Never-ending toads

A couple weeks ago Mike was out watering the garden at the end of the day (it was already dark) and he found a toad in the garden.  About a week later, same thing, only this time there was three toads, along with two snails.  

Since then, we go out and almost every night there is around 5 toads in the garden.  It is so weird; they basically burrow themselves down into the dirt.  

They are called Cane Toads and it says on Wikipedia that they are "prolific breeders."  No wonder we are finding to many in our garden!  

Our worry about the toads is just that they are going to smush our plants.  Some of them are pretty big!  As you can see, this one climbed right into one of our little planters and smushed the tomato that was in there.

Mike put them in a box the first time we found so many.

Field Trip

Our friend Ms. Diana and her son Ethan invited us to join them for a field trip to Windward Community College's Imaginarium and Planetarium.  Of course, Jackson and Max only wanted to play with the Kinex at the Imaginarium, up until the last minute when they realized there was a whole bunch of other cool stuff around.  I had been suggesting they look at some of the other things, but boys and building toys just seem to go hand in hand.

Walking back to the car we ran into a hen and her chicks.  I think that was the first time the boys ever saw chicks:)

Carla's kind of hike

Mike went on hike with his squadron at work and came back to let me know it was much more Carla-friendly, at least for when I was pregnant.  It was called the Makapu'u Lighthouse Trail.  The whole thing is paved, so not a true hike in that sense, but I felt much more comfortable this time.  The question is:  is that because I am not pregnant anymore or because the hike was easier?  

There were lots of places along the trail to stop and take pictures and we TOTALLY saw WHALES a whole bunch of times!  Now I really can't wait to go on one of the whale watching boat tours!  

Just love these boys.  Mike is always super and carries a backpack with waters and snacks and the camera. 

View of the water on the other side of the parking area

There was a helicopter that flew over and around us, which the boys thought was really cool and there was some hootin' and hollerin'

This is one of the points where we saw whales.  It is actually labeled as a whale lookout.

The lighthouse

Looking down on the shoreline

Different view of the lighthouse

I carried the baby in the MobyWrap and he slept pretty much the whole time.  We both were pretty sweaty by the time we got back to the car.

A really sweet lady offered to take a family picture for us.

Sunday, February 23rd

 A little late, but better than never:)

This morning Jackson was playing that he was a doctor.

Me:  Doc McJackson huh?  (the reference is to a kid's show Doc McStuffins)

Jackson:  Moooommm (with a goofy laugh).  I'm Jackson Scott Clemens the doctor.

Jackson was telling me that he built a certain Ninjago vehicle.  I was asking him about how many different options there were to build out of the same pieces and when he started them all. 

His response:  December 26th, in the thirteenth year

Garden Loot

This whole gardening thing has been so fun for us.  The boys are having fun exploring what is new with the plants each day and we are excited to eat the stuff we have grown and see what works in Hawaii.  Mike built the garden box so soon after moving in here that we should have a good 3 years of easy gardening ahead of us!

February 16, 2014

We have already picked a few things from our garden:  lettuce and arugula for 3 salads, swiss chard (which we grilled the first time we had it.  Yum!),  and a whole bunch of green onions.  

This is our second harvest of swiss chard, which I basically wilted with some oil and salt and just ate it like that.  We liked it better grilled.  Jackson and Max would not even put it in their mouths.

February 21, 2014

We picked our first green beans!!  Enough for one meal for all of us and there are more on the vines still.  We only planted two plants.  I probably could have gotten two meals out of this because Jackson and Max each tried one bite and stated they did not like them:(  The beans did have some strings in them, but I am thinking if I pick them a little smaller next time the strings will not be as bad.  

Lately...

Jackson has recently hit some milestones, which he was very excited for me to put on the blog.  He:

• skinned his knee today and did not even cry
• has started taking showers and getting his face wet in there without freaking out
• officially moved out of 5T clothing

Max:  

• is also taking showers by default of Jackson.  The first time, I has to put him in their crying, but he got used to it.
• has been writing his letters and reading a bit with me (for school) without me having to pull teeth to get him working

Thomas: 

• is sleeping quite a bit in his own bed at night.  
• taking the pacifier like a champ.  We are hoping this continues and we don't end up with another thumb sucker!
• is starting to let us lay him on the floor or sit in the swing for short periods of time.

They are both riding their bikes like champs.  Max is on a balance bike.  And, we got them a basketball hoop because the one the neighbors had broke and they loved playing with it.  They are out there shooting hoops all the time.  I am actually going to let Jackson play flag football this next "season."  He knows more about football since watching this last season with Mike than I have learned in a lifetime.  

 

They are both going to be without me for 8 whole days when I come to the states to visit my best friend Cara as she has her first baby.  I think this is as much of a milestone for me as for them.  I have never been away from them this long.  I think the most has been 2 nights.  Yikes!  But I know they are going to have a blast with Daddy!!

Baby books

Jackson has taken an intense interest in the scrapbooks I made of his first year.  Something to do with having a new baby, maybe?  Jackson actually took book one (there are two of his first year) off the shelf and read every single thing I wrote about him throughout the book.  He was having a great time laughing at the stories of his baby self.  

Here he is, looking at the book and showing off his latest Ninjago Lego creation.

I think Max became interested in his book because he likes being like Jackson.  Max's book is not finished, but I am working on it.  I just got the 9 month pictures cropped and picked out some paper.

Cool Homeschool Idea

I have been trying to come up with something that would help the boys be more independent with the things they are able to do on their own, but seem to need a lot of "encouragement" with.  I was going to just make them each a list and then laminate, but I saw this idea on one of the homeschool group websites I am on.  Another parent that I don't know gets the credit. 

I thought this was a lot more fun than a plain old list and the boys would like it.  Not to mention, I can change the To Do list by adding or subtracting a clip.  When the boys complete the task on the clip they move it to the Done side of the paper (which is laminated to make it more durable).  This also helps me see that we are making good progress through the day and keep myself on track as well.  

Jackson, who is very task oriented definitely loves this tool.  Max, well, let's just say he doesn't hate it, but he also is not giving it all that much attention.  It is helping this Mama keep on track and make sure the boys are doing both school and daily stuff, like brushing their teeth, which I admit is a hard thing for us to remember. 

Yay for school helping tools!!

Gardening science

As of February 10th, this was one of the butternut squashes in our garden.  Huge!!  This squash is now huge and turning the pickable color of tan.

These two squashes have now tripled in size. 

Carrot sprouts.  They look different now, more fern-like greens.

Corn stalk.  It is a little hard to see because of the crazy green onion plant right behind it. 

Mike has three hot pepper plants.  This one is called a Super Chili and they will turn red.  The plant is covered in a ridiculous number of them.  He also has a Serrano Pepper and a Caribbean Red Hot, which is supposed to be crazy hot, like I would not eat one if my life depended on it.  Mike joked that he has to figure out what to do with them all and maybe he should have a competition at work to see who could eat one raw.  He said he better be honest and warn the guys that they might be "S_______ fire," lol. 

We had thought we could put the sandbox table away and let those little guys sit on the ground. However, we have come to find many a toad likes to make it's home in our garden and climb all over our plants.  And the toads here are huge!  One of them killed one of our little tomatoes by climbing into the little container it was growing in.  So, we moved the little guys back up, hopefully out of toads' reaches.

In this picture you see three peas/pea pods, two green zucchinis, some planted (but not sprouted) spinach, and a whole bunch of tomatoes, all started from scratch.  Oh yeah, and my Christmas Poinsetta, which I was hoping the sun would fix...  I don't think it is meant to be.

On February 17th, I moved three of the tomato plants that we started from seed into the garden.  I can't believe they actually got that big.  I have always thought they would be hard to grow and in fact, they were not hard at all.  

Pole beans.  They get really tall!  That is a bamboo stick for the plants to climb.

We decided to go ahead and pull out the zucchini plant we had in the garden.  All four of the zucchinis that began growing rotted and when we took the plant out, that appeared rotten at the roots.  Sad face.  We offered the other two zucchini plants, pictured above, to anyone who wanted them, but had no takers.  So maybe we will just leave them in the pots and see what happens.  There is certainly no room in our garden box for them!

One of our first beans!  I guess I should have had Max stand in front of the white wall to make it easier to see.

A ripening butternut squash.  I want it to be tan all around before I pick it, but I already have in mind that I will be making this delicious recipe with a cream cheese pecan filling when I pick the first one.

We have lots of tomatoes.  They are all green right now, but hopefully we will be enjoying them soon.

Strawberry plant.  Can you see that little white fruit in the middle of the leaf?  Our first strawberry!  It later gets eaten by who knows what...  I guess we will see if that keeps happening.  The idea was to make this garden pesticide free, so we want to see how that works out.

Thomas, 7 weeks

Sweet sleepyhead

Same outfit, different babies.  So many people think Thomas looks like Max.  This is them at the same age.

 Getting smiley

First bathtub picture

How do they get so big so fast? 

Thomas' sixth week

The big brothers are still enthralled with the newest addition

Auntie Cara got this outfit for Jackson when he was born.  Max never got to wear it because he was born in the summer, but there was a cold enough day in Hawaii to go ahead and let Thomas have a turn.  

Jackson on left, Thomas on right

Jackson went home from the hospital in this little Jeff Gordon outfit, which was ridiculously huge on him.  Thomas has to be a good 9 or 10 pounds at this point, so he fills it out pretty well.

Love him!

Getting big!

Sweet face:)  He's got this really blonde hair along the front of his hairline. 

Remember this onesie Auntie Harmony?  

Starting to smile:)