school is cool

I went with Keaton's class to the planetarium at the high school (which is super fancy!) and the teacher did such a great job of getting the students engaged under that big dome.  

It was Suess week for Read Across America.  The kids made Trufulla trees from the Lorax with these big poms while I was cooping.  I made green eggs and ham for snack which were a big hit.  The kids all helped crack the eggs and only made about half the mess that you'd expect ;)   Keaton and his classmates love making themselves into signs - and this arrow was directing guests to the zoo.  Keaton and his buddy were dissecting google eyes and putting them on "microscope slides" aka. tape to examine them closer.  Ha!

tidbits

Went to see the Encore's Treasure Island which was really fun for these swashbucklers. They sang some sea shanties and there were raucous sword fights - and these guys were mesmerized.

We are finally getting outside with so many mini breaks in the weather and now it's full fledged no coat weather, and dare I say shorts weather?!

This photo of me at the bottom is a funny shot from an actual game night with couples in the neighborhood. It was raining money and I walked away with the entire pot ;)  Hah, so many memories with good people.

drawing

Aiden just started an after school cartooning class and boy does he love it!  He has been coming home with so many doodles all year, but check out the expressions he's getting out of his drawings lately ;)

brain chase

Brain Chase continues...duh, duh, duh... we have no real guesses on where the actual treasure is hidden, but we've completed some pretty cool projects.  This experiment with milk, food coloring, and a qtips of dish soap was really fun.  The molecules repel and move around as you combine all the ingredients thanks to the fat in the milk.  Then he even printed his Kadinsky like circles on paper.  The art assignment was to sculpt a bar of soap.  Aiden used all sorts of kitchen tools to make a pretty schnazzy owl.

lego night

Aiden's school hosted Lego night again this year.  15 baby pools full of legos, hundreds of duplos to build a castle, and tons of train track covered the floors... along with giddy kids digging and building and showing off their creations.  We also got to see Aiden's paper bag house creation that made it into the display case. 

super readers game

We are pretty lucky that just a few miles down the road is the arena that seats 10,000 and hosts tons of concerts and games. It's always easy to park there and get in and out.  Poor J was out with the worst cough in a long time, but we didn't want to miss this GMU basketball game because the boys had an invite to go out on the court before the game. They were hosting a "Super Readers" kid's night celebration complete with capes for kids who read a certain number of books.  Free tickets and a chance to parade around the court, yes please! We waited at the sideline right by the band that was rocking out (the band has three singers!). The boys danced around swirling their capes. The boys marched right out under the big lights and while Keaton struck a superhero pose, Aiden looked kinda shy and wide eyed. The announcer called them "representatives of all Super Readers" and I think Keaton was especially proud and wanted to explain to the security guard that he does actually read.  I was amused by the big green horned "Tuition Monster" by the college savings plan sponsors. Our number was picked by the golden tickets and we won the fuzzy warm bomber hat, and since they won the game everyone got Mason bobble heads.  The game was like a big party with favors ;)

spirit snow

It was Suess week and in honor of Read Across America both boys had special spirit days.  Mustache day in honor of the Lorax where we dug up the mustache shirt and sharpied a pencil stache on Aiden's finger.  Dress like a Suess character where Aiden wore his old AFYP Suess Adventures shirt and some Horton ears.

I finished this shawl scarf in this cool vintage stitch called the Venetian Plait.  It was a knit along with my friend and I'm really happy with it.

Today was the best kind of snow day! School was on since it stuck only to the trees and grass!

pool n yoga

My view from the pool with lotsa visits with two lessons a week with Keaton and one with Aiden (who just passed two levels in one class!). These guys are both swimming for realz now.  The pool will be even more fun this summer.

The yogi toes at the weekly Kidding Around Yoga were expanded this past week when all the big sibs had another day off from school for Election Day.  

bunny fest

You know what goes well with giant inflatable bunnies?! Bunny masks, balloons, ice cream and giant light brites! 

Hey kid, you have a red ninja on your back!

giant bunnies

Yards Park was hosting a mini fest to celebrate the arrival of this art installation of giant blow up bunnies. It was bright and sunny and giant bunnies seem to make everyone smile.

school is cool

So many moments from the preschool photo roll lately... Highlights as always are movement and music class, block center,   and the playground (where you were the wagon puller with two kids riding over the bumpy snow). You loved pajama day and started a back scratching lineup.  You love creating an "office" with a roof and desk for your keyboard and phone.  You love talking about space and making a jet pack to wear.  You love the new "very official" sign in sheet where you write your whole name.  You loved bringing in your violin to share with the class on my cooping day.

brain chase

We are on Brain Chase Week 2 and the adventure is even better this time around.  In addition to an online "writing teacher" that sends you feedback on your different writing samples, they added art and engineering challenges.  The art instructor the first week taught them about shading to draw an egg (Aiden worked on his for a long time to get it just right).  The engineering instructor asked them to create a "bouncy egg" by experimenting with what happens when you submerge an egg in vinegar.  After many squishes ours burst leaving its membrane shell, which the boys thought was pretty cool.  The second week he experimented with creating a paper airplane he could control and creating a collage out of old magazines.  He was pretty pumped by his final product and very first collage.  The clues in the videos he's figured out so far use a special decoder ring that twists.  It's pretty cool!

reptiles

The toy shop we used to frequent was hosting a reptile show (just after swim/ guitar and time for brunch at Orso) and the boys were pumped.  They asked for brave adults at the end of the show to hold that giant snake.  J jumped at the chance and was in the "danger job" close to his head, although the mom at the end was getting "hugs" and had to pry his curled tail off her arm. Ah!

thaw

The valentine's candy is all gobbled up and the last snowzilla piles are finally fading away (although that big snow pile ice chunk is still there, but about half the size).   The boys and their buddies were outside without coats playing in the squishy yard.  The thaw might not last through the spring, but we'll take it!

snow day

It's easy to forget that Tuesday this week was a snow day after a Monday holiday, because the rest of the week was 50/60 degrees!  But here is the snow from the snow day - and if we'd had a snow day for this amount of snow in Ohio we wouldn't have ever been in school during the winter. But it was just enough to enjoy some sledding and not quite enough to make shoveling a task, but plenty to enjoy an excuse for a warm cocoa when we came back inside.

school is cool

Keaton's class visited the post office (same field trip Aiden went on back in the day) to see the big sorting machines and everything behind the scenes. Keaton kept imitating the noisy post office that says grbrrrrtt!

Feelings week at school meant that the teacher took photos of all the kids looking happy and sad and they made posters describing those moments. The angle of these photos makes them look like caricatures!

More play with the old school keyboards, playdoh, potato heads, and a sensory table full of colorful noodles!

good list

It was coooold around here, so we cozied up at the movies with our buddy Devin and Snoopy ;)  

The Puppy Bowl followed by the Kitten Bowl was a huge hit around here on Super Bowl Sunday!  

Aiden is hooked on drawing and animating with Javascript in Khan Academy lately and he made a program to look just like his new BeanyBoo puppy.  

Keaton gets in some playtime with his future kindergarten buddies every week.  It will be great for them to know so many familiar faces in the fall.

little loving hands

Our second Little Loving Hands box arrived a bit ago, and it was three crafts this time!  While Aiden was busy doing the bead weaving flag keychain which he knew how to do, Keaton glued together all the cutout pieces for the military solider man card.  Then both boys were excited to put on some plastic gloves and get to work on the tie dye bandana. Thankfully, they concentrated on not making a mess ;)  The next morning it was dry and ready to pack up for Our Military Kids to send to the children of deployed soldiers.

love bugs

Our neighborhood Valentine's party is put on by the Mom's Club and I was on the party planning committee this time around. The theme was Love Bugs and we sponsored the nearby nature center to come with live bugs for the kids to "cuddle." The boys were so brave carefully picking up the shiny beetles and they even convinced me to hold the long millipede.  We had a bunch of bug crafts: a heart caterpillar card, beetle balloons full of beans and rice, a toilet paper tube ladybug puppet, and a butterfly magnet clip (which I organized).  The kids also decorated their own cupcakes and enjoyed lotsa treats!  The dance party led by my super fun friend was a highlight for Aiden. He had his face painted like a love puppy and Keaton wanted a dragonfly (since that is his class at school).

valentines

The boys kicked off the long weekend with their Valentine's parties at school.  Keaton's class calls it a "Feelings Party" after spending the week talking about all sorts of feelings and then explaining what love is and how you show it. Aiden's class collects gift card donations and then they go around surprising support staff with them along with other "random acts of kindness" - which seems like a great way to spread the love! - and then they celebrate with cherry 7up ice cream floats, a heart pencil craft, and a funny game where they tried to unwrap a Hershey kiss with big mittens on.

They pass out valentine treats they have all worked really hard to write everyone's names and their own name on (which was 15 kids plus four teachers for Keaton and 25 kids plus two teachers for Aiden).  They put together shell necklaces with Gran in FL (thx! "Shell we be Valentine's?") and found these fun valentines with punch out animal glasses (Aiden's wearing the tiger below).  Out of the big pile they received, I think Keaton's favorite was the Oreo cake pop and Aiden's the candy watch. My favorite was the sweet and thoughtful letter Aiden carefully crafted for me - it even had a lift tab to prove he is my kid and knows what I like ;)

love

holiday flashback

Before I cleared the hundreds of little snippet videos off my phone from the holiday season, I put together this little movie on IMovie.  Aiden's been asking about when the next "Brennan Bros trailer" would be out ;)  So here's a Flashback Friday coming at ya:
Holiday Season 2015 from LB on Vimeo.

sci center

The Experiment Bar had a full menu of new choices including DIY snow and snow slime.  Watching the snow particles grow brought out lotsa smiles.  Aiden built a really well balanced hoverboard for the wind tunnel.  The faux DJ record player with the big imagination blue blocks was a favorite.  They had a tabletop electron microscope and both the boys had a chance to try it out on a shark tooth and a butterfly wing.

interview with KC

One word to describe you would be: 

Cutest

Why do you like being a kid? 

Because you can play with your daddy and mommy

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

Baby cheetah because I could protect myself when I'm sleeping because I'd look like a honey badger 

Tell about a funny time in your life. 

When Aiden took on of his cookie and put it behind his back at Zoe's Kitchen and he said "hey mommy, we're missing a cookie!"

What is your favorite thing to do? Why? 

Play ninja turtles because they are actually half shelf heroes that are fun to play with

What do you love most about your brother? 

When he helps me do stuff like turn on the light

What was the nicest thing you did for someone? 

Clean up my toys

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

Diving into the water so I can be a scuba diver and see animals from the seas that I've never seen before, and I can find lotsa coral and sea treasure

What is the grossest thing you can think of? 

Poop

What is your happiest memory?

The field trip today when we went to the post office and we saw the machine that went really fast - pzzzrrwww!

good list

I'll never know what it is about February, but it's kinda a bummer month, isn't it?  I feel like maybe there is too much little stuff going on that distracts from the regular routine or just piles it on... It's been a notorious month in the past with furnaces breaking and other huge irritations. This month it's just a bunch of little stuff and I should feel grateful so far... but it would be nice if the electrician figures out what's going on with our downstairs lights constantly going out.

I'm helping organize the neighborhood Valentine's Party this weekend.  It's all about "love bugs" and we even have someone from the nature center coming with bugs the kids can hold ;)  We have tons of craft kits to put together before then... This butterfly magnet clip for hanging up kid art etc was designed by Aiden, my helper.

We are moving into the last month stretch with Destination Imagination.  The kids have a full script and they are working on props/scenery.  

GoNoodle continues to be a great energy release for the boys.  The online games, dancing, and funny songs help the kids unlock these funny characters.  They send these funny certificates, like this for Chris Shabob - Hooray for Filet!

The Odd Squad show is a huge hit in our house.  This freeze screen made me laugh because I think each of the kids has an expression that some of us parents had after almost two full weeks of school called off due to weather and holidays - and then they called a delayed start the morning they were supposed to go back!  I felt lucky that my boys were on the good list during that whole bonus break.

first violin recital

Keaton had his first violin recital on Saturday, and everyone was proud.  He was hoping they would be "in a big special room," but he was excited to show off his program. It is pretty amazing how much he learned since the start of the class in the fall.  He has the perfect "marshmallow hand" bow grip and he keeps his impossibly small violin balanced (learning the basics of violin seems tricky to me! J deserves big credit for practicing with him nearly all the time and keeping the patience train moving!) 

They played 7 different songs and I put together a little compilation of the 30 minutes for you on this video.  They do a little routine to move from rest position to playing position - feet apart, sway, slide, tap, statue of liberty (violin in the air), dot on your neck, ready.  I think my favorite was that they bowed after each song.

KC's 1st violin recital from LB on Vimeo.

Ms. Claire's class started with six kids, but only three made it to the end - Here's the persistent crew:

year of the monkey

Happy Chinese New Year from these monkeys!  It's the year of the monkey!

We caught the dragon dances to kick off the Chinese New Year Celebration at Fair Oaks.

wubble

Almost forgot about this fun bit from Florida - Thanks to Lulu for sharing this glow in the dark wubble bubble.  That thing is nearly indestructible!

flashback friday

2013:

2016:

Young at Art Museum, Davie, Florida

this guy

Oh, Mr. Blue Googles, show us how you really feel...