Lovely Day

We had a very nice day on Sunday. The weather was gorgeous for the first time in weeks and weeks. It was sunny and about 60 or more degrees. The trees were a glowing yellow and it was beautiful. I spent the morning hanging out with the kids. Tim left for Atlanta for a business trip and that left us to our own devices for 4 days. During naptime, I finished the first Halloween costume for G. It's awesome. I was also able to get started on M's which I expect to go much faster since it's the same pattern and I've been through my learning curve on G's. Fingers crossed.

Angella showed up about 2pm and we waited for the twins to wake up from their nap and then headed off to the Arboretum. Although it was kind of spendy to get in for the subsequent hour that we were able to be there and we were lamenting it a bit, it was so worth it for the beauty of it all. We didn't even bring a stroller for the twins which got a bit hairy at times but was fine overall. They ran and explored everywhere. C had fun putting leaves into a little stream with a waterfall and S found a little toad. He squealed with delight every time he reached out for it and it hopped. It was minutes of fun and eventually, all of the boys joined in...poor toad. M and G were stick/sword collecting and having great fun.

We ended up on a hill with a tree at the top. The boys were running up and down the hill (resulting in some lovely grass stains that I'm now working to get out but so worth it). The looks on their faces were of pure joy. The aforementioned tree had some strange fruit on it. We thought at first that it was a crabapple tree but upon further inspection, the fruit was more cherry-like than apple-like. Seeing this as a science lesson waiting to happen, I squashed one between my fingers so we could check out th inside. That's when it hit me...the smell. I looked over and finally saw the "leaves" on this tree. It was a female Ginko Biloba. Now if you've never seen a Ginko Biloba, they're so cool. The leaves are fanlike with distinct lines in them. They are actually made up of pine needles that fused together millions of years ago resulting in this very distinct and way cool leaf. I explained that to the boys and then mentioned that this was a FEMALE Ginko Biloba. It's not legal to actually plant one in your yard...because of the smell. Now if a mom of 4 boys can actually get one to wrinkle his face in disgust, you know you're doing something right. I was 2 for 4 in that moment and would have had all of them if the twins had even been remotely interested. One point for mom. The smell eminating from the squashed fruit all overy my fingers was like poop. No getting around it. It was a poop smell. Again, being the mom of 4 boys, I know the smell very well and identified it immediately. Thankfully, there was a bathroom right there and I was able to go and wash my hands thereby ending the lesson.

We left the Arboretum and hit Costco on our way home. We have a traditional "Daddy's left on a business trip" dinner that we make the first night that he leaves. It's scrambled eggs and waffles. The twins were helping me make it so it took at least twice as long and made at least twice the mess but they had a blast. The best part came when we were cracking eggs to make the scrambled eggs. They were handing me the eggs and cracking them for me before handing them to me even though I was trying to tell them to just hand them to me. Seriously, herding cats. So, we eventually got all of the eggs into the bowl and the kitchen floor cleaned up. They then decided that they wanted to play scoop and dump so I set out towels on the floor, gave them a bowl of water, a smaller container and each a measuring cup. I was really impressed with how well they did actually getting the water from the bowl to the container with minimal spilling...for awhile. At some point, I count on getting my floor washed with this exercise which is one of the things that makes it worthwhile for the mom. They had a good time.

Finally, dinner on the table, everyone is happily eating their "wapples" and then eating mommy's "wapples". Bedtime came and, of course, no one was tired because they were all sugared up from the "wapples". Maybe we need a new tradition.

All-in-all, it was such a lovely day. We hope the weather holds so we can have more in the coming weeks!