pen glen

Flashback to our visit to Peneteniary Glen's giant candy land-esque board and nature center... This year with the whole Krpata crew and a whole bunch of other people, but it's still a mini tradition and the hot cocoa is still available to chillax by the stuffed bear and his scat. Yep, gotta love Pen Glen.

more renwick

The Renwick was a big feast for the camera, although I wish I was able to capture even more of the boy's reactions at all the Wonder. This deconstructed tree was created from tiny pieces of stacked wood and some of the pieces could move.

The rope art was amazing and almost looked like air vapor were it crossed.  The room with the huge wire net was bigger than a football field and the lights changes and alternated.  The entire room was full of bean bags and people laying on their backs watching the show.

This mini maze was made from swaying walls of woven cut tire and rubber.  This pink room looked like it had wallpaper made from dry bugs and other natural materials.

renwick

The reopening of the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery has been a big hit.  The buzz was that the Wonder exhibit was well worth a visit and it was even more awesome in person.  The different exhibitions each took over the room it was housed in and the use of materials was amazing.  

Those white natural looking sculptures are made from stacked paper cards!

This artist created a stick pod at Brown many years ago, and this one was just as neat to explore.  One of the coolest parts of the exhibits was how you could get right up next to them.

The artist that created this Chesapeake Bay watershed inspired creation of glass beads is from Toledo, Ohio.  The glass marbles crawled all over the walls and even up to the ceiling.  That chandelier was very interactive and the lights created a show.

nye

A festive low key, kid countdown party topped off the year.  Your last meal of the year should always be served on big gold star plates, right?!  ;)  The guys played guitar while the kids had fun playing and trying to eat all the treats.  We brought Sugar Shack donuts to add to the cookie brownies the boys made. We counted down London time with the Netflix countdown with Peabody and Sherman - cute business with these kids holding those fancy cups.

good list

More goodies to top off the year...Happy New Year!

I knit these mittens with some alpaca yarn. I call them the wishbone mittens because that inverted cable looks like a wishbone.

Werewolf teeth lollipops off Gran's fabulous stocking treat tree - thx!

Visiting some houses with their light show set to music was fun on a balmy Dec evening in OH.  This one even had vignettes from the Elf movie.

Keaton Jr. made the trip to Ohio with us and took over the old semi-abandoned counter chair and some antlers.

My favorite ecard was from the Smithsonian and this snowy otter guy.

Trying to get photos with all the cousin buddies and their grandparents and the outtakes are the best part.

This tiny electric violin makes it so easy and Keaton said he wanted to practice this one all the time.

Crafts with Gran included these cute ornaments with all the cousin's initials.

good list

Happy Anniversary to G&P!  That deserves a spot on the good list today ;)

These smiley guys are super goof troops when you put the camera in selfie mode.

The dancing Santa hat at G&P's makes everyone smile.

This guy asked for lotsa books from Santa and he sure did deliver with some major box sets - including these Wings of Flight.

Wrapping boxes like animals - does it get any cuter?!

What could make a wubble bubble ball even cooler?! Making it semi buoyant with helium!  Thx Billy and crew for helping us get it floating ;)

tidbits

Some flashback bits to just over a week ago... 

I volunteered for Aiden's winter party where they crafted snow globes and pine cone bird feeders.  Then they swapped groups and played all sorts of minute to win it type games including this present stacking relay.

That last day before break was pajama day, and it was an early release day.  Aiden came home and built this radio kit he'd received for his birthday - pretty cool!

That weekend we were invited to Aiden's piano teacher's house for a neighborhood singalong. She'd asked Aiden to play Rudolph for everyone to sing to and he got it up to singing speed (fast!) and had fun playing it for the crew. They also asked him to sing a little solo for the Three Kings song - that kid is so brave and soloed off the cuff!  Her front porch had this surfing Santa to greet everyone.

xmas day

So much excitement on Xmas morning!  Favorite gifts: Aiden = Minecraft stop motion video studio / Keaton = Ogre guy / Cam = Paw Patrol Chase. The wine bottle wooden puzzle kept us busy passing it around and randomly solving it and resetting even after the wine was set free ;) Aidenini the Magician added some new tricks to his show.  The ornament exchange was a hit again with a whole crew of stuffed Star Wars guys being a big hit.  Legos and Imaginext galore to keep the matchy sweater boys occupied all afternoon.

xmas eve

So many memories of this really warm Christmas in Ohio!   If we weren't setting out luminaries and wearing matching jammies we might not realize it's Xmas eve ;). My uncle has this giant set of hot wheels track and a huge set of orange ping pong balls that kept Cam the orange lover very happy!  Thx!

chagrin falls

Chagrin Falls was hopping right before the holiday with the really nice weather.  We had some lunch, visited the bookstore, and had plenty of treats from the popcorn shop and Jeni's ice cream - yum salted peanut butter with chocolate flecks.

ninjabread

Ninjabread cookies - Hiya!  High kicks for some really yummy honey molasses cookies!

art bday

Happy early birthday to my 65 years young mom!  We had an art party for our favorite crafty lady and everybody made some seriously fun acrylic paintings.  Aiden, Keaton, and Cameron even got in on the action and their favorite was the blow dryer action.

merry

These merry guys wish you a very happy Christmas and even better New Year!

gingerbread

Merry Xmas Eve!  

Glamour shots of the gingerbread house 2015 - the top right is how Aiden poses for a glamour shot - ha!

peeps

One of the favorite spots at the Harbor: Peeps!

harbor

A very sunny afternoon visiting the National Harbor's giant tree and Gaylord's dancing fountain and choo choo under the origami tree.

school is cool

Playing with hid final woodworking project - a plane that was finally finished off with some duct tape - ha!

Wild eyes are excited to finally eat his graham cracker house.

Cool Kaleidoscopes in the science center!

Drums at music class!

The big barn is very popular this month.

Art with tape is fun!

Housekeeping corner continues to be a favorite - Keaton loves his pretend tea and asking for seasoning for his meat ;)

Peek-a-boo is the reading corner.

science wizard

A fun present from the Brennan's (Thanks!) that Keaton had on his wish list. It's a science kit "just for wizards" where he made a wand with squishy crystals and did all sorts of color change experiments.  All of us enjoyed it!

tidbits

We had fun exchanging gifts with the cousins after they came to see Aiden's show - Thanks!  It was fun to see the kids all drawing pictures together.

It's been so unseasonably warm, we rode bikes in tshirts like it was early fall and wasn't the middle of December.

Gifts galore to pass along to appreciative, very deserving teachers (a feast prepared by contributions from the whole class) and min bundt cakes to spread some holiday cheer.

These light up, blowup guys have been greeting us at the door for the holiday - who can resist Oliver Owly and Felix Foxy.

Aiden built an entire floating Suess village in Minecraft.  The details are very recognizable and his creativity in creator mode is pretty awesome.  Minecraft breaks to read in a blanket fort are always nice.

It was spirit week on the countdown to break.  There was the typical fun with jammy day, colorful sweater, crazy sock day and crazy hat day, but new this time was "snow day" - Aiden doesn't have any snow themed clothes, so he made this snowball necklace to wear with his snowboarder-like shirt ;)

Keaton decorated this graham cracker house at school.  He was so excited to eat it once he got home. Yum?!

school is cool

Blanket day at school was a big favorite amongst the kids - who don't think about their blankets coming home with school germs on them - They even rolled across them all to really smear some germs in - haha, and I'm not even a germaphobe. ;) - They read a book about a character with a favorite blanket and then did all sorts of comparison and graphing games with them. 

They have a new woodworking center at school and I even had a chance to build a base that Keaton added to throughout the month to create a pretty cool airplane. Giving kids access to "big" tools really empowers them.

The kids had a fun "egg drop" during small group where they made predictions and actually pushed their eggs off a perch.  Some eggs were smooshed!

Movement class with scarves is always fun.  Corn in the sensory table - woot!  And cars with the big blocks - yay!