Lincoln Movies

Our Linky is such a funny little guy. He already quotes movies, picks up song lyrics really quick, and had Bentley's Primary Program part memorized before Bentley did. Here are some Boodle movies for your viewing pleasure.

Linky Boodle Dandy

Trogdor

Making Progess, Rocking Out

So we don't have much of a backyard, which didn't bother either Chod or I when we bought the house. I figure nothing is way better to work with than a huge mistake that needs to be fixed.

 There's a shed and a little garden area, a peach tree and a lot of weeds and gravel.

After talking to some neighbors we learned that there hasn't been grass back here for 12 years. And a few owners ago had a son that worked for a gravel company and he hauled in a lot of gravel. Then they realized what a mess it was and they sold the house, rumor is because they didn't know how to fix the backyard. So, a neighbor and the previous owner hauled 3-5 dump truck loads(depending on who you are talking to) of gravel out of the back yard! So much for not having someone else's mistake to fix.

I've spent many hours trying to get a vision of what this backyard should become, but haven't come up with anything good yet. Finally, last Sunday I drew up a plan of Phase 1.

Our goal (maybe it was just mine, but Chod is a willing participant) is to get grass planted this fall. No way am I dealing with a muddy winter and spring without grass back there. Phase 1 includes grass, a shade tree and fruit trees, and an expanded garden area. We'll deal with Phase 2 when a good idea comes along.

Monday it was tilled and we've spent the past couple days raking rock. It is hard to believe that they hauled of that many dump truck loads and there is still so much rock.

 

 Chod's starting a new landscape company called "Little Red Wagon Landscaping". Isn't that cute? A wheel barrow maybe more efficient, but we were using what we had.

We got it de-rocked as well as its going to be and smoothed out this morning and I was itching to throw down some grass seed, but Chod talked me into waiting until we had the tree planted.

 I'm pretty excited for this tree and hope it doesn't die this winter or I will be really sad.

 See all those little rocks? They could drive a person crazy.

Our lone tree. The peach tree is no good and it's coming out, and Chod has been trying his hardest to kill the quakies in the front yard and then they'll come down too. So there is a lot of pressure on this one to grow tall.

And tomorrow: grass!

Choose the Right (or Left)

Bentley has been a little down on being left-handed lately. Today, he was pretty upset when I picked him up from school and insisted he did not want to be left-handed and asked if he could ever change it. I told him that some of the coolest people are left-handed (including myself, Lincoln, and a few of his uncles). That did little to console him as he said, "But I just want to choose the right!"

Which brings up the fact that I thought raising lefties would be no problem, since I am left-handed.

Well, what I often forget to realize is that I'm a pseudo lefty. All I do left handed is write and shoot a gun. I throw, use scissors, eat, play sports, paint--everything else with my right hand. So I'm really not much better than a right-handed parent when it to teaching him how to hold scissors.

But I will gladly buy him the left-handed notebooks when the time comes.

I see Paris, I see France

We drove passed the apartment tonight and Bentley told us how he misses that place. When I asked what he missed, "I miss seeing Paris from my bedroom." It's not the first time that he's told me how he used to look at Paris from his room. Not sure what he was seeing, but he insists if he looked to the east he could see the Eiffel Tower. (He doesn't even know which way East is, but Chod says that's the beauty of an imagination.)

In other Paris related news, last week he told me that he is glad we don't live in France. Why? Because then we would have to drink wine. And that's against the Word of Wisdom you know.  I tried to explain that just because you live in France doesn't mean you have to drink wine....

It appears everything he knows about Paris and France come straight from Ratatouille.

Zucchini Boat Races and S'mores

What do you do when you plant a garden and then buy a house with an existing garden and you end up with 4 zucchini plants? A little time lapse between pickings results in HUGE zucchinis, and some weeks we harvest over 20 between the two gardens! If your friends won't take the zucchini, invite them to have zucchini boat races with you!

So last night we took them to the park and carved them into boats. Bentley was talking trash from the very beginning.

Here's Bentley's finished boat--he sprinkled sand inside and then tried to trick us into thinking it was really cinnamon.

And we roasted s'mores. It was our first experience with campfire marshmallows. And they make for a huge s'more. Grocery stores have replaced the Hershey s'more bars with Halloween candy so we tried out Reeses and Dove chocolate with caramel. There were no complaints about the chocolate choices.

Kinda messy!

It was getting dark by the time the race began, and most of the zucchinis flipped over and it was hard to spot the dark zucchinis in the black water. Bentley is pretty sure his won, and Lincoln tells the story with his boat coming in first place. So it was the perfect race for some competitive kids.

And we still have plenty of zucchini left!

Wood Be Gone

It seems like our to-do list for the house keeps getting longer, and all I see are unfinished projects everywhere. I've been waiting until it was all finished and decorated for the grand reveal, but the other day I saw a file on our desktop I didn't recognize the name of, so I opened it. And then I sat staring at it for a few seconds trying to figure out what it was and why I had it.

Then I realized, "That's my kitchen!" It was the listing photo I had saved. So I guess things have changed around here! We still want to get hardware for the cabinets and are in need of a barstool or 4, but that will come. And I have my eye on some new light fixtures, but again they'll come (hopefully when they go on clearance).

Kind of a glaring difference!

Their front room.

Our front room. There's still a lot of tweaking left to be done here, but we have TV and places to sit and that's all the boys care about. You can see we added a light to this room, thanks to some help from my father-in-law and Chod hanging out in the attic in the middle of August.

The spindles are gone! The halfwall still needs the cap nailed down and some touchup work done and the ceiling needs painted. I'm afraid the one gallon of white paint we found downstairs isn't going to be the right match and we'll end up painting the entire ceiling. Which I do not want to do.

I can't wait to share the before and afters of the basement! These befores were totally liveable, but down there? Well that's another story.

Disastrous Birthday

Last week our Boodle turned 3.


It was a day set up for failure. He didn't believe it was his birthday and was pretty sure he was turning 14 if it really was. And we didn't get him a gift. Not because we (I) hadn't tried. Hours were spent on Amazon and a visit to the local toy store was even made. But as my mom always told me growing up, I'm picky and never came across the perfect gift. The one he and I would both love. One that wouldn't find itself at DI after just a couple of weeks. We debated on a bike. But really, Bentley was too big for his so it would be better to buy Bentley a new bike and give Lincoln the hand-me-down. But would that be a present for Bentley or Lincoln? And then we looked for Bentley a bike, but learned he is in an awkward in-between stage and the next size of bike is too big for him (and we could only find one in pink and purple anyway).

When we'd ask Lincoln what he wanted for his birthday he would answer cake, ice cream and even frosting and balloons. So I figured we could at least make those happen.

Finally, Monday afternoon while we were at the family reunion the perfect gift came to me. It would require work on our part and I spent the drive home researching the best way to construct it and get parts. We got home about 10 pm and after pricing things out decided it will make a better Christmas gift, so that birthday idea went down the drain.

Tuesday morning I woke up and dug through boxes to find my Silhouette and all the necessary supplies to make him the traditional "3" shirt. It was even finished before it was time to get dressed. Things were looking better. I even remembered to pull out our "Special Day" plate.

Things quickly went downhill when I found him on the stairs with white stuff smeared across his birthday shirt and down his leg. The white stuff ended up being primer that had spilled on the carpet downstairs. Sound familiar? As I yelled at him while scrubbing the floor he told me he was just trying to make a tower with the paint cans but it had fallen over and the lid popped loose.

Then, because I'm an awesome Mom, I had scheduled his dentist appt. on his birthday. What kind of mom makes their kid go to the dentist on their birthday and even better, to the dentist during nap time?

At least he got a balloon from the dentist, because I had forgotten to get him any.

And he did get a cake and even frosting. But after he had blown out the candles asked, "Now do I get to open presents?"

I'm demanding a do-over...just as soon as we secure a present.

1st Day of Kindergarten

We're so happy Bentley was excited to start kindergarten. It took a little convincing, but in 2 weeks he went from tears when we'd talk about school to total excitement. The back to school night, meeting with his teacher, and a walk to the school to play on the playground turned his fear into absolute excitement. Plus, he is confident he knows how to get to and from school on his own now, which did a ton to help as well.

Our big boy Bent-a-ley on his first day.

Lincoln was so excited for kindergarten to start too. Until he found out he didn't get to go to school with Bentley.

Walking to school.

Two thumbs up!

He found his backpack hook.

And took a seat.

And Lincoln and I walked back home. There was a neighbor working in her yard (I don't remember her name) that asked how I was handling it. And I was fine--mainly relieved that we had reached the point of excitement and there were no tears when we dropped him off.

These too love each other so much. Bentley has bee-lined right to Lincoln and given him a hug every day after school, and Lincoln always responds with "I missed you Bentley, did you miss me?"

He came home to awesome good mail that day too! A fun letter from Aunt Died, and a card with bookmarks from Aunt Keese, Hudson, and Dalanie, and the night before school started Aunt Tameka brought him Fannie the Flamingo as a good luck at school gift.  We love our Bentley!

Boodle-nator

I now know why I often feel like I never get anything accomplished. This was not on my to-do list yesterday:

Clean up 8 bottles of paint Lincoln empties in the guest room.

Granted, of all the paints in the house he chose to splatter washable finger paints around the room. And of all the rooms in the house he chose to destroy the pink room---the only room in the house we haven't started on yet. So it could have been much, much worse.

But still.