My baby is five!

Yes, the last time I posted was Thatcher's birthday, so now (4 months later--aughh!) I'm posting for Callan's. He turned 5 on Wednesday, and we've been having birthday week with the culmination today: 9 children (including my two) for a space-themed party at our place. Whew! I'm tired. But I think everyone had fun. We had decorate-your-own jetpack, fizzing moon rocks with prizes inside (the ole' baking soda and vinegar trick), space sand in glass jars, a foil asteroid that the kids unwrapped to find more prizes, and a moon cake.
I also ran a seven mile race this morning in the chilly rain. So, I will sleep well tonight and look forward to a calmer week next week.
Maybe I'll post more...a girl can dream...

My baby is two

Yes, at 12:12pm today, I looked at the clock and remembered pushing dear little Thatcher out into this world. Now it feels like he is pushing me to let him grow up! He is Mister Big-Boy-Bed, Mister Use-the-Potty, Mister I-Can-Do-It-Myself. Well, Thatcher Paul Hartman, you're finally two and can grow into all this precociousness. You have been quite the addition to our family, and now we can't imagine our lives without you. Happy Birthday.

A great city, a great date

Last night Matt and I explored some of Richmond's diverse offerings, all with our own two (four) feet. We started off from home and walked around "our" lakes (Swan and Shields) to the east side of Maymont (the boys and I had just been there that day) and headed for North Bank park. We hiked along the trail through the woods along side the James River until we got to the pump house, encountering frogs, a large snake and many fireflies. We followed the trail to the Carillon where there happened to be a jazz concert beginning at Dogwood Dell, a natural outdoor amphitheatre. We listened to a song, then headed to Carytown, a city shopping district, where we ate Bev's ice cream (Matt had chai and I had a lemon-lime sorbet cooler). With tired feet, we walked home to Byrd Park, checking out some potential community garden sites (I'll write another post about this later).
We both agreed it was a great date--good exercise, yummy food, natural and city sites and great company. All without getting in our car!

It's berry season!

I'm back again! I won't attempt to catch up on the past two months, but I'll dive right into the present. We picked strawberries yesterday with my mom and a bunch of people from our community group at church. Here's the harvest:
Here's one berry picker (eater):

Here's the other one. Kids are so much better suited for strawberry picking--no aching knees!

Back at home, here's part of our garden: pictured are peas, chard, peppers, broccoli, arugula and brussels sprouts. Oh, and Callan, too :)

This picture was taken for Grandpa Hartman, the dentist. Callan's latest development is learning to spit, so he can now use big-boy toothpaste.

Okay, that's it for now. For the record (mine), this post only took 5 minutes to complete, so I should have no excuse for procrastinating the next one. We'll see if this works...

First snow, a bit late

Hey again. Even though this event happened more than 3 weeks ago, I have to post some pictures of Callan and Thatcher's first real snow, and our family's first snow in Richmond. I was ecstatic because I love snow and have been experiencing snow withdrawals since we moved here from Boston. So, we made the most of it and made a snowman and snowangels, and even brought snow inside to play with. Here's the proof:

How to love your kids when you don't feel like it...

Prayer is essential, of course, but sometimes I need another practical step to take me from the closed-in place of Irritation and Annoyance into the wide open spaces of Falling in Love with My Children again. Here are two tips I've discovered in the last week:

1. Get 'em naked.

It's true. Ever tried being impatient and frustrated with a soft, sweet-skinned, fleshy little scamperer? It's not easy. Plus, they just have so much fun running around in the buff that their moods change, too--even towards each other. Thatcher was the one who started this trend in our house. He's fascinated with the toilet and wants to take all his clothes off when Callan goes to the bathroom. Well, then Callan wants to join the fun and strip down, too. Then off they go, four little buns all around the house. It's hard not to squeeze 'em, let me tell you!


2. Read Shirley Hughes.

Truly, she is becoming one of my top five favorite children's book authors, not just for her storytelling, but her gentle and sweet illustrations and poetry that captures the magic of childhood. The children and grown-ups in her stories are real--kind, irritable, worried, messy, brave. I read her books to my son to remind myself of the simple wonders that are everywhere in my children, if I only look. I read her books to my son to teach him how to be kind and brave, but that sometimes we are scared and grouchy, too. Here is a list of the books we've read and loved:
Alfie Gives a Hand
Alfie Gets in First
Alfie's Feet
The Big Alfie Out of Doors Storybook
Rhymes for Annie Rose
Chatting
Dogger

New post, new year

Ah, here I am again. Once again, I've completely alienated my readers out there (all 3 of them) by being so infrequent in publishing. But I'll keep getting back on the blogmobile after falling off so many times...

The first week of December we celebrated Callan's 4th birthday--just about every day that week involved some kind of party. Truly, since Thanksgiving Callan has opened so many presents spread out over a month that he said to me recently, "I want to open some January presents." Just let the retailers loose with that idea! Here's a shot of Callan's bug birthday party:

We made it through Christmas--it was nice, actually. And that means a lot coming from me, since I tend toward Scroogeosity starting the day after Thanksgiving. My kids are encouraging me to revel in the wonder of the Christmas story. It really is a wonder, you know...

Here's a picture that was taken by my father-in-law during their visit after Christmas. We have so few family pictures that I'm not going to be picky about our expressions, messy house, etc.

But I'm enjoying the new year more than ever, too. I can really understand why people make resolutions--there's so much fresh energy after the holidays once you clear out the pine needles and wrapping paper, and your schedule is much clearer, too. I'm resolving to tackle my house projects by focusing on one per week instead of being overwhelmed by all of them at once. This week, it's painting a headboard/footboard that I picked up at a yard sale this summer (actually I got 2 sets for $20--one for each boy!). The new color is Parsley Sprig--kind of a light froggy green. I love that color. Matt thinks it might be too girly, but I think it will look great with the denim bedspreads and blue/green paint job I'm going to do in their bedroom (but that's another week's project--actually, maybe that's a two-weeker).

I'll close with a picture of our silly Thatcher (drinking his "Paw-Paw Har-pin"s fruit drink for breakfast). He is ever the goofball and keeps us all in stitches, especially Callan.