First Day of Kindergarten!

And first day of preschool for Beckett! Hartwell is going to a dual language immersion program where he will be taught 90% in Spanish. We are maybe too excited about this. 

 Beckett is enrolled in a preschool with his betrothed, Jane.  Since both schools start at the same time, John took Hartwell to school and I took Beckett.

Shelf-ish or More Stuff That Fits In My Car

I had an idea for a larger piece of furniture for this spot skipping around the back of my head for a while. No idea what I wanted. No clue where to look. Didn't even have dimensions memorized as I usually do. I just walked into the Goodwill and saw it and decided it would work.

I did measure at the store and then extrapolate the empty space since I knew all the other measurements. My living room is like space-window-window-window-space-door-space. I happen to know the window measurements and the end space and door measurements. So,...SUBTRACTION!

It looks good, though, right? For a $30 cabinet with doors that hide the games and puzzles. And mess.

But, wait! There's more!

You know how if you stand still in my house long enough you will be painted?

Well, that cabinet sat still.

I took off the back and painted it aqua! I love red and aqua! So happy!

I know it looks a little crazy with the green wall, but it's going to be painted butter yellow pretty soon. I swear!

Birthday. Dough. Nuts.

For Beckett's birthday breakfast, I thought we'd do something fun and special so we made birthday doughnuts! Why, Hartwell, why? He poses like this on purpose because he thinks it's a good picture. Oh, and his shirt is on backwards. And Bee is wearing an eye patch. Nuts.

Remember how lazy I am? Here's how easy birthday doughnuts are to make. Also? I was so tired I didn't realize my lens was blurry:

Ingredients:

Canola Oil 

Grands Refrigerated Biscuit Dough

Then we added:

Glaze

Powdered Sugar + Milk

Maple Glaze

Powdered Sugar + Milk + Maple Syrup

Cinnamon Sugar

Duh + You Know

I stretched and slightly flattened each biscuit and then cut a small circle into each biscuit. Or Bee did, blurrily:

Then popped them into the hot oil. (They say 375 degrees, my oil was a bit too hot.  I think maybe medium low would be best if you don't have a thermometer thingy for the oil).

 

The doughnuts are pretty easy, just set them in the oil and turn them when they start getting brown. For the holes, I plopped all of them in and just kind of stirred them until they were a uniform color. Then I scooped them onto a cooling rack set inside a jelly roll pan. You could also use paper towels, but those are like currency around here.

Super Happy Doughnut Boy!

 

Super easy and pretty good flavor for biscuit doughnuts. I made a biscuit monkey bread recently and they tasted like biscuits with cinnamon and sugar. But these were pretty close to actual doughnuts. Which goes with the theory that everything tastes better fried!

Legoland!

Beckett is a lover of all things lego. So for his 4th birthday we went to Legoland! Here he is at the Lego Volvo Driving School. Hartwell was bored and Bee was a terrible driver! I realized that Bee likes control. He is in full control of his body at all times. It does what he tells it to. But put him in a car and he freaks out and drives into a wall. (And there is NOTHING wrong with that. It happens, people!)

Here they are posing with their new drivers licenses! Right after Bee fell...

My biggest problem with Legoland are the crazy, random rules specific to each ride. Some are 4 and 36", some are 4 or at least 36". It was a pain in the butt to parse each sign down to whether or not Beckett could go on the ride. Luckily he was perfectly happy running through the sprinklers!

 Log ride!

Star Wars! Nice R2 Unit! Hartwell is really into posing like a nutcase/Barker's Beauty:

Bee meets his hero. And kisses him:

So I had to do this. I miniature effected Miniland.

While waiting for his big brother to go on a scary ride, Bee wanted me to photograph him.

Bee did NOT like the slide:

Meanwhile, Hartwell was tall enough to drive a boat by himself!

After Beckett was unceremoniously told he couldn't ride a ride, his dad bought him a knight outfit:

Which helped him vanquish his enemies:

Napshot

Paint me baby, one more time.

So the house was Navajo White. With Aqua trim and taupe windows.

Then I painted it charcoal. Lovely:

John didn't like the dark charcoal. Sad face emoticon.

So I picked green, Saguaro to be exact:

My absolute favorite. Loved everything about it.

John didn't love that it makes the trees disappear. I have big plans to plant aloe in front of the window and it looks so blah now.

After a week of looking at the green, he wanted a gray. A lighter gray than the first. So I sighed heavily and went in search for a gray. John wanted a blue gray and I wanted a beige gray. Let the color arguements commence!

Luckily for me, John saw a "mushroom" colored house and loved it. By mushroom, he meant beige gray. So we tried Warm Stone:

Courtney FTW,...almost. 

Now the foliage doesn't disappear, I get to keep the aqua and John is happy the house isn't dark gray.
 I just need to keep him from looking at any other house. Ever.

Big Trouble in Little Tokyo

The fellas and I were in search for a birthday gift for Madie, everybody's favorite cousin! Since she's a big fan of art and Japan flavored stuff, we took the train to Little Tokyo to shop.

The boys planned out our route at the station:

We shopped and shopped, and found a cool bag for Madie that zips into a little pouch. Then we filled it with cute little somethings; including a sponge shaped like a cat, a set of glitter chop sticks and a bunch of chocolates and candy.

All that shopping made us hungry, so we walked over to a little sushi place, The Frying Fish. When we all walked in, we discovered it was a tiny sushi bar whereupon the sushi circled the bar/island on a conveyor belt. Hartwell screamed, "Mom! That's a conveyor belt!"

Hartwell was so excited to be able to just grab food off the belt and eat it. He ate mackerel. And tuna sashimi. Bee ate 2 plates of edamame, one of which was grabbed when I wasn't looking. The sushi chef even did  magic tricks for them!  I really should have been paying more attention to the plate prices. It turned into a $50 lunch...of joy!

Here we are dancing on the mirrored ceiling:

On the way home we stopped for a snack. I wanted cupcakes, but Hartwell wanted to go to the coffee shop we usually stop at when dad is with us. So they had water and a brownie. And I had a giant latte full of espresso.

Today Hartwell told me when he grows up he wants to be a sushi chef...and work at The Frying Fish.