Ten on Tuesday

1. The monsoon season continues here in Oklahoma. So far, in the month of May, OKC has received 18.85 inches of rain and there is still a week to go. It is very strange to be tired of the rain, since usually we are in desperate need of it. Not anymore, everything is flooded, creeks are out of their banks, my back yard is a swamp, and I'm ready for some sun. The rain spoiled our plans for a weekend of tree house building at the farm. Zach got some things done on Saturday before the rains came, but then we spent the rest of the day playing on the porch.

 Rowan spent a lot of time on his "tall thing" (a.k.a a step ladder) pretending to be working like daddy. Very cute stuff, the apron is a tool belt, obviously.

Rainy day silly cuddles on the porch.

2. Both boys had their own tool belts, ready to help daddy. Sadly tree house building doesn't really involve many things that little boys can help with. So instead they practiced hammering in nails on the picnic table, with safety glasses of course.

 Rowan was ecstatic to get into Bobo's tool belt while Zane wasn't watching.

Safety goggles are always on!

3. I spent most of the weekend cuddling little boys on the porch, while watching it pour. Sunday morning I got to introduce the boys to a tradition from my childhood, placing a rock at the edge of the flood waters, then checking it to see if the water was still coming up or going down. It had started to recede, but had begun to rain again when we finally gave up and headed back to OKC. It was a stressful drive through heavy rain, but we made it back home safe.

 The kids were amazed at all the water. I have many fond memories of floods, as strange as that seems now.

In good news I have gotten reports from mom that the water has all gone down.

4. All of us are snotty and have coughs at our house. Not really sure what is going on, no one feels terrible, but no one is at 100% either. Combined that with rainy weather and our boys think they should probably laying around watching TV all day. I, sadly, feel the same way in this weather. But we powering on through the stir craziness.

5.Friday was my bday. I had a great 32nd birthday, full of lots of fun things. I had breakfast with Able, went shopping for myself, ate lunch with a friend who is moving away, had my yearly bday massage, then rounded out my day with an amazing Willy Wonka Birthday party at the Blakley's house. It was a picnic/drive in movie, with the kids eating and watching the moving in their cars (boxes). The kids loved the movie and a great time was had by all. Thanks so much to Able and Kari for letting us take over your house, it was so much fun!!

 Rowan was left alone in his box with his cupcake and this was the result!

6. Of course no Willy Wonka party would be complete with a top hat, which Uncle Able just happened to have on hand.

7. Today Zane got this month's Nature Tracker package and it was again a huge hit. This month was all about giraffes. Of course there is the initial disappointment that it isn't about penguins, but I tried to explain that currently we are just doing African animals. He moved on quickly and enjoyed all the fun giraffe things. The biggest hit were pictures that you scratch off a black top layer to show a colorful picture. He concentrated on this for a long time and was never discourage with the possibility of coloring outside of the lines. Great fun! Zane's nature hunt in our backyard ended with finding another frog that sadly escaped into our neighbor's yard.

8. The sun was out for most of the day today and my only goal for the day, since I am not feeling too hot, was to soak up some vitamin D. We went to a park after grocery shopping this morning, armed with a big towel to dry off all the slides. Turns out every mom at the park had this same idea so we were more than covered and had a great time soaking up the sun!

 Nothing is more fun, or more cute, than sliding down the slides holding hands.

 I did had to gently remind Zane to play with his brother and not run off with the other big kids at the park. Poor Rowan wanders around aimlessly when this happens.

9. Zane came to a stunning realization today, completely out of nowhere, while looking at his Ranger Rick magazine. I was reading a book and he was reading his magazine, while we rested after naps. All of sudden Zane looks up and says, "Mamma, Ranger Rick is a Racoon!!!!!!!" Just like a light bulb turned on in his brain. He was amazed and impressed and felt sure that Ranger Rick and Bode Bear (his nature tracker mascot) were best friend. Of course they are son!!

10. This weekend is supposed to be farm camp. The t-shirts are made, activities have been planned, everyone is excited. However, everyone at my house is slightly ill, Uncle Brent was throwing up last night, and there is a 60% chance of rain on everyday. So who knows what will happen. I have my fingers crossed for at least some farm fun, but am trying to manage expectations at our house. I did buy rain boots, that should be arriving tomorrow, so if everything works out I'll be prepared for soggy adventures!

Ten on Tuesday

1. I have been working less weekends, since I switched to flex pool, which is lovely. But it has also meant that the boys have had less days alone to do manly things. They made up for it this Sunday. While I was at work Zach and the boys celebrated Man Day 2015,  a made up holiday complete with all manly things; fishing, trying to fly kites, playing in the sand, primal screams, grilling, playing in large boxes, and who knows what else. Zach kept me up to date on all man day activities with his tweets. It looked like lots of fun!

  

 2. Nature finds were few and far between this week, with our biggest one coming at the grocery store. Zane was completely enamored with the big tank of lobsters. He was sad to find out that people were going to eat them and thought we could probably take one home, since we have had a lobster before. In unrelated news Turbo the fish got what was coming to him this week. After killing numerous fish himself, he was murdered by a more aggressive fish, bought possibly just for this purpose. We are starting over with nicer fish. To quote Zane "Dad, why did we even buy a shark?" Who knows??

 3. Zane had a dentist appointment on Friday and everything looked great. He was so big I don't think I really need to go back with him. Added bonus of our dentist, the train to play in outside.

 3. Some how we lost the Elmo backpack that Rowan had inherited, so he was in need of his very own backpack. We got him this adorable dinosaur one this week and he has loved it. He wears it around all the time, carrying all sorts of toys and books. Most recently it was packed with spare clothes in case we had to go to the tornado shelter!

 "I put backpack on mamma."

 4. The boys have taken to wearing these hats pretty much every time we leave the house. I think it gives in the impression that I'm really pulled together and stylish, which I am not in the slightest.  In reality my boys just love to accessorize. The end result is always very adorable.

 5. The most recent outing where they got to wear their hats, was Maggie and Everett's end of the year music program. It was Maggie's last and Everett's first. Both were adorable and had made some amazing clothing choices for the day!

 That's Maggie in the middle, a head taller than everyone else. Off to Kindergarten for her next year. She will do great!

  

6. After loosing our patio table to the Oklahoma winds last fall we finally bit the bullet and bought a whole new patio set over the weekend. It is big enough to sit seven so we are ready to party at our house. The boys helped daddy put it together while I made dinner and watched the weather inside. I was slightly concerned that it would get blown away on day one, but luckily we just ended up without power over night, no damage. Gotta love spring time in Oklahoma.

 You know my boys are always excited to put on a helmet, and in Zane's case an Iron Man costume, to help with a build.

 7. Of course the most fun part of any big purchase is the huge box it comes in. After our unexpected power outage we had found all our flash lights, so the big box quickly became a fort to play flash lights in.

 8. I wish I could figure out how to upload a video from my phone, but currently too tired, so this picture will have to suffice. Zane and Rowan played "horsey" forever the other evening and it was quite possibly the cutest thing ever. Rowan road around in circles while Zane played horse. Of course they fell into a pile of wrestling after each ride. Very loud, rough, fun!

 8. This week Rowan figured out that he can roll his tongue. He now loves to watch himself do it, mainly in selfies. He is starting to learn how to whistle through said rolled tongue. Here we are after my afternoon run at the Y, cuddling and practicing tongue rolling.

9. As I mentioned before Zach has planned a great tree house design for mom's house, that will hopefully get started this weekend. (Side note all the Korenaks have ears down this evening, feeling colds, or something coming on, just in time for my bday, awesome!) This has lead to another grand idea, a pirate ship, playhouse, for our backyard. Zach and the boys would build it together and it would cost so much less than the big play ground things you can buy for your backyard. Here is initial rough draft of Zach's idea. I learned long ago that Zach can and will build anything so I have high hopes for our backyard pirate ship!

 10. In preparation for Harper Lee's new book, Go Set A Watchman, I am re-reading my favorite book of all time To Kill A Mocking Bird. I haven't read it in years, but started it this week and still adore all the characters from Maycomb County. I thought this book was coming out in June but really I have to wait until July 14th. If only I had a girl, I think I would name her Scout!

 Happy Birthday Week to me! Here's hoping I stay well enough to party on Friday!

Ten on Tuesday

1. We have had a break from the rains the past two days, which was much needed for some outside running around time. The boys spent all afternoon in the backyard yesterday, not all of it running, there was lots of learning and coloring to be done too, but they definitely needed some sunshine. Baseball was cancelled yesterday since the fields were flooded but was back on this evening, with team pictures before. This evening we played the team coached by former OSU baseball players, so it was a bit of a blood bath, not helped by it being played during everyone's normal bed times. Zane played first and was oblivious to life most of the time.

2. I forgot to mention what my Mother's Day present was in my Mother's Day post. Zach got me a fit bit Charge. Which I guess is what all the cool kids are wearing these days. It tracks my steps, calories burned (still unsure how it calculates that), and my heart rate. It has a food tracking app that goes with it and would track my sleep patterns but I am never going to want to sleep in a watch. The app doesn't do well tracking how far I run when I'm on the track, just like everything else, but I so far have really liked it and got to my goal of 10,000 steps before noon yesterday!

 3. Spring has definitely sprung around our neighborhood, besides our turtle find yesterday we have seen lots of other signs of spring, such as worms, goslings, and there have been a few more sittings of Mary with her baby ducklings. All every cute and very exciting to my little ones. 

 Mary and here babies, I am afraid there are a few less babies than the last time I saw them!

 And theses geese and their babies were in our yard one day when we got home.

 4. This week, for some unknown reason, both boys have really been into wearing hats. I find everyone adorable, but this particular set, on the way to the farm, was by far the cutest. The matching Moolys really push it over the top.

5. I hear storms are suppose to move back into the metro tomorrow and Thursday. I hate heading to work not knowing when or if I will be coming home. This time I'm going to be prepared though with my a change of clothes, my own tooth brush, deodorant, and probably something to sleep in. This is seriously crazy town!

6. As I briefly mentioned in my previous post Zach is in the very early stages of trying to design a tree house for mom's house. Zach is an engineer and I am confident could build any number of amazing tree houses, but in reality  we probably don't need a huge crazy tree house. Needless to say the plans are being pared down and I keep reminding him my tree house was one piece of ply wood for a floor, a couple of 2x4s to keep us from falling out, and it was awesome. One way or another hopefully there is some sort of place for the kids to play in the trees soon. I think anything would be tons of fun.

7. Today Abbey flew back to D.C. so we got to hang out with Maggie all day. The original plan, which I obviously didn't put much thought into, was to go to the zoo. It was going to be a nice day, why not? Well because it is the last week of school here, that's why!!! When we pulled up to the zoo at 10:00 this morning there were easily thirty buses already there and half the overflow parking lot was full. Mom and I knew that this would be a complete disaster/mad house. So we changed our plans and headed to the Museum of Osteology further down I-35. On the way we saw some tornado damage, which Zane thought was pretty awesome. There were two buses when we got there, which was manageable, and everyone had a great time. Our favorites were the snakes and penguins (including a Rockhopper) of course!

 King Cobra!

 Elephant tusks

 Rowan, taking notes on the snakes!

 Inside a Rhino

Ro checking out the cat heads.

 Zane in utter amazement of the flightless bird exhibit. There were six different kinds of penguins!!!

We also saw an ostrich and Bald Eagle egg which was amazing.

Grandma was nice enough to get everyone a little something from the gift shop before we headed to lunch at Sonic!

8. One of Rowan's favorite phrases right now is, "I watch Mickey on the TV." We usually cuddle and put Mickey on in the morning, but Rowan rarely actually watches any of it. Yesterday, instead of watching Mickey, he went and found the Mickey hat and became Mickey. Lots of fun before our trip to the gym.

9. After nap time today things quickly spiraled into a hot mess of fits, whining, pooping in our pants, and not being nice. As many of you know, by our family song, these are the four rules of our family, no fits, no whining, don't poop in your pants, and be nice. That simple. It was a debacle, followed by baseball pictures, and a 7:15pm start time for this evening's tball game. Needless to say it was a rough afternoon/evening. Here is my personal highlight. Rowan came driving around the corner, into the kitchen, looking like this!

 And baseball ended at eight fifteen, like this. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH

10. Lastly, Zach felt like the scorpion we saw deserved an updated picture, to prove just how awesome it was. So here is the close up Zach got while thoroughly pissing off the scorpion. Aren't you way more impressed now?

 

Ok off to bed, wish me luck with actually getting to come home tomorrow!