A New Experience

The boys and I went to the theater today with some friends up in Everett.  It was a production of Swimmy, Frederick, and Inch by Inch from Leo Lionni.  Essentially, three short puppet shows with cool shadow graphics.

Much to my surprise, the boys did quite well.  It was the perfect venue really for their first experiment going to the theater (or anywhere you'd be required to sit and be quiet for long periods of time).  There were mostly school kids from field trips in the rest of the audience, so occasional squirming and overly loud comments were generally excused.  The young boy in front of us did, however, find us annoying whatever we did... but then he was annoying me by fidgeting around the whole time - even if he was quite.  (So there!)

Gavin was as quite as Frederick the mouse the whole time, but Graeme was a little more vocal.  During the first play, Swimmy the little fish meets all sorts of new sea creatures in his journey.  Graeme thought the first creature was an octopus, even though it was a jelly fish.  Easy mistake.  For the rest of the show, however, he kept saying: "Now here comes the octopus!"  The volume varied, but he was pretty loud at one point... so, of course, my first reaction was to say "shhhh!" and cover his mouth with my hand.  This made him laugh and do it more.  Luckily, this was toward the end of Swimmy's adventures and the play ended.  The little boy in front of us was not impressed.  It was quite cute really, as he was just enjoying the show and having fun.

After the three acts were over, the actors came out and took questions from the children.  At which point, Graeme says: "I have a question!"... (wait for it)... "Airplanes fly in the sky!"

Very cute, but not a question, and thankfully not loud enough for anyone to hear.

[Note: This is the 'question' he asks us every night before bed.  An upgrade from : "Cars drive on roads!"]

Compost Update

... just because that's what people want to know, I'm sure!  I think I understated the compost situation before when I wrote the last post.  The fact is, having been added to for nearly a year, the marvelous layers had become incredibly dense and (if you can believe it) not so yummy smelling.  Most everything was still degraded, but it was clear that  there wasn't enough A. air or B. dry material to really make it work completely.  Lesson learned.

What I did on Sunday was not glamorous, and I can't imagine why neither Craig nor the boys wanted to give me a hug after!  First, I dug out all the top stuff that wasn't degraded enough to use.  That made up a lovely pile of interesting aromas.  Then, I proceeded to hack away at the rest with a shovel to dislodge everything.  There were still worms and the like, so they were clearly doing the job correctly.  I was the one who'd been a bit lazy.  Or overly aggressive in the "turning".  For the compost bins I have (Green Johanna), this means poking everything with a little stick with a propeller of sorts at the end to stir things up.  What I did - most likely when I needed a break from children - was stir the top, but pack the rest like mad.  Not so effective it turns out.

In any case, the compost that was there is now in my garden, so we'll see how the veggies do this year.  (Regardless of the weather, I'll likely blame the success or failure of the garden on the quality of compost.)  It still looked good, though a little wet, once I got it all out.  I dumped the rest of the halfway heap back into the bin.  I'm hoping maybe it'll do the rest of the job before June or at least by Fall so I can use it for Winter protection.

I did start the other bin (yes, I bought two for some reason), so hopefully I'll apply my lessons and do better the second time around.  The art of doing things poorly, right?

Gavin's New Friends

My boys have become completely enamored with letters and numbers.  Both Gavin and Graeme will play with letter flashcards and/or magnet letters for extended amounts of time... like enough time for me to take a shower and get ready... and they'll still be swimming in a sea of letters.  They like to snuggle the letters and carry them around.  Gavin will roll some up in his shirt "to take care of them" because they are his favorite friends.  (Not that he doesn't enjoy his friends that are actually people!)

Here is a note that Gavin wrote...

We don't have a yo-yo, but it is apparently from Gavin.

Graeme's New Pout

Caught on camera this morning when Gavin wouldn't let him play with a rubber band... which was then taken away because Gavin shouldn't have had it either.

Bring on the Sun!

This weekend we got a little taste of Spring with some sunny weather and (slightly) warmer temperatures.  In the previous week, Gavin, Graeme, and I had been talking about planting seeds and planning the garden.  So, we bought seeds together and I wrote out a plan on Friday.  There is always so much potential when planning - a little glimpse of excitement of what is to come in the next few months.  Veggies, flowers, farmer's markets.  I can't wait!

It was great to be outside in the garden again.  The vegetable beds got turned and weeded - moss had taken over, so it got ousted too.  Some seeds got planted and put indoors.  There were a bunch of seeds left over from last year, so I'm curious to see if they sprout.  I also had Gavin help me plant more seeds.  (Though I love the boys to help, I find I need to do some things myself... so they turn out how I want.)  Gavin got some mini pots of his own.  He filled the pots, labeled the sticks, and poked the seeds in to the soil.  He's getting better at listening and 'helping' step by step... improvement from last year when he just dumped all the seeds into one spot.

The other venture, which I tackled myself, was opening up the compost bin to see what was inside.  Would it be compost? Or mush?  Or who knows what??  My first attempts at composting were relatively successful.  What I found was very compacted, but usable compost.  I had turned it so much during the year (we started them last March) that the stuff at the bottom didn't have much circulation for air.  Couple that with being to wet at first, and it made for a great upper body exercise to dig it out of the bin.

I still need to dig out more.  As much as I did, there was enough to cover over the base of the raspberries and put two wheelbarrow loads worth into one vegetable bed.  Hopefully, I'll get enough for the other beds as well.

Mild success, and lessons learned as I go forward this year in trying to find the right balance for turning and layering everything for compost.

Just a few pictures from Mexico... finally!

My goodness, this seems so long ago now.  

Good thing "soon" is a relative term - as in, "I'll post some pictures soon..."  

Graeme following the tracks... and looking for shells and rocks.

 Boys building sand castles... some were still up apparently for days after we left!  

(Those were ones that looked quite a bit more castle-shaped that the mound here.)

This was the first day on the beach.  We got the hang of it eventually.

Out to dinner!  Yum!  

And the sunset from the deck!  

Or no, wait, that's just the view from our house in Bothell... ha!