We All Scream for Ice Cream

This week, we've had day after day of rain. Great for my growing garden, bad for my growing boys. Friday we had to get O-U-T of the house and go on an adventure. I decided we'd head up to the Velvet Ice Cream Factory in Utica. It meets all the qualifications for a great adventure

a.) haven't been this year b.) get to see people makin' stuff c.) plenty of space for running and d.) food (notably in this case, ice cream). Plus, there's a "big wheel". Velvet Ice Cream is a very old Ohio company and they're currently located on the site of an old grist mill. The water wheel is still spinning away and my boys yell, "Look at the big wheel!" every time we go. The first time Mike went with us he said, "Look at the big wheel!" I think it's a guy thing.

Something to know about me is that I never leave the house when I think I will/should. In my mind, things happen a lot faster than they do in real life. Plus, I'm just not a person who wants to go anywhere very early while we're all on summer break. Then there's always the stuff that happens moments before stepping out the door: the poopy baby, one lost shoe, a boy who thinks he's dying of starvation. We managed to make it out of the house around eleven. I knew we'd have to eat at some point and decided to throw our money at the ice cream factory restaurant rather than a craptastic fast food restaurant.

That means, drumroll please, I took four boys to a sit down restaurant by myself. [Wait, let me polish off my tiara before continuing.] We were the most exciting thing to hit that little restaurant all week and thank goodness we had a sweet waitress who didn't quit when she saw us coming. Crayons and paper hats to color kept the two youngest fairly occupied. Winter3 bounded out of his seat minimal times. Spring7 was initially pouty for a variety of reasons but got over it pretty quickly. Fall22months happily waved at everyone who walked past us. All in all, a good lunch. The highlight of lunch came from Winter3, of course. When he saw the waitress bringing our food to the table, he stood up on his chair, gave her a double thumbs up and exclaimed, "Good job!"

After lunch we wandered over to the viewing room part of the factory. Even though there's not a whole lot to see, conveyor belts, workers in hair and beard nets and big tubs of ice cream fascinated the boys. Next stop, the playground...two playsets and tons of space for running. Life is good! On the way to the playground, we passed the pond and a bunch of ducks. At this point, Fall22months breaks out in a fit of pointing and quacking. Winter3 wanted to "go see dem". Um, no, you can see them just fine from a distance.

Ice cream doesn't get much better than when you're at the factory so we had to finish our trip with ice cream. Fall22months and I shared ice cream and each of the bigger boys got cones. Winter3's junior ice cream cone was about 3 times bigger than everyone else's ice cream cone. Since three year olds, summer heat and gigantic ice cream cones don't mix well, we avoided sure disaster by getting an extra bowl to dump the cone into. What a great way to waste a summer day!

Watching "the big wheel"


Like two little duckings


You know when you're in the heart of Ohio's farmland when you find an ice cream cone that looks like an ear of corn.

Out on the Town...Franklin Park Conservatory

The Franklin Park Conservatory is one of my favorite places to visit. It's beautiful and you feel transported to different ends of the earth. Some might say, "Er, are you sure it's a good idea to take your calm, and well behaved albeit perfectly wonderful family of boys to a place with delicate and rare plants and a glass exhibit?" While my boys don't qualify as calm, they're usually pretty well behaved and I've found that most museum workers love to see curious and engaged kids come their way. I will admit that we've been avoiding the area with the bonsai trees. Wisely, I think, as the thought of Winter3 looking at (touching, poking, bending) a very, very old mini tree gives me heart palpitations. The same goes for the orchids. Oh, and the desert area with all the cacti. Hmmm, well that makes it sound like I miss half of the exhibits.

We always spend the most time in the tropical water garden area. The area is enclosed, warm and damp. It's filled with tropical plants, flowers and currently is home to the annual butterfly exhibit. Every day, butterflies hatch (in some sort of conservatory hatchery, I suppose!?) and are released. You might think that Winter3 is a danger to butterflies but since he doesn't exactly sneak up on anything, the butterflies see him coming a mile away. It's really pretty funny. Imagine Winter3, stopping in his tracks, pointing and saying in his loud whisper "Oh look! Der's a buuuteeerrfly" You can almost see the butterfly look over its shoulder and fly off in a different direction, quickly. It doesn't prevent him from having a great time, running on the walks through the plants and flowers, finding waterfalls and chasing his brothers.

My favorite part of this last visit was seeing the
Chihuly installation coming to life. Dale Chihuly is a Seattle based artist (eye patch and all) and his studio is well known for producing fantastic and colorful glass art. The Conservatory owns a large collection of Chihuly glass and this installation uses pieces from the collection as well as borrowed pieces. The glass looks alive when placed among the plants. Truly breathtaking.

Here, I hope I don't have three boys falling head first into the water. I also have to tell Spring7 that he can't take coins out.



Spring7 in the tropical house.



A lush garden of glass orbs.



Shhhh, please don't tell! Fall22months snagged a leaf!



My favorite piece.



All the art work aside, this was the highlight of the trip. A big fan.

It's a Cape not a Cake, of course

Winter3 is a fan of the Wonder Pets. If you haven't seen the show, the Wonder Pets are a group of animal friends including a guinea pig, a turtle and a ducking who are regular classroom animals by day and superheroes by night. Naturally, (well duh) the Wonder Pets have capes. Winter3 was constantly finding cape-ish sorts of things and having me stick them in his shirt so he could perform animal rescues. I decided that this little boy needed a real cape. I'm no seamstress but few can beat me when I'm armed with a bottle of fabric glue and a good pair of scissors.

I more or less drew out a sketch, figured out what we needed to buy and broke the exciting news to Winter3 who was thrilled. My only concern was that he told everyone in the fabric store and even my mom on the phone "Mommy's making me a cake! A Wonder Pet cake!" Hmmm. When I'd correct the cape/cake mix-up he'd say "a cape!" like he'd been saying that all along.

At naptime, I whipped out scissors and glue and went to work all the while saying a little prayer that he would be happy to see a cape and not a cake. This is the final product and he was thrilled.

The Wonder Pets have a letter W on the back of their capes. I suggested a different letter to Winter3 and he looked at me like I was a lunatic. Here, he's inspecting my work.



With cape flying behind him, Winter3 is off to rescue his brother or rescue someone/something from his brother.



He's played with the cape so much it's pilling and probably starting to smell but truth be told, if he really, really wanted a Wonder Pet cake, I'd make him one of those too.

Let Me Fix You a Little Something...Peach Sangria

This is one of my summer favorites. What's not to love about peaches and cold white wine in the summer? I found this recipe in the paper six years ago and have made it many times since then. The wild couple that we are, we've even made it in the middle of winter. If you're making this for friends buy two bottles of wine because the first batch will go in a flash. If you're alone only buy one bottle because I don't want to be blamed for your problems.

Peach Sangria

1 bottle riesling
1 cup peach nectar (in the juice aisle)
1/2 cup peach schnapps
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar
3 fresh peaches, sliced
1 lemon, sliced
1 lime, sliced

Combine all ingredients. The recipe says to refrigerate for four hours. I never do and it's great anyway. Lately, I've been using Relax riesling. It tastes good, is pretty inexpensive and the name makes me laugh. The first time I drank Relax riesling was on vacation last year. I sent Mike to the corner store for a bottle of wine. He saw it and thought, "Steph needs to relax so this must be a good wine." Indeed. Enjoy!

Boys that Go Bump in the Night

We all know that my days are full of excitement. I yearn for dull nights. Some nights are quiet but with four kids odds are that someone will need something. My bedtime routine always, always starts with me going into Spring7 and Summer10's room. Summer10 is just like me and will stay up reading much later than he should. What I am I supposed to do? Say "It's summer, you have no reason to get up early tomorrow! Stop reading!" No! But when it's very late, I do tell him enough is enough (or at least get to the end of the chapter).

The second thing I do is check on Winter3 and Fall22months. This chore used to be an adventure. After the crib, we moved Winter3 to a toddler bed. He loved the idea of the bed (What's not to love about Wiggles sheets?) but didn't love sleeping in the bed. Every night, I played a Where's Waldo game when entering his room. I'd find him sleeping next to, in front of, behind and under the bed but never, ever IN the bed. Sometimes he was in more unusual spots like on the changing table curled up like a cat, snuggled with Fall22months in the crib or slumped in the rocking chair. Finally, we bought a twin mattress, stuck it on the floor and he's been sleeping in it ever since.


I bought Winter3 a cheap shovel and pail set a couple of days ago. We didn't get to play in the sandbox and he desperately wanted to take the shovel and pail to bed with him. Fine. How many kids choose to snuggle with a hard plastic shovel and pail? Whatever. Fast forward to 3 a.m. I hear a LOUD bang, bang, bang coming from the monitor. What on earth was it, you ask? I think you can see this coming...it was Winter3 practicing his drum solo with the shovel and pail.

Now, my dear husband is a huge Rush fan. Not that baby monitor sounds wake him up but if they did, I'm sure he'd go right into a dream that Winter3 is the next Neil Peart. I imagine him as a frail old man in a rocking chair, sucking on his gums talking about when his World's Best Drummer, Ever! son started playing the drums.

I convince Winter3 to drum in the daylight and head back to bed (after settling an angry Fall22months who was all "hello, I'm trying to sleep here!"). A short time and one dream later, I feel the unmistakable poke of Spring7's finger in my back. He is convinced that a fly is in his ear. Truthfully, I did notice a fly upstairs when I went to bed and apparently he heard it fly through his room. Logic does not rule at 4 a.m. and once I convince him that there is no fly in his ear he is convinced it's because the fly has tunneled through his ear and into his brain. Surprisingly, he accepts the fact that the ear canal is not a hole leading to gray matter and goes back to bed.

As I try to fall back asleep (which takes zero effort) I hope the pesky fly doesn't come into my room. I pull the covers over my head, just in case because there's no way I'm going to have some nasty house fly tunneling in my brain.

When the Rubber Hits the Road

Whether it's the grocery store, a walk or a bike ride my life can seem like one circus parade after another. Having recently repaired my bike tire, (er, or having it repaired by a handy dandy bike shop, I should say) we decided to take the boys for a bike ride this weekend. The weather was perfect and the boys had plenty of energy to spare.

First, Mike had to get the bike trailer up and running. Flat tires were the least of it's problems. Believe it or not, he had to clear a wasp nest out of it. Can you tell it hadn't been used in a while? Finally, we got the little boys settled in the trailer and the ten wheels of our four bikes and one bike trailer hit the road.

We looked like a family of ducks on wheels. Daddy duck leading the pack, Mama duck at the end with little ducks in between. Everyone who passed by us looked. Some with a look of Oh how sweet and some with a look of THANK GOD THAT'S NOT ME!

It was fun to watch the two big boys on their bikes. They're such different people. Summer10 is the straight arrow first child. Spring7 is no straight arrow and has the energy to power 100 suns. Summer10 just rode his bike (and talked, of course because that's what he does). Spring7 weaved, stood up on his bike, rode side saddle, stuck out his hands and feet to brush tall weeds and flowers and aimed for rocks and puddles.

The fussing and complaining didn't start until we were on our way home. No one complained that they were tired. Brothers complained because one brother rode ahead of or next to him. One brother "got to talk to the babies" and he didn't. "HE blah, blah, blah" is what it sounded like after a while. As we neared home, Summer10 rode up next to me and said, "Mom, this was so much fun. We need to do it again soon!" I guess all the fussing and complaining that brothers do is just part of the day. They surely don't notice it as much as Mike and I do.

Monday before dinner, Mike suggested another bike ride. This time, I got to stay home. I'm always up for a little exercise but I'm also happy to have a few minutes to myself in a quiet house. I sent the boys off, closed the door (should have locked it...it would have bought me a few more minutes), opened a bottle of wine, cracked a book and read in the silence for about 8 minutes before I heard a distant rumble of thunder. Sigh.

Before too long, the herd returned to the ranch. Winter3 ran in declaring, "I skeered of funder!" All in all, I think bike riding (more like bike adventuring) is something we'll keep up. It's something we can do as a family and throws a little activity our way. Can you imagine what we're going to look like when all six of us are on bikes? We're going to look like a mini version of the Tour de France minus the spectators waving flags and support staff following in vans! Now that I think about it, I am the family support staff. Maybe I'll follow in the van, wave a flag and hand out food and water. It would be quieter, at least.