Ladybug Central, April 29, 2009

So, at our house these days we are overwhelmed by ladybugs. This is a good thing for my roses, as they were recently overwhelmed with aphids. This seems to have abated and the boys are loving to have some many beautiful "lady bird beetles" as my biology teacher would have corrected me, in our little front yard. We put together a holding tank for them so that Vinny could share them with Daddy in the evening. Vinny is becoming quite the ladybug wrangler, snagging a record of 10 in one afternoon. I suppose there is something to be said for not being a great gardener (it frequently just looks overgrown). It has provided the boys we hours of pleasure during piano lessons. I like that they get to be outside and they like that I am not shadowing their every move. Gianni has taken to calling every bug a bee and running from them despite our best efforts to get him to say ladybugs. While he has finally got Vinny and Gianni down in his vocabulary, this seems to have eluded him. He talks more and more each day and it is great fun to have him join in on the conversation. He understands more than he says, but he has Yes, No and Okay down just fine and will carry on a conversation for quite awhile and be able to communicate what he needs or at least wants.
But, back to ladybugs. We agreed from the beginning that it would be a catch and release program. Every night Vinny releases the ladybugs just before his bath so that they can eat and rejoin their family. There is a small snag though. Gianni has figured out how to untwist the lid, so there are frequently some escapees, this is exacerbated by the fact that Mom may have punched one of the air holes a little too big. Frequently these days we find ladybugs on us, or the walls or the window trying to get out. We then will gently move them to the door so that they can go back outside and eat our aphids. Vinny has a very good understanding of what Ladybugs eat and he is always on the lookout for aphids to feed them. Just yesterday I found him relocating ladybugs from our garden to the lawn in front our our house because he thought they were hungry and there would be more aphids in the lawn. After explaining that we have all the aphids they'll ever need, he relocated them again, back to the mint. I just love watching them explore and enjoy the outside. I hope it never ends.

Joshua Tree, April 17-18

We intended to go camping the first weekend in April. But we had to move it due to unforseen circumstances. Vinny was so distraught and so instead of canceling the reservations, we just changed them. As we couldn't get away on that Sunday we were only able to stay one night. It was a wonderful time though. Vinny so had been begging to go camping. He loves it! We are so glad because we are a camping family. We don't go nearly as much as we desire, but we go at least once or twice a year. This year we are aiming for three times! Woo Hoo!
This is such a change for me as I went camping at least once a month with my family growing up. But, we have different schedules and Dan's vacation doesn't work quite like the Navy (which still requires me to do some adjusting in my expectations). So, with all this in mind we took off Friday afternoon and headed for the closest National Park, Joshua Tree. It wasn't as far as we thought, it actually is just around the corner from the Redlands temple (ok, maybe an hour, but still close). Our campground was great, set in the Joshua Trees and the park was much more mountainous than we expected. I guess when I think desert, I am forever stuck with the idea of flat sandy areas, but rarely is that the case, in fact Joshua Tree is more like the desert I grew up with. It covers the Mojave and Colorado deserts, and you can travel between the two. We picked a good weekend because all the cacti were in bloom. And of course my favorite, the ocotillo. We woke up in the morning and let the boys goof around with their trucks in the campground. They had a great time just filling them with dirt and dumping it out. Gianni, forever the rock hound, collected all the rocks he could find and dumped them out. Mommy, who had felt better just got to watch and take photos with her big lens, it was fun to just relax and the boys just loved goofing off at the campground. They just can't wait to go back again. Then we took off to do some hiking, we had the best of intentions, but this was shortchanged by Noelle not feeling so great. We altered our plans and took the 3o mile drive from the top of Joshua Tree down through the Colorado desert. At the bottom, we discovered that we were right about the Salton Sea. This was surprising to me because my family had driven all over that area, but never made it to Joshua Tree. We would regularly drive to the Salton Sea, I suppose with the fond hope of swimming, even though that is not possible anymore. Somehow though we never made it the five to ten miles north that would have brought us to Joshua Tree. It was a lovely weekend and we look forward to going back and exploring when we are all feeling better. Vinny keeps asking for the Joshua Trees and when we can return. I am grateful and look forward to more adventures with them.

Easter 2009, April 10-14

With great excitement we picked up Nana Karen on Friday from the airport. We hadn't seen her since Christmas and it was exciting to get to spend four days with her. On Friday, we finished up our Easter shopping and picked up the supplies to make birds nests. As it was a little on the chilly side it was great to just be inside and relax and make cute treats. We had a great time mixing the sticky marshmallows and shaping them into little miniature nests. Vinny's favorite part was eating the little birds eggs M&M's. Always one of his favorite things to eat. We had to finally move them so that there would be enough eggs for all the nests. As it made quite a few nests, we had plenty to share and enjoy over the weekend it was such fun. As we prepared to eat our little Easter feast on Friday, Dan called to say that his motorcycle had a flat tire. We were ever so grateful that he got the flat in the parking lot during the day and not while he was riding. That would have been horrific. After learning the cost of replacing motorcycle tires, which was a lot more than we expected as there was more work to be done, we began our Easter celebrations. Dinner was fabulous with Dan's request of a standing rib roast and other yummy additions. We had a great time visiting with Nana and getting the boys to bed nice and early. Saturday brought more fun as we went to the ward Easter egg hunt. Mommy learned that the big kids will always get tons more eggs than they need, and filed that away to teach her boys that they should always be looking out for the little guys. It was a new experience for her as she had never gone to a hunt with her children before. Nana was most understanding and said that she had similar feelings the first time she brought Daniel out to hunt. But, we did have fun and the boys were unaffected receiving enough eggs to satisfy them (see previous post about their contentment with just a few). We relaxed Saturday afternoon again (we've been doing that a lot lately) and finished the afternoon off with egg decorating! Mom's favorite and Daddy's least favorite tradition of the year (I think pumpkin cleaning out takes second place). Daddy hates messes as either boy can tell you. Uncle Mike joined us in the evening and the boys had fun goofing off together. Sunday brought the Easter Bunny (with a hole in his basket of course) big wheels and Dr. Seuss books for the boys. An Easter Egg hunt in the garden too! Church, then off to Grandma and Grandpa Lehman's in Lake San Marcos (about an hour and a half south of us). We had a great surprise waiting for us as Grandpa had made both boys trucks! They are just beautiful and the boys play with them non-stop. We are so grateful that we have such great family! We had a great Easter dinner with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Roz and enjoyed an afternoon ride on one of Grandma and Grandpa's friends boats. The boys had fun sitting outside with their friend on the front and watching the waterfowl go by. Dan and Mike left late that evening, and spent quite a bit of time in traffic. Nana, Mommy and the boys stayed so that we could go to the Wild Animal Park on Monday. It was a lovely visit to the park, with amazing Nana doing all the stroller pushing. Although there was a bit of a line for the butterfly exhibit, it was wonderful and magical. Poor Vinny waited patiently for a butterfly to land on him, or any of us for that matter but it wasn't to be. We did enjoy looking at them close-up. It was beautiful. We took Nana back to Grandma and Grandpa Lehmans. The boys were asleep within minutes of us getting in the car so there wasn't a goodbye. They were so upset and begged please to go back and get Nana Karen. We had such a lovely weekend and a great Easter together. Just as before it was so hard to choose just one or two photos to place on the blog. Look for the Flickr set hopefully this evening!

Easter Crafts

So, I couldn't resist making these with our Mommy and Me class. These little rabbits with their adorable feet, my little guys feet were so cute. We had a great time painting them and choosing their colors. Vinny's was clearly the most psychedelic there, and it was nice to let him choose and have some say in what HIS craft looked like. As you can see, I still managed to get my purple on Gianni's. It was actually easier than I thought to have them both armed with paintbrushes in a shop, and it was only mildly challenging to keep them on task. It seems to be getting easier with both of them as they are starting to understand and respond to more of what I have to say. That isn't to say that every photo of Vinny taken this day wasn't a silly face (I think he picks that up from his Uncle Mike) or that I didnt' have a challenge getting Gianni not to paint himself. But, it is getting easier to do things with them by myself and it is actually getting fun these days. I look forward to more of these days.

March 28-29, Soquel

So, it has been a while since I updated this blog. We have been busy with new changes around our home that have come with new hopes and new anxieties. More on that to come, we hope. We had a great weekend with Opa and Oma, and it was hard to choose which picture deserved to be on the blog. So, just head on over to Flickr and get the rest of them. We had a great time goofing off in Santa Cruz for Opa's birthday and especially just letting the cousins hang out. It was truly such fun. On Saturday morning we went to the pool where Henry is taking swimming lessons (it still amuses me to no end that when I called my Dad to ask him a question for Annabelle, he was in a blizzard). The kids loved the shallow warm water. We played on Annabelle's farm, with the goats and the chickens and the garden. But, I truly think our favorite thing was the river. I had never been down there and neither had the boys, it was so wonderful and such a place to adventure and goof off. I look forward to many more years of them exploring all the wonders of Soquel Creek. We also had a great time exploring Opa and Oma's ranch. We snuck into all the trees and took little walks and had fun watching Uncle Eric make a spectacular dinner for Opa. It was truly a great weekend and we were sad to leave. It is hard for us to not be near family, maybe someday!

Monday, March 23, 2009

Today was the Easter Egg hunt at Mommy and Me. It was fun, as always to join with our class and do new things. Easter is just now coming into focus for Vinny and for Gianni, it is all new. What was so interesting to me was watching my two boys during the hunt. While everyone else was running around trying to pick up every egg, pushing each other around, gathering more than they could carry, my boys were content to slow it down. They picked up each egg, enjoyed it's differences, wanted to take their time to savor the experience. It was great! I hope this means that they will take the time in life to look at every moment. That they have learned it is quality not quantity that makes a difference. Hopefully they will understand why we needed to live in a small house and drive a car without all the bling. That they will know that we did it to provide them with what was needed, not was wanted. We did end up going home with more eggs than we needed. Due to Vinny's tenacity and willingness to share everything with his brother I have had to hide them on top of the fridge to stop the mass consumption of candy during piano lessons. The conversation generally goes something like this:

VB: Nanni, do you want some candy?
NB: (nods his head yes with a very serious look on his face)
VB: Mommy, Nanni wants some candy, can he have some?
or even better yet, the same question is heard from the kitchen, and by the time I arrive, all I see is candy in their hands and Vinny's reply to who said it was ok...

VB: Because Nanni wanted it.