One week left...

Only one week left of March. How the heck did that happen?! I'm not ready for March to be over yet!

Sigh. Well, I suppose then that I should remind y'all that you only have one week left to post your entry for my March Month by Month challenge. (more info can be found over on the left here about how to load your project to the right place) Please play if you get the chance, okay? Pretty please? :)

In the meantime, lots to do around here. I'm thinking I may need to make myself a little book just to keep track of things for the coming weeks...from mid-March to end of May are always crazy busy around here. :) I'll be back later with pictures from our weekend and hopefully (if I manage to finish some more) pictures of more Lists of Me layouts...

Oh, and thank you for the comments about reflexes!! I'm looking into a couple things now and will keep you posted! So nice just to know others can relate, kwim? :)

ETA: Sorry. Creating Keepsakes is changing their website around and the links aren't working as of yet. I didn't know that was going to happen. :) Please hang in there and try again soon...

Reflex.

Okay, this might sound odd, but does anyone know of ways to improve the reflex of catching yourself with your hands rather than falling smack on your face? That's supposed to be one of those automatic reflex things, right? Let's just say that a certain middle son of ours has always had trouble with this. I can't remember a single time that he's scraped his hands from catching himself...just plenty of times falling face first into the ground...tripping and landing on his face, falling off of higher things and landing on his face, jumping and landing on his face...you get the picture. He says it doesn't occur to him to try to catch himself. Could he really be "missing" this reflex? Is there anything we can do to encourage the catching yourself thing?

Shadow walls, mirrors, music trucks & names...

So, yesterday the boys and I headed to our local Discover Science Center for some spring break celebrations and just because the boys like to go there. The boys got to make ice cream (and eat some of it...Noah declared it wasn't very good because they hadn't added any flavoring, but Micah didn't mind, lol), see a couple Diet Coke and Mentos fountains, play in the light room, see pictures of grasshopper and locust swarms of years ago, draw on the Kaliedodraw program that they love there, eat some cake (the Center was celebrating their birthday this week), check out dinosaur facts and sooooo much more. We wandered around there for a couple hours. A few quick pics:

(Micah with his ice cream that I had to shake for him, Noah in front of the giant light room screen and Asher posing against the shadow wall...man that shadow wall is fun!)

And, personally, I think everyone should have a mirror like this in their home:

So. After leaving the Discovery Science Center, we ran a couple errands and finally made it home with an exhausted Micah. While he was napping, the other two were playing in the front yard for a bit when an unexpected sound came down our quiet little culdesaq...it was the music truck! Okay, so when they were younger I had them utterly convinced that ice cream trucks were really just music trucks...driving around sharing music with people. Until they could read, this worked great. :) Regardless, they really haven't come around much here at our house so we've never had the ice cream truck experience. Growing up in the country, I'd never even heard of ice cream trucks until college. So. Feeling generous, I bought Noah, Asher and myself a treat yesterday...our very first ever treats from an ice cream truck! Simple pleasures. :) Let's hope it doesn't come back to bite me in the butt, eh? LOL!

Finally, just because I want to make sure to record it somewhere, the boys in the past month or so have decided upon how many kids they think they want and what they'll name them. In case you're curious...

Noah: wants a boy and a girl and that's it...likes the name Jacob for a boy and Ashley (after Asher) for a girl (not sure where Jacob came from?)

Asher: wants two boys and no girls because girls are icky...wants to name the boys Ash and Mike (so original, right?)

Micah: wants five kids...and wants to name them Tyrone, Uniqua, Pablo, Austin and Tasha...yes, really, LOL! (for those not "in the know" about kids' shows...these are the names of the characters on The Backyardigans...I actually like the show but not sure about having grandkids named that...)

ETA: Note, I have nothing against the Backyardigans' names actually...on their own, they're rather nice. But. I would never be able to look at them without thinking of the Backyardigans, LOL!

Off now to see how my Friday is going to shape up...how's yours going?

Utter randomness...

Wow. Two posts in one day. :) Go, me. LOL. So...three completely unrelated things...

First, thank you for the Easter basket ideas! I think I may go ahead with the swim themed idea, though Noah and Asher are stubbornly attached to their swim trunks. I tried buying them new ones the last couple years but they refuse and are skinny enough that the trunks just keep fitting. ;) We'll see. New towels and maybe some dive toys might work regardless.

Second, I feel like a slug. Not really, because slugs are gross. :) But, I haven't been able to get to the gym in more than three weeks because at least one boy or me has been sick since then. Argh. Just when I thought this would be the week, btw, Noah and Asher have been all sniffly and coughing again yesterday and today. I'm almost certain Noah's is due to allergies, but I'm afraid Asher's got what Micah just got over at the end of last week (yes, again...having been sick the week before that...this, at least, is only a cold...just annoying). Bleh. Still. I know I'm fortunate that this is a rarity for us.

(Okay, I'm realizing now that I could have gotten to the gym Sunday or Monday but I was busy purging all those toys...a workout on its own, right? LOL!)

Third, this is the utter randomness part. Do you know why the state of Rhode Island is named that when it's not, in fact, an island? I now do. Here's how it came about...

- The boys and I were grabbing some groceries this afternoon when Nathan called to say he'd be home late-ish but in time to watch the American Idol results show together (we record them and then skip commercials).

- The boys started talking about how they wanted to hear Adam Lambert's "Ring of Fire" performance again. (They're very taken with this particular song for some reason and have re-watched Adam numerous times.)

- Noah asked Micah if he knew what the real Ring of Fire was and then proceeded to tell him about the circle around the Pacific Ocean and volcanoes and all that, ending with a note about how the world's largest volcano is in Hawaii, in the middle of the ring. He then turned to me and asked whether Hawaii is part of the United States. (Yeah, we still haven't really gotten into American history and such...in the grand timeline, it's so recent.)

- I replied, obviously, that, yes, Hawaii is one of the 50 United States.

- Noah made some comment about how it must be the smallest since it's just islands.

- I corrected him by stating that Rhode Island is actually the smallest state.

- He quipped that an island was still the smallest state then.

- I was at a loss for words. I've honestly never thought about the fact that Rhode Island isn't, in fact, an island.

So, when we got home, I had to look it up. Turns out, Rhode Island, though it borders the ocean on only one side, takes its name from one of the islands along that coast...Aquidneck Island, which is technically named Rhode Island but is now referred to as Aquidneck Island so as to avoid confusion with the state that bears its name. Back in "the day" folks must have started calling the whole area around the island Rhode Island and that's that. (Yes, I'm sure someone else can explain this better but I was just fascinated by the whole thing and that I'd never even questioned it before.)

How's that for random? :)

Planning ahead...

So. I've done what spring cleaning I'm probably going to tackle for the moment...have gone through most all of the toys and weeded out a couple huge tubs full. Out of sheer curiosity, I had the boys help me gather all of the Hot Wheels cars in the house (though I'd guess we missed a few). This is what we ended up with:

Yup, 259 Hot Wheels. Yikes. I'm taking solace in the fact that at least we're talking about three boys here, folks. And I did manage to weed out a few dozen after this. I just won't think about those three 16"(w) x 20"(h) x 12"(d) tubs FULL of the Duplo sized legos (and there were actually more that didn't fit)...or the fact that we likely have at least that many "normal" sized legos also (which I refuse to count). Oy. (And, yes, I've considered doing away with the Duplo size, but strangely all three still really play with them a lot.) It's continually amazing to me how much of a mess the boys' toys can make considering that 90% of it is just cars and legos. Seriously, if you don't count books and games, at least 90% of the toys here are cars and legos. Wow.

In any case, though, feeling pretty good about having gone through everything and put it all in its place for now, though I know I could still do a more thorough job. Thinking I may tackle my scrapbook supplies next. :)

So. In light of the crazy amount of toys we still have and since I just realized that Easter is only a bit more than three weeks away, does anyone have any good ideas for Easter basket contents that don't involve adding more toys to our home? :) I like to have a theme. Past themes have been sand toys, sidewalk chalk goodies, pirate stuff, bath toys...I don't want to go with just candy, though at least that disappears after a bit and doesn't add clutter, LOL. What do you do? Ideas? Please?