What's gonna work? Team work...

Gage was helping me in the kitchen recently. You have to love the title of this post. It's from the ever-popular theme song from the "Wonder Pets" in case you're clueless. We borrow it around our house from time to time when we want to emphasize that team work works best. Along those lines it was funny to hear Gavin the other day after he had successfully zipped up a bag by himself: "See, Mom, I don't need team work." I'm sure that every parent thinks this about their child, but we really do think that Gavin is a very bright guy. He pointed out to me tonight that the shadow from his door was in the shape of a rectangle. Wow! We've decided not to send him to preschool this year, though, seeing as though he probably still has three years at home with me before we'll send him to kindergarten. (Endearing, might I add, that Gavin said that he didn't want to go to "school" this year because he would miss me tooooo much.) I am going to do some more structured school activities with him at home this year, and I was so excited to find a bunch of great stuff at Target today to get us started. My struggle will be the planning and structure that is required, both of which were challenging to me as a teacher too, but hopefully we'll have fun doing it and I'll figure out how to capitalize on some of Gage's morning nap times to get it done.

Playing in the grass...

These pictures are precious to me. This was Gage's first exposure to grass...close up. Doesn't his facial expression just say it all? I think I took these pictures after Gage had taken a little swim in his baby pool. I really treasure the one-on-one time I get with each of my boys, and this particular day I had some time outside with Gage before Gavin was up from his nap. (Did I say naps? What are those?! Gavin is currently on another one of his nap strikes with Mommy, but he still takes them for Daddy with no problems whatsoever, which is really helpful seeing as though Mommy is the one who's home all day with two kids. I tried to pay extra special attention today while Daddy put Gavin down so as to glean any and all magical nap wisdom from Brent, but I fear that come Monday we'll be right back to no napping for Mommy. All prayers in this department are much needed and appreciated.)

This is my favorite picture of the series. I loved watching him reach for the dandelion. I loved blowing it for him and watching his face as the little cotton pieces disappeared. Gage is a precious child, no doubt.

Yes, Gavin is putting a strainer on his little brother's head in the above picture. He still goes from being ultra sweet with him, and I quote, "Gage, you're beautiful" & "Gage, you're so special" to being ultra wily, like when I asked him what in the world he was doing to Gage's head with his little whisk: "I was just swirling him. I was making him into muffins." That was classic!

Brent and I get so excited about our boys being good buddies as they grow up together. It's so fun for us to see them interact more and more. What a gift they are to us!

Into the wild...part 2

Here is a good view of our little camp area. You can see our small wood pile just behind Gavin. The tent is to the left of the picture. As you can see, though, it definitely felt like we were in the woods and fairly alone.


Success! After letting this burn for awhile we had a lot of nice coals to cook our hot dogs and marshmallows. Thankfully, the smoke from the fire helped to keep away the mosquitoes that were quite plentiful just before dusk.


Here is the final picture of the day before reading books and attempting to sleep. Let's just say that in the night I think we spent more time awake than asleep. Between seeing all the bugs on the outside of the tent, hearing new, different sounds in the forest and not being able to figure out if a sleeping bag was supposed to be unzipped or zipped or whatever...not much sleep was had. Ultimately, Gavin ended up in my sleeping bag for a little bit of sleep, though I can't say that either of us slept much after that.

It was a great father/son experience that I am glad we were able to have, but we will probably wait a bit to attempt it again...or at least practice with the sleeping bags some more before the next trip.

Into the wild...part 1

Although I (Brent) am not currently a huge camper, I did quite a bit of camping when I was younger with my dad, step-dad (Bob) and boy scouts. I recently thought that there was no time like the present to take the little man out into the wilderness for an outdoor adventure. I was eager to find a place that wasn't right next to 100 other people. So, we headed out down a very rough dirt road into the forest near the base of Long's Peak and found the perfect spot. We did drive our car right up to this place, but I think the nearest people to us were about a half-mile away.

The first task was to set up the tent. Here is Gavin helping me put together the poles that we had to put into the tent to pop it up.


After about 30 minutes of work facilitated by Gavin's "help," we were finally ready to put all of our stuff in the tent. I think that this was the first time that Gavin had been in a tent. He was psyched.


Although not an official camp ground, this area had enough people that camp there that a stone fire pit was already there as well as a few logs to line the area where we camped. We threw down some chairs to sit by the fire pit and rested with a snack after all the hard work setting up the tent.


The next task, after the snack, was to actually get some stuff to burn in the fire pit. It was only about 4 pm by this time and Gavin was already wanting to light a fire. So we went off in search of a serious supply of fire wood. About 50 yards up a hill next to us were tons of small trees that had fallen over and were perfect to burn. I think we probably made 8-10 trips up and down the hill to haul wood. Gavin was quite eager at first but kept getting further down the hill from the wood harvesting spot with each trip.


After we had all of our wood and I stomped it into little pieces, I taught Gavin the basics of all things survival. Close to the top of the list was how to make a nice, little wood tepee to get a fire going. Then, of course, we used flint and steel to make a spark in the bottom of the pit...or maybe just a lighter...but that sounded pretty manly, huh?