boys and their trucks...

one day, at a very young age, little man woke up obsessed with trucks. obsessed. i had done nothing at all to spark his interest in them, and i had never talked to him about them before. i am, after all, a girl, and i didn't care to 'make' him love trucks. is there something that is just instilled into the dna of boys that causes this? i mean, to watch gender differences at such an early age, is astounding. sure, he loves to put on the girls' pink shoes in the house, and if he had it his way his rainboots would have been pink instead of camo. he doesn't know the gender 'rules' about colors yet. i'm not talking about those gender differences. i'm talking about the fact that he is obsessed with cars and trucks and dinosaurs, not with dressing up, dolls or strawberry shortcake or ballerinas.

this is him just yesterday at our favorite park, working the "excavator"...

today i took him to a parking lot where a company parks their huge work trucks, walking distance from my house. this was seriously a big deal.

before we left, he hugged the bucket of the excavator and said, "bye bye excavator! i love you!"

yes, really.

playdough fun

warmness

today is the kind of day that i skipped class for in college. in honor of the warm weather, and the early spring that is soon-to-come, here are some little musical wonderfuls that just make me feel like spring

the other half of my heart wasn't with me physically on valentine's day, but i did come home to this display of roses and a-ma-zing chocolates....

a rose for my nightstand

it will take me months to eat the amount of gourmet chocolate in this box...

of course my ideal valentine's day would be spent with him, but we got to go on a date last week before he left. and this was incredibly sweet and thoughtful of him. i felt loved:)

my drummer boy

where does he get all his 'cool' moves? well, maybe i do know the answer to that question...

meeting my 3rd niece

i just had the joy of spending 5 wonderful days in charleston with my two darling nieces. most of my time was spent playing in a wonderful world of 2 year olds--little man and his cousin had so much fun together and i bonded with her even more. she's my little buddy! and of course i caught a snuggle from the sweet little baby miss whenever i could. my sister is doing so well and just trying to get some much needed sleep. on sunday it must have been 65 degrees! the warmth was welcomed with a bicycle ride on the beach with my brother, our kiddos behind us in baby seats. it was terribly sad to leave such a scene of sweetness, but i'm hoping to make one last trip there in the spring before baby girl gets here.

here in kansas city

well, this month is a big month for us, but it requires nothing of us but waiting. and so music man has a lot of time off. (that's right, time OFF for once!) but instead of spending that time off at home relaxing, chilling, and getting the rest he deserves after all this time, he's found other opportunities for work and is spending most of his time in kansas city. so we are with him here, as challenging as it is. being the traveling family that we are, i've learned that sometimes it's worth it to give up my own comforts of home and a daily routine in order to give music man the joy of having us near him. and the beauty of his work is that it allows us to be near him all day. if we are together, then we are able to see him at any moment of the day that we choose.

and so we are here, staying with another (very wonderful) family, while music man and the dad of that family work in his basement studio during the day.

there are 4 other kids here (ages 14, 10, 5, 2). the two youngest are both mixed. the dad is black and white and the mom is white. the 2 year old and my son are quite a sight together. they have the same hair except hers is blonde and she has blue eyes. someone asked us the other day when we were all out if they were twins. (needless to say, i am trying to get as many hair tips as i can, from them as well as another family here we are friends with who have mixed kids. taking care of little man's hair everyday, as of late, has become the most dreaded part of the day for me)

so far our time here has been very family focused. the snow left us home-bound for a few days. plus, i am without a car in general. and so the usual independent, get-out-and-go me is forced to quiet down and just....be.