The Toad Abode

Things have been busy around here, what with so many episodes of iCarly to watch and so little time!

The kids actually did an art camp last week through Kidzart. They did a similar program last year at AC Moore - but this year the program was held by DARC. They actually had the same instructor (Mr. Steve) from last year - which they were happy about.

During the week, my mom took each kid for a special event. Sprout went to a concert at the Mann Music Center where she saw a 14-year-old violinist play. She apparently hummed along to Vivaldi's Four Seasons - probably something she remembers from Little Einsteins. See, TV can be good for you!!

Tater went to Tyler Arboretum to participate in one of their kids programs. The kids have been to lots of these programs and they always enjoy them. This time he got to make a "Toad Abode", which is a house for a toad (clearly) that we tucked into the garden. I have never seen any toads in our garden, so this may be vacant housing for quite some time, but he did a fabulous job and it looks very festive out there.

The Toad Abode is a flower pot that is decorated and flipped over, with the edge propped up on a rock to let the theoretical toad crawl under it. Apparently toads aren't fearful of houses teetering on the edge of a rock. Brave toads.

Tater's Toad Abode is beautifully decorated with mosaic stones, which are stuck on with what he called "mask". I wish I could tell you what that is - it looks like a groutish substance. But this could easily be done with hot glue, or just paints. Any decorating technique that is weather-resistant, since the toads are most likely going to be seeking their abode outdoors.

Unless you have indoor toads and then you probably have different housing arrangements for them anyway.

This seems like a good opportunity to give you a brief tour of the other decorations in our garden. Because I am sure you want to know. So here we go...

This is our turtle. He was our first piece of statuary. Just one little whimsical touch. Next to him is a big rock that Sprout stole from a jetty at the beach (shhhh...).

Over there on the right is a little puppy who was added to memorialize Mike's grandmother. She died when Sprout was about 4 and was the first person that Sprout knew who passed away. We didn't take her to the service, but she wanted to do something to remember Gram so we put this puppy in our garden and then stood and held hands and said a little something about Gram being in heaven and how much she loved dogs (which may or may not actually be true...but it made me sob at the time).

This is a bird. I just thought he was cute. No good story.

Just a bird.








This little bunny was to remember my Nana. Because since we did it for Gram, we now have a tradition of commemorating the passing of our loved ones with lawn statuary. I don't think we did any kind of ceremony for Nana's bunny. But the kids helped pick him out and I think of her whenever I see him. Hi, Nana - I miss you.

This one just makes me laugh. Because this is totally my gardening philosophy. I don't know what anything is. I am getting better, but not good.

There is also a little parrot out at the far edge of our lawn (I was too lazy to walk over there - bare feet + grass doesn't make me happy), and then another bird and the mushroom in Tater's sandbox garden.

I guess at some point we passed the tasteful whimsical touch.
But this is more fun.

Coolest Mom - EVER!

A couple of weeks ago, a box arrived on our front step.

The kids love it when boxes come, unless the boxes have boring things like makeup in them (I love those boxes).

But this time, it was an especially good box.
It had Guitar Hero for DS in it.
TWO of them!!

Can you say "A mom with a blog is a COOL mom!" How about "thank you Mom Central for making me very popular around here for a few days"?

I don't usually get picked for the cool reviews. But this time, I did. Yay me!!

So, in our box was Guitar Hero: Modern Hits and Guitar Hero: Decades - each including the cool adapter thing for the DS. One for each child. No fighting. Yay for Guitar Hero!!

We have been rocking the Guitar Hero for Wii for a few months. I am especially excellent on the drums...in my mind anyway. Considering how fun that has been, the kids were super enthusiastic to try this new version.

Sprout was immediately completely addicted. She is generally all about accessories and the little plug-in fingerboard with a pocket for the "pick" was completely up her alley. She played for literally hours straight. Notice in the picture, she is playing WHILE watching TV - a muti-media extravaganza!

I eventually had to resort to threats of throwing the DS away if she didn't turn it off. I wouldn't (probably), but apparently it was convincing enough to tear her away, albeit temporarily.

I am not sure how troubled I should be that her favorite song is "Dirty Little Secret" - that's probably my own issue, right?

Tater was less enamoured of the DS version.

First, he's a lefty and was very upset that the game wasn't going to work for him. But VOILA, there is a lefty setting so no problem! Then it was hard for him to hold the game and push the buttons at the same time - small hands. And, he isn't all that proficient at the Wii version, resorting to the "beginner" mode, which doesn't require the pushing of the colored buttons. Alas, the DS version doesn't have that mode - so it was sort of over his head. I expect that he will eventually be into it, but for now, he is leaving it up to his sister.

Mike and I attempted the "competition" mode, which was sort of fun. You play one song on two machines. It was odd that it seemed to want us to take turns, so I never really got into the "groove" of the song and was completely horrible at the game. Yeah, it was that groove thing...not just incompetence on my part.

Couldn't be! I ROCK! Right?

I also felt a little carpal-tunnel-ish holding the thing in my hand at a weird angle - but I could have just been doing it wrong.

I should try it a few more times - maybe I can work out that groove thing and then Sprout and I can bond over our shared passion for Guitar Hero. Maybe we can go on the road...

She is still playing every chance she gets. And since we have been lax in our summer schedule this week, she has had quite a few chances.

Rock on Sprout!!

Summer - Week 1

School's out for summer...school's out FOREVER...OK, not forever. Only about 10 weeks for us this time. Which will probably completely fly by. The first one is whizzing past at an amazing pace.

The kids had to go into school on Monday for 2 1/2 hours to get their report cards and watch movies. Don't even get me started on how ridiculous that is - since they got out 2 hours early on Friday... Right, not starting on that.

So we went out for a celebratory lunch at McDonald's and ice cream at DQ on Monday and then spent the afternoon at a pool party our lovely neighbor threw for all of the kids in town. Yay!

Yesterday we went to the Philadelphia Zoo and had a great time. The weather was just right and the kids were extremely cheerful and cooperative. Amazing!

We saved our lunch money by packing sandwiches and redirected the budget to rides! All three of us pedaled a Swan Boat (and only ended up in a bush once!) and Sprout rode a camel. Tater was going to ride a pony, but changed his mind at the last minute. He decided he was too big and was afraid he was going to crush a pony. Much as we tried to convince him that he wasn't that huge, he wouldn't do it. Oh well.

A treat of Dippin' Dots and all was well. Not even any begging for face painting. Unbelievable! We sprung for the family membership so we'll be going back again sometime this summer, and in the fall, and the winter...to get our money's worth! I'll do a post later in the week with zoo pictures. I took lots!

Today (Wednesday) we met my mom at Hank's Place in Chadds Ford for a late breakfast.

Then we accompanied her to the Dansko Company Store in West Grove, PA. Sprout was very excited about shoe shopping until she realized there were limited choices for kids. Like, apparently only Amish children can get shoes there.

They actually wanted these. Um, no.

Sprout then got her heart set on these - which are more reasonable from a fashion standpoint, but were too big and not summer-appropriate. So she is thinking maybe they could be school shoes in the fall.

After Nana found her new shoes for her trip to Paris, it was still fairly early so we decided to go check out the Eldreth Pottery shop/factory in Oxford. What a great idea!

Their Oxford location is back in farm country, and we put great faith in the directions that the nice ladies at Dansko had printed out for us and finally found it. The front of the shop was surrounded by painted pottery birdhouses and birdfeeders - so cute!

We were looking around in the shop when we were directed toward the back to go see how they make the pottery and got a full tour of the production facilities.

This guy showed us how to make a bowl on the pottery wheel (in about 2 minutes).

See how fascinated my children are?

Then this nice lady showed us how she does the hand painting.

And no, I don't know why Sprout is doing that with her arms.

Here is a close-up of the painting - which turns blue when it is fired. Weird, right?

Then we also saw where they do molded pieces and where they paint the more colorful redware - which I love and covet. Didn't know I did until I saw this big display of it. But I think we look good in front of it, and therefore must have a house full of it. It's only logical.

So this was one of those days that I am sure didn't sound all that fun to the kids (shoe shopping? pottery?). But it turned out to be super cool and interesting.

Tomorrow we are headed to a kid's session at Super Suppers. The kids get to make a dinner, a snack and a dessert. They love to cook, so I think they will enjoy the chance to do so without their neurotic mother freaking out about sharp knives and hot stoves.

After they "cook" we are going to meet friends at the Crayola Factory in Easton.

This week is not indicative of the pace that we will be taking for the rest of the summer. We are really going at more of a breakneck pace than we will be maintaining from here on out, hopefully with lots of time hanging out at the pool and playing.

But it's been fun so far!

Fine Art

How do you like this fabulous piece of art? It was painted especially for us by a young (very young) artist.

You know her as Sprout.

She did this one when she was about 4. I liked the abstractness of it and thought it looked like many of the random artworks that you could buy to fill your walls. So I got this nice frame and hung it on my wall.

This one is a Tater original.

I believe that the lines were made by driving a toy truck through paint. Very emotive, I think.

Then we have this example of a multi-media composition, I think this was a Sprout, but I can't be sure. Colored tissue paper. The rainbow-ness of it is moving in the direction of clearly pre-school art. But I love it nonetheless.

And finally, a Pollack-like splattery thing. I think this is a Tater. I should have labeled them so that my poor, weak brain cells wouldn't have to search for the answer.

I have these hanging in my "formal" living room and dining room. I think the abstractness of them is key to it not looking like my kids' artwork is hanging all over the place. But maybe it just looks like my kids' artwork is hanging all over the place and no one has called me on it.

Either way, this could be a good idea for what to do with some of the huge piles of artwork your kids bring home from school at the end of the year. It makes them feel like "real" artists to see their work hanging in real frames on the real walls.

And I love that the art on our walls means something to us.

And, yes, I know you can see my reflection taking the picture in almost every shot.
I meant to do that.

Birthday Traditions

I grew up in a family with many traditions. Many of these traditions surrounded major holidays: tree trims, Father's Day dinners, creamed onions (!) for Thanksgiving...but I don't really remember a lot of kid birthday-related traditions.

We usually had a monthly birthday-fest with all of my cousins to celebrate whoever's birthday had happened recently. My birthday in August was frequently pre-empted by our beach vacation (which I was OK with...the beach is a good thing to be pre-empted by!)

But around here, we have some birthday traditions.

The birthday child wakes up to this:


Wears this:


Usually gets some of these:

And frequently gets to spray some of this:



He/she also gets to pick a restaurant for a dinner out. And chooses a treat.

Tater chose Isaac's for dinner, and Milky Way Farm for ice cream.
He's an excellent decision maker.

We usually have a kid party - although I think we may have just had the last "big bash".

And then there is the family party. Tater's usually includes some sort of water play element - we have a Slip-N-Slide ready to go, if our yard isn't a total swamp. Sprout, with a birthday very close to Halloween, has done costume parties or scavenger hunts.

We call it Birthday-palooza...and I am fairly sure the kids feel adequately celebrated. And if I ever tried to skip even one of the elements...I am fairly sure I'd be in a boatload of trouble!

Super Seven!!

Seven. Seriously? Seven?
That can't be right.

He was just a little velvet-headed baby in a basket.
He was just in one of those baby-slings looking at me like I was insane to do that to him.
He was just freaked out by the rocking horse that talked to him.
He was just unwilling to touch the sand on the beach.
He was just telling me that I should cook the green beans in the toaster.
He was just bringing me paper flowers.
He was just convincing his sister that it wasn't so scary to ride the bus.
He was just six...and I was just getting used to the idea...

Saving Blankie

I'd like you all to meet Blankie.

Blankie has seen better days. He has been a constant companion to Sprout for over 9 years - some of those more constant than others. When she was an infant and toddler she took him (and Lambie) everywhere with her. Back in those days Blankie was a gorgeous chenille blanket from Churchill Weavers - which I discovered has apparently gone out of business. Sad face.

Back in his heyday, Blankie looked sort of like this...but pink. And no, I don't know why he's a he. He just is.

Anyway, Blankie has been crumbling before our very eyes. Behaving much like the museum-bound artifact that he is. We attempted a "fringectomy" and stitched around the edges to stop the unraveling. He has several huge scars where we sewed huge tears back together. He is a mess.

A week or so ago Sprout was lamenting his sad condition and broke down in tears that he was going to completely fall apart and then she would need a new one.

Did I mention the company that makes them has gone out of business? That you can get one on eBay - but it will cost you $200 (!) and that she is 9 1/2? All of these factors add up to a great big negative on a replacement strategy.

So I came up with the brilliant (I think) idea of sewing Blankie to some sort of soft, supportive backing fabric that would hold him together and allow him to live a long life of soothing the jangled nerves of my pre-pubescent child. Sometimes a girl just needs her Blankie.

I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics and found this nice velvety/veloury fabric. The goal was for it to be super-soft and thin enough to be cuddly once it was hooked onto Blankie. This fit the bill nicely. And the stars are cute.


My original plan was to sort of quilt Blankie onto the top of the fabric. And no, I have no idea how I was going to do that. But once I laid him out on top of the new fabric, I had this great brainstorm that I could just sort of fold up the sides of the new stuff around him, like it was the binding on the blanket. Like a frame around Blankie.

Doesn't he look sad all laid out there, like some animal pelt? Poor Blankie - don't worry, it will get better...

So I wrapped the edges up and pinned them. Blankie is missing a huge hunk of corner so the end result isn't square, but I think that is somehow more fitting.

I even carefully (sort of) mitered the corners so there wouldn't be so many layers of fabric to jam through my underutilized sewing machine.

Where is that thing anyway?

So I found the sewing machine, and after breaking the needle, annoying the bejeezus out of the nice lady at Jo-Ann's with my sewing-machine-needle-buying cluelessness, finding that there was actually a spare in the machine (oops), tangling the thread several times, and remembering how much I adore my child and why it was worth doing all of this...got everything sewed up. Whew.

I think the end result is quite fabulous. He even looks pink again with his new backing. I did some vertical lines of stitching across Blankie's surface to stick him down to the backing so he is firmly attached.



And no, they are mostly not straight. And his scars are all still showing.

But I think that's OK. He's not going to be modeling anytime soon. And Sprout has been walking around hugging him and wearing him and loving him. And she's pretty happy with me, too.

Ah, the things we do for the love of a child. The things we can fix, we fix. The things we can't fix, we try to find a way to fix anyway. And sometimes it actually works out. I love it when that happens!