Tea Time

Andy - Alice's Tea Cup, NY - April 2013

Nate - Alice's Tea Cup, NY - April 2013

Nick - Alice's Tea Cup, NY - April 2013

It Never Gets Old

We went to the Bronx Zoo.

Andy - Bronx Zoo - April 2013

Andy - Bronx Zoo - April 2013

We've been a couple of other times, but this time it was a bit different because it was rainy and cold.

OK, I'm being dramatic here. It wasn't raining the whole time. It was just raining while we were walking there from the subway. But it was kind of overcast and cold. It was too early for the elephants and the Wild Asia Monorail wasn't open for the season yet.

But the boys had fun. And my sister came with us, so she got to enjoy the following things with us:

A Tiger who was very busy eating grass.

A Gorilla who was sitting right next to the glass and who would wag his head comically side to side, and then puke into his hand. And then eat it. And then repeat. Over and over and over and over.

Feeding time for the vultures, who have a wing span of six feet (my estimation) and who look exactly like the cartoon hunchback drawings of themselves, only scarier, with heads approximately halfway down their bodies. Also, they are fed rozen dead white rabbit, much to Nick's dismay.

Bronx Zoo - April 2013

Rabbit Hole

Does this bring back memories?

The answer is: Yes.

Boys In Central Park - April 2013

NY, NY

The boys love it in NY. 

Nate in Central Park - April 2013

Pardon Our Appearance

And by "Our Appearance" I really mean "The lack of Blog Posts On This Blog." I actually like the look it has right now, and until I get irritated or board by it, I refuse to apologize for that.

Masks - April 2013

 I did, however, mean to post a few things ahead of time before I left for New York. Yet I did not.

For this, we are truly sorry.

Masks - April 2013

More Andy Art

I usually clean the house on Wednesdays, when Andy is at school.

Only this past Wednesday Nate has his school concert a 10am, then Nick had his at 1pm, and in between we had to grab Andy and grab lunch and find someplace to park since they placed the 'temporary' classroom portables on one of the parking lots and built the kindergarten wing on the other parking lot and have twenty remaining parking spots for the parents of the 500 students in first and second grade.

What was I talking about?

Oh, yes, cleaning the house.

So I had to clean the house on Thursday instead. Which ment that Andy was left to entertain himself. Which he did with my computer and the photo booth app. He was kind enough to leave a bunch of photos on my desktop. Like this one.

Andy's Computer Creation - April 2013

And then, and then.... this video. Which apparently he took while running to use the restroom, yelling all the while so we didn't miss anything.

Tournament

The boys had their first karate tournament the other day.

I have to admit, I was apprehensive. The boys are young, they don't really compete in things.

But they all did very well! The only drawback was that they were all separated by rank and age, so Andy was bowing out when Nate was doing his Kata.

Also, I forgot my camera, so I had to take all the pictures with my phone. For some reason my phone's camera is not so great. And the only picture of Nate I got was too blurry to even post.

But Andy for a medal for participating in his category. Nick and Nate got participation medals for kata, Nick got third place for sparring and Nate got second place for sparring.

Karate Tournament April 2013 - Andy in center

Nick - Karate tournament April 2013

Nick's Biography Report

He worked really hard on it.

Nick working on Biography, April 2013

Feeling Lucky

So one morning last week I came upstairs from running on the treadmill to find this:

Playing Go Fish For Cash - 2013

The boys had playing cards clutched in their hands, and yes, that is a pile of dollar bills in the middle of the table.

I was still a bit dizzy from running, so for a moment we all just stared at each other.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"We're playing Go Fish for cash," Nick said.

He said it with a completely straight face.

Steve and I don't play cards. We don't even play poker. The only people I think they might have seen play cards for money is Steve's family. Sometimes they play for nickels and dimes.

But apparently they felt they needed to win some cash for the Book Fair, and so convinced Andy to put his dollar bills on the table. That's right, Andy was the only one with the cash to play.

I gave all the money back to Andy and told the boys they needed to play with pennies from now on.

I'm Here!

So, I forgot to post for a week.

It's just that things got kind of busy. I usually post on Saturday mornings, only one Saturday we went to the Museum of Science instead of karate, and so everything got put off. And then the next Saturday we had an actual Karate tournament, so things got bumped back again.

The other thing is, I've been sick. I caught a cold and the cold travelled from my throat to my nose and them settled in my sinuses. My face hurts. Seriously, my actual face hurts. And I'm either cranky all the time because of that, or I'm loopy on cold meds and prone to just falling asleep.

And... that's about it on excuses. Real post tomorrow.

-K

Pink

I did some online shopping.

It's just so much easier than dragging all three boys around the mall, or the outlets. As long as I know what I'm looking for, the sizes, I can add things to my basket with a click.

I was shopping for summer clothes, and I let the boys pick out a pair of summer PJs so that they could have at least one nice pair.

Andy chose a cute pair with sharks. Nate chose bugs. Nick chose the pink stripes.

Yes, the pink stripes. I tried explaining that they were supposed to be for girls. "Are you sure sure sure?" I asked. But yes, he was sure sure sure. He wanted pink, and the pink ones were right there, and why couldn't he just get the pink ones?

He used the same excuse when he was getting sandals. He had wanted the pink ones but I said no. I pictured him wearing them to school once, getting made fun of on the bus, and him never wanting to put them on his feet again. And you think I'm over reacting but seriously all three of these kids have sneakers which they refuse to wear, meanwhile they're putting on worn  merrell slip ons day after day, ones with hols in them that now smell really really not so great...

where was I?

Oh, yes. So I told Nick no pink sandas. He got upset because he has a friend who gets to wer pink sandals. I reminded him that this friend has a younger sister to inherit discarded clothing and here no one else would get to wear them. So we settled on Light Blue sandals. They are stil clearly a "girl" color, but then again, I hate the whole girl color thing, so, you know. Whatever.

Anyway, Nick loves his new Pajamas.

Andy and Nick - March 2013

Then I Made These

I don't want this to become a food blog. I have no business food blogging because I have trouble following a recipe and have to look up how to spell "recipe" each time I write the word. (Recipie? Recepie? I really want that "i" at the end.)

But I love looking up other people's recipes. And trying to make things myself. Sometimes these things are kinds of chicken or avacado enchilladas. And sometimes... sometimes they are these.

Caramel Stuffed Krispie Bars. I found the link on Greens and Chocolate.

I tried making Rice Krispie bars once when I was a teenager and for some reason the treats hardened halfway into the pan, so I got this really hard three dimensional krispie creation that was really too hard to even chew.

But these... the caramel... it just looked so good.

So I gave it a try.

Caramel stuffed Krispie Bars 2013

I did a little research and found out that I had probably overcooked the marshmallows, turning it all into hard candy when it cooled.

This time I had the advantage of a microwave (remember when we used to not have one?) and it made the process a little easier.

I won't lie. These were really really sweet. And I cut them too big. the kids weren't able to finish theirs. Steve didn't even want one. But hey... if you're looking for a real treat... this could be it. All I need is a way to package them individually and I have take-away treat for a party or a special teacher gift.

Caramel Stuffed Krispie Bars 2013

Biography

Nick has to do a biography project for school.

The second phase of the project was to build a "bottle person" of the subject. Here is Nick's bottle person. Can you guess who his subject is?

Nick's Biography Project Bottle Person - 2013

No, not George Washington. Think. This is Nicholas we're talking about.

You are correct! Nick chose to do his project on J.K. Rowling. And yes, I did explain that she was an author, and not actually a student or teacher at Hogwarts, but Nick still chose the robes.

The first part of the project was to gather information on the subject. I went to the library and got out a book on J.K. Rowling, one which was written just before the Half Blood Price was printed. I skimmed it, leafing over the pages, and suggested to Nick that he read it. He looked at the cover and glanced at some of the photographs, then asked if we could look her up online.

So we looked her up online. I tried explaining that the internet is full of information and not all of it is correct. "You should make sure you find your information in two or three places if you're going to write about it," I said.

"Whatever," Nick said.

So I read Nick what we found online.

I could go into detail here about filling out the sheet of paper and the interactions that followed, but I won't. Instead, I'll just say that I now know a lot about J.K. Rowling. I know more than Nick, apparently, who doesn't seem to have retained any of the information he wrote down on his biography sheet.

Which is really too bad, because phase 3 of this biography project is an oral report. He has to stand in front of the class and talk about this person and what this person did. He also has to chose how to present using a trifold poster, a poem or song, a powerpoint presentation, a quilt, a timeline, or a trading card. Nick is choosing the trading card.

FYI, he also has to dress up as this person when he gives his presentation.

Now, I know Nick has spent hours dressed up as Harry Potter. He actually still wears the glasses around for looks, like other people wear hats or shoes. When I told his he had to dress as J.K. Rowling he had a moment of "No Way!" but the next time I brought it up he mentioned getting a wig. So... I'll take pictures.

Logic

Andy had a sore toe.

I knew he'd hurt it, and I'd put a band-aid on it a few days earlier, but I suddenly got a good look at it when his brothers were in karate and eww... it was so gross. The toenail looked ingrown, but there was a cut and the whole thing was swollen. No further detail. Just trust me, it was gross.

I was concerned enough to take immediate action, so I told Andy we were going right to CVS to get bactine, neosporin, and some band-aids.

"You get to pick whichever band-aids you want," I said.

"Yes," said Andy, playing into this as only he can. "And then I get to dump them all out and pick the one I want on my toe."

"Why do you need to dump them out?" I asked. "Then we have to get all the others back into the box. Why can't you just look into the box and take out the one you want?"

"I can't do that. My eyes are too short."

Andy, examining his dinner, March 2013

Bad Piggies

You may have heard of a game called Angry Birds. If you can read about them in This Post I wrote a couple of years ago.

The boys still love Angry Birds. And now they have Angry Birds in space, which whirls you around planets in smaller and smaller circles until gravity pulls you into the atmosphere and you plummet to the ground. (And so we plummet, and we plummet.... )

More recently, the boys discovered a game calle Bad Piggies. Well, I actually discovered the free demo version and got that to entertain the boys. I let them play the ipad on certain occasions, such as when they practice piano 5 times in a week, or when they've been really really good but we need to wait for a brother to get out of a karate class, or when I need to go vote and there are 5 pages of ballots about zoning preferences with a tiny little detail about the schools in there somewhere.

One day, while synching my ipad, I noticed some weird photos being downloaded to my computer. This is odd because I have a first generation ipad. It does not have a camera. So I shouldn't have any new photos from the ipad.  I clicked on it to take a closer look, and found a screen shot of a pig. A GREEN Pig.

It turns out that this game has a "photo" button which will take a screen shot and save it to my photos. Each time I'd go and try to sync my music, my books, my calendar, the ipad would try to transfer 36 screen shots of bad piggies trying to defend their stolen eggs with oddly constructed vehicles.