odds and ends

some odds and ends from both of our phones...

not sure when these were taken, but here are some cute ones of max playing fireman:

i think these are from when david took pace to school when i had my knee surgery.  usually i am following pace with max in the stroller, and he's gotten so fast on his bike i have to jog to keep up with him.  i think david kept up just fine with pace while biking together!

not sure when these were taken, either, but judging on the dress, i'm thinking it was a sunday after church...perhaps even the same sunday as the ice saw accident?!...

david took the boys one day to the car wash, and while they were waiting for the "full treatment", they found a play car wash in the waiting area!  david said the boys had a blast!

these are from my phone...  

at school pace's teacher has the class work on 7 items to pass off each month.  pace has already 4-5 items down (on the lists from both last month and this month), so we focus on the others.  this month, one of the items is knowing their shapes.  pace knows all the basic ones:  square, circle, rectangle, triangle, etc. (they have to pass off 6 basic shapes), but the teacher wants them to also know that a diamond is also called a rhombus, and that all shapes that have parallel lines/sides are called parallelograms.  pace and i have spent some time discussing the concept of "parallel", and when i draw a square, a diamond, and a rectangle all next to each other i ask him to show me the parallel sides.  he places his hands along the sides that are parallel!--he gets the concept!  

one day last week while max was napping, pace and i decided to do some finger painting.  i asked him what he wanted to draw, and he said "king!"--his favorite fire truck.  i figured this would be a great way to be creative and have a educational moment.  so i first asked him what king's shape was--a circle or a rectangle.  he very excitedly said, "rectangle!"   "okay, draw a rectangle.  what's next?"  i asked.  "ummm, the wheels."  "okay, what shape are king's wheels?"  "circles!"  so the blue circle-ish things under the rectangle are king's wheels.  "what's next?"  "ummm, king has a ladder."  "okay, think about a ladder--a ladder has two parallel lines that go next to each other.  draw that."  "okay!"  without my having to point where to start, or any further prompting, pace drew the parallel lines!  then i described that a ladder has rungs, which are more parallel lines that go up and down along the ladder, so he drew that.  then we finished it up with king going to work:  a hose shooting water to put out a big fire!

i found this headlamp hooked up to the single pumpkin in our garden while the boys were playing outside one day.  i asked pace what it was, and he told me he was helping the pumpkin grow bigger, because plants needed light to grow.

this is from general conference.  we hung out at home being kinda boring while daddy was out killing his first 50k.  i introduced "conference bingo" to the boys, thinking they were old enough to "get it".  they did get the concept, but the attention span lasted only about 4 bingo treats on the board.  after i explained the rules, max was really cute--while watching the choir sing, he looked over at me, grinned, and said, "hong!"  [song], and then put a treat on the music note on his board.

on another day we had a showing, so the boys and i went to the park.  (i don't really tell them we have to leave because other people are coming to look at our house...i just say we're going to the park, or having a picnic, or going to the mall...)  this was a big day because both boys decided they could go down the slide all by themselves.  we of course did it all together, both boys piled in my lap, and then max did it a few times, asking to hold my hand, and then said, "no hanks, hand."  and decided he could do it alone!  i told pace max did it all by himself, to which he promptly replied, "i can do it, too, mom!"  after a few goes, he decided to be even more daring and walk down the slide and jump at the bottom.

i think this was another day after working out.  a friend and i run and do kickboxing three days a week, and on the way home from her house, we saw a bucket lift truck coming down the road, and a worker using a measuring tape along the road.  pace walked alongside the work for a good 3-5 minutes (and the worker was nice enough to let him!), and then i realized it would be a cute photo too late.  pace very excitedly turned around and said, "mom, i helped the worker!", then i snapped the photo, then the worker kept going, and we played outside, watching the bucket lift go down our street (i think they were re-srtinging phone lines?)