tree! All that work to plant a garden and look at this...

This, apparently, is a mulberry tree. It is growing in our backyard, no thanks to us!

This, apparently, is what grows on and eventually falls off of a mulberry tree!

Cute kids? No -- mulberries! They're real -- not just the subject of nursery rhymes! And they're not poisonous! Don't believe me? Look it up on Wikipedia.

Not that tasty straight up (a little like a blackberry but not so juicy), but we'll see how they taste in a pie.