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Well, first of all, we've been on our own for a couple nights while Ben is shooting Viking Training Camp in Mankato.  Doing fine.  Keeping the fort under control and taking advantage of convenience food.  (Tonight's dinner was frozen stir-fry vegetables with tofu and a bottled stir-fry sauce.  No technique - or chopping, really - necessary.)  Lewis ate a lot,  as usual, and we had a lovely dance party after dinner.  Lewis was nude and trying to jump all over the place (his feet never actually leave the ground) and Art was wearing his shoes, so he could stomp, and a tutu.  Good times. Earlier this afternoon Art said, while sitting in the bathroom (if you catch my drift), "Mama, it's a beautiful day to take a nap!"  I agreed that it was  a beautiful day - sunny and a nice wind.  He said it was a nice wind and added, "The sun is beautiful.  The plants are growin' and all the things are growin' and it's startin' to blooooom!" After I put Le...

This just in from Jessica (I'm away in Mankato covering the Vikings training camp, ugh): "Art ate a lot of stir fry veggies tonight, the boys played in the mud and washed off in the sink, and we banged our hands on the table really loud and yelled, 'POOOOOP!'"

Over the past couple weeks - or maybe a month or so - we have been blessed with a lovely new development in Art's awareness.  He is telling the people he loves how he feels about them more than ever.  Just last week he said to Bubbe, out of the blue while they were playing a game or eating a snack or something, "Bubbe, you always make me happy."  He told Nanna that he loved her twice while she was in town.  At night he's started saying, "Goodnight, Mama.  I love you."  He only just started saying goodnight to us recently.  Just think.  3 1/2 years of hearing, "Goodnight, Art.  I love you," and suddenly something inside compelled him to start saying it back.  I like to think about it. Goodnight, everyone.  

We had a lovely bike ride to the cafe , then to the park .

Our neighbors Kathy and Linda have an RV and yesterday they took Art and Lewis out for a spin. I just knew Art would have a blast being in a car that had a stove, a fridge, a bed and a table. We visited the RV on Saturday and he really thought it was cool and then he asked about three or four times when he would be going for a ride in it. Finally it was the time- after his nap on Sunday. He made his non-verbal, closed-mouth, tense-neck squeal he was so excited! Kathy and Linda are a couple who lives across the alley. We eat their copious raspberries everyday. They're Grandma-type age and they treated Art and Lewis like grandchildren. Ice cream, the park and watching airplanes take off. They were gone for over two hours and when we went over to pick the boys up it was clear from their faces that they all had a good time.

I have realized that little boys, maybe big boys, too, have a need  to displace and dismantle things.  Not necessarily destroy them, but definitely take things apart and move the parts to various new locations.  Everything Art does seems to eventually turn into a dismantling and displacing game.  I swear.  It's like a primal need.  We had to outlaw a particularily fun game for Art because it was just too ridiculous.  He called it Garbage Man and it started as him just taking random things from the yard and tossing them over the edge of his plastic climbing house in through the 'roof'.  You know how the garbage man tosses stuff into the truck?  Well, he could play this game for 40 minutes or more.  So focused.  That was fine, but then he started playing the game in the basement which involved taking the cushions off the couch and pillows from the guest bed and dumping out all the buckets of blocks and marble toys and legos and adding random things from all over the basemen...

Curley.

while I drove Arthur said, "It's kinda messy back there. He doesn't clean up very well. Just like you!"

Or would it have been cooler one mile later?

So I challenged Josh to make her laugh out loud. This is evidence of his success. Thanks, Josh!

we went to see Beyonce last night at the Target center. it was entirely fun. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyD9NpckXuQ&hl=en&fs=1&&w=425&h=344]

Josh bought Arthur an antfarm a couple months ago. But only yesterday did the ants finally arrive in the mail (Josh ordered them). The moment they arrived at his house he called me on the phone and said he was coming over. Art did not know about the Ant Farm until Josh walked in with it, and they set it up together. I know Arthur last night was dreaming about ants cause at one point I went into his room and he said, with his eyes closed, "I think the ants are waking up." So funny.

Jess says, "When I got home last night Ben said Art ate an ENORMOUS amount of dinner and Art ate pretty much nothing. He added, 'I wish that dinner was more evenly distributed. If I took out half of what Lewis ate and gave it to Arthur they'd both have eaten full meals."

--Sent from my handheld device.--

In an effort to prevent Jessica's sister Emily from worrying, I will not describe what is taking place in this photo.

It's mulberry season, and Jess and I know of only a few trees near us (but the branches are picked over and too high). Luckily, Art and I found totally packed tree near the Dairy Queen we frequent and the homeowners were eager to have us pick their unused berries. They even provided a ladder. So yesterday Art and I picked an enormous amount of berries. And then, when we got home, Lew at an enormous amount of berries.

Just sittin' outside, hanging out on the stoop and making up songs about... stuff that's outside. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a79R4wjLLng&hl=en&fs=1&&w=480&h=385]

I keep finding Lewis in the middle of some grown up activity - reading books, cleaning the stove and here, brushing his teeth.

Boy, do our kids love their gackoos. Even before Lewis was doing anything but irritate Art he would gladly share a gackoo with him. In fact, Art's bed is the first place Lewis goes when he's upstairs. He likes to grab Art's gackoo off his pillow and just lay on his bed. And, clearly, he also like to lay on Art.

I may have mentioned this before but I am just starved for anything that comes close to a drawing or some kind of representational creation from Art. He's SO not into crayons or making anything out of stuff... He really just likes to manipulate his materials. He's a scientist! He likes to see what happens when he does this with that, etc. But I still am super curious to see how he would draw, say, a tree or me or whatever. He was using a marker the other day and I asked him if he would draw a picture of papa and he made a circly type thing and said, "Here's his big head..." and then he just got into scribbling and making the page black. That's my boy. But here's some of his new stuff. First of all, this tent coloring thing is really a big leap for Art. He used more than one color! And look how he colored the stakes! This was just a silly gluing project we did at home. And here, if rotated 90 degrees, is a flower he made at school. I was really e...

This morning Lewis nodded his head for the first time!! He pushed a stool over to the counter and climbed up, pulled a bag of bread to himself and whimpered. I asked him if he wanted some bread and he did the Full Body Nod , a head nod that seems to require effort from nearly every muscle group to produce. Yeah Lewis!!

Ok, I know there is a video of me after Art was born lamenting that he is growing up so fast because he was two days old and the next day he wasn't going to be two days old anymore.  I know I said that, and I meant it!  But I really do love to see my children adopt certain tasks as their own.  Lewis is gaining more and more communication skills, minor as they mights seem.  He will shake his head no when he doesn't want something, he will lift his empty glass up for more of what was in it, he will walk over to his high chair and even start to pull it over to the table when he's hungry.  I love that!!!  And Art going up to his room, pulling up his own covers and taking a nap.  Doesn't happen everyday but today he said he was going to take a "break" and when I went up there much later he was all snuggled in for a nap.  Or when he wanted frozen blueberries, got himself a bowl from the tupperware shelf, went into the freezer and poured his own.  Or how he'll go...

Pokey-pine.