Blobos

I Blobo-Man! Silas has been yelling for weeks as he runs around with part of our vacuum.
Which we then find a couple of days later out in the yard.

To the uninitiated this means I'm Blower-Man! 
You know, the man who walks around with the pack on his back, blowing leaves and other yard debris? There may be no greater man than this in his eyes. Of course he's also:
Poker-Man (this requires a sword)
Caggoo Man (this requires a firefighter hat)
Baggoo Man (this requires a garbage truck or can)

Yeah, he's a boy.
So, tired of picking up the vacuum tube constantly, we decided to make our own blowers.

Mmmmwwwwrrrr! Roooooaaaaawwwwwwrrr! Can you hear me? My motor loud! he likes to say.

Of course, it's only a matter of time before they realize their new toys can be used to torture you.

Bathing Beauties

This is what bath time looks like in our house these days.

Face Paint

I didn't realize you could actually run out of face paint, but we are. They love having their faces painted.

And of course I love repeating Stay still. Please hold still. If you turn your head I'll mess u-. Well, now I have to clean that off, hold on. 
No, I really do like to do it, though. Especially when they ask for something like they did the other day. What they wanted most in the world was to be painted like Ruby the cat.

I thought it was very cute. They kept showing themselves to Ruby and meowing like they expected her to sit up and be like, Wait! What the...?! How did I...?

And here they are. It was like herding cats to get that shot of them together on the chair.They also demanded bowls of water on the floor to drink. But, come to think of it, that's not an uncommon occurrence around here on any day.

Here's Silas as Laddie. That red thing on his mouth was the tongue. It took about 27 seconds for him to mess it up.

And Sadie as a masked floral superhero.

No flower is safe from her. 

Hm, maybe she's actually the masked floral villain. I'll have to ask.

Knock Knock

These kids love knock-knock jokes. And they love to make them up. The only problem is that they don't really get the whole idea behind them.

Sadie: Knock-knock.
Me: Who's there?
Sadie: Orange.
Me: Orange who?
Sadie: Orange open the door (unintelligible crazy talk) Hahahahaha!

or

Sadie: Knock-knock
Me: Who's there?
Sadie: Doggy
Me: Doggy who?
Sadie: Doggy I'll bark at you!

Silas: Knock-knock
Me: Who's there?
Silas: Monkey
Me: Monkey who?
Silas: Monkey! I have nuwana (that's a banana to you guys). Eat me! Eat me!

Yeah, somehow I don't think we'll be hitting the road with this act anytime soon.
For your viewing pleasure:

Yeah, working on a post. Here are a couple of pics to keep you happy. 

E.B.

A creme-filled chocolate egg is a good breakfast on Easter, no?

The Easter Bunny said it was okay. He said someone has to eat all the junk.

But E.B. also reminded them to eat their veggies. I think he might have kids of his own.

The Lego candy was a big hit. Food! That you can play with!
Not that it stops them when they're not Legos.

Then some last minute egg dying. We had meant to dye them earlier in the week but S & S spent all week with fevers on couches watching way too much television.
They now know what time PBS kids comes on in the morning. It took days for them to stop asking once they were well.

It's only a matter of time before they hold the thermometer up to the light bulb in order to get more, isn't it?

Here is Sy showing us how excited he is to be dying eggs. How could you not be excited?

Oh. That's how.

Nah, she really did enjoy it.
Then we retired to the backyard for some Mud Pie Kitchen time. It has its very own working faucet.
And a mixer. And lots of mud.

You know, I'm wondering if the Easter Bunny had his thinking cap on the day he ordered that one. He must have forgotten how very dirty little bunnies can get.

Stuff.

We had a snow day. A real one. With seven whole inches. And power outages (although we were spared) and closed schools (although the last day of classes where Will teaches was the day before- of course!).

Our sled made it out for its once-yearly acquaintance with the snow. And snow cones and hot cocoa were a must.

Here are Sadie and Ruby in a box. She insisted I take it.

Therefore Silas also had a box and I insisted I take this.

And today we had so much hail the ground was white. So we scooped it up and brought it inside to play with while it poured rain. And then hailed again. And again.

Did I ever mention our spring out here can really stink? 

Third Time's the Lucky Charm

Or it wasn't. Because we didn't catch a leprechaun.

We built two traps. One was a reprise of the cup trap from previous years. But we thought the other couldn't fail.

When we came out in the morning the trap door was shut and the box was still closed. Sadie hid in the hallway while I peeked inside.
Oh, yeah, Sadie was very excited to make the traps but then she looked at me with big eyes and said, Mama, I'm kind of scared we'll catch a leprechaun.
So she wasn't altogether unhappy to find some gummy candies instead of a leprechaun. And the gummies were the ones that are terrible for you. Apparently leprechauns don't care about artificial colors.

We weren't sure how he had managed it until we saw the back of the box.

He must have been doing a little jig as he broke through. He did leave a note.

And green toilet water, green juice and green yogurt- breakfast of champions!
Except for the toilet water, of course.

Then we made some green oobleck to celebrate. It's gooey and yucky and lots of fun to mess around in. And although it takes one minute to make it takes twenty-five to clean up it's a good time.

Maybe we'll get him next year, but I still think we were pretty lucky. 

Quills

We found some feathers that are from some sort of bird. Imagine that. And here you were thinking they were from a rhinoceros. 

Anyway, we found some feathers and I was very excited when I saw that they would make decent quills. Sadie likes to hear about any old-timey stuff and Silas...Well Silas just likes to do anything that DeeDee is doing. 

So we cut the quills down and got to work.
Except I'm forgetting to mention the part where it took me a month to buy the India ink. And that when I finally opened the bottle and we started to use it I realized I probably just could have broken a pen open and used that ink instead of making them wait forever.

Yeah, I'm all about the quick thinking.
But they had lots of fun.

And were busily scribbling out correspondence while I cleaned the ink off the kitchen floor before it could sink in. I know you're not surprised by that turn of events.
What? A 2.5 year-old spilled out his little cap of ink when he flipped it over to look underneath?
I never!

Mrs. McGillicuddy's Magical Monster Spray

We've got a bit of a pest problem. It's not mice. Or ants. 

They're big. And they're mean. And they eat little kids.Or so I'm told.

They tell me there are monsters in the hallway. A few in the bedroom. One or two in the utility room.

So we brewed up a concoction that was specially designed to repel, eradicate and destroy them.

I'm sure you've heard of it, no?
It takes care of them all. Cyclops, boogeymen, ghouls, you name it.

It's fun to spray.

And it smells delicious.

And, by Jove, it really works.

Mrs. McGillicuddy knows her monsters.

Two Kids

Sometimes having two kids is trying. If one wants their drink warm the other wants it cold. If one wants to go out the other wants to stay in. If one wants to read Minerva Louise the other wants Frog and Toad.
If...well, let's just say it goes for everything.

But sometimes it's super cute. Like tonight when I was getting dinner ready and they were bent on bugging me. Sy kept yelling Pick up me! Pick up meeee! So finally I asked Sadie to please play with him.

She spent the next twenty minutes running after him yelling I'm going to get those chubby baby legs! Here I come, I'm gonna get those chubby baby legs!
They were laughing so hard they couldn't catch their breath. I hope they keep each other laughing like that, even after the chubby baby legs are long gone.

Tiny Yi

Yes, I know that tipping the scales at 40 pounds at two years old isn't exactly tiny. 

But he's still my Tiny Yiyi.

Plus, he's just really,

REALLY,

really cute in a tiny sort of way.
Plus, now he likes to make funny faces.

He thinks he's a regular laugh riot.

A comedian.

I'm not sure what he thinks this face below looks like, but he must think it's a doozy, because he says, Mama, Mommy, wook! Wook, Mommy! 
And then he does it and cracks up:

You think you're funny, eh, kid?

Well, you're absolutely right.

P.S. Any idea where he could have gotten the idea of making weird faces at me?

Not sure.

Wait, something's coming to mind.

Oh, that's right.