The other side of the camera - School morning

I'm participating in what I think is a really smart weekly challenge hosted by Carin at Forever in Blue Jeans. It seems like mamas spend an awful lot of time behind the camera. The idea of this challenge is for mamas to get on the other side of the camera in at least one photo a week.

When my boys grow up they'll inherit hundreds of thousands of photos taken from their childhood, but how many of those will show their mama? At least for this year I can answer 52!

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School, glorious school! It seems wrong to say, but everything is better when school is in session. We are like a well-oiled machine...good eating, good schedules, good time apart, good time together. The kids are happy and I'm happy (which means that Scott is happy).

Here are the boys and I in front of their school on two of my workdays.

(Logan needs a little help in the "say cheese" department, huh?)

One of the best parts about schooldays actually takes places afterschool. Several moms and their kids stay on the playground for more than an hour. We are able to watch our kids easily in a very familiar environment while having some much needed adult conversation (even if 99% of it is about our kids).

October in review

I used to be a rather dedicated blogger, writing 5 or 6 nights a week. But then I started having lapses... Somehow I'm a one month on, one month off kind of blogger now. And this is my month on but I'd still like to document the past month.

So, here it is in a photo nutshell.

What October would be complete with a trip to the pumpkin patch?

Let's not forget my favorite time of day...naptime!

After all that rest it's time to play! My little athletes:

We were lucky enough to have a visit from my parents. Ever patient Nana is always good for reading a book or yet another game of checkers.

Introducing...Super Granddad!

What trip from the grandparents wouldn't be complete without pony rides, mini-trains, beach picnics and a planetarium visit.

If it's October then there must be costumes and candy. Logan was a fireman and Jack wanted to be Batman. But because I don't think that character is age appropriate for a 4 year old and I'm too cheap to buy licensed character costumes, I encouraged Jack to invent his own superhero. Here he is as Super Lava Boy!
Whew! Now it's a fast moving train to Thanksgiving and Christmas...hold on tight!

More blogging, less candy...

Someone somewhere decided that November was NaBloPoMo. (For those of you clueless (like I was moments before googling NaBloPoMo) it stands for National Blog Posting Month.) Apparently, the goal is to write a blog post every day in the month of November. Why would someone invent such a thing? I have no idea.

But I needed motivation to start writing again. So I'm taking up the NaBloPoMo challenge. With my track record of late though it more likely to be the NaBloPoEv3rdWe challenge...which would be National Blog Posting Every 3rd Week!

So, what does someone write about on the first day of November? Their adorable kids on Halloween and the whirling sugar-addicted dervishes they turn into the very next day, of course.

I had grand aspirations for what we would do with all the candy the boys got from trick-or-treating. I even started a blog post in September offering my readers suggestions for donating it, trading it in, leaving it for the Halloween fairy and doing science experiments with it. What is it they say about the best laid plans? The post never got finished and I never even followed through on the suggestions myself.

Today we tried the "eat all you want whenever you want" method for the second year in a row. For one day only we dump all Jack and Logan's candy in a huge bowl and set it on their little table. The only rule is that they are to sit on the chairs at the table to eat the candy. They don't have to ask if they can have something. They are allowed to eat whatever whenever for the whole day.

Last year this method worked great. They would take one lick of a lollipop and move on to try another flavor. They quickly realized that they didn't like the gummy body parts and tossed those in the trash. They liked the packages with multiple pieces of candy (M&Ms, Skittles, Nerds, etc.) and would open packages and dump them with other candies in small bowls and use their fingers to mix the different kinds together barely consuming any of it. I don't think they ever finished a whole piece of candy last year.

In the end, I considered it a success because though they may have eaten a ton of sugar in one day, they consumed way less than if I had doled one or two pieces out over the course of a month or two. In that scenario, they would have eaten those nasty gummy body parts because they would have been their one and only treat for the day. They would have finished each and every lollipop even if they thought there might be a better flavor out there. They would have eaten every package of M&Ms, Skittles and Nerds instead of being hypnotized by the bright colors and different sizes mixing together.

Today, the boys consumed way more candy than they did last year and there were way more tantrums than last year. I better get a new plan for next year. The only good thing is that all the candy will be gone at the end of the night and I didn't have to listen to my boys whine all day that they just wanted to eat one piece more.