Moving On...

Not a beamish boy!

Well, folks, it's been fun, but I can no longer blog on a site called "My Beamish Boys"! We welcomed our little girl Audrey Therese into the world on June 17, and I'm changing my blog address to more accurately reflect our family. To continue following our journey, you can find us here. I hope you follow me to our new address!

A Lesson in Economics

In our home, the Daddy Tax Rule is widely enforced. Whenever the kiddos are munching on something that appeals to their dad, he swoops in, proclaims "Daddy Tax!" and snitches a piece of whatever they are enjoying.

On Tuesday night, the three adults in this household devoured a pineapple... a failed attempt at inducing labor. But I made sure to set some aside for the boys in the morning; pineapple is one of Lucian's favorite foods in the world, and one of the few words he can pronounce perfectly. I knew he would be heartbroken if he discovered he had missed out on the pineapple that he saw in our cart at Costco. Sure enough, the next morning he got up bright and early (even before Daddy left for work) and came down to scope out the kitchen. He looked in the garbage can and found the empty pineapple hull... and immediately began a chorus of "Pine, apple, peas? Pine, apple, peas?" Thank goodness for the stash we had stored away; it would have been a loooooong morning without it!

I set him up at the table with a plate of pineapple and a bowl of cereal. Soon after, Daddy came in for the kill. "Daddy Tax!" Thankfully, he was kind and only took a small nibble of Lucian's prized pineapple. Louie giggled and probably inwardly heaved a huge sigh of relief that the damage wasn't greater.

Half an hour later, Daddy was at work, Lucian was finished with his breakfast, and Max was just sitting down to enjoy his pineapple and cereal. Before I even knew what was happening, Louie climbed up on the chair next to Max, proclaimed "Yay-Yay Tax!" and swiped a slice of Max's pineapple, shoveling it in before anyone could object!

Being the easy-going kid that he is, Max barely batted an eyelash and went on eating the remainder of his pineapple. I managed to stop Louie before he helped himself to a second round of taxation, and we had a little chat about taking other people's food. But if Daddy can do it... why can't Yay-Yay?

Why indeed?

Nature Creatures

Last time I went to drop off books at the library, I decided to swing through the craft book section to see if anything caught my eye. A book called Nature's Art Box by Laura C. Martin looked promising, so I grabbed it. There are some fun ideas in the book, but most of them are too complex or call for too many materials for our last-minute crafting style. One, however, was just perfect... animals made out of materials you can find in your own yard! Last week we went on a walk to the park armed with buckets, and we collected interesting materials along our way, including helicopter seeds, pine cones, sticks and rocks. Today we finally got around to creating our animals, and they turned out pretty cool! We hot-glued sticks and pine cones together, used pebbles for eyes, flower petals for ears, leaves and helicopters for wings. In the end we had butterflies, rabbits, porcupines, a horse, a goat, and three fairies. Max has been playing with them all afternoon... I'm not sure how long they'll hold up, but this way he gets to have fun twice: creating and playing!

Rabbit and Porcupine

Fairies

Porcupine and Horse

Here Comes the Sun

Nothing like 6 hours in the swimming pool to give a kid his first sunburn of the year! No, I am not joking- last Wednesday, Max spent six hours in Grandma and Grandpa's pool, taking breaks only to use the bathroom and eat a super-quick lunch. Even with several reapplications of sunscreen, the rays still got through... but for how fair Max's skin is, I think we did ok.

The big development this year is that Max's toes can touch the bottom of the pool! This opens up a whole new world for him; we put up the rope to separate the shallow from the deep, and he is free to do as he pleases! What fun! Understandably, he was a total zombie after his six hour swim, and the next day he was still tired. But by Saturday, he was ready to go at it again! This time he "only" swam for four hours, and Sunday he was back in for another three. Thirteen hours of swimming in five days?? I think this week was a preview of the next three months. I am so thankful for the access my kids have to the water!

Poor Lucian missed two of the three days of swimming because of his marathon afternoon naps, but I'm excited to get him in the pool more this year! When he did swim, he worked up the courage to jump off the side of the pool into my arms! This is the same kid that would barely leave the steps last summer. I think with his big brother as an example, he may very well turn into a fish too.

I didn't get any swimming photos this week, just the rosy aftermath. But next time I'll be sure to snap some good ones!

Hopefully next time you hear from me, it will be with baby news... but so far, nothing to report!

Waiting

Four days ago, I thought it was an impossibility that I would still be pregnant today. I was having contractions all day, I could barely walk from the house to the garage, I was achy and uncomfortable, and I couldn't fall asleep for the life of me. I figured there was no way I could go through another day like that... and then I woke up the next morning feeling great! Sunday we went on a 1.5 mile walk around the neighborhood, after spending all afternoon at the Flint Hills Festival in St. Paul. Today we took the boys to Grand Avenue and I kept up with them just fine! What's going on here?

We thought it would be fun to have the baby on Uncle Liam's birthday, and it was suggested that I jump on the bed to help things along a bit... yes, I'm feeling good, but not that good. Many people thought I would have the baby yesterday, but since I didn't, it's all up in the air now. Might I actually make it to my due date?? It had never crossed my mind as a possibility until now. When strangers ask me when I'm due, I've been saying "any day now!" because to me, 38 weeks is as full-term as I ever expect to be. June 19th? Not in a million years.

I should be thankful that I'm feeling so good, but every day that goes by without increased discomfort makes me more and more anxious to meet our little girl! Auntie Megan has had a few heart-to-hearts with our baby girl, reminding her that she's welcome to join us any time. Sometimes I poke her just to see if I can annoy her enough to want to come out.

I'm writing this in the hopes that by the time it gets read it will already be obsolete. Next time I write I'd like to be able to include a new baby picture! Who's with me?

Instead, you just get another preggo picture. Not nearly as exciting.

Visiting the Sculpture Garden

Having Megan around has made this very pregnant woman much more brave about taking the kids out! Even though she has no expectations of being given the grand tour of the Metro Area, I do want her to see some of what the Twin Cities has to offer... seeing as this is her new home for the foreseeable future. There is only so much sightseeing we can do with her two nephews in tow, especially when I can't walk more than a block without wishing for a motorized scooter.

But there are a few things we can do, and we discovered one of them last week: the Sculpture Garden near the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It is basically a free, outdoor museum surrounded by a tall hedge to block it from the busy roads nearby. Wandering around inside, you would barely realize that there is traffic whizzing by only yards away!

Uncle Ben met us at the park and we wandered from sculpture to sculpture on a gorgeous 70 degree day. The boys may or may not have climbed on a few sculptures that said, "No climbing please"... but hey, Max can't read, so... no harm done. Our last stop was a huge swing-like sculpture that was meant for climbing, and as you can see below, it instantly became a pirate ship.

I don't know why we haven't been before, but I definitely hope to get back again soon! This is one Minneapolis stop I would recommend to anyone.

Being Crafty: Rainbow Snow Globe

Having Auntie Megan here has been such a huge blessing! She's been keeping our house from turning into a pigsty, which it definitely would be if I kept up at the pace I've been going (i.e. turtle slooooowww...). But besides the cleaning and the company, she brought a new creative brain into the house! One of the first days she was here, she told me that we needed to pick up cheap crayons for a project she had in mind. Once we had the crayons and an empty glass jar with a lid, we began the project: Rainbow Snow Globes!

Step 1: Peel the paper off of a pile of crayons. This was Lucian's favorite part of the craft, as it gave him permission to do what he always wants to do with the church Mass Bag crayons!

Step 2: Scrape the crayons to make a pile of wax shavings. After trying finger nails, a butter knife, a potato peeler and a dime, we ended up with a pretty hefty pile of shavings. We're still undecided as to which method worked best. Actually, for Megan it was her fingernails, for me it was the dime, for Max it was the butter knife, and for Lucian it was the potato peeler. So if you try this craft, I have no good advice!

Step 3: Using a piece of paper as a funnel, pour the crayon shavings into a glass jar. Fill the jar to the brim with water. The closer you get to the top, the smaller the air bubble you'll have, and the better your shavings will float around.

Step 4: Put the lid back on and shake, shake, shake! We originally used this humongous applesauce jar, but Max could barely lift it! So we eventually transferred our shavings into a jelly jar, and now it is a hit around this house. The shavings hover at the top of the jar (like a reverse snow globe) until you shake it up. Then you have a cool swirl of colors until the water stops spinning. And what's more, when the water is still, the jar can double as a pretty cool magnifying glass! (This alternate use brought to you by our resident explorer, Captain Max Salty).

Thus was our first rainy morning with Auntie Megan made bright and cheerful! Happy crafting!