Here's what we are up to. Legos. All the time.  Unity's been selling Girl Scout Cookies, which is lots of fun. That is a picture of her reading one of my favorite books from childhood, All Of A Kind Family. It's a series about a Jewish immigrant family living in New York  in the early nineteen hundreds.  So good! Unity put the blanket over her head so you just get to look at the book. 

The garden catalogs have been coming. It's a good reminder that Spring is not too far away. Chris and I have to sit down and have a garden planning date. I'm excited. I do like having excuses to be cozy in the winter, and curl up with coffee, books, and rain. ( Brixton took that slightly fuzzy photo of me.)But it's nice to dream about a full growing garden and beach dates too. 

Organizing the Legos

Fresh off some New Year energy, Chris decided to do something about the Lego jumble in our basement. He went to the hardware store and got some of those boxes for storing tools. Then he and the kids spent many happy hours sorting the entire collection by color and a little bit by design. It is nice having them off the floor, and it's more fun for the adults to play Legos now that we don't have to be the "searcher", digging through piles to find that one piece. 

I've been trying to organize some things too. I did my usual new years evaluation of what's taking up energy in my life, and if those things are giving back in equal proportion. I ended up quitting one thing (a women's group from my Meeting) and trying to start something new ( a writing group, we'll see.) It's always a good exercise, to be intention about the things on the calendar. The kids are campaigning for some changes in their extracurriculars  too,  so we'll see how that shakes out. 

I've added another part-time job to my freelance facilitating/ playing with babies gig, and I'm still trying to work out the childcare piece. Which is always a challenge, but something will come together. With all my various gigs, I'm now working outside the home four days a week this quarter, which is something new for me. I'm excited about it though. It's good to have different outlets. 

One small day

We recently changed Brixton's schedule so he's now at preschool four days a week. This came on the heels of our parent-teacher conference, when the teacher gently suggested this would help his social life. ( Both of my kids form deep, intense bonds with just one special friend, a practice that has its advantages and its challenges.)

So, we made the change. I realized that even though I love having him home with me, right now he needs the peer group and the interactions from school. And next year he'll be in Kindergarten five days a week, so I guess this is good practice. (Hold me. No, I have no idea what I'm going to do.)

Now that we are down to just one weekday together, it feels that much more precious. I don't want to drag him along on errands. I just want to do fun things together.

Like go to the coffee shop and play with trains. Or build giant Lego structures and listen to all his inventive stories. Or play long meditative games of Monopoly while winding a ball of yarn.

Towards the end of the day, he put on his Halloween costume and we snuggled in bed together. He told me he was going to be my dinosaur and protect me.

I am holding on and savoring these small days.

still crazy about Legos

Growing, groovy guitars and great Legos

a little Lego project

So Unity had the day off from school today. I was feeling a little under the weather, so Chris took her to work with him which she always loves. She reads and draws while he does his thing. After eating in the cafeteria where she got to eat a burrito AND chips AND french fries, they came home and started a Lego project. 

I have a confession. I'm not much of a Lego person. I mean, it makes sense to me in theory but it's not my favorite way to play. My games as a kid were more about using my dolls as props to act out the stories in my head. It wasn't so much about following a blueprint to build a boat. But then there's Chris, who spent his childhood taking apart appliances with a screw driver. So the SAT analogy would be:

Playing Legos is to Chris what reading Sideways Stories From Wayside School is to Polly.

Reliving the best parts of childhood.

So Chris decided to do a Lego project with Unity this afternoon. They went to our local coffee shop where everyone knows our names. Or at least our kids names. They took photos of the coffee shop and then replicated it in Lego form. 

Unity tells me they're not finished, they still need to do the upstairs with the little tables and put more people in, but pretty good so far, don't you think?

and then....

Hey there. Sorry this took so long, I was going to post sooner but I was having technical difficulties with blogger and internet explorer. Thankfully I have live-in help and he found a way around it. (I'm now using blogger and chrome and it seems to be working fine.) 

So here we are in early January, getting back into our routines. I admit that it's been a little bit of a rough transition. I kept forgetting things- the snack bag, the leotard, the end time of the class. But, I think we are getting back into it. 

                                        Here we are, reading in bed on a Saturday morning...

                                                 Unity loves helping with projects, especially ones that involve tools.

                                      Ta Da- it's the new Lego table. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!
                               (and don't worry, it only stayed this clean for about three minutes.)

                                 
                                    It snowed! For about ten minutes but still. You can see that right?
                                It's proof, it really happened.

                                    Our new stairs, and the snow.

                                           Our old garden, and the snow.

                               Oh and here's what that Lego table looks like in real life. It's a well
                                populated little city with plenty of trucks.
       

all you need....

 

 

We've had such a lovely weekend. Thanks to a discount from my brother's job, we got a new couch!

I'm super excited about it, and if you've ever sat on our old couch I bet you're excited too.

 

 

Unity decorated foam flowers and glued them to headbands.

                                         Brixton made Lego trucks.

                                      We listened to these guys....such a good rainy Saturday afternoon album.

                                Chris fixed the electrical system on his new/old scooter. It works!

                                Brixton cuddled with baby Wumpy. 

and now there's squash soup simmering
and the kitchen is warm and smells good and the kids are playing together without fighting and
all's well with the world.

Weekending- building

              Well I think we are still getting settled after all that birthday. Don't get me wrong, it was great, but now we are just relearning our old routines.

                                                  Finding homes for our new little sprouts of growth.

and building new structures with new tools.