93rd bday

Happy 93rd Birthday to Poppy!  

sailing

One of the highlights on the FL trip is always taking a fun and relaxing sail with my aunt and uncle.  This year they had a new boat with so much luxurious space for all of us.  The boys took a tour of each of the three spacious beds on board.  Then Keaton picked one to promptly fall asleep on and Cameron and Aiden followed him shortly after.  The bounce of the sailboat is just so, so relaxing!  The costumes are always good entertainment, but this year we snuck on a little crafting in the open air too.  Our four hours out on the water flew by...

Thanks to Captain Scott and Lulu for the wonderful sail!

fl video

Keaton was talking about "making a movie called the Adventures of Keaton in Florida" while talking to his dad on the phone before we headed home to our snowy VA. So today he helped me pick out this pirate theme and the snippet videos he calls the "best of the best"… So here are Tales from Florida:
Tales From Florida from LB on Vimeo.

insta fl

More FL instagrams:::

The prompt was "friends" -

Even pirates have friends - Sailing with these pirates was fun and surprisingly relaxing...

Trying to make a new friend with the dock iguana 

Gumby loves Pokey

The prompt today was "red" - here are my random red shots that captured a bit of our day.

Looking for more red leaves and flowers

The FL Science Center was a hit... More coming soon.

splash

The prompt for the #captureplay photo challenge today was Splash!  I couldn't pick just one photo from today...such a fun time at #covecrazytown2015 with #cousinbuddies!

tidbits

This week's tidbits are brought to you with a side of over 1,100 photos edited, an out of town trip for dad, a snow day, and 6 tours given during the preschool open house… whoosh.  

This guy has the trifecta of dog pillow pet products he's always dreamed of!  That initial pillow pet was given to him right after Keaton was born and he cherishes it.  The smaller one is a dreamlite that projects that same cute dog mug on the ceiling every night (he prefers it in blue, not rotating).  And to wear those same guys on your feet as slippers…woah doggie!  Excitement I tell you.

We hosted a playdate with some of Keaton's school buddies.  The cutest was the nice sharing on the piano, which was tuned and is in really nice shape!  We are so lucky our neighbor passed it along for a new generation to play.

Mr. Bubble and his marker cap fingers…

I Spy with My Little Eye Fox jammies… It's going to be a sad day when they don't fit in matching jams.

This Beta skating guy does almost all of his lesson exercises backwards now.  It's amazing how these noodle kids catch on to all the moves.

Not sure where Aiden got the idea for a quote of the day, but this one is pretty classic.  This is what you get when you ask dad about puberty… Keaton was wondering what a bikini was?

Keaton started with a really great, new to us instructor at swim class.  She keeps them all happy and this giggle guy comes out of the pool to warm up at the end.

games

Another day off from school for a powder sugar dusting of snow on well treated, nearly dry roads... I'll take it!  And we still made it to piano lessons and picked up donuts - the best type of snow day is when you aren't actually trapped at home!

We have really been swimming in games new and old during our extra together time!  Here are some of the new favorites:

This Creature Clash deal is great because it fits well with the Mish Mash Animal Challenge for the Destination Imagination team we are hosting.  It's also a great math game.

This create a story game is super fun for both the boys.  My favorite part is hearing the stories created by the winner.

Another fun animal mixup game...we used this in a create your own game challenge at a recent DI meeting.

This pirate memory game also incorporates a scope decoder and a sword for balancing the cards you hunt for when you make a match.

A new wimpy kid tie in game where you try to guess who answered what to funny questions like what's the best superpower...

The lego games take up tons of time which is usually a good thing on our calm cuddle days... This one has a Minotaur that chases you around.

This medieval castle is perfect for improvised games.

Making puzzle matches with babies and their mamas...

Both boys were immediately attracted to building shapes with these building discs (I still don't really know what they are called - amazon has something called 'slot-together translucent building toy' and Lakeshore called them 'crystal climbers' but those names seem so generic).

There was a lot of Sequence because it's fun for all of us and Keaton really gets it.

The ninja den building and training was in full effect around here.  Even notes on the board for official business.

natural history

We treked to the Natural History Museum. The draw was a Q'rius program called Genes in a Bottle.  We collected some DNA from our mouth, used a solution to clump it together, and put it in a funny little vial necklace.  We poked around the research collections and the rest of the Ocean and Mammals floors.

tidbits

It's been chilly around here… After three two hours school delays and one day off for the cold, when we finally got out and about we naturally had to order milkshakes and stop in for some frozen yogurt… of course...

We've been lingering at places like Target where we found some comfy mini chairs and new crayon machine attachment.

We had a very generous neighbor offer their baby grand piano for free!  We had it delivered on a chilly day off.  It looks so nice surrounded by all our other musical instruments.  I gave away my loom to another neighbor that can show it far more love than I can (since I got my editing job just a bit after finally getting it set up, it was inevitable that it wasn't going to be used as often as I'd like given the real estate it took up!)  She was ecstatic and I was amazed at how many people were interested in it.  So now that real estate has the piano which is one step in making our downstairs living room a little fancier too.

I hung up my new copper mobile my parents gave me for xmas in the kitchen. Thx G/P! I love watching it create these cool moving patterns on the wall.  Easily amused around here lately…

Keaton helped mix up some tasty pumpkin spice waffles.  Aiden helped eat them while working on his new favorite Highlights Which Way USA challenges.

snow

After a dicey snowy morning when school was in session, we had a two hour delay followed by a full day off (too cold to start buses) followed by another two hour delay...  The winter started off slowly and we were even on bikes last Sunday because it was so mild... But now it's on! Just getting to the bus stop is a snowball flying, slip sliding adventure. We snuck in a little sledding when the temps rose a bit but it was still pretty cold.  Daredevil Keaton insisted on slidding down himself, which mostly worked out (I'd read that kids are actually safest riding on their own because they don't get squashed by the other person).

brothers

Some TGIF cuddles from before little brother came down with the croup this week… here he is sharing some germs ;)  Stay healthy everyone!

first shave

This Superman Shave Kit from Christmas was a big hit.  The boys and J were laughing while working on their first shave.  Keaton was especially concerned when Dad would critique his technique and tell him he would cut himself - He looked at us like we were nuts to give him something dangerous!  There wasn't anything sharp involved just the cutest faux razor on the smoothest little boy faces.  Aiden said at the end, "I think I smell like Man!"

tidbits

Closing out the photos from our Ohio extravaganza… We miss everyone!  Thanks all around for having us and keeping everyone happy for that long visit!

My folks took all three boys for Jand I to enjoy a double date night with my sister and brother-in-law!  Woot!  This is what we look like after some Jeni's ice cream (rum ball and askinosie dark chocolate for me!) and about ten different small plates at Grove Hill including my favorite duck confit paprikash.  We even brought some milkiest milk chocolate jeni's home to share.

We create lotsa ornaments from salt dough and even this glass ornament set that my mom found. Below are Aiden's snowman and penguin.

We made a quick stop at the Guitar Riot in the outskirts of Cleve… trying to find treats for J in OH ;)

I had a chance to meet up with old friends twice.  Here are some smiles outside of Tommy's in Coventry.

My mom and Aiden worked really hard on this tiny little foam snow house.

This funny guy with his Red Robin red balloon.

The helpers at the food giveaway at my parent's church were pretty enthusiastic.  I'm grateful that Aiden gets a chance to learn about how to help others from my parent's faithful example.

hippo for xmas

As an early birthday treat to my mom, here is our montage set to I Want a Hippopotamus for Xmas 2014 - Happy Birthday to the original Hippo connoisseur!

Hippopotamus for Xmas 2014 from LB on Vimeo.

art museum

A morning hop over to the Cleve Art Museum for a nice lunch in the atrium with some smiley guys.  The armor hall is still a favorite.  The guys all gravitated towards the windows all over the place.  The selfies by the xmas tree covered in origami were funny.

science center

The  G reat L akes Science Center is a good setup for Aiden - easy to read signs that give you enough info to understand what you're looking at that Aiden enjoys actually reading…  but also enough hands on stuff to just marvel at for Keaton.  They also have a fun area called the Polymer Play area full of fun stuff for the smaller crew.  We started out with the Panda movie on the Omnimax screen and then made it to the Big Science Show.  They should rename is the liquid nitrogen show because they do lotsa tricks like freeze a banana and pop caps… then the grand finale which is a huge liquid nitrogen cloud from a big tub full and hot water poured into it.  

pen glen 2

The second part of our visit to the Pen Glen included the Wild Days scavenger hunt which insures you see every display in the house.  The fun craft this year was to make a "smorenament" which was really cute.  Keaton was taking very good care of all the animals while his brother covered all the bases.

interview with KC

Starting with Keaton the same tradition I started with Aiden - also at three years, eight months:

One word to describe you would be: 

Santa?!

Why do you like being a kid?

No reason, everybody knows, I like toys that's why!

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

I like dinosaurs, I think I would be one of those bird dinosaurs

Tell about a funny time in your life. 

When the lid popped (during the science show)

What is your favorite thing to do? Why? 

Not even cooler, because I'm just sitting on my head right now

What do you love most about your sibling? 

Nothing, I do not know a thing, but I think it is he shares toys with me

What was the nicest thing you did for someone? 

Clean up my toys for mommy

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

Hopping upside down, like this!

What is the grossest thing you can think of?

I do not like yucky things like picking your nose!

What is your happiest memory? 

Playing with my daddy!

pen glen 1

Our annual trek to the wonderful winter days game board at the Pen Glen…  They switched it up this year and added fun facts about things like honey, apples, maple syrup, campfires, snow cones, and pies… The whole setup is on top of a candy land like game board and it's really well done.   The board ends at a fun towering slide.

voracious

Here is a year in review of a bunch of the books that Aiden voraciously devoured in 2014~  

I was looking back on the previous checkouts list from our library account and I realized that it would be fun to remember some of his favorites from this past year.  I asked him for a quick review too ;)

Magic Treehouse series

So many different books and there is nothing that is the same about them except for Jack and Annie - they are in all the books - but in each one you learn something new because it's set in a different place.

My Life As A… Books by Tashjian

These books were a little boring at times but I thought it was fun to think about the idea of being a joke or a book.

Who Was/Is Books

You say you want to learn about any famous person in history?  Read any of the books in this series.

Super Grammar by Preciado

It's great at turning grammar into a fun action packed book!

Sir Cumference series by Neuschwander

Faaaaantaaaastiic!  Great at giving you math, like Pi and other mathy things like that.

Almost Super by Jensen

Greatest superhero book of all time - that I've read!  I can't wait for the next one to come out - Searching for Super - on January 20, 2015!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid series 

The best books of all time!  Hillllaaariiiious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  For example, one of the Wimpy Kid's most strictest rules was never let my little brother borrow my underpants under any circumstance - because once his little brother took his underpants and wore them!

Origami Yoda series

The second best books of all time! It's cool seeing what Star Wars characters you can make out of origami.

Geronimo Stilton series

Take back what, I said on the Origami Yoda - These are the second best books!  Origami is third!  I especially like all the times that Geronimo is clumsy or scared or any of his other emotions.

Better Nate Than Ever and Five, Six, Seven, Nate! by Federle

The fourth best books of all time!  I like the character in the play he was trying to get into.

Hank the Cowdog by Erickson

Hank's sidekick Drover is such a funny guy when he's dreaming (or scared).

Edgar and Ellen series by Ogden

Come to think of it, these characters are quite smart, because how could they figure out all the pranks that they can do?!

Nerd Camp by Weissman

It has a moral in the story unlike most chapter books - Don't try to act like other people - Be you!

Harry Potter

They tie with the Wimpy Kid books for best books of all time!  I like the spells that the wizards and witches can do.

Rufus series by Estes

These are kinda hard to remember which may be a bad sign.  

Moomintrolls by Jansson

It's amazing seeing how far the journey is that some people may go on just to protect their family or shelter.  Moomintrolls explains this!

Fake Mustache by Angleberger

Whatever you do, unless you are an evil mastermind, do not wear this mustache!

Dorko, Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies, etc by Andrea Beaty

Dorko: The bunny is so cute in it.  

Attack: Mind controlling cute giant bunnies with blackened rumps!?  Now I've heard everything!

Jake Drake series by Andrew Clements

Eh, they were…good.  Jake Drake has to be smart to figure out how to bust the bullies in the Bully Buster book.

Hippomobile by Jeff Tapia

I still have no idea why they call it a Hippomobile?!

Paddle to the Sea by Holling

It has a wooden guy in a canoe. 

NERDS - M is for Mama's Boy by Buckley

It's amazing that these spies can operate just out of their school basement!

Lulu's Mysterious Mission by Viorst

The story of Lulu continues in this book where Lulu is trying to do her best to become a spy by being taught by her babysitter.

new years party

We rang in the New Year at my folks' house with a bunch of their very old dear friends.  It's always nice to see familiar faces.  The boys were really excited by the giant chocolate cake and lotsa treats.  Keaton cheerfully asked around 10:30pm to go to bed - hugs and kisses and he was out for the night (lotsa noisemakers at 12 didn't even wake him up). Cam and crew had to call it a night early too. Aiden was especially excited to play games and Catch Phrase turned out to be the perfect game for our big crowd.  Aiden didn't realize he was even getting the chance to stay up until midnight until about 15 minutes left in 2014.  He was like a jumping bean when we turned on the ball drop.  He kept asking me as the confetti fell if it was "really happening right now LIVE?!"  (He's used to me DVRing it and watching it with them the next morning).  It was a nice way to ring in 2015 - Thanks G and P!

happy 2015

Happy New Year!

May your 2015 be filled with wonder!