Trouble with Tribbles

Every time I think of this blog, I get a little pang of sadness in my heart.  I often think of posting here, but life is so busy with two boys and a crazy job that keeps me working late hours.  2013 was by far the lamest year ever, with only 4 posts so far.  So much has happened in the past year!  My boys are growing up so fast!  While the well meaning grandparently figures in your life warn you that this is the case, it is so very different when you live it.  When I look at Liam now, he is a quite a grown up boy. Grant is no longer a baby, not even a toddler really, and is quite mischievous now.

I am happy to report that the boys *mostly* like the same things I like, especially when it comes to science fiction.  Earlier this month, we got on a Star Trek kick and watched a number of episodes from the original series and Next Generation.  One of the episodes was "The Trouble with Tribbles".  Now after I first watched this episode as a child, my parents deviously planted yarn ball tribbles (pon-pons) in my room, who then increased in number for several nights.  I decided that this was too fun a tradition not to continue it with my boys.  So....

The next morning, Liam and Grant woke to find a single tribble in their beds with them.   The boys made a big show of pretending to feed the tribbles, despite my warning not to.  (I spent the next few nights frantically making pon-pons out of all the softest yarn in my house.  I made 14 tribbles in all.)  The following morning they had three more tribbles each.  The photo above is of the excitement over "tribble babies", as Grant called them.  I made sure that they put the tribbles in a secure place before they went to school.  Before I left for work that morning, I stuck the tribbles in a box full of oranges on the counter.  Sean and the boys found them there when the came home.  Of course the next morning, the boys found even more tribbles!

Liam exclaimed, "There's like a HUNDRED tribbles!"  They had lots of fun with the whole thing.  It was quite special seeing them believe that the little critters were alive.  That is the true magic of parenthood.

Baby Lamby

Grant has been obsessed with Lambs for about a half a year.  Now that daylight savings time has given us more light at the end of the day and the weather is slightly more mild, we took a family trip to the MSU sheep barns so grant could see some REAL baby lambs.

 Newly born lambs with mom.

 Guard burrow.

 More lambs.

Happy Grant.

Lost Tooth

Liam lost his first upper tooth today and his third tooth overall.  It fell out while eating a grilled cheese sandwich.

Green Delights

Every February our family looks forward to the MSU Orchid Show.  It's a much welcomed respite from the cold grayness that is Michigan in the winter.  They boys enjoy the children's indoor garden too.

Crossing the bridge.

Tree frog on a fence.

Happy Boys.

Liam took this lovely photo.

It's been a grueling two weeks at the beginning of the Spring semester.  Today, however, I took the day completely off to just hang out with my youngest son.  He had no daycare today and I never get a chance to be with him the way I did with our eldest.

The day began with taking Liam and the neighbor's son to school.  Grant got to ride along with them - they were all talking up a storm about little boy things - it was just too cute.  It ended up that we got to school way too early.  So we took a side trip and went exploring a large old cemetery nearby.  There was a neat 1920s mausoleum, an oblisk, and beautiful views of the frozen river.  The kids had so much fun they kept thanking me for taking them on the "adventure".

After the big boys were dropped off.  Grant and I went out to breakfast and I let him play in the playplace for a little while - he was too scared to try the slide, however.  We were waiting for the I-5 museum to open at 10am.  We ended up spending the rest of the morning at the museum once it did open.  Grant played with a lot of different toys in the First Impressions room: cars, magna blocks, puzzles, water toys etc.  He even managed to get up the courage to climb on the playset and go down both the little and big slide - he's usually really shy about climbing activities.  Then we went out to the rest of the museum and played instruments, made a button picture, and watched the model trains.  Sadly, I forgot my camera.  But Grant had a marvelous time and played so much that he fell asleep on our short 5 minute drive home.  

Once home he woke up and so we got a light lunch and played for a while.  We built with Legos and played ninjas and miners....it's a long story.  After a late nap, we played board games until daddy and Liam came home.  It was truly wonderful to have that special time alone with Grant.  It went by too fast.

Liam came home with a lovely hand-colored British flag that he made at school.  He had even found a straight stick outside and expertly taped the flag to it.  Apparently some of the kids gave him flack for making the Union Jack, but I think it's marvelous that he put so much effort into it.  He even colored both sides of the flag.  He has very good artistic talents for a 6 year old.