Desk

This post isn't actually about Sawyer, nor is it about the delicious chocolate cake he is scarfing down. It is about the piece of furniture that lies to the right of S. in the photo below. 

My desk. 

Last year I was looking for one and my aunt Linda found one on Craigslist that was perfect. It had cute lines, enough drawers, a hutch for my books and a chair. The only downfall was the color, but that was an easy enough thing to remedy and eventually I would get around to painting it. 'Eventually' being the key word. 

 I did make one mistake buying off Craigslist that I will never make again. I bought from someone who liked to smoke, quite often by the smell of it. I swear any time you opened up those desk drawers a cloud of smoke escaped. Take a big whiff and you'd probably get a small hit of nicotine. The good news is after spraying them with cleaner and letting them air dry out in the sun for a few days the smell finally faded to a tolerable level.

I had a little helper back then who discovered the drawers were just his size. 

Going off on a tangent now for a moment if you'd like to come with.... I was looking through photos to try and find some from a year ago when I had gotten the desk and was getting all nostalgic looking at the pictures from when we first moved into our house. It was only a year and a half ago, in fact this April will mark two years, but it seems like so long ago when I was looking at the pictures. Sawyer was practically a baby when we moved in! He was over a year old, but comparing those pics to how big he is now makes me realize just how young he really was. It also made me realize that Sawyer will never remember NOT living in this house. It will be all he has ever known. We moved here for him, to a place where we could afford to buy a house that we could turn into a home and raise our child (and someday more children) in. It's strange to me that he won't know anything different. In fact when he is a teenager he will probably think his parents are super lame for moving him here from California--a place that I am almost positive at that age he will think is infinitely cooler than Idaho!

Tangent over. Desk story resumed....

So if you recall I had big plans of painting things this summer. Our front door being one of them. And my desk being another. Well check and check! 

The desk I painted white, got new knobs to replace the outdated ones, recovered the chair seat and painted the chair a green color to match. 

Our front door Matt and I had bought the paint for ages ago. One called Cherry Cobbler--yum. That little quart of cherry cobbler sat on a shelf in the garage and sat and sat and sat some more. Finally one Friday night around nine thirty p.m. we decided it was as good a time as any to paint. By the time we had everything ready like the door taped and the floor covered and the knobs removed it was closer to ten thirty p.m. So there we were in the night, front door wide open for all our neighbors to see inside with two paint brushes in hand smearing our black door red until close to midnight. If that's not the definition of spontaneity I don't know what is. 

Hi-A-Wa-Tha

One of the days on our vacay we rode the Hiawatha Bike Trail. For anyone that has ever been to Coeur d'Alene this is the attraction they tell most people about. You ride downhill the whole way over trestles and bridges, through tunnels (one of which is over a mile long) and all the while get to see amazing scenery. Once you arrive at the bottom of the trail you can either hitch a ride back up on a bus or if you are super crazy you can ride back up. We had played with the idea of riding back up, but I am glad we took the bus instead. So, so glad. 

This is right when we were getting ready to depart. Everyone was equipped with flashlights or headlamps for the tunnels, the first of which is the mile long one and it is pitch black in there. 

Sawyer rode in our bike trailer and carried two flashlights with him. You would think he might be scared to be in such a long, dark tunnel, but he loved every minute of it. You could hear him making choo-choo noises that echoed off the tunnels walls the whole way through. 

Getting Eden ready to embark on the bike journey was a three person job. One to hold her up, and two to buckle the helmet under her lovely chinny chin chin chins. 

Ready, set, GO! 

In the tunnel you could hear dripping water and the tires splashing through puddles. I say 'hear' because you most definitely couldn't see it! We followed each other in a straight line and thankfully Ben had a super bright headlamp that lit up enough of the way that I could follow behind him. Finally we could start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Literally speaking, not metaphorically.

A mile later we were through it and entered the bright daylight once again. Turns out my bike tires were the only ones that splashed up just enough mud onto my backside to make it look, shall we say, awkward. 

This spot we stopped at to take a family photo and right afterwards discovered these tiny friendly squirrels that would come out of the bushes and almost right up to you to see if you had any food. They were so cute how could I possibly say no to those beady little eyes, so I fed them part of my Lara Bar. Then as we were leaving I heard the lady to the right of us in this photo tell her group not to feed the animals because it makes them become dependent on people. Oops. I probably ruined those two little squirrels for life. 

Look at all those trees!! It was awesome views the whole way down. 

Later that night when we were going through the pictures I discovered a few more photos had been taken of my badunkadunk. Apparently it's not just the little boys who think poop is funny. Okay, who am I kidding I think poop is hilarious. Probably having a boy child brought that out of me. Pretty sure my rear end mud splatter is what sparked the little tune that Ben and I sang the rest of the way down the trail that goes something like this "when you are climbing up a ladder and you feel something splatter..." You know the one I am referring to that you most likely learned in third grade? Well, the game of the day became coming up with better and funnier versions of that song. Yep, we are classy like that. Even Matt participated and let's just say we got quite creative with our lyrics. 

Matt wore our ginormous camera around his neck and somehow managed to snap photos all while riding his bicycle. 

That takes talent.  

He even managed to throw the camera over his shoulder and take photos of the people in our group riding behind him. While riding. Talented I tell you. 

 

Three quarters of the way down we stopped and had some lunch. 

And then once we reached the bottom all of us were tired and ready to be done. I was so relieved we had changed our minds about riding back up. It would have taken me days to get back to the top. Matt probably would have gotten there in a few hours and would have had to send a search and rescue team back for me. Thankfully we rode the bus back up instead. 

You would think the tunnels or the long trestles would have been the little boys favorite part of the day. Nope, they weren't. Riding on a stinky, sweaty, un-air conditioned bus was their absolute, most favorite part. They were giddy over the fact they got to ride on a REAL school bus. And seeing the photo below, I'm thinking that perhaps Ben was pretty excited about it too. 

Boys Morning

It is exactly a week and a half until my 2nd semester of nursing school starts and the studying has already commenced! I was feeling guilty that I hadn't even cracked open a book over the summer, but in a way it was a good thing. I was so burnt out at the end of last semester and now having done absolutely nothing but play all summer long (minus an easy breezy 8 week long Statistics class) I am officially ready to jump back in. 

Since my blogging posts will most likely come to a screeching halt once I'm back in school I wanted to hurry up and post a few more.

These photos are from a morning spent at the park and beach in Coeur d'Alene. My mom and I took Jett and Sawyer for a couple hours to play while our cameras clicked away the entire time. I'm pretty sure we had over one hundred photos just from that morning alone. Don't worry I whittled it down to a mere 89 in this post. Nah, just kidding there's definitely under 20. 

The park right next to the lake was amazing! It was made out of wood and was designed by kids so there were all these kid size stairwells and tunnels. They had a blast running over the bridges, climbing up the ladders and swinging. 

After running around the park we crossed the bike path and walked down to the beach. It was almost completely empty except for a few select people like us that decided going to the beach at 8 in the morning would be fun.  I had brought my beach bag with us that had a few beachy utensils so the little boys got right to work in the sand.

Sawyer wasn't a huge fan of the texture of sand on his hands. 

You can see he is contemplating what to do with his hands here. I can only imagine what sorts of way  he was coming up with to clean them. Wipe them in Jett's hair? Wipe them on his own hair? 

He was pretty downright grumpy that morning. Wouldn't talk, wouldn't smile for photos and definitely wasn't about to let anyone hug him. 

Jett found a feather that I made him stand there and show me for a good 3 minutes (otherwise known as an eternity in toddler time). He was very patient though and we got some fun photos of him. 

Then as if people must have known there were two die hard plane fans on the beach, a plane took off on the water right in front of the boys AND a helicopter flew over. 

They were in heaven. 

Jett must have wanted to cherish this magical plane watching moment with Sawyer by holding his hand. 

But did I mention Sawyer was being a Grumpy Gus? 

He was not enthused with the whole hand holding idea. 

At all. 

In fact the only time I think Sawyer cracked a smile the whole day was when I let him touch a dead fish. 

Before you freak out, it was only partially dead. 

I think. 

There was a man fishing and I had just seen him catch and release a small fish right where I found this one a few minutes later. I was hoping it was the same one he just taken off his hook and not a floater that he been there for a few days. Either way the boys absolutely loved it. And I'm pretty sure I got "Auntie of the Year" in Jett's eyes for that one. 

See, only 17 photos. Much better than over a 100. Now onto the next blog post! 

Lightening McQueen

Sawyer's room has always had a tractor/truck/car kinda vibe, but in the past year he has gotten the Lightening McQueen fever. The tractor tippin', Mater lovin', "Kachow!" shoutin' kind of fever. He already had a Cars themed sheet set for his toddler bed, but we decided to move him into the twin that we had in the guest room and pack the 'baby' bed up--after all he is an underwear clad dude now! I didn't want to spend a lot of money on getting a whole new Cars themed twin bed set or decor so instead got creative. 

I kept the pillow case on his pillow, used his old X-Large fleece blanket as his comforter and decided to 'recycle' the toddler sheet by putting it into his big red frame on his wall.  Then thanks to my friend Michelle who showed me her son's super cute bedroom, I borrowed her idea of using black electrical tape to create a road all around his room and then found Cars decals at Target for less than $10. Now he has all his favorite characters driving around his room! In his little world, it doesn't get much better than that. 

A few months before I had painted his dresser with what little spray paint we had leftover from previous projects and it was just enough to take the dresser from blah to cute. 

Below is the view of the room that Sawyer now has while laying on his bed, starting with what he sees directly across which are the car looking shelves I had bought cheap at a consignment store last year. They are holding the whole collection of Roald Dahl books that I can hardly wait to someday read to Sawyer.

 Matilda! The BFG! James and the Giant Peach!

 All classics if you ask me. 

Then when he looks straight up on the wall next to him there's the Yield sign and Stop sign donated by my aunt Linda that she had painted when she was a kid. 

On over to the door, the road goes as Sawyer puts it "Up, up, up and down, down, down". 

And right across the closet doors. 

Then down, down, down, back to the corner with the shelves. Of course Lightening McQueen is on that wall so Sawyer has the best view of his main man. At night he sleeps with the stop light on. We found it a garage sale for a buck and the lights flash slowly like they do in the movie on the lone stoplight in Radiator Springs. 

And lastly the final touch on his Cars room is this plate cover that Matt had picked up at Home Depot a few months ago. Maybe that's what set this ball in motion of having a Cars themed room! Well in the end it was cheap to do and it makes Sawyer happy. If that's all it takes at this age to make all his dreams come true then we are happy to entertain his Cars fixation. 

Workin' Hard for the Stickers

Eventually I'll get back to blogging about the rest of our trip, but until then I had to post about today. We went and did something fun of Sawyer's choosing as reward for this hard working man getting all his chores done for two weeks! Yep, this kid had to starting earning his keep around here.  On our last night in Couer d'Alene we went and visited with Bob and Jeannie DeLateur and their children who live in Spokane. Bob was the one who married us at our wedding and has been a good friend of Matt's for a long time, but I had only met he and his wife briefly that day six years ago so it was fun to finally get to know them. I can definitely see why Matt thinks so highly of that family! I learned so much from Jeannie on how she raises a family of four kids, a lot of which we implemented once we got back home. One of them was making a chore chart for Sawyer with jobs such as:

Putting his own dishes away

We moved some dishes around to make this twirling cabinet his very own where the small glass plates, his plastics plates, bowls, spoons and forks now live. 

Another job is:

Feeding the beast named Moxie every morning. 

His other chores consist of making his bed, taking a bath at night, picking up toys before bedtime, and taking his dishes to the sink after eating. After he completed each one he chose a Lightening McQueen sticker and placed it on his chore chart. They stickers didn't always end up in the right row for the completed job, but eventually all the spots were filled. He knew that once the chart was full of stickers he got to choose the reward and he chose going to the zoo! Nice pick!

We picked up Grandma to go with us and went this morning at 9 before it got too hot. 

Still was warm enough though to need to cool off in the elephant snout fountain! 

Ironic that you can go to the zoo to see the living creatures, but for a little 2 1/2 year old boy the highlights are all inanimate objects like the animal statues, 

the bridges to run across, 

and all things with wheels. 

Even in the amazing butterfly exhibit he was a thousand times more excited over the sound of a big loud truck nearby then he was about the hundreds of beautiful butterflies fluttering right in front of his face. Go figure! 

The day was a fun one celebrating his chore chart being completed and his potty training success. I really seems like giving him jobs has made him feel like he has more of a purpose in our house and has cut down drastically on the fit throwing and that right there is a HUGE victory, one definitely worth celebrating!

 And just because I found this in our photos and it blew my mind, check out this picture below from last year of Sawyer and Jett at the zoo. They were just babies!!