nature

We were literally house bound for six days during this Snowzilla business, so it was nice to get out as soon as our roads were up to the task.  Our friends met us at the nature center where the kids created many scavenger hunts - most of which ended with the earthworm brain (bottom left).

inside

These guys have been getting along remarkably well.  It feels like the beginning of the summer when they have time to pull out all the long games and stuff that has been tucked away. Keaton is a full fledged big game player now and he loves playing independently.  

The jammies are pretty much our snow day uniform and that alone gets these guys excited.

The pieces to multiple games get made into other games and they even create their own boards with those big puzzle like pieces.  Playing the paper version of different strategy and dice games is very official business - thank goodness when dad is home!

These guys they can make the craziest creatures with the Curious Bonz sets.  They have funny names and parades too.

snow friends

The piles are already melting and our snow family toppled over.  But these brussel sprout eyed, spatula armed guys will live on in these photos ;)  The huge mounds of snow seem like they will be around for a while, but the big meltdown is on!

Everyone's making a big fuss as we enter the 7th snow day around here that our kids will only be in school 11 out of the last 45 days.  Sounds pretty good to me - why didn't this ever happen when I was a kid?!  

little loving hands

This box from Little Loving Hands is the best combination of crafting and giving back.  They highlight a different charity every month and send you all the supplies to make a craft that will be useful for that organization.  This month it was Ronald McDonald house and they made a snowman heating pad guy.  It was filled with rice that could be heated in the microwave, and it turned out so cute.  You even package it up with scratch gift tags before you send it along.  It comes with an info sheet that explains why the charity exists and how you can help. Best subscription box!  There theme is "throw kindness around like confetti" - and the box had confetti to celebrate ;)

sledding

These little daredevils love that hill by the swim club.  

sunny

When the Blizzard cleared out, the sun was shining bright and the snow was up past the top of the fence post, so you could just walk right over it.  The snow on the slide was so thick that it didn't budge very far when you went to slide down, so the boys just sorta fell off the side of the slide into the super deep snow below.  

gearing up

This was Saturday morning after about 20 hours of constant snow - it was very fluffy and light at this point... But it kept going for another 10 hours!  We did manage to pack this Plow Boulder guy together from chunks the snow plow left us.

Sledding was in slow motion since nothing had been packed down yet - but that sure changed over the next few days!

trip good list

Just as we left for the airport it started snowing for the first time all season.  It was just enough to have to de-ice the plane with a neon green solution before takeoff.  Which Way USA and the MadArt faces book kept these guys pretty well occupied.  They both get an A and it seems so much easier to travel now!

My aunt left fun presents for us since she skipped town this year - love this stone owl!  Thx! 

David gets the prize for the biggest sand wall jump - and these shots just made me smile.

Gran and Aiden found lotsa shells with the perfect holes to make some necklaces - for school valentines!

My sister (due in July!) can not make a bad smoothie - seriously she is a magician! Mine was boozy ;)

Tucked in under the covers for some extra Bionicle playtime!

This funny shark mask - danah da naah!

young at art 2

The puppet theater workshop was a huge hit for these three ham bones.  Who know how many times "Ladies and Gentleman!" was announced to introduce the show!  The boys had created a whole Wizard of Oz cast from all the recyclable materials.

Aiden remembered the huge Wave climbing structure.  They raced into it all the way to the top!  The stop motion and projection art area are a great place to chillax.  The Stomp area where they give you drum sticks to just bang on everything you see while sliding and playing was as loud as you'd expect it to be.  The technology to create your own art and shows is well integrated.  If we lived close by, I think we would live at this place.

young at art

The Young at Art Museum in Davie, FL is one of my favorite children's museum. The first area is all Alice in Wonderland themed, including a tea set with huge sugar cubes inside a huge teapot slide.  A huge loft area with the Cheshire cat's face to peek down at everyone at the "Alice's tears" water table.

Everything is artistic and very interactive.  You can tell this huge wax sculpture was something that many hands had worked on... our little bees buzzed by the hive and scraped off their share.

swim

It was the first week of chilly weather in FL, but we still got in two good swimming days.

light

Check out those sunny smiles that hiked out to the lighthouse cove.

family

Lotsa cuddles and smiles...

happy 94

Happy 94th Birthday to Great Poppy!  My mom planned all sorts of fun treats and decorations. Check out that giant ice cream cake!

contrast

Today versus the day before yesterday - climbing through snow and sand drifts and splashing in the water and snow...

more beachy

More beachy - bonus big early July 2016 news from an excited big brother! 

Those blue bubbly jelly fish showed up the windy day we left for the airport - eek!

beachy

beach hello

Hello from the beach!

little yogis

A friend is hosting a Kidding Around Yoga class at her house right down the way from us. Keaton wasn't sure if he would like it and kept very matter of fact explaining to me that he "didn't know how to yoga, what is that anyway?!" But once he was there and she had fun activities and songs for everyone, he loved it.  His favorite seemed to be the Yoga Makes Me Strong song where they made big muscles. He told the teacher that his "secret garden" was beautiful and he loved going there after her relaxing guided calm down at the end.  He came home with his puff ball that he can blow off his hand whenever he needs to take a big deep breath to relax. The best part is that all the other kids will start kindergarten with him next year, so he's getting to know familiar faces.

school is cool

The mitten tree filled up quickly full of carefully selected warm mittens, hats, and scarves for a local shelter.  The class does different service projects to learn about how important it is to help others.  They made cards for the elderly and donate to military families.

The water table was full of ice and different colors.

The boat on the playground is always a popular spot for some rocky stomping action.

Animal sorting in that giant disc everyone loves.

When they finish that month's playdoh they make creatures and let it dry. Here's Keaton's latest pokey guys.

Don't Break the Ice - play and setup!

Legos are always popular.

A special penguin snack with Keaton's favorite hard boiled egg.

Other random bits, including the office center where the phone is like a historic relic.  They all love to push real buttons!

good list

Keaton's violin class has a few more sessions, but in the mean time he's taking a new guitar class that just started.  Check out that itty bitty baby guitar his class let's him borrow... So far he's strumming a little bit of Three Blind Mice.

These guys love to play "animal tamer" games.  Here is the wolf tamer calming the wolf with a scratch under the chin...

Those fuzz oodles never get old.  Check out that cute little puppy that came to snuggle me.

Tiny little baby mittens on my needles getting ready for baby friend ;)  I'm on a mitten kick, next up are cozy striped socks.

games

The weather keeps shifting around, but we have a strong back up of games on the rainy cold days or really any day... These two new robot games are in the mix now.  The Face Race is really good at getting these guys to carefully look for things.

Playdates with Aiden's buddies have shifted and now playing long games is one of the favorite things.

Keaton loves to rock a game of Uno over lunch.

play dates

We hosted weekend play dates after starting off a new rec center class cycle (swim and guitar) which pretty much filled up our weekend. This evening crew made pizzas - half craft, half dinner ;).  They had many rounds of the silly circus ready to perform  after raiding the dress up bin.  The "tamers" worked with wolves and even owls, while the clown threw out some dancing beats.

tidbits

New haircuts and this guy sure can chit chat with his hair stylist.... He even convinced her that he needed some "cool goop" to top off his new chop.

We are staying in the sugared holiday rush around here with this tiny snowman cake (not my fault, daddy brought it home, but it had mousse filling and was tasty!) 

How long can I keep up all the smiling faces from the holiday cards?

These remote control cars are one of the biggest xmas gift hits!  They run on the same signal tho so sometimes they swap control ;)

This guy will never grow tired of Harry Potter (and his getup!) and all his drawing books.

touch tank

The touch tank inside at the Glen Echo aquarium was a definite highlight.  The boys were super brave and touched all the crabs and crawly creatures.  The crab babies were just emerging from this egg strand and they were so tiny.  We even got to see the horseshoe crab eat from its mouth in the center of its belly.

glen echo aquarium

We had a chance to check out the new aquarium at one of our favorite spots, Glen Echo Park.  They have a bunch of interactive stuff that worked well to charm both the boys. It was pretty tiny, but full of fun.  Fishing for those paper fish to identify and measure them was a big hit.

carter

Our family was adopted by an Elf on the Shelf really late in the game this year. I tried to tell the boys it was because they are well behaved. Aiden's friends were reporting their elf funny antics during sharing time at school. Aiden at first seemed genuinely creeped out by the whole concept. Makes sense that you'd be concerned about the idea of an elf creeping around your house every night?! J wasn't too thrilled with the whole police state "he's watching and reporting back" deal - ha!  But there are fun parts of searching for him each morning and he was pretty tricky.  He was first spotted hanging out in the curtain right by the piano - Aiden was convinced it must be because he wants him to do a good job practicing - definitely! So thanks for the well practiced Xmas carols Carter!  The boys quickly decided to name him Carter Alexander using their middle names ;). He even showed up in the car and took the drive to Ohio with us. Aiden said he seemed to like finding snowmen and buddies to hang out with. One day his face popped out of a cereal box and another day he was found munching choc chips in the Dutch oven.

Don't judge that crapola cereal - we treat it like dessert and it has more vitamins and fiber than cookies ;). 

Extra spot for a photo through those cool laser etches glasses that turn your lights into gingerbread men in this case! They are so fun!

doodles

Aiden spent tons of time with his sketch book over the break - Here's just a sampling from his drawing book and free hand doodles:

interview with KC

This guy ...

One word to describe you would be: 

Gross, no actually cute

Why do you like being a kid? 

Because it's fun because you have parents that can help you

If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why? 

Baby tiger because I could growl and I would have a tiger mom

Tell about a funny time in your life. 

When daddy got a big popcorn and we went to a movie and he said "oh this is my popcorn, do you want some too?"

What is your favorite thing to do? Why? 

Play, play, play cause I can't resist it!

What do you love most about your brother? 

Cause he helps me learn like even math because he knows it 

What was the nicest thing you did for someone? 

Do my chores like brush my teeth, clean up my toys, make breakfast, and other fun stuff

What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now? 

Catching robbers because I will be a police officer

What is the grossest thing you can think of? 

Eating boogers

What is your happiest memory?

When Aiden shares with me which he only does sometimes or never