FOUR!!

It is an amazing time of year here. I love that we have both of the boys birthdays in February, it helps the grayest, blah-est month of the year for me so much more fun. And I love that my boys love their birthdays. Birthdays really are such an amazing time. Time to reflect on growing, changing, cherishing and all the things that we love about life and the birthday person. My favorite thing about Asher these days is that he says at some point during every day typically to River, sometimes to Papa and sometimes Mama, "Isn't this the best day ever?" He isn't so much asking as looking for confirmation that this is the best day. And even on those days when I really want to say that this day blows, his face and lit up expression, pulls me out of any funk and helps me see that yes, today is the best day ever. He constantly pulls us back into our moments of living. He looks out the window on numerous occasions and states how beautiful it is. He sees the world in such a wonderful, innocent way and I am so grateful to experience that along side him.He is growing up fast. And is thrilled that his Papa put together a fly rod for him with the promise to take him fishing this year. Oh, the look on his face.Asher had two simple requests this year, a piñata at his party along with a bad sugar cake- as in ones like some other kids have gotten that come from the store with lots of iced decorations.
The piñata was easy really, I refused to load it with candy and luckily had enough of the organic lollipops left over from Halloween for each child and then stocked it with home made crayons, stickers and tatoos. I tried very hard to simplify his birthday this year, to make it all about him. We had it on a weekday to avoid the over-population of adults and I limited the guest list to 3 & 4 year old friends. I am pretty sure next year will be the jump to as many kids as you are turning- I had hoped to do that this year, but A being A was so excited that he seemed to be inviting everyone that he saw.
We served some lunch, mini sloppy joes (meat and veggie)
Tried our best to make a "bad sugar" cake. Devils food cake with butter-cream. My first time making the butter cream, so satisfying without much sugar, and the colored decorations satisfied the birthday boys request adequately.


He was a little shyer this year compared to last year but still happy to hear everyone sing.
Little boy of mine you are an incredible little person. I don't know that I know anyone else who can ask as many questions in a row, name as many animals and what families they are part of, or get more excited about snuggling up to read a book.

Climbing Trees

Can you find Asher in the tree?
He's in there.
Fall has helped this little tree climber. Warm weather tolerable for bare feet has helped his skills perfect faster.


and thankfully he is incredibly worn out by the end of the day.

A Boy and his BIke

Not really his bike, but thanks to some friends that went on a longish vacation Asher has come to have a bike for the next couple of weeks. He loves it.

With the newly established hole in the backyard he is quite happy to endulge in some dirt bike style balancing.

He is really taking to the thing. Scooting along where ever we go. Which on Tuesday may have been a little much as his tooshie seemed a bit sore at bed time. I am really impressed with his balancing ability, he especially likes all of the "hills" when we cross a street. I think this is a wonderful alternative to training wheels, which are hard to transition out of after a child becomes reliant on them and hasn't had to learn how to balance on their own.

Home

We have often left gardens for vacation and this year was the most rewarding return. The plants filled in their spacing to keep weeds away, we got a ton of rain and everything is huge. And the added bonus, the raspberries that were producing when we left are still giving us ripe fruit 3 weeks later and the blackberries are just coming on.Some edible flowers: Borage is a great one, while nasturtiums can overwhelm some children's palette, these are mild and somewhat cucumbery.
We have been picking green beans every day! Such a treat, plus this was our first year that we saved our GB seed, an heirloom variety that we grew last year and is delicious.

And the beloved cucumber tunnel. As Asher is a bit taller this year, we had to adjust the height. The boys both love going inside it. The green beans are right at the end of is (as is the street, gotta love the easement garden!)

We searched and searched for female flowers, but almost all are male at this point, I think to attract a steady flow of pollinators.
And then it was found, our first cucumber of the year.
And gobbled down quick as can be. Cucumbers are one of my most favorite summer snacks.

Making Tracks

I thought I would get around to sealing the plaster, but it was time to use them outside, so forget the sealing, we just dug into the ground, made a trail and walked.

It was cool to talk about how different the relief of the tracks left behind is in this loose soil compared to our play dough.

Asher fully embraces becoming any given animal, I love how into character he gets. Adding the tracks to his walking certainly enhances his already strong imagination.

Carrot Harvest

Nothing quite beats harvesting a spring crop right out of the gates. While these carrots weren't exactly planned, we started them late in the summer, and were thinking of trying the overwintering thing- topping them, but leaving them in the ground and harvesting them when the ground wasn't frozen. Really they just sat, we pulled some in the fall when they were tiny and some when it warmed up and then yesterday A pulled the rest of them.
The orange is nice with all the green we are seeing these days.

Right of Passage

I know this post has the making of child embarrassment, but we had a lovely, lovely hike in the woods searching for all the new green things covering the land, and when nature call, you really have to listen. Especially the newly toilet trained.

His mama did good by him and found him a great sitting log, and we had a shovel to bury his present for the worms. It was a good lesson in not pooping close to water and taking care of what you leave behind.

Then we got to balance on more trees and keep playing in the woods. No poo spoiler to end the trip.

Radishes 101

Asher got to pick out some seeds at the store the other day. We had some beautiful weather to put them in the ground. I absolutely love his thought process these days. He got out his rake and told me that he was getting the mama ready to grow her babies. And that he plans on eating her babies.

They germinated in just three days, he is already chomping at the bit to eat the babies, luckily radishes are fast, but not quite as fast as he was hoping.
Still picking them will be a big treat. He is already loving picking the leaves off the leeks, which he call bamboo, that we as a panda bear family eat pretty much every day, mostly as a picnic.

Oh the creativity and imagination being three brings.

Laying Tracks

This winter we have been a little obsessed with tracks around here and bringing out the tracker in Asher.We have always talked about things in the woods as A's curiosity lead up to all those what and why's, but then we started having more fun.Ben rolled out the Busey Woods trail that he and Asher walked through.Pretendting to be all types of animals.Then things got a little more fancy around here, as a closepin is perfect for deer tracks and those plastic bathtub frogs have quite realistic prints in play dough.

And then of course all the other animals came out. It is fun to see what toys are made with accurate tracks- sadly (but not suprisingly) not too many of them.

And of course we have been studying the outside tracks as well. I will be posting this week on tracks and tracking, environmental awareness and respect for the land- or at least that's the plan.