Green thumbs!

Our garden ROCKS!  We have 1 mutant bean, we've named it James, it's now about 4 feet high.  The other sweet peas and beans are growing a normal pace and starting to bud!  The squash plants have erupted in flowers, as have the cukes... the zucchini are not far behind.  We have 2 baby lemon boy tomatoes and a bunch of flowers on the two tom plants, promising more!  We also have 3 bell peppers that are each about 2 inches long!!!  We didn't even notice them growing, yet there they are!  The pumpkin has also sprouted another leaf for a total of 5... that one's going to be fun to watch as it grows!

Here are some pics that James took the other evening:

The last one, I kid you not, there are like TWENTY of these!  Apparently, while I was chatting with our neighbor, Wendy, James just took a million pictures of this stupid little resin flower that we just stuck in the ground near the garden and occasionally fill with birdseed.  I don't know why he's glommed onto this thing, but clearly it's inspired him! 

Not kidding...

... I think even the cat is taking pity on me.  

For real...

Seriously, if you saw how sweaty and gross I am after a run, you would take pity on me.

C'mon cheapsters!

Alright, my peeps... I am up to 2.5 miles (no, really!), and yet my contributions are lagging.... so sad!  Please consider taking a few mins to contribute even $5 to the Komen 5K!  I'm willing to bet that nearly all of you know someone (or will) affected by this.  Last year the Race for the Cure raised a ton of money, alot of it stayed right here in the triangle!  They're making advances every day, and your $5 could be the one that makes a difference!  Thanks!

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The line, she is blurred

No, I haven't been drinking (yet), I'm talking about how boys can be so sweet and yet so testosterone-laden at the same time!  Driving home yesterday from school, I snapped these two pics with my phone (pardon the quality).  The first is just the picture of contentment.. he'd borrowed a book from school, had his after-school snack of goldfish crackers, and is wearing a flower they all made in school.  Just so quiet and content!

The next one cracks me up!  I just love the juxtaposition of the flower behind the ear vs. the scraped-up chin!  He and his buddy Hunt* had a little too much fun in the double-R this week and the scrape is evidence of a good time!

*Hunt is James' little Tom Sawyer-esque buddy in Roanoke Rapids.  The Woodruffs' next-door neighbor is a woman who went to school w/ Sterling (small towns!), and she has a boy who's just a few months older than James.. but has even less fear.  Hunt is constantly up a tree, tearing around on his bike/scooter/fillinchoiceofvehiclehere.  He and James always have a big time when they play together, but at some point, James did a face-plant and ended up with the bruise du jour you see in the photo above.

Just a little walk in the park (or, TO the park)

The three day weekend was SOOOO relaxing!  Today we went to the park, and since James has recently mastered the monkey bars, but Daddy hasn't had a chance to see, I took the camera to prove it.  Here's the monkey himself, and I posted a BUNCH of pics to the shutterfly site.  Enjoy!

Catcalls

The other day I caught James in the bathroom practicing his whistling.  Unfortunately, the one he's chosen to gain proficiency in is the one typically associated with construction workers.

The Big Splash... er, "Bash"

Every year, coincidentally the week of Sterling and Jim's birthdays, Carolina Brewing Company hosts an event called the Big Bash.  It's a bike ride / fundraiser for MS, and admission gets you all the beer you can drink, plus BBQ and bunch of other munchies.  There's live music, a clown, just a fun day!  This year was also fun, although much less crowded than in the past because it rained cats and dogs!  Oh yeah, and it was friggin' cold!  A cold front blew in, and although short sleeves and shorts were fine when we grabbed breakfast that morning, by the time we got down there, jackets were in order, yet in short supply!  

After chowing down, we hung around inside, had a few brews, and James vibrated in place, as is his wont.  He did get, count them, FOUR balloon animals from the clown, who was quite amused by James (that's pretty bad when a clown finds YOU amusing!).  James acquired a bumblebee, a flower, a "wiener cat" ( he insisted it was a cat, although it looked like a dacshund, so he settled on "wiener cat"), and .... beans.  That's right, he asked the clown for beans.  The clown had him repeat this a few times, sure he'd heard him wrong, but no.  James wanted just a long balloon divided into little "beans", which he wore around his neck, just as happy as a clam.  The bumblebee?  Somewhere on the highway around the Cary Parkway exit!

How not to eat a cupcake

Always such nice table manners.

Don't panic, I'm an expert

Well, there wasn't much on the agenda yesterday, so the boys decided to go to the zoo.  It was a quick 1.5 hr ride in the boomiata and apparently they had an awesome time!  Throughout the park, they often have little kiosks where zoo employees have random animal ... stuff... to look at, and to use to explain things to kids.  Sterling and James happened upon a guy who had fake snakes that kids could touch and check out, and he asked James if he knew about snakes.  Naturally, James replied, "Oh yes, I'm a snake expert".  When the guy tested that by pointing to one in particular, James accurately confirmed that it was a rattlesnake (lucky guess!).  The guy pointed to another spot on the table where a fly had just landed near a different fake snake, and James said, "Oh, that's a fly... I'm a bug expert, too".

Confidence?  Not a problem.

What's the report?

Each day James gets a report card that explains everything they had scheduled for the day, and whether or not he participated.  I like to read through it, and chat about it on the way home or over dinner, prompting him with, "Oh, did you guys do x today?  Who did that with you?  How was it?", and so on.

I asked him about 2 or 3 things that it said he'd done, and he said he hadn't done that.  I asked if he was sure, and he looked over at the paper and said, "what does it say?".  "Don't you *know* if you did it?  It *says* you did!", "I don't remember".  He can remember the color of someone's shirt from a year ago, but he can't tell me what he did in school today... is it a boy thing?

Thinker of Random Thoughts

Most of you know of the struggles we've been having at school (too much energy, not enough restraint).  Just about every day I check in with the teachers to see how the day went, and we were chatting yesterday about a bad day he'd had the previous week.  One of his teachers said, "I just don't get it, he's really bright, and he knows so many random things that other kids don't".  I asked for an example, and she thought about it, and then said, "ya know, last week, he told us what gutters were.. he said they kept the rain from dripping down house, and you had to keep them clean, and the other kids were like, 'what's a gutter?'".

I told Sterling this, and his response was, "damned straight he knows what a gutter is!  that's man work, that's what we do when we hang out, and if he didn't know what one was now, he'd damn sure know by the time he got to high school, 'cause he's the one who'll be cleaning 'em out!".  Speak your mind, Daddy.

No idea...

Sometimes a guy just likes to floss in the dark... wearing a miner's lamp.  You know how it is.

The garden, she is done!

Oh, my aching back!  (or as James used to say, "oh, my anchor back").  After many weeks of slogging through red mud, roots, and rocks (and stumps, which we pulled out with the Jeep, which ROCKED!!!!), we're DONE!

Our neighbor Miss Wendy, was gracious enough to provide the land in return for the labor, and now we have a garden between us!  Don't mind the mud, Sterling will soon be producing a beautiful, lush green lawn in it's place!

Happy Mother's Day!

Ok, so today was not Mother's Day, but it sure felt like it!  Sterling is away with the boys for a slumber party, and it was just me and the boy today.  We started the day off picking strawberries at Page Farms (an entire beach bucket for just under 8 bucks!), and they were some of the best strawberries you've ever tasted!  Then we stopped by a super-cute nursery along Leesville and picked up some marigolds and veggie plants for our garden (pics tomorrow!).  Then home to plant in the INSANE humidity.. but the garden looks faboo!  And James was such a helper!

In we came to cool down and slice / freeze some strawberries and have some lunch.  A little running around, and we finally wound down the day doing crafts.  James got hold of his pirate treasure map stickers, and decided that I needed some booty for Mother's Day.  He spent about 30 mins decorating me with jewelry and gold coins (as well as shovels and 'x's.. they mark the spot), "because I love you!".  Each sticker was followed with a little pat on the back, smooth on the shoulder.  I felt like I was being wooed!  He went to bed with no arguments, having requested Mars Needs Moms for tonight's reading selection (always guarantees that I choke up!) in honor of Mother's Day!  I was about to leave after our snuggle when he sat up and looked around.  I said, "what are you looking for?", "I'm just making sure you don't leave any stickers on my bed".

Happy Mother's Day Moms!

(that's alot o' strawberries, eh?)

I failed to mention that some of the strawberries did not actually make it home, we chowed down in the car!  Some of them stayed in the car, and this becomes very relevant... about.. now.

This morning my iPhone died, and we needed to run out to have it looked it.  I assumed this would be the AT&T store where I bought it, so that's where we headed.  Unbeknownst to me, James still had 2 strawberries in his cupholder.  He started on one, and then FELL ASLEEP.  With the half-eaten strawberry in his lap, with his hand resting on top of it.  So we finally got to North Hills (where nobody else looks like they're wearing their lunch), and I go to get him and notice the berry.. and the enormous crotch splotch.  I clean him up with a wet wipe (his hand was stained red), and he starts to wake up and reaches for me to carry him.  So I do for about half the distance to the elevator, and when I put him, I realize the crotch splotch has shared the love by whelping a boob blotch.  Yes, I now have a big purply-red splotch right under the beebo, and my son is walking along beside me looking like he's had an accident and is peeing blood.  And they couldn't even fix it there!!!!  *sigh*

... again... could you see this happening to Sterling?  me neither.

Komen 5K Race for the Cure

Folks, I am lacing up my sneaks for another year of the Komen 5K!  If you're so inclined to make a donation, you can do so at the link below.  If you've never been, there's still time to sign up, it is an AMAZING event!  Even if you can't make it, you probably know someone (or will someday) who's had breast cancer, and I would appreciate any donation you can swing their way!  Thanks!

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