lego displosion

Sometimes Catcher uses the word "displosion" when he means "explosion." There was a lego displosion in his bedroom this afternoon.

we survived...

the first day of summer vacation!

The warriors woke up at 6:30 and played in their pajamas until 9:30. (I didn't even have to break up any fights!) At 10:00 we met up with friends at a playground nearby, and then everyone came back to our house for lunch and a little dose of chaos. The rest of the day went pretty smoothly, and everyone was tucked in sound asleep by 7:30 (8:00 for Catcher). I'm going to enjoy these next 10 hours until the fun starts all over again...

school's out for summer

The day that parents dread has arrived in our house: the last day of school. We have "summer school" starting in two weeks, and then we head to Wisconsin at the end of June for five weeks of upper midwest fun, but it is still going to be a long summer. Catcher and Scout are at the ages--or is it their personalities?--where everything between the two of them is a controversy/big deal/argument/fight.

But then...every once in a while the little guys surprise you. This morning, before the mandatory last day of school front porch photo shoot (above), Catcher and Scout--and then Tillie joined in--had a cute moment of sibling smiles and laughter while playing on Scout's bed.

In case you're wondering, Scout's tattoos are not permanent (even if we do live in Austin). They came in a goody bag from a birthday party last weekend. Catcher is totally averse to body art, but Scout wanted to represent and now has Voltron decorating her triceps. They are impossible to remove.

birthday, part deux

I'm trying to write and Catcher is sitting in the living room asking Alex 1000 questions about baseball. It's driving me a little crazy, and I don't remember what it was I was thinking. It had something to do with Alex's birthday (I know this because I titled the post "birthday, part deux") but I can't think of where I was going with that thought. This is how my brain works sometimes, so enjoy this picture of Catcher and his dad, which was taken on Alex's birthday, by the way.

And here is one of Scout (same day, same place):

And Tillie, too:

birthday donuts

To make a long story short (before I even start the story) Alex got home in time for his birthday. Yesterday was his birthday, and he was supposed to get home today. When we found out he would be here to celebrate the big 3-7, the kids decided that Alex would want donuts for breakfast on his birthday. I'm pretty sure this was because the kids wanted donuts for breakfast on Alex's birthday, but it only happens once a year...why not?

Catcher was the first one up that morning and tapped me on the shoulder at 6:21am. He was a little disappointed because he thought that we should have gone out "early" at 6:00am to "really surprise Dad" with donuts, but I assured him 6:21 was early enough on a Sunday morning in Austin. I managed to sneak out of the house with the loud ones and keep them occupied until almost 7:30, but the allure (and smell) of fresh donuts would eventually drive them to the brink of insanity. I went upstairs to wake Alex and told him the kids had a surprise downstairs. Catcher was the first to get his hands on the donut plate: 

Scout somehow managed to eat one donut and half of another before I even put the camera away. After the sugar rush, we retreated to the king bed upstairs for some friendly pillow fights. Dads and kids love pillow fights.

here comes the rain again

It rained. In Austin. For nearly 24 hours.

Above is the proof. Below are two of the little ones entertaining themselves this morning with some old-fashioned fort construction in the "laundry area."

the graduate

In 13 short years, if all goes according to plan, Catcher will be graduating from high school. This was only brought to my attention when they handed out bubbles at his preschool "graduation" yesterday with the year 2026 written on the bottle. I have to admit that I was confused at first until my brain caught up with itself and I realized that 2026 is the year he will graduate from high school. Wow.

To celebrate the occasion, we had another day of picnics and another round of sno-cones at the Capitol:

school picnic

One of the great things about having the kids attend preschool downtown in the shadow of the Capitol is that we get to enjoy our end-of-year picnics on the lush, bright green lawn. Yesterday was warm but overcast, and it turned out to be perfect picnic weather as we celebrated--or lamented, depending on your point of the view--the end of the school year. Here are the highlights:

the help

The kids, Tillie included, love to help me clean the house. They even fight over who gets to Swiffer. Catcher told me last week that cleaning the toilet is his favorite thing to do (I assume he wasn't taking watching TV, playing with Legos and sneaking off with the iPad into consideration when he made that bold statement). My only question is when do the kids realize that chores are actually chores? I hope they never do.

i think we're gonna need a bigger bike

Catcher is going to be five in less than two months. We bought him this bike for Christmas when he was one and a-half. He was too short for it at the time (although it was marketed for 1-2 year-olds) and he didn't really grow into it until he was closer to three, but now it seems almost clownish to have him speeding down the streets on this thing. I thought his knees were going to scrape the sidewalk this afternoon.

The good news is that we know what to get him for his birthday this year. The bad news is that he's going to freak out when he has to start using pedals to move his bike. The helmet, by the way, is the one that I used to wear rollerblading in New York 10+ years ago. I think we're going to need a new one of those, too...