Monday, December 14, 2015

The giant catch up post

So this is my big catch up post. It spans the time from the end of the summer to half way through December. Once this post is complete, then I will be up to date and will, hopefully be able to make shorter and more regular posts. But, if past performance is anything to go by, it wont actually work out that well. Who knows; past performance is not indicative of future returns.

Right at the tail end of the summer I went on a hiking trip up in Colorado with my brother. While I was gone, the kids decided to repair some things around the house. 
One weekend, Heather took the kids out to the local frozen yogurt place to celebrate the end of summer. For whatever reason, Hudson decided to throw a fit, so I came by to take him home. Sara Beth remained with Heather and spent her time crawling through the chairs an all across the floor once she was done eating.
 Hudson has decided that keeping a diaper dry for two whole days to earn some "gloopy cream" is too much work. Instead he is content to just sell make believe tea. He showed me his strawberry flavored tea, his grape flavored tea, and his doughnut flavored tea.
 Make your own pizza night is always a hit with the kids. Note that they are placing their pizzas on separate trays. We have found that if they have to share a tray while making their dinner, the pizzas are not the only things that might get hit.
 Hudson seriously loves yard work. He will regularly ask me how many lawn mowers and weed whackers I own. He will then proceed to let me know that he has more. Though, as the below picture demonstrates, I think he considers some of my lawn equipment to be his.
 This fall, Sara Beth was big enough to climb the oak tree out front. All the neighborhood kids got together and collected all the acorns and placed them in the wagon. Later, Sara Beth placed the acorns into bags and went door to door trying to sell them for $5 a bag.
 Even though Hudson couldn't reach up to the oak tree, he didn't want to be left out of the climbing action. I had to stop him and explain that he should only climb on branches that are bigger than his wrist.
For a while, during the weekly popcorn, cheese, and fruit dinners, I chose to watch  American Ninja Warior. The kids were inspired and once dinner was over, they went out in the back yard and asked me to come up with challenges for them to accomplish. Here, Sara Beth is going from the play house to the fence without touching the ground.
Every weekend, we have a one hour quiet time where the kids have to stay in their rooms and relax. Sara Beth will regularly come out after that hour with fantastic creations. In this case, she created a laptop for her dolls. It even came with replaceable screens to simulate the appearance of running different programs.
For Halloween, Sara Beth decided she wanted to be a cat, so Heather got her some cat ears and a matching tail. Here she is giving her costume a trial run.
 Have I mentioned that Hudson likes to play with lawn equipment. In this case, he has his makeshift leaf blower and is cleaning the driveway with it.
 For Halloween at the stables, Sara Beth got to dress up her horse for the costume contest. She won the "Most Beautiful Costume" for her ballerina outfit.
 And here we have Sara Beth's full costume including the makeup.
 So, Hudson's costume need some explaining. The neighborhood kids like to play super heroes since some of them have seen the Avengers movies. So, you might think that Hudson is dressed up like the Hulk. Well, you would be wrong. You see, Sara Beth always pretends to be Black Widow. So, since Hudson's favorite color is green, he decided to be Green Widow. When we asked him what exactly Green Widow looked like, he said "green".
 One Saturday afternoon, Sara Beth and I had a date. She picked out some activities that she wanted to accomplish on the date. It started with a tea party. I chose peach tea (doughnut flavor was not an option). Next on the list was building a blanket fort. That ended up being so much fun, we spent the rest of our time doing that. Shortly after Hudson and Heather came home, the tent came apart.
 Sara Beth practices reading a lot, and fortunately, the cats are attentive listeners.
 For Hudson's birthday, he got some pretend power tools like this circular saw. He ended up using it to help him open up some subsequent gifts.
 He also got some safety equipment while he does all his projects.

 Hudson chose carrot cake for his birthday. I certainly wasn't going to argue with that. And now that he is four years old, he decided he was old enough to scoop out his own ice cream.
For Thanksgiving, my siblings came in town.
It was great fun to watch Hudson and John play a video game together. Hudson's controller apparently handled which direction the driver was looking while John's controller handled driving the car. Needless to say, once Hudson realized how easily John would crash when the driver is looking backwards, he really got into the game.
Sara Beth decided that she was going to bake muffins. Once again, we suggested that maybe she use a recipe, and once again, she decided that was unnecessary. She gave some to my mom who praised them as "not all that bad". Later, Sara Beth tried one and decided they were actually disgusting. We'll see if she decides that a recipe might help her next time.
My Dad and I took the kids to Home Depot to do a children's craft on Saturday. Sara Beth carefully painted her blocks, ensuring that the colors coordinated. Hudson decided to paint his favorite shade of green. Then he decided that he was going to make it for me, so he repainted it all in blue. He then changed his mind again, settling on a combination of bluish green and greenish blue.
I really wish I could remember the song Sara Beth was singing about her cat in this picture. All I remember is that it was really clever and that I should write about it on the blog.
As a brief aside, here is a rare picture of all four of our cats. Some fresh tuna is the only thing that would bring them all together. 
And now I am caught up!