Balancing Eggs

According to Chinese folklore, the first day of spring is the one day in the year when you can have an egg balance on its broad end. My dad had sent us a text message informing us of this and of course, included a photo of his successful attempt at balancing eggs.

By the time we received this text, the first day of spring had already passed but it didn't matter because the boys wanted to give it a try anyway.

And of course, if Nathan and Andrew were doing it, Caleb had to join in as well. I was super nervous letting him play with the eggs. He's awesome at cracking eggs when we cook, but I needed these eggs to stay in tact. 

Wikipedia says that egg balancing can be done throughout the year, which is probably true. But I would disagree with the part where it says it can be done with minimal effort because we went through all our eggs and it took a bit of effort to make the eggs stand.

Top Secret Mission

It's been a pretty busy back-to-school week for these two boys. Three days in and we've already had two special after school activities. Well, technically three but yesterday's ended on a pretty low note with tears and everything for one child so we won't count that. 

When the boys got home from school today, they had a Top Secret Mission waiting for them. They had to sign their names on the dotted line and everything. 

For the next two hours, the boys ran around the house, fulfilling the different tasks of their mission and looking for their next task. 

The boys had 5 different missions to complete and by the end, I think Nathan was doing most of the work and Caleb was just along for the ride. All he could see were all these imported snacks that he couldn't wait to dig into. Being a secret agent is hard work!

You probably can't tell from the photos, especially since I didn't get a photo of the Teddy Grahams and gummy bears but this challenge was my sister's way of asking the boys to be her ring-bearers! The boys accepted, so they'll be suiting up for Mission #6 in August!

Back to School 2015

The boys were up bright and early for the first day back to school today.

Nathan woke up first. Probably around 5:30AM, I heard him getting up and changed into the outfit he had set out the night before. That shows you just how excited he was about going back to school because he's typically my pseudo-teenager, sleeping in as late as he possibly can.

Then, Caleb woke up at his typical 6AM, but he had other things on his agenda. He dawdled and took forever to get dressed but once he was ready, his first question was "can I play Lego?". He was still in vacation mode.

After a few obligatory first day of school photos, we dropped the boys off at school. Andrew's working the evening shift tonight so he came to drop the boys off, too. As soon as we parked, Nathan was ready to hop out of the car to go see his friends and get to his classroom. Caleb had a more laid-back approach, walking slowly to his class and waiting until his teacher greeted him before going into the class. We watched as he thoughtfully chose a cubby to place his backpack and Esky in before we turned to head back to the car.

Our boys are so different.

When we came home after school, I had a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies waiting for them. The first batch had barely finished baking by the time I had to leave for pick-up, but I promised myself I'd make the cookies for the boys. I thought it'd be a nice first day back to school treat.

But more importantly, my word for this year is grow. As part of that, my aim is to be more present as my boys grow and the cookies gave us a nice reason to sit down together to continue our conversation about what they did at school beyond the car ride home.

Happy Halloween!

We took a really laid-back approach to Halloween this year. As in, we didn't actually decide to do anything Halloween-y until lunch time, at which point I just decided Caleb could grab a costume from our closet and Nathan could wear a cape if he even wanted to dress up at all.

Right after school, we went to Lone Pine for their Halloween festivities. The boys ran around in the garden for the first little while to stay in the shade and cool down a bit.

Nathan carved a styrofoam pumpkin. Caleb said he wanted to do one, too, but ended up running off to the jumping castle so I'll see if I can find one for cheap in the next couple days. I'll post their finished jack-o-lanterns up if we ever end up doing Caleb's.

After they finished playing, the sun was starting to set so we headed out for a bit of trick-or-treating.

Caleb finally "got it" this year. He ran up and down the driveways yelling "trick or treat", then "Thank you! Happy Halloween!" after he got his candy. It was cute. And when he tripped and dumped his bucket of candy, Nathan helped him pick them up without stealing any. Not that it's his nature to, but still. I love my boys.

Let's Bounce

Nathan's been invited to a few birthday parties at indoor trampoline parks lately, but he moves around so quickly it's been hard to capture a good picture of him.

The last party we went to, one of the older boys was unable to jump so Caleb was invited to take his place! After three times of having to sit on the sidelines watching the big boys jump, it was finally his turn to have a go.

Oh, the way he listened intently to the rules and scrambled to pull his second sock on when the group got up to go onto the trampoline made my heart ache. He was so excited, so anxious, so small but so ready. Is it normal to feel so many emotions about my little guy getting to jump on trampolines?

Caleb had a great time just bouncing up and down on that one trampoline by himself. The group guide taught him to bounce side to side and how to land on his bum.

Eventually, he made his way towards Nathan and I finally got a good picture of Nathan in midair.

When they moved on to dodgeball, it was so nice to see Nathan, being the trampolining dodgeball veteran that he is now, give his little brother pointers. Caleb managed to be the last boy standing on his team, mostly because I don't think the big boys saw him as a threat but he did well!

I'm so grateful that despite their age difference, the boys can enjoy things like this together.

Open Skies and Bike Rides

I'm so grateful for playdates where the boys can just be free to enjoy wide open spaces, breathe in fresh air and ride around on their bikes or scooters without a worry in the world.

I'm grateful for supportive friendship circles where no one gets left behind because of their age or ability.

I'm grateful for times when boys can feel like they're at the top of the world and can conquer anything.

Out of the Box

Every year, we try to go to the Out of the Box Festival because it encourages the boys to be creative and grow their imagination. I love that they get to see creative expression in so many different, age appropriate ways. We managed to make it out on the last day of the festival this year. 

Nathan was invited to watch a live performance with his friend so Caleb and I spent the morning leisurely wandering from station to station. He didn't feel like taking part in any of the activities, but I convinced him to make a wish at the Wishing Tree.

My sweet little guy wished for ice cream.

Then he carefully chose an open spot on the line to hang his wish. He lingered for a while, asking to see his wish a few more times before we finally moved on.

We moved on to the Gong Garden where we explored different gongs from around the world. Caleb
took a few quick swings at the big gongs, but he didn't make a huge racket like he does at home. We ran into Nathan and his buddy in the gardens and headed out to lunch.

Before we left, Nathan went to make one last wish at the Wishing Tree.

"I wish for an age where humans and dragons meet."

Only one of their wishes came true that day, but I don't think Nathan minded one bit.

The Hockey Magazine

Back in January, I grabbed a couple magazines for the boys while we were waiting in the airport lounge for our delayed flight. We had a couple hours to kill and I thought it was only fair since I was hunkering down with a few magazines of my own. I quickly scanned the piles and this hockey one caught my eye. Neither of the boys have really watched hockey but I figured they might like something sports-related.

This magazine has travelled with us from Toronto, to Miami, through the western Caribbean and back. We brought it with us to Brisbane and the boys have leafed through it at least once a week ever since.

Sometimes, the best things in life are free.

Making Muffins

When I told the boys I'd be making apple cheddar muffins, they said they wanted to make the apple slinkies and grate the cheese.

They quickly washed their hands and arrived in the kitchen ready to get to work. I thought that meant I'd have double the help in preparing the ingredients.

It turns out the boys had something else in mind. 

Practical Life in Practice

I love our weekend trips to the markets. What's even better is when we get to use all the good food we bought afterwards. We've been experimenting with making our own juices lately. Citrus juice is the easiest for us since we don't have a fancy juicing machine - we just cut the fruit in half and squeeze. Caleb has been doing a lot of the squeezing lately.

(Yes, that's Andrew vacuuming in the background. ALL the boys in this house get to help out with housework.)

A lot of the time, after we make lemonade, we add in other things to change up the flavour. I like it with a few leaves of mint but this time around, the boys wanted to add berries. Nathan started cutting strawberries, then Caleb came along and wanted to help out. He was so excited about it he went to the fridge and got the entire punnet out and proceeded to cutting half of it up before I realized what he was doing and stopped him!

Caleb always insists on spooning out his own food now.

Nathan calls this one the "berry-lemon fusion" and it was berry good.

Not-So-Formal Selfies

I had such a hard time getting the boys to cooperate to take a photo with me on our formal night. We got back to our room and I decided to give it one last shot. I sat them on our bed, with their stuffed animals and the towel animal - whatever it took to get them to sit still. I set up my phone with the timer cam app and we snapped some photos. 

Here's a good one - I look a little crazy but at least the boys are looking and smiling. 

And this one is my favourite - I jumped onto the bed just in time and kind of squished Nathan on the way down.