First Day of School (kind of)

Luke starts his 2 days per week preschool/Mother's Day Out tomorrow. We practiced tonight with his backpack and lunch box. If you are offended by character clothes/stuff, I apologize in advance! ;)

First: The "Teeth Smile" This picture cracks me up. :)


Luke's totally pumped and excited face!


I am so happy we found a place to send him to school here. I really was sad to leave his program in Bloomington. This new program is more structured and fewer hours, and I think he'll learn a lot.

6 Weeks!

We have survived the six week black hole of doom and Nathan has rewarded us by smiling! Obviously he is no worse for wear from his hospital/cold ordeal and he is just growing like a weed.





And I love this picture because he has so much personality and because our family often says, "ACT SURPRISED!" and we make crazy faces like this:

The First Week of 2U2

Was crazy.

We got home on Sunday the 29th (Nathan was born on Friday). On Wednesday, I came down with such a horrible headache that I worried I had a spinal headache. I have never had a headache like that before. I still have no idea what the headache was. However, it felt much better the next day. I got my blood pressure checked at the doctor and everything looked good, too. I do have several pulled muscles in my neck (I have no idea how I did that) -- and I know that at least one of them is pressing against a nerve, so perhaps that caused the headache? No clue. I did get a prescription for Loratab. I've only taken one -- that first day. But when I went to pick it up, it cost me 47 cents! What the heck? No wonder people are addicted to pain killers! ;)

So the first week was rough -- my headache/neck problem, Luke came down with an ear infection and pink eye, and the first week with a newborn is always challenging in general. It was crazy, with three out of the four of us seeing the doctor! The second week was better. We spent this weekend home at my parents' house, which was very nice. My in town family all got to meet Nathan, which was fun!

But before that, Nathan was 1 week old! :) Here he is at one week:



And here are the boys' feet. Luke is so dainty, isn't he?

Spring Break project: The Box

The thought of spring break was a little daunting. Five days alone with Luke (while Hal works). 35 weeks pregnant. Extremely active 19-month-old.

But we're making do. The weather has been beautiful so we were able to spend some time outside.

And we were able to get a project done I've wanted to do for awhile!

Sensory boxes are all the rage on Pinterest and amongst mommy friends. I wanted to get together a box of stuff that Luke could play with whatever way he wanted. Many sensory boxes use rice and beans, and while those are awesome, I wanted to do something a little less messy.

So Luke and I ventured to Hobby Lobby on Tuesday to get supplies for...The Box.

I wasn't sure what The Box would look like when all was said and done. I had some vague idea about pipe cleaners. That's all I got.




Luke was actually very unhappy to be a Hobby Lobby. He didn't want to walk. He didn't want to sit in the cart. He started screaming (hence the "B," as he calls his binky). But then we found some boas, and the whole day brightened (no muppets were killed in the making of this photo).



We picked up an enormous amount of stuff (including a box with a lid. Here is the box with most of our supplies, and I even have some things left for restocking (I didn't place all 100 pipe cleaners in the box, and I left out many of the colored tongue dispensers, too).

What do we have? Here, a (very scientific in terms of the names) list:

multi colored feathers
plastic Easter eggs that open
multi-colored puff balls
sparkly puff ball pom pom things
wooden cubes
pipe cleaners
glass bead things that you often put in candle holders (I got ones that were too big to swallow)
multi-colored wooden tongue dispenser things
four plastic cups
A blue plastic thing that looks like a biga cupcake holder
3 jingle bells

The box and the Easter Eggs were the most expensive parts of the project. Obviously, I got a lot of stuff. I spent about $35, and about $12 was the box and Easter Eggs.

But it has been worth it! There has been a lot of imaginative play that has come out of the box (for Luke and Mom and Dad!). We do a lot of drumming:



We stuff Easter Eggs:



Luke now has a magic wand that Hal made him! I was kind enough to not take the picture of Hal with features sticking up from his hair and waving the wand around. Luke likes to tap Hal's hand with the wand, count to three, and then flying puff balls magically fly up in the air:



The other thing I am noticing is that Luke likes to "cook." Lots of stirring going on:



He has been interested and playing with it pretty much every day we've had it. We'll see how long that lasts. But I am glad we did it!