Airplane!

The kids organized an airplane in the living room the other day. They left room for Eric and me to sit among the stuffed animals. It was really sweet.

We flew to Dragon Valley (it's very dangerous), but were lucky enough to take off in time and fly back home.

Special Visitor

Poor Brachi (short for brachiosaurus) almost lost his head today. Luckily, the little guy noticed and we were able to perform a successful reattachment surgery. Now that he's on the mend (haha) he joined us for dinner.

And here's a picture of the kids:

What cheese-balls.

Little builder

Goose has been doing a lot of building lately. We woke up Saturday morning.... well after he got up at 5:30 and then had something to tell us every 15 minutes for the next hour and a half.... and found some really cool "tree houses" made (appropriately) from construction paper. He then did a seminar on how to make them. Unfortunately I was doing something else while class was in session. The next one is scheduled for this Saturday at 8:30am. I'm not sure if I'm going to be up in time to make that one either. Doesn't he know that 8:30 is early on a Saturday?

Here is another of his projects. This one was from just before Christmas. Emily was out for some reason so Sweet Pea, Goose, and I played with the blocks. The boy made an awesome church!

I mean, complete with green tissue paper grass, a road of books, and a parking lot. Looks like there already a service going on. Amen!

Playing House?

The baby spent some time playing with her babies today. We're not a very creative family when it comes to naming our stuffed animals... our dinosaur is named Dinosaur, our monster is named Monster, our softball-uniform-wearing bear is named Softball Bear. There is, however, one exception. In this picture is Baby (in the rocking chair), Raggedy Ann, Baby (in the bed), Franklin (the turtle), and Aunt Sarah (the blonde one).

It's quite the honorific!

Boxes!

We bought a pair of ridiculously over packaged lamps, but the giant boxes have been quite the hit! The little dude turned them into a train on Friday. Tonight they were an airplane.

Look at all those happy passengers!

Puppet Show

The little guy wanted me to film the puppet show he put on tonight. I think the baby kind of stole the show.

She's singing the "One More Thing" song from Daniel Tiger.

Mayhem!

This is the scene in front of our dishwasher right now:

Mayhem! Fire! Tripping hazard! (Also, wow-- scrubbing my cabinet fronts has been added to my weekend to-do list.)

ROAR!!!

Eric interviewed a dog-sitter the other night, and here's what the kiddos did while she was around:
The little dude has discovered the tripod, and it's made him even more ridiculous. We had four separate videos like this one on the camera that evening.

New(ly realized) Toy!!

My baby girl has never played with her dolls. Ever. They've been crammed into a box in the toy shelf since the boy was little.

Well all that changed today. Daycare asked us to bring a Teddy Bear into school for her. She clung to that thing with all her might as we were leaving daycare. It got worse when we got home. Her big brother showed her the other doll in the box. This one even has a bottle which the boy explained was milk and that the baby wanted to be fed.

The rest of the evening was very confusing for us grown-ups because we couldn't tell the difference between "MILK!" ("Daddy, would you be so kind as to pour me a glass of milk, please?") and "MILK!" ("My baby doll would like her bottle of milk. Has anyone seen it?")

He she is after one such exclamation.

 And here's the boy putting Neigh-bear's apron on the baby doll. Baby Girl is amazed.

Toys, Schmoys

Sometimes I don't know why we bother having a play area full of toys! The kiddos spent a whole evening pretending to be hermit crabs and/or puppies:

Well, the little guy was pretending to be a hermit crab and a puppy. The baby was doing whatever he told her to do.

Pine Box

The kids are still playing with the box, but lately it's an ambulance.

We've been joking that it looks like a pine box getting ready to go six feet under when the baby's in it wrapped in a blanket... maybe the little guy is working out some aggression?

They love that box!

Box

We're using disposable diapers at the kid's new daycare so I finally joined Amazon Mom. (Just an aside-- I love our inexpensive Bummis that we've used for both kids, but I hate the super-expensive bumgenius diapers with a passion. They're the WORST!! Ugh.)

Our first gigantic box of dipes and wipes came in the mail yesterday, and today the box became a race car. It has a windshield, numbers, stripes, and a comically undersized steering wheel. Even better than that, it has room for two!

It also has a train track inside it. I bet none of the NASCAR drivers can say that about their rides.

Star Wars

The little guy has a pair of Lego Star Wars pjs. He also likes to play the Lego Star Wars video game on the iPad. Despite never having seen any of the movies, he knows about stormtroopers, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, lightsabers, and the Dark Side. He has adorably screwed up Darth Vader's name, though, and calls him Dark Vay-Ter (with a hard "t"). The little guy was on the dark side this morning just like Dark Vay-Ter…

… meaning that he only walked on the black floor tiles. Like his lightsaber?

This kid-- he's a goofball!

Superhero!

All the kids at daycare have been wearing "capes" around school. They draw on sheets of paper and then tape the paper to their shoulders. I even saw a dad wearing a cape on his way home yesterday.

The little guy brought his cape home and wore it on our evening walk. It was hard to get a clear picture because the cape makes him run so fast!

Our Little Coal Miner?

The baby has a bad cold, so she's been napping most of the day. The little dude, on the other hand, is a giant ball of energy. He looked like a (clean) coal miner this morning in this stylish ensemble.

Firetruck?

After the firetruck parade, the little guy got out his scooter and added a light (a maraca) and a ladder (a broom) to it. He's been wheeling all over the house... and he's kind of a menace.

The baby likes the broom, too. She is also a menace.

Eric and I went out tonight leaving the kids home with a sitter. The little guy asked if she would play trains with him, and we said sure. He was asking about all kinds of stuff, so I told him "The sitter is going to have to play with the baby, too, FYI." He said "FYI?" and cracked up! I guess I'm already embarrassing and out of touch. I thought I was hip to the lingo these days. Oh well.

Uniforms?

The little guy goes through about 157 outfit changes each day. Here are two of his catcher uniforms. First, he had knee pads and an imaginary mask and backwards hat.

Then he had the hat and mask, but no kneepads.

Halloween will be fun this year!

To continue our baseball theme, the baby was chewing on a bat while wearing a Louisville Slugger onesie. Yum!

Splash!

I've been watching Splash! on TV. It's the most ridiculous celebrity competition show I've ever seen-- and I love it. The little guy's been getting into it, too, and he has the best seat in the house.

The only downside is that he was inspired to jump off all the furniture with his arms over his head.
But, the baby was entertained...

Thank You, and Goodnight

For your viewing pleasure, here is an amateur rendition of the puppet show "Are You My Mother?" that we saw at story time the other day. 

So he could work on giving the puppets some personal space, but we were pretty entertained. (It's good that we thought it was cute because we'll probably get to see encore number 752 tomorrow.)

Love is in the air

Two posts in one day.  What is going on?  Because I'm spending most of the time with the kiddos these days while someone has to bring home the bacon, I thought I would chime in on our happenings.

The man child has been talking about hockey ever since we went to see the 'Canes practice everyday last week, though he didn't want to go today for some reason.  Like we said in that post he's been skating around the house in his socks and you should see his poor knees.

Recently his "guys" have begun skating around on all kinds of stuff and having lots of meetings, just like the hockey players at practice.  Today they found a clear tupperware full of baby toys to skate on.  After a quick meeting and the ice getting swept (long story) the guys decided to give each other a hug.  Luckily I was there to capture the tender moment.

Blackboots and Fire Chief share an embrace

His toys are now hugging all the time.  And this from one who is so stingy with his own.