w side market

A bunch of treats at the West Side Market... including the ever popular Dichotomy Popcorn, gourmet chocolate covered ninja turtle oreos, chocolate covered jalapeños (not a good idea), incredible beef jerky, saffron noodles, hot sauce, salsa verde, fruits, and bulls on your head selfies... 

xmas

I can still hear the giggles and squeals from a very full merry Christmas... My sister had the great idea to do an ornament exchange which included a trumpeting tube noise (a la didgeridoo) from my funny uncle as each ornament was opened... Some were stolen and new ones were opened... The hot ticket was a little Dollie with a cute knit dress.

The flipping remote control cars were a big hit... The new light saber caught Cam's attention... Everyone wanted a Stretchkin of their own to dance with... The big bad wolf stuffie ate the grandma doll many times... And the Xmas jammies could've stayed on all day...

xmas eve

These little Santa buddies enjoying some really mild OH winter weather!  I can remember setting out luminaries all bundled up and this year we just hung out with our long sleeves.  

Salt dough ornaments were my sister's idea and ooh boy, my kind of fun!

xmas eve eve

We cruised into town and headed to get a picture of the cousins with Santa - Cameron wasn't really having it, but he was willing to sit with me for a bit.  Santa was trying to get Keaton to look at the camera with his hands down.  The magic combo didn't quite happen, but we got a decent shot to cover up the Easter Bunny shot in my folk's frame ;)

Everyone was excited to ride the Santa train!  The red matching crew especially...

smiley

These smiley guys::

expressions

A few favorite expressions from the holiday::

we caught santa!

We caught Santa on video! The boys want to write "Santa sat here!" on that chair! (Thx Kringl app)

holiday cheer

Wishing you and yours a very Merry and Bright Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Christmas Card Drafts 2014:

My folks Christmas card with all the cousins in Santa jammies:

believe

Cousins working hard on the Xmas Eve luminaries::

Merriest Christmas Eve!  I hope you are enjoying the same warmth that we are surrounded by family and in the over fifty degree weather!

So this year Aiden wouldn't really tell me what he wanted Santa to bring.  I couldn't quite figure out why, until he said "But Santa already knows everything!"  I realized that it was a sort of test by a seven year old that desperately wants to believe.  Let's hope that Santa gets it right!

The cookies and celery are waiting... And I think the big kid just drifted off to sleep...

harbor

The Peeps store is always a treat.  Big jumps in front of the giant tree are my favorite.  The Pepper Palace was a new addition down there with hundreds of different hot sauces to taste test.  These guys loved watching the fountains dance in the sunlit atrium at the hotel, and riding the Peeps Express were a giddy Keaton and a too cool for school Aiden (who assures us he loved it despite the deadpan look the whole ride - I thought maybe the mini choo choo had lost it's charm on my big seven year old, but he assures me he still loved it -phew!)

carousel

We rode this carousel to our hearts content.  The unlimited ride pass was such a deal and after the first ten rides I lost track of how many times we rode it.  Every time the boys found a new cool animal to ride.  The xmas tunes were really peppy.

winter day

We spent the first official day of winter playing outside on a beach and eating ice cream.  Seriously, the shortest day of the year was a bright sunny day full of warmth.  We went to the National Harbor to enjoy the decorations - more on that soon - but here are snaps from the sunniest part of the day.

These guys take their ice cream mustaches/beards very seriously.  Just like daddy with his sticker he earned for tasting the hottest hot sauce at the Pepper Palace - They actually made him sign a waiver to try it.

tidbits

The last week before school let out was full of treats and fun surprises. 

I got a nice gift card from my inlaws (thanks!) and I bought a laminator!  Best purchase ever!  I started by taking good care of all our handprint turkeys I saved from 2013 and 2014.  They are all nicely laminated and ready to hang year after year!

These ornaments that Aiden and Keaton brought home added to our really nice collection of smiley faces on our tree.

Some quick smiles with from the big batch of photos of Keaton at school this past week.  He loved playing in boxes in the activity room.

I was in charge of Aiden's class party at the end of the week, and he helped me prepare all sorts of fun treats.  We played a "feed the snow monster" game with that cardboard monstrosity Aiden helped make, cotton balls, and squirt bottle.  The kids made their own snow in test tubes using a special powder, crafted picture frames, snowmen with cotton and egg cartons, reindeer with candy cane antlers.  The hit was "guess what's in the stocking" and whoever guessed correctly won the object as a prize.  The second favorite was the "dance like a penguin" contest where they had to hold a bean bag in between their knees while grooving.  It's so simple to have fun with a big group of first and second graders!

We had a series of playdates with Keaton's friends and if you asked Keaton he would definitely tell you that bed forts are his favorite.

This hippo gift was such a treat.  I didn't realize they had a nice kiln at Aiden's school, and I genuinely love it.

santa video

A on Santa from LB on Vimeo.

K on Santa from LB on Vimeo.

botanical

Our annual pilgrimage to the Botanical Garden to see the trains and the natural structures.  This year there were 33 lighthouses and huge tall ships.  The scale was amazing!  It competes with the tiny creature houses from the first year as my favorite.  I was excited to see a lighthouse from Bristol, RI and even two Ohio lighthouses from Toledo and Cincinnati.  We then took the scavenger stamp hunt around the gardens to explore some more.  That place never disappoints!

faces of hook

Just finished a giant amount of editing work (with over 5,500 images this month!) and I finally had a chance to load the ridic number of no-flash photos I took during Aiden's performance.  We were so excited that we have family close that could come see the second performance.  Aiden was excited by the chocolate coin fangrams too ;). Thx Bs!   

So much fun to see the many faces of Hook:

gingerbread house

Building a gingerbread house means bellies full of candy for the boys. Aiden said he put four candies on the house for every one he ate and he thought that was a good ratio - which he learned about someplace - I told him the best ratio was 0:5.

Our cute little gingerbread house from chocolate land according to Aiden:

cookie

It's holiday cookie Friday! 

tidbits

The water main break on the street across from us led to noisy nights of these trucks (that need to constantly back up with that beeping noise!) working hard to get the water back for our neighbors.  I guess we shouldn't complain because we kept our water and the boys were amused by all the equipment parked outside our house.  One morning we got to watch this little tank truck load back onto its trailer.

This guys loves to add to the drawings his brother gives him with his own little guys.

The holiday party at the piano teacher's house was hopping - I think she knows everyone in the neighborhood!  She served three giant hams and still ran out.

I'm hosting Aiden's Destination Imagination team meetings this season.  I'd never heard of DI, but it's so perfectly perfect for Aiden and all his precocious buddies.  They are preparing a "mish-mash animal" which they create a fun show about in a habitat structure they create.  We will meet each week for different "instant challenges" including this one where they had to pretend to be an elephant AND their favorite animal - then we had to guess what their favorite animal was...

In art class, Aiden created a birds eye view of his make believe home.  It just happens to look a lot like a ninja turtle ;)

The light bright is such a classic.

The mild days mean even more playtime in the woods next to Keaton's school.

This birthday party at the local martial arts studio was one for the books.  I was laughing when he gave them a long talk about how they can't use their kicking and punching skills to go after bullies because that would make them a bully - aaaaand Happy Bday kiddo!

tidbits

Xmas cards with all three xmas stamps because I couldn't decide which I liked best.

Despite the bleh reviews, my boys both loved Peter Pan Live and I think watched it about 2.5 times total.  Aiden is prepping for his Captain Hook role with some tips from Christopher Walkin ;)

Lotsa notes being taken around here, even right before bed… gotta record those details of the day.

Mr. Tinny Crumple and his son Foil Crumple - so many foil guys! Aiden even gave one to cousin Pete as a "souvenir"

Scorpion pops from J's Tucson trip - so brave!

Really awesome batch of early Xmas presents that included the coolest flying alien ship - Thx Nana and Grampa!

Homework includes mapping the vowels in the spelling words

What?! Sugar rimmed cranberry margaritas at the start of a whirlwind week!

ten days

Ten Days until Christmas… the countdown is on…

Merry Christmas from LB on Vimeo.

premiere

The premiere performance of Captain Hook was this morning… I have these snippet of video to share (sorry for the iffy quality since the lighting in there was so tough - but I ordered the professional DVD they will record at tomorrow's performance).

 Aiden had so, so much fun:
Neverland Adventures from LB on Vimeo.

one sec fall

I've kept up with the daily one second video clips… It's fun to see how fast the fall goes by!  It felt like that in real life too!
One Second Fall from LB on Vimeo.

school cool

It's hard to decide whether Keaton or I enjoy my days in his classroom more… He get to share a special favorite toy at the end of each parent coop day.  He just loves fielding questions from his friends and telling him where he got it, where he keeps it, and what it does…with a huge smile!  He also loves being the line leader and the guy that rings the bell at the end of recess. 

My favorite is hearing him interact with his friends.  The girls came over to him this time and asked him to be their Prince - His reply: "Nah, but I can be your King!" Ha!

gingy

Gingy was thinking TGIF?!

neighborly

The neighborhood holiday party was another hit.  The school gym teachers run all these fun games… We arrived during the hat making winning the tallest hat award.  Then the silly games continued: opening a series of wrapped boxes with oven mitts on, vaseline on your nose to pick up cotton balls relay style, lick bubble gum out of a pile of whipped cream and try to blow the biggest bubble, wrap up your friend like a snowman with toilet paper, and graham cracker gingerbread houses.  The boys were excited by their favorite prize: those sticky hands where they can pretend to be superheroes and collect all the filth ;)

stakes

We had a fun time making these winter stakes at the kid's workshop this month.  They are tucked next to the house to keep them mostly dry so those fun stickers stay nice.

drawing

While Keaton wasn't feeling tip top and J was out of town, Aiden curled up with so many books I lost track and found his "long lost favorite" Ed Emberly books.  There were some old drawings tucked in there and Aiden made some funny new ones.  I think it's funny that its "normal" to say Sir Aiden, but "optional" to say Sir Keaton.  Aiden added those arrows after I asked about it, because he didn't want to "upset" anyone…compassion for his brother ;)  Also, "Notice: more names than able to fit on paper" is definitely true and he even made his sick brother giggle with all those funny names.  Word searches are also really popular around here….even ones with numbers and letters!

good list

My new zoom zoom is so smooth, not at all rattly like that giant van.  Our needs have shrunk and I felt silly with all that big empty cavernous space in the back of the van where we hardly ever even put up the third row seats.  After driving around in some of the SUVs with third row seats I realized I could still have the luxury of extra space with kid friends, etc  Enter the Seinfeld ridiculous product placement on his Comedians in Cars online episodes where I decided I liked the MDX as Tina Fey awkwardly gazed at it.  The commercial were the symbol takes off like a rocket ship just sealed the deal.

This guys has the same cuddle friends wrapped in his arms every night, one dog and two bears with boo bear tucked over his shoulder.

Santa hats deserve a spot on the super list.

Pouring your own molten chocolate into your warm milk for the win!

Funny bug masks cause boys to make lotsa funny noises.

These wooden puzzles where the pieces are good for a lot more than just puzzling.

Watercolor are this kids' best friend… He rinses his brush for the "best action!"

This fun Playmobil Christmas village is providing lotsa scoot up to the shelf entertainment.

The mild days where the bow and arrow chasing games exhaust you so you lie down for a rest.