apples

The field trip to the apple farm was a hit this time around.  The farm was slightly closer to school and it was the perfect day for a trip to the farm.  The apples were plentiful (unlike last time when they were picked out and the only ones were over on the other side of a creek).  The fun included a bumpy hay ride, a big hill slide, and a bounce pillow.  It was especially fun for our little brother tag along.

cuddles and cameras

My weekend was full of cuddles and cameras.  Doesn't get much better than that!  My boys enjoyed a guy's weekend full of playgrounds and new action figures in the dirt.  

Thanks to my dad, aka second shooter, for all his help with the wedding - I have hundreds of photos to play with now from a rainy, yet beautiful wedding day!

I miss my cuddle bug nephew already!  Paging Dr. Cameron, the mini surgeon:

abc buddies

I love these brothers - our little brother and their big and little brothers have had lotsa chances to play during the school day.  Here's to more chances to fine tune their Abc melody (wish I had the first run though recorded since they veered off track on this snippet)

storytime

We have a new favorite storytime that is outside in my favorite shopping area, the Mosaic.  This particular time the first story was Crictor. I missed a shot of Keaton being asked up to peak in the box that held the snake. She asked him what it was and he said "a blanket!"  They then counted camels in a story about a Sultan, and had an entire version of Brown Bear with big cutouts.  Mr. Sharky Shoes loved the songs this time too. 

creature power

We went over to our favorite nature center for an afternoon.  Those costumes are always a hit.  But this visit Aiden was all about talking about all the "creature powers" a la Wild Kratts, his favorite show.  My two brothers wish they were those Chris and Martin guys ;)

weeee

Sliding into another weeeeekend!  TGIF!

brothers

Still finding plenty of time to get some good brother time during the school year.

snow white

It was a Snow White Ice Cream Dance party for Aiden with some of his old and new classmates to celebrate his friend Ella's birthday.  The stomp rockets and castle decorating were a treat in their enchanted forest.  They couldn't have ordered a better day for a backyard party.  

dulles day

The bouncy houses were as big as the planes!  Keaton kept up with his big brother with lotsa brotherly encouragement to get to the top of the big slide.  The police had some extra uniforms for their new team miniature squad members.  There were miniature planes that looked especially small next to the huge planes out on the runway.  There was also a whole section of old cars, and Aiden just loves an all red interior.  My favorite event was the Pull a Truck they had set up for the kiddos.  Aiden was really excited that he managed to get the dump truck rolling with the help of his team - They are cheered to kick it off and Keaton ran away because his cranky hungry belly was in charge. Aiden made sure everyone got a big jumping high five afterward.  We got some good 'ol fair food for lunch while listening to the band.

plane pull

It was a perfect day for the Dulles Plane Pull, which is a charity fundraiser where teams compete to see how fast they can pull an airplane tug-o-war style.  The event is essentially the coolest Touch a Truck you can imagine with wings and propellers!  It runs the entire length of the runway that they close off at the far end of the airport.  There is also a huge kids zone - more pics coming soon from that!

big build

In my role as room parent at Aiden's school I'm in charge of getting parents together and helping out new families in the class.  I planned an event at the library meeting room I named the Big Build.  We had a massive number of cool recyclables - boxes, bottles, toilet paper rolls that were transformed into robots, rocket ships, and instruments. The boys bounced around excited for two hours and it was nice to meet some new parents.

stories

This was the first storytime with just Keaton since Aiden was at school.  He took over his brother's eagerness to volunteer to participate.  Since all of the big kids were off at school, there were a bunch of little kids that were much more timid.  So that lucky duck got to volunteer a bunch of times to come up and be the wheels on the bus, a monkey that hides from the crocodile, a giraffe that bumps books off the library shelf.  He was equally excited to see his buddy and his new little brother.  I think Keaton may love baby toes as much as I do.

sharky

This sharky guy is a super fun playground buddy!  Love the cooler mornings - hope they come back again soon!

closing

We took our self proclaimed dogs over to the doggie dip to close out the pool season.  Most of the dogs were more interested in chasing each other around the deck rather than swimming, but some were learning.  The wet dog smell eventually chased us away.  We went out for Ethiopian food which left all our bellies full of injera...for days.  Aiden wasn't thrilled with the yeasty bread so he just kept chewing and chewing - ick!

oxon

This is a spot that we'd been meaning to check out since hearing about it a while ago.  We arrived to Oxon Hill Farm tucked away off a busy road and the parking lot was empty.  Aiden then declared that it must be boring, but oh boy was he wrong.  This was a pretty cool national park spot which had airplanes and helicopters frequently overhead. We arrived as they were getting ready to milk the cows in the dairy barn.  The park ranger said that Aiden was going to try to take his job once he got the hang of milking Minnie the cow.  Keaton took his turn milking the calm cow with a huge smile on his face.  Outside the dairy barn Aiden found giant leaves with fuzzy backs that he wanted to bring for show and tell.  Then we trotted back up to the kid's corner in the visitor's center for some coloring and playing with farm toys while we waited to feed the farm animals.  We started out inside the chicken coop where the chickens were excited to see us sprinkle some corn around for them.  The ranger was trying to teach the kids the difference between roosters and hens.  When she asked which one was a boy KC jumped up and said "Me!" Then the kids collected eggs from the coop to take over to feed the pigs.  A bunch of kids and park ranger yelping swoooweee and throwing eggs into a pig pen is amusing.  Then the kids tried their best underhand toss to get corn to the yelpy goose and ducks.   Farmers Aiden and Keaton were feeling pretty tuckered out. 

a summery saturday

Every other Saturday Daddy is teaching part of the day, so it's just the boys and I out finding fun... very reminiscent of summer days.  At the Home Depot Kid's Workshop, we managed to nail together and paint (which is a big optional step that Keaton was very happy he is big enough to handle on his own and he kept oohing with excitement) our football ring tosses without Daddy's help - and I only have a small blood blister on my finger from Keaton's hammering job - ha, I wish I was kidding! The boys were very sweet with each other even holding hands as they strutted proudly in their aprons filled with project buttons - they must have missed each other this week because they are acting all sweet like they did at the beginning of the summer.  Then we were off to P B & Jack for their Roll with It Saturday which happened to include face painting.  Then Batman and Flash (whose face melted away after over handling) were excited to head over to the Mantuapalooza at the pool club for the all day line up of bands and swim team candy sales - did you know they make nerds rope?  I thought those were funny ;)

new schedule

We are still trying to figure out our perfect school morning schedule.  We did some chalking at home one morning when we were ahead of schedule.  It was the first morning of a normal start time, so I wasn't quite sure when to leave.  It turns out that our trip took about half the time I expected, so we had about 15 minutes before carpool started to visit the park.  I'm feeling grateful that our "commute" is about ten minutes even in the height of traffic.  A relief!

creating

Aiden created a page for his class family album with things he enjoys doing with his family.  I like that hug is on there and wearing costumes makes me laugh.  KC did some of his own crafting with some dot painting. He's also very interested in the potty so we've been sticking around here using the potty a lot!  There are schnazzy big boy underpants involved.

laborious

Our Labor Day was spent eating breakfast out at First Watch (where I was hoping the pumpkin pancakes would be out for the season, but no dice).  Then we headed to Jammin Java for the Rocknoceros show (their set included a new song called Ohio!)

Somewhere along the way the day went from glorious to laborious, and we decided to take the boys fishing.  It was a glorious spot to just visit the water and toss some rocks.  But our fishing rod became miserably broken and we weren't fully prepared to sit IN the gentle bubbly brook like KC wanted to...add in a fear of poison ivy, sharp rocks, and little fish that kept swiping our bait and it was a bit laborious for a Labor Day.  But all is well that ends well and it did qualify as an adventure...and it was pretty down there by the creek.

fire and ice

After a really successful first day back (new friends! new work! new books! And even a new traffic block set! school is cool. I even kicked off my room parent responsibilities on the welcome wagon with pumpkin muffins.) and a trip to use our summer reading Rita's Ice certificate to celebrate, a fiery fever first set in for KC and then hit Aiden.  So far it is nothing a little Motrin won't fix, and since Aiden's school has a split start he has a built in sick day before his first full day with the whole class on Thursday. So we are cuddled up relaxing away this bug... bring on the Wild Kratts...