Another Use For Bedsheets

I had a problem!

We have a huge Maple tree in our back yard. I have raked the leaves, then the boys would play in them. In the end you couldn't tell that I raked them. We do have the service where the city comes and vacuums the leaves into a big truck, but they have to be by the curb (which is in front of the house!), we had talked about mowing over all the leaves (but we just recently put all the bikes in the shed-with the mower-it would be quite the pain to do that). It really was quite the conundrum!

I decided yesterday I was going to rake it, fill trash cans with leaves and walk them to the curb. I started this, and the boys came home from school, so they started to help me. Mike soon came out with a bedsheet! Once I realized what he was doing my thought was --BRILLIANT!

I would help Mike and Austin fill the bedsheet with leaves and they would carry it to the road. While they did this, I pulled the piles back together. It worked great!

It was very cute, the sheet would be filled and and they would be pulling the corners up I would hear one or the other say, "this is a lot" or "this load is big." I think a comment was made almost every time!

I love how Mike can see a use for something that I never would have imagined. It certainly keeps thing interesting!

November 21st

Today is November 21st. At supper, I told Mike that I should do a post on this day. He wondered what happened today that was "blog worthy." It wasn't necessarily today, but things that have happened in the past on this day, that makes it a bit special.

On November 21, 1998 Mike and I had been hanging out some time. Mike had come over to my parents house, I think we watched a movie. My parents had gone to visit my aunt (it was her birthday). Mike was getting ready to leave and he kissed me. It was at that point that we started dating.

Now, we fast forward to November 21st, 2002. I found out that I was pregnant with Adam that day. For supper I fixed meatballs and rice (ironically, the same meal that I fixed when I found out I was pregnant with Austin--I had not made it since). Austin, for some reason, fell asleep right before supper. We let him sleep. I asked Mike if he remembered the last time I made that meal. He didn't. I told him it was when we found out we were going to have Austin. He understood what I was saying. We were both thrilled!

Today, however, nothing that monumental happened.

Although, I was happy to have this very handsome boy help me rake the leaves. (after they were all raked up he couldn't resist--he ran through all the piles and had a great time!)

I, also, had this cute one help me to make a pumpkin log.

November 21st will always be a special day to me. My life changed dramatically on this date in 1998 and 2002. I wouldn't change it for anything!

Just to Prove My Point

In my last post I wrote about how Adam sees treasure in things that I would classify as junk. Just to prove my point I decided I had to take a minute to write about what happened this morning.



Actually, I started yesterday. As we were walking home from school, Austin found a frame from one of the political signs that people put in the yards. He decided that this really was a keeper! I cannot tell you how many things it was on the way home, or how many different noises. :) I thought, well tomorrow is trash day, I will slip it in the trash and no one will miss it.


This morning, Adam started to take the trash down to the road. Austin said he would do the recycling. Austin took the recycling box down as I was putting 2 more cans out to be picked up. Austin came in the house, but Adam did not. I asked Austin if he took the extra cans down that I placed outside the door. He said, "no, Adam is creating something." In just a few minutes, Adam came in and said I had to come see what he created.

It is a bell. I can guarantee you that no one else in the neighborhood has a dinner bell like this one!

He Sees Things Differently...

...than me.

Yesterday while we were walking home from school, Adam found what I would call litter. He saw a treasure in it!

His treasure consisted of an empty 2 liter soda bottle, and a pencil. I thought he would carry it home and we would recycle the bottle (and I was going to trash the pencil), as we have done with other "treasures" he has found. But he had a different plan for this bottle. He explained to me that he thought we should put the pencil in the label of the bottle and fill the bottle with water. That way if the house were to catch on fire the pencil would start to burn, and it would melt the plastic, then the water would come out and everything would be fine!

That is some great thinking, Adam. However, we will not put the insurance of our house on a soda bottle filled with water.

Mom stopped by our house and we were explaining this to her. She said, "he is going to create something big one day!"

Then as I was putting him to bed, he said there was one more thing that he needed to check. I had never noticed it before, I don't know when he created this, but...

...he had taken a slinky and attached it to the pull of the blinds in his room. Then he took a flashlight and placed it in the slinky. He did this to create starlight. We do have glow in the dark stars on his ceiling, I'm not sure if he is wanting to charge the stars with this light, or if he is just wanting a little light, that maybe a star would provide.

I love that Adam's mind works totally different than mine. However, I do find that very fact to be totally exhausting!

A Little Out of the Norm

For the most part, this week has been an average normal week. However, there have been parts of it that were a bit out of the normal--that adds a bit of exciting fun!

Tuesday was election day. The boys were out of school. Monday, after school, Austin was invited to his friends house to play for a few hours. His mom and I talked and decided we would pick him up around dinner time. When Mike went to get him, he called me and said, "they want Austin to spend the night." Well, that sounded like fun!

Mike took Adam out to McDonald's for a special "Adam and Daddy time." When they came home Adam decided that we should play Apples to Apple 7+ (He always adds the 7+ it is a very important part of the title to this 7 year old!) Then he was allowed to fall asleep in our bed. usually this is only a Friday night treat (they fall asleep in our bed and when I am ready to go to bed They go to their beds. For some reason they really love this!), but this was a special night. On Tuesday morning he chose to have waffles. So, I made waffles. Usually, I don't for the simple fact that I can only do 1 waffle at a time where I can do up to 5 pancakes at a time--I go for simplicity! We had a really fun time with Adam and enjoyed his evening and morning choices. (Austin had a great time at Isaac's house)

This weekend was our Sunday School classes retreat weekend. Mike and I decided that we would go for Saturday. We lined my dad up to watch the boys. The closer we got to the weekend, the more decided that maybe it would be a good idea for the boys to spend the night at Mamaw and Papaw's house. We packed everything up and had the boys to their house around 8:30 am. It sounded like they had a fun day. I called last night and mom said they were playing apples to apples (7+ :) Which I know Adam loved!! They even got Dad to play the game (Thanks!)

Apparently, when Papaw was getting ready for bed, Mamaw helped the boys crawl into their bed so they could scare Papaw. When he crawled in bed, the popped up singing "When you wake up in the morning, it's quarter to 1 and you want to have some fun, you brush your teeth..." It wounded like they went to at least 10 with the song. Papaw said he really did not see them in the bed. I would have loved to have seen this.

Mike and I had a great time at our retreat, but it was good to see the boys again. They said that they may have missed us just a little. That is okay! I think that means they had a good time.