Sing, Sing a Song Saturday

I started doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that the boys or I like. 

The song may be part of a movie, a kid's video or just a song we like. It may or may not include words. I'll try and include why we like it and/or the history of the song/singer.

I'm typing this up early (Thursday), and will schedule to post it for Saturday. This weekend we're having a lot of company over. Well a lot for us, considering we hardly have company over. Friends of ours from KC are coming. We've been cleaning. It's hard because I feel like with kids you can't clean too early. They get it dirty again. Just look at Isaak's spot where he eats a few days after we clean. It's as if we didn't clean at all. I've hit all the areas people can't see that needed it badly. Like the ceiling fan, top of the shelves, drapes in our room, under the couch cushions, behind the corner TV stand, top of the picture frames and the top of the crown molding (that was some work!) The next few nights is more cleaning! This time it's the stuff people can see. It won't be perfect. After they leave I'll have to clean again.

While we clean I sometimes listen to Rusted Root. Send Me On My Way is one of my favorite songs by them.

It's upbeat and fun. It just makes me happier to clean.

What is Rusted Root up to? They are getting ready to sail aboard the Norwegian Pearl, a full service cruise ship, on a 5-day journey to Great Stirrup Cay, their own private island. There will be non-stop music at sea all the way there and back, and they’ll even have their own 2-day private beach party on the island, complete with more music! Their lives are full of tours.

Do you listen to music, while you clean? What do you listen to?

Digging Potatoes

Last year we dug up buckets full of potatoes. This year, not so much.

Isaak was Daddy's helper. Mica walked off the job. How is it that the 4 year old is a better helper in the kitchen and outside than the 7 year old? We've been getting on Mica for not completing his tasks.

The potato pass off from Daddy to Isaak.

"Look what I got Mom!" Two very small potatoes.

He figured out that he could dig some up to.

Isaak observing a potato he dug up. He held one up and said, "I'm the Statue of Liberty."

 Just some potatoes.

This is all we got. :(

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WW: Splash {Linky}

This last weekend I took the boys to a water pad. They loved it!

Mica's in the blue trunks and Isaak's in the crab ones.

This photo cracks me up! I think many little boys have tried this!

Mica kept screaming when he went through this. I have no clue why. I'm just glad we were the only ones there.

Of course water has to be Karate chopped and kicked.

We went to a water splash park on our vacation to Chicago as well.

They got to release some energy!

 The walls they were running under had faces that kept changing. It was super cool to watch!

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Tragedy Strikes

This weekend was an interesting one indeed.

My mom (Grandma Spiehs) had surgery on her toes. She's doing good. On Saturday I took them Chicken and Dumplings, green beans and fruit. On Sunday my older sister (Aunt Angela) took them a meal. She's hobbling around in a boot. Wires hang out of her toes. I didn't get to see them. I only saw them in the x-ray. The wires will get removed. One pin stays.

My younger sister (Aunt Terra) took her family to a Trisomy 18 conference. She had the chance to meet other families with kids that suffer from Trisomy 13 and 18. She said it was sad, informative, fun to see families from all over. One family came from Sweden, one from Canada and a lot from the US. She talked a lot with a lady that is also an RN and has a daughter the same age as Emerson.

I was in the lobby at a Honda shop waiting for our Pilot's recall to be fixed on Friday morning. I was hoping they would get done while we went out to breakfast; no such luck. The low beam lights could go out at any time. All the sudden I hear on the TV about the shooting in Aura, Colorado. I knew that because they were talking about Batman Mica's ears would perk up. I put them on the empty computer to play on the the PBS website. I have no problem talking to the boys about tragedy. If at all possible I'd like to wait until they are in upper elementary to explain that stuff to them. How do you feel about that? Any advice? I think if something happens here or within our family it's unavoidable; I have to talk to them. It's important to communicate as a family. I just don't want to push that violence is a reality to them so soon.

At home on Saturday morning I got a call from the local police department. A 10 year old boy was missing that lived a few blocks away. It was just a recording describing this kid and what he was wearing. It was just telling us this information because they wanted everyone in the area to look out for him. I listened, hung up the phone, got the food in the car to take it to my parents, made sure Isaak was buckled up and started crying. Mica said, "What's wrong Mommy?" I broke my rule of not talking to them about tragedy's to illustrate a point. I said, "Well Mica that phone call was the police department. A little boy that's only 10 years old is missing. You know how I tell you not to run ahead in stores and at the park?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Well this is the reason why. This little boy is missing. I don't know if he ran away, or was kidnapped. What I do know is I thought about you and how you run ahead. Someone could just take you. I could never see you again. Do you understand what I'm saying?" He said, "Yes." I never did hear if they found him, or not. I don't see anything about this 10 year old on the internet. I can only imagine that he was in fact found. It's such a good thing that a call went out to everyone in the area!

Princess Birthday Party

Mica's invited to his first friend birthday party. Of course it has to be when we have company coming over. That's ok. It's only a few houses down.

The little girl's birthday invitations looked something like this:

Source

Not the same, but similar.

Mica was all excited to get this in the mail. He went on and on as to what to get this girl. I remembered I won a pink umbrella awhile back just for this purpose; to give to a little girl who invited Mica to a party. I told Mica and he said, "Well maybe we should get her a princess since it's a princess party." I said, "There is a princes on the umbrella." He was satisfied.

Then he said, "Mom since it's a princess party, I should probably find a way to dress like a prince!" I said, "Mica it says right on the invite to bring your swimming suit. I really doubt people are going to go dressed up like princes and princesses." He said, "Ya but I really want to look nice for her party."

I told him to call to RSVP. He did. The conversation went like this, "Well hello! My name is Mica Apel and I'm calling to tell Bailey I'm coming to her princess party." The person that answered must not of lived there. He handed the phone off to Bailey. Mica had to repeat his verbiage. Bailey said, "It's not really a princess party Mica." I think Mica was a little sad about that.

Then we went to Target and he spent 10 minutes looking at cards trying to find the perfect princess card for his friend.

A Pink Ruler Slap Bracelet

The boys and I went to Target. I was looking for tea towels. For some reason they don't sell them anymore. They work the best!

We checked out Slip N' Slides and got two. Everywhere else they are sold out. One of them was on clearance. Daddy got a hose splitter, so the two Slip N' Slides can be used at once.

We also got a card for one of Mica's friend's birthday parties. It's funny, he spent 10 or more minutes reading the cards just to pick out the right one. It had to have princesses on it because that is what his invite had on it.

We went back to look at backpacks. With all the school stuff were slap bracelets. 

Like these:

Source

The boys fought over a pink ruler slap on bracelet. I said, "Gee wiz I'm not getting that!" I didn't want to get them anything like that because Mica has a new habit of trying to sneak stuff in the cart when I tell him to put it back on the shelf. Plus I could see it being one of those toys that they play with for a day and then it sits.

This older gentleman that was probably 60 years old started laughing behind us. I looked over at him and he said, "I'm sorry! It's just that I was playing with that just before you guys walked over here."

It was funny enough that 2 little boys were playing with the pink ruler slap bracelet, then when I heard that the older man was as well I just couldn't stop laughing about it.

Sing Sing a Song Saturday

I started doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that the boys or I like. 

The song may be part of a movie, a kid's video or just a song we like. It may or may not include words. I'll try and include why we like it and/or the history of the song/singer.


The boys recently just watched Back to the Future. 

Since they watched it Mica built what he calls a Back to the Future Airplane out of Legos. It looks nothing like the DeLorean time machine, but that's ok. 

Guess what he sings when he flies his plane around? Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News.

It still has the Power of Love!

Power of Love

Just for fun, here's the Back to the Future cast when they reunited on the Today Show:

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Surgery

My mom (Grandma Spiehs) has surgery tomorrow. It's outpatient surgery. She had Polio not too long before the vaccine came out. Then it started attacking her body once again after she got married.

Here's her ankle that was fused awhile ago:


She had a hardware person in the room when she had surgery. Crazy!

Now her toes are turning under. They are putting pins in her toes to help them stay straight. Sounds painful to me!

Swimming and Jujutsu

Both boys are in swimming lessons. They've moved up twice. This last time we were told that they should stay where they are at. I agree.

They seem to listen very well during swimming lessons.

Isaak at age 4 is pretty good at swimming. We had a little problem 2 weeks ago. I went to go help Mica with a shower when Isaak was in swimming lessons. I guess Isaak was all concerned about where I was. His coach told me after lessons that Isaak would do better if I was out of sight, out of mind. I disappeared behind the glass window during the next session. I let Isaak know where I was going to be. Tonight I was talking to his coach; she was the lifeguard for the evening. I found out that she thought Isaak was 6 years old! I told her, "Nope he's only 4. His birthday is in May." She was in awww over how he did at 4 years old. The only problem is, is after he passes his next lessons Isaak can't move up to the next until he's 6 years old! I didn't know that! I don't know what I'll do. I want him to excel and be happy with his lessons; not bored!

Little Isaak now knows how to do freestyle swimming. He also likes to swim to the bottom of the pool to touch it. I taught him a stroke that does not exist, "The Tornado Stroke" it's freestyle, backstroke, freestyle, backstroke. He knows how to move his legs like a frog does and how to kick. I can stand a ways back, he jumps in and swims to me. That's 1/2 way across the pool.

He's still working on diving. 

Mica likes both swimming and Jujutsu. He has taken more interest in Jujutsu when he got his uniform last week. I didn't want to jump the gun and buy him one if he wasn't interested. He seems to like it. He's not super good at it. I have to say the uniform made a difference. Before he acted silly; now he's much more serious about it. It's a room full of boys his age kicking, punching and wrestling. I can understand why he's silly sometimes. We're still iffy on Jujutsu. We may in the future decide on Kung Fu. According to Grandpa Spiehs Kung Fu is better for Mica's body build. He's going to be tall. Jujutsu is better for shorter fellas. We'll see. I thought since we belong to the Y, Mica should give it a try to see if it's something he likes.

WW: Mexican Themed Art {Linky}

I started working on these images about 5 or so years ago. I neglected them, worked on other things. Do you ever have projects like that? Then I dug them out and finished them this summer. They are going in my brightly colored kitchen.

The kids were coloring right beside me. That was fun!

The first one is called Octopus's Garden

I kind of got the idea from the Beatles song, but was also into Mexican art and lots of techniques at the time. I suppose the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo influenced me as well.

Details. The beach is pained with clear paint and different types of sand (fine up front and course as it goes back). There are actual seashells on the sand. I used a newish clear medium that has glass beads in it for the water. The spines on the cacti are toothpicks, cut, sanded and painted. The sombrero is toothpicks as well. I mainly dripped paint on the cacti instead of painting them.

The second one is called Terra Cotta Fish Bowl

I just wanted a piece or two to go with the others. This image is much better in life. They both are. They are longest wise half the size as a standard door. It's hard seeing them small. I just wanted to carry the theme of cacti into this image as well.  I just envisioned a fish swimming in a terra cotta pot.

Details: There's sand on the ground of this one as well. I painted the walls and steps with a pain pallet to give them a stucco feel. Then washed over them. The pot I tried something that was difficult to work with. I painted it with paint, mixed with powdered dish soap. An epic fail. It kept drying and crumbling. Once I went over it with washes it was good. The cacti is dripped paint and toothpicks. Then the fish, lizard and tiles are all made out of found paper and a touch of colored pencil.

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I have a sweet giveaway for one winner to win a The Warrior Poet Clothier - T Shirt Giveaway Ends 8/2 Their T-Shirts really bring out the creativity in boys!