my boy and his bike

 

Take my word on this… Mamas, don’t teach your babies to ride dirt-bikes before bicycles…

Age 2.5…

Age 5.5…

Isn’t that a little backward?

Turns out, learning to balance an electric trials bike is easier than learning to balance a bicycle while simultaneously learning to pedal.  Once he learned to ride a dirt bike, he had no interest in pedaling ever, really.  We had to keep forcing him to practice.

He is now, finally, loving his bike.

Finally willing to do the work of pedaling.

It took three years for him to say, “I want to go ride my bike.”

Even trying a trick…

 

Do you remember doing tricks on your bicycle as a kid?  I specifically remember standing on the bar while coasting around, thinking I was the coolest girl on our dirt road.

Riding a bike… Such a simple pleasure.

 

Photos were from this past weekend, at my parents’ house, where the sunshine lives.

girly girl

 

I blogged about Susie using chalk as blush a while back…

Now guess what she did…

And don’t try to tell HER she made a mess, I speak from experience, you might get this attitude…

“Excuuuse me?” 

She sees me put on mascara every day, it was only a matter of time. 

I let her wear it all day.  She loved it.

A little mascara mess on a happy kid.  I’m okay with that.

thrift junky chronicles {18}

 

stopping by the blog real quick to share some recent thrift store finds…

   

A cool tea tin which I immediately put some mother’s day tulips in.  Love it.  $0.69.

A vintage red metal Swingline stapler, which I needed.  $1.99.

 

A crocheted blanket in colors that don’t totally “go” in my room but it was huge and heavy and so pretty I couldn’t pass it up.  $6.99.

 

Yes.  I finally scored a vintage typewriter.  You may have seen it in the new blog header.

I saw it the day before for $34.99 because it was “collectible”. 

I said no. 

I kept remembering it. 

I had some spending money stashed. 

I decided I would call and see if they still had it. 

They did. 

They held it for an hour. 

I raced in and started bargaining.

Then the lady told me it was already 50% off because it had been there for a while.

Seriously!  Got it for about $17.00!   The identical one is on Etsy for $200.00 in a shop that sells a lot of vintage typewriters.  Granted mine has a crack in the front, but still, worth every penny of $17.00. 

 

In homestead news…

We had a couple chickens which are fully grown but had gotten beaten up as chicks and were still growing tail feathers back and had not started laying along with the healthier chicks.  Apparently two of them decided to start laying on the same day…

I always get a kick out of deformed eggs.  So odd.  Not you?  Oh, sorry, I’ll try to keep it to a minimum here on the blog.  I’ll limit myself to one egg post a month.  You’re welcome.  =)

By the way the white egg is a fake one that we keep in the nest to encourage the hens to lay their eggs there instead of all around the pasture.  It seems to work.  One of the hens is trying really hard to hatch that egg every day.  Okay, I’m done now for reals.

 

In bigger country news, we saw a bear today!  Our friend’s daughter said, “Whoa!  A bear just came to our house and then left!”  At first, I digested this as a tall tale, and then decided it was random enough it might just be true, and sure enough, a little black bear was zig zagging across the driveway and then back onto the road.  I ran to get my camera, but when I returned he had already ran into the woods. 

I alarmed the kids by going outside to try to find him…

They were a little worried.

I explained in highly technical terms that white bears are really super mean, brown bears are sometimes mean, but black bears are always scared.  Unless they have babies, I guess I should have added that.

Now Susie keeps yelling, “MOM!  A BEAR IS COMING!”  every five minutes.

 

Time for homeschool.  We’re on letter “X” trying to finish the sounds of all the letters before breaking for summer.

I need more tea.

motocross – size small

 

I blogged about super cross before, when my man was racing.  But this time it was our boy who we loaded up and hauled to the track! 

We made it a family affair and I took way too many pictures…

I don’t know why he brought a Mexican poncho.  He said he was using it as a blanky.  It was 70 degrees.

Susie was uber excited, though she didn’t know for what.  I took her eye patch off when we got there so she would be able to see and not get run over (theoretical because we really held her the whole time).

I thought Mark might get nervous and not want to go out, but he was excited the whole time…

And our homeschool lesson from the day before paid off; he can now buckle his own helmet.

A quick pep talk and he was off in a cloud of smoke!

I kept telling myself not to be nervous… this was just the kid track… he would go slow…

Then these guys came around the corner…

I was a little scared but they were perfectly courteous and were never reckless and watched out for Mark and a couple other little guys out there.

His first laps were very slow and controlled and soon he came in for a high-five and some pointers…

A lot of study, analysis and practice goes into racing in our family.

They are looking at the kid track; the teenager and grown up track is what you see behind them.

All of us had advice to offer Mark…

Yes I forgot her sweatshirt, and mine.  Ty forgot his, too.  At least Mark listened when I told him to put his in the truck!  Susie was thankful.  I gotta work harder on the “Race Mom” title!

Time for round two…

A crash…

A play-by-play…

More riding…

Another crash…

In the same spot!  He kept getting excited, thinking he was going to pass the big kids, and then forgetting to turn.  Kind of important.

But he always gets back on!

He had a blast.  Even though it was just practice, he called it “racing” and really wanted to win because “he likes winning things.”  He can’t wait to go back.

So crazy that my little guy is getting so big!!

<3.

random loves

My week has been crazy, but we finished up AWANA and now have one more night a week free.  With summer coming, things should start to slow down, soon!  I don’t have a lot to share today but a bunch of random stuff, so here goes…

Seriously. Random.

My boy drew me a picture of our house…

And it’s raining outside.  So lame.  And I am so glad that this was last week and this week has been gloriously sunny!  I am working on my WA tan.  If you’re not from around here, a WA tan is different than a normal tan; much less intense and virtually unnoticeable to people from sunny regions.

 

This is how I keep my laptop protected when I travel…

Then I fold the bottom up and fold the arms in and tie them.  Seriously.  Genius, right?

 

We had some fertile dirt delivered for our gardens and the neighbor guy’s friend showed up in a dump truck with…

Chevrons on the rearview mirrors.  How cute is that?  Am I totally insane?  If the neighbor guy’s friend read this blog he would be super weird, but if he did, he would surely be offended that I called his big dump truck “cute”.  Seriously, though, why don’t auto makers put chevrons on vehicles any more?  Chevrons are IN people.  Just like boot socks.

 

This girl’s got swagger…

She has been running around in her diaper or undies working on her tan and I hate to admit, she’s farther along than I am.

 

I found something amazing on Pinterest last week…

I didn’t pin it because the pin was very long (what is up with that?), but it seriously works!  Little bread bag ties keep the flip flop toe part from pulling through the soles!  Now that I have posted a picture of the bottom of my son’s flip flops from last year which are almost worn through, I am going to the store right this minute to buy him some new ones.

 

Want to know another thing that is awesome?  A holy, sovereign, and just God, involved in people’s lives.  Seeing people show mercy to one another because God is working and active in their hearts.  Seeing him change people.  Seeing His love for people.  Seeing people come back to Him.  We can screw things up as much as we want but He is still there.  He still loves us.  He will work things out if we trust Him and follow His lead. 

Godbless!