Belated 5th Birthday...

So I'm not completely sure how this happened??!
But our darling little H-Man turned 5 back in February.
(and I'm only 2 1/2 months late in sharing the photos)

I think the year of transition from 4 to 5 was really huge for our little guy. We saw him change more substantially during this past year than we ever would have expected. He over came so many big hurdles... like difficulties with transition and his fear/anxiousness around strangers. Of course, that's not to say there aren't a few hiccups in the road once in a while, but the difference overall is astounding. Who would have ever dreamed that our very shy, sweet lil' guy with the year long speech delay would blossom into such chattering social butterfly. We are so very proud of him... now if we could only conquer all the Whining!!?? Someone please tell me they out grow this sooooooon...

Matchy Matchy.
Sometime back around Christmas... Henry decided that it was a really big deal for him and Flynner to (in his words) "be on the same team". So now on occasion we buy them matching shirts or otherwise dress them in similar colors... ??? I'm not sure how or why this started, but on the days they are paired up to "match" it simply puts H over the moon :) He's always super excited about it and his joy is absolutely infectious.

Ahem... I'm such a great Mom, aren't I??
Notice how I ran out of Birthday gift wrap...
and (not so slyly) used some we had left over from Christmas??
Classy, right?!
Of course... none of us cared...
but I'm fairly certain that such I won't get away with such
complete and total lameness in the future.

Easter 2011

Egg wands are for sissies.




Here are a few shots of the Boyz working on their egg dying skillz.
Henry couldn't get them in and out of the dye baths fast enough and Flynn...

Well, Flynn hucked a few around and cracked some skulls/shells
then abruptly decided he'd had quite enough ;)

Hola!

Here are a couple of shots from Halloween 2010. This was the first year that Henry really "got" the concept of everything and was actually excited to dress up. He wanted to be a bat... but all we could find was a Batman costume... about 4 sizes too big. He was thrilled and with a few clever alterations we got it to work pretty well. He loved it and ran around telling everyone we saw "I'm the Bat. Man!!" Which is somewhat hysterical... since I'm not 100% sure that he knows who Batman is (Spiderman, yes. Batman, not so much.) I think in his head it's just a bat who looks like a man... or vice versa.
This photo of Hen just kills me...
he looks so grown up and SO much like Patrick!

Flynner was a sweet little elephant and was less than enthusiastic about all the freaks in costumes. He was totally content to just chill in the stroller and avoid all eye contact.

These sweet boys... they really couldn't be any more different!! Not only do they not look anything alike... their personalities are polar opposites as well ;)

I can hardly believe that Henry will be 5 next week with Flynn turning 2 next month! It's so crazy!

for your enjoyment!

i'm putting out this warning : i've totally been scrapping like i've got tourettes... so shit is all over the place. some photos are new, some old, some ancient. and you'll easily spot my favorites cuz i've used them in like 10 pages.

just roll with me, K?!

i come in peace...

so don't shoot... or soil yourself! things have just been wonderfully busy here and although i'm taking lots of photos and creating pages daily i don't always have a lot to say. so i end up not posting. maybe it's okay to not "say" anything... but it makes me feel lame to not write something. so as of right now, i'm letting myself off the hook. and allowing myself to post a page without writing one single word. cuz this mentality completely keeps me from posting at all. i know it's shocking as hell - that *I* don't have much to say... but i suppose it comes from not getting enough interaction with adults. most days grunts and giggles do nicely in place of real conversation. lol ;)

things are going well for us... Henry is getting so very tall and although he has always loved to read, he has, over the past month, gotten extremely passionate about it. he is showing loads of interest in the reading part and not just the pictures. he's peppering us with lots of questions about words and what they spell... how do spell that... what does this say... it's totally cool. we also finally managed to find him a pre-school. of course, not by far my preferred choice, but for our current location it was just about the only suitable choice. i'm totally nervous, excited for him - he starts this coming Monday. so tomorrow will be full of our back to school shopping... H is VERY excited about getting himself a backpack!

little Flynn is wonderful too. growing like a weed and spreading a wake of destruction in his path. he's 120% all boy, hell on wheels, fiercely independent and into absolutely everything. it's both annoying and fantastic all at the same time. he's not really talking yet and is only now showing some interest in signing. "more" and "gorilla" are about the only two he'll do... yeah! go figure right?!! that boy eats like a horse and i seriously doubt that he's ever without food in his hands. even if he has to steal it away from the dog... yeah, that was totally fun!

and with that... i'm headed off to bed.

Coming Soon to Pittsburgh!

Patrick is in Pittsburgh now... finishing up the last of the house stuff! Yay! then as soon as he's done - hopefully the end of this week. we'll tag team it and switch - he'll come back to SC and I'll head to PA. so as it's looking right now... like i'll probably be there "next" weekend! any of my old cohorts wanna get together for dinner??!! shoot me an email - or facebook message. i'd so love to see everyone! i'll be in town for just a couple of days to get the house all staged. and then Finally! we'll get that bad boy on the market.

it's bittersweet though... i truly miss our beautiful home.

in other news... i've got loads of new pages to share ;)

sneak peek!

geesh... what is going on with this blog? have i been away for so long that my cute blogwear is gone?? what's with this pumpkin color... that's gonna have to go! in the mean time, here are two pages from today for kits that won't release till this weekend. i love y'all so much that i'm breakin' the rules and lettin' ya see them early :)



had eye surgery last Thursday to remove 3 cysts from my left eye. went well, was more painful than expected... but things are looking and feeling far better today. most of the swelling is down and my vision is nearly back to normal.
i also keep hearing from folks that don't have our new contact info... i thought i had sent out an email, but er... maybe not. so here go :

44 Rustyred Ct.
Chapin, SC 29036
803-407-0606

i suck...

don't even say it... just head over to the Tin Can Canoe and ignore all the kit ads and check out all the pages i've been doing... and lamely NOT posting over here! should keep you busy for a while anyways. then when i do get this dark horse up and going again, you'll get to enjoy a lot of them again.

thanks for all the emails... and phone calls....
reminding me how neglectful i've been
love you all!

Tin Can Canoe Blog

"fake" virus??

my laptop has a "fake" virus on it again. i got one last month and it took The P most of the day to fix it... of course he's not here so that's a total bummer! turns out that although it's a fake virus, it's just as difficult to remove and is just as effective at shutting everything down. i somehow managed to get the desktop completely set up on my own though - so at least i've got a computer... but all my photos are saved on the laptop - so that's totally frustrating!

i just wanna hunt down the dipshit who had so much spare time on his hands to create something so ridiculous and haul his sorry ass over to the local soup kitchen or cancer ward... to give him something meaningful to do. know what i mean.

money well spent

so living out in the sticks doesn't really afford you much in the way of shopping convenience. sure there's a pretty... alright, a really nice Wal-mart about 8 miles up the road... but i love Target. the closest Target is like 15-20 miles - least ways that's what the Garmin says. and as crazy as it sounds, yesterday the boys and i decided to make the trek over to Target. it doesn't really feel like 20 miles, but since it took us a good 15/20 minutes to get over there, i suppose it actually is. hmmm. so that's super handy.

the boys and i also decided that after the enormous amount of gas we used just to get there, we really needed to make the trip worth while... so we searched around long and hard for something extra special and completely unnecessary and in the end put our investment into a snow cone maker! i of course, had my doubts - remembering how lame they were from my childhood. needless to say... i've gotten so damn old that snow cone makers have come a good long way since i was a kid. go figure! we found out they actually work for starters - what a concept! you can now use regular ice cubes (no prefreezing odd shaped cylinders that usually disappear into the depths of the freezer, never to be seen again) and the only muscle required is what you can muster to push a button instead of breaking your arm trying to crank on the manual handle. then there's the added bonus: the shaver blade is all enclosed, so there's no shredding of fingers, knuckles or tongues (hey is was all my brother's idea!!).

all in all: very sweet, lots of fun and a huge hit!

hungry for smores??

i sort of am... cuz that's about the only thing i ever really liked about camping. and right about now, things feel a lot like we are camping. sure, it beats sleeping in a tent and having the condensation dripping on your head... or being violently awakened when dear ol' Dad lets one rip and everyone in the motorhome turns a pale shade of green. but life right now is a whole lot more like camping than i'd like it to be. we're eating off paper plates and drinking from plastic cups, i'm doing laundry in the sink, the crickets and "night sounds" are keeping everyone awake and you're just sort of left waiting to leave.

nearly normal

it's been a very long time since i had to really drive anywhere. for about the last 10 years... or geesh, probably longer, we've always lived sort of in the thick of things. also known as in/or close to town. so everything was pretty much a stone throw away. in Cranberry i don't think it took more than 10 minutes to get from our house to just about anywhere, with the exception of downtown Pittsburgh.

that's so not the case here... we are sort of living out in the boonies. and it doesn't help that everything is super spread out, so it takes me 10 minutes just to get to the junction that leads to the main roads that actually take you places. from there it's at least another 10 minutes to the freeway ramp... i forsee a lot of gas stations in my future.

with that said... i've actually been out and about more in the past 5 days than i have in the last 6 months. since The P left, the boys and i have been running all over - trying to keep cool and stay out of trouble. the keeping cool part is tough. there are a lot of trees here, but i have yet to find a decent park that's both free and shaded. what a concept, right?!? we stumbled across one yesterday that was completely devoid of any trees or vegetation whatsoever and after baking in the sun for about 15 minutes even H-man had had enough. the staying out of trouble part has been much more successful. we've been gone so much during the day that H hasn't seen hide nor hair of the rabid neighbors in 5 whole days and i'm elated to report that he was nearly back to normal today. not one single hitting or pushing episode... does this mean we'll be going out everyday?? perhaps ;) i've got a few friends who make it a point to get their kids out of the house each and every day and they're not even avoiding anyone. in the past i always thought they were a bit crazy... but our living situation was a lot different then. we no longer have a huge house, private yard or secluded street to call our own... and we sort of get on each other nerves a lot faster in our current digs. so perhaps there's something to this "getting out everyday" philosophy ;)

in other news... our air condioner froze solid today. totally Loved that!! thankfully the house only got up to 87 before they got it "fixed". let's just hope this time the "fix" sticks!