Letterbox Hitchhikers

Today was our first day of spring break that we were in town so we made sure to do something fun.  This morning the boys and I made some hitchhikers for letterboxes.  Hitchhikers are stamps and logbooks that get moved from letterbox to letterbox.  When you find one in a letterbox, you take it with you and plant it in the next letterbox you find.

I asked the boys what they wanted to make and they both decided on animals they saw at the Georgia Aquarium (they were actually the stuffed animals they got as souvenirs from there).  Rylan got a seal pup and Carter got a sting ray.  My first attempt at a seal pup looked like a zombie seal with crazy eyes so I asked Rylan to think of something else.  He decided on a penguin.  It turned out MUCH better.

I forgot to take a picture of Carter's stingray stamp but here's what it looked like stamped in our book.

The boys and I went to the Adventure Science Center after lunch and then we found two letterboxes we'd never found before.  Both were easy finds in parking lots close to the interstate.  We planted a hitchhiker in each of the letterboxes.

Now we can track online when they are found!

Spring Break Trip

The boys and I are back from a short trip to Atlanta for Spring Break.  We went with Jen and her four kids from Sunday through today (Wednesday).  I'll post lots of pictures soon!

Adventure Science Center

Gray and I had a solo date to the Adventure Science Center on Monday while the big boys were at school.  I think Gray liked getting to go wherever he wanted instead of just following the other two around.

One of the first things he did was climb up to the very top of the building through a maze of stairways and tight spaces.  From up here you can see all of downtown.

Building bugs ...

Throwing "food" from different food groups towards the mouth ...

Driving an ambulance (which is pretty awesome when you are two!) ...

Building with blocks ...

We spent a couple of hours at the science center and I had to drag the little man out when it was time to go.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The boys woke up to a rainbow in our kitchen!!!

They each had a little pail with a treat inside - chocolate gold coins for Gray and Rylan and gold Oreos for Carter.  The leprechaun also set up a scavenger hunt for the boys which concluded with a new game.  Our leprechaun is a bit of a dork and decided on an educational game when he couldn't find the junior version of Apples to Apples.  The boys really liked this game this morning though :)

Rylan insisted on wearing ALL green today.  He had told his classmates he was going to and was quite upset with me last night when I said I was not going shopping for green pants after Carter's baseball scrimmage last night.  We figured out he could wear green shorts and green soccer socks to stay warm.  Carter decided to go with the same look.

Crazy Proud

We are a couple of proud parents today!

Both Rylan and Carter submitted drawings for their schools yearbook cover this year.  Last year Carter's submission was picked to be one of the four drawings on the back cover (first time ever for a 1st grader).  So I thought there was no chance he'd get picked again this year.  And then Rylan is in kindergarten (they've never picked a kindergartener's drawing before).  While I think Rylan's a great artist for his age, he's going against 5th graders who are twice his age.  The boys knew the winners were going to be announced today (one front cover, a title page, and 4 back covers) and were so excited.  I however was trying to prepare them for disappointment because I thought their chances were slim.

But, guess what .. both their drawings were picked!!!  And Carter's is supposed to be on the front cover.  The boys worked so hard on their submissions and their ideas were 100% their own.  I did very little to help them (only telling them to take their time, suggesting they color a little darker somewhere to fill in the white spots, things like that).

I can't wait to share their drawings when the yearbook comes out at the end of the school year!!!  I'm so proud of them for taking the initiative to come up with creative ideas and following through and putting together great drawings!

Late Winter Snow

Last Thursday Rylan and Gray both wore shorts all day.  It was in the mid-70s and beautiful.  On Saturday, this happened ...

The boys were supposed to play their first outdoor soccer games of the season.  Those games ended up being cancelled.  We got 2-3" of snow in the area.  It was one of those convenient snows where it snows for a few hours and as soon as it stops, it melts.  And it never stuck to the roads.

But it was just enough for the boys to enjoy and go sledding.  Unfortunately the grass has been growing on our sledding hill and hasn't been cut this season yet so the hill was definitely slower than a couple of months ago.  That didn't stop the boys from having fun though!

 

The boys wanted me to video them so here are a few videos of them sledding ...

Front Tooth

Carter has finally lost one of his top front teeth!!!

He lost it yesterday at school.  This was the first tooth he lost at school and he was very excited about it!  Apparently Carter was eating his sandwich and felt something weird.  He looked down and his tooth was in his sandwich.  It then fell on the ground but he found it after searching for a minute.

We went to the orthodontist last week, and Carter got another 6 month reprieve from starting on the next step of a palette expander.  Dr. Lucas wants Carter to loose some top teeth and let some of the permanent ones start coming in.  He is making progress on that!

Milk

Gray calls all liquids "milk".  He calls his water in his water cup "milk".  When we go to Sonic to pick me up a drink, he calls it "Mama's Milk".  When Brian has a beer in the evening, he calls it "Daddy's Milk".  When it's rained and there is a puddle, he calls it milk.  He even called the waterfall on our last hike milk.

Gray used to love milk (I nursed him just passed his 2nd birthday - kind of scary).  But after he got the stomach bug this fall, we stopped giving him milk for about a week because his diarrhea would not clear up.  We read that little ones often because lactose intolerant for a short time after the stomach bug.  Apparently Gray realized that "no milk" = "no tummy trouble" and we haven't been able to get him to drink it since.

So it seems so odd for him to call all liquid milk when he won't touch the stuff.  He eats enough cheese, yogurt, etc to make up for it though!

Class Pictures

The boys' teachers sent out pictures of their classes on Character Parade Day.  It seems like a lot of kids find a book that either matches their halloween costume from the past October or (for the boys) goes with a sports jersey.  Some of them actually do pick out the book first and then make a costume to go with it!

Rylan's Class:

Carter's Class:

Book Character Parade

Today the boys got to dress as a book character for the school's Book Character Parade.  Rylan chose Greg from Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Carter is still obsessed with these books and if I let him, he would just reread these all the time.  Rylan decided to give them a try after Jen's son Reed (who is also in kindergarten) has been borrowing them and reading them.  Rylan is about 25% of the way through the first one.

Carter chose Harry Potter.

Carter is currently reading the first book in the Harry Potter series.  He really liked the first couple of movies and having gone to Universal convinced him to give the book a try.