We got the kids this game for Christmas and we finally played tonight! It was hilarious and well worth the $10. Poor Tom. Lucky Jen. Smart Katie.
And a few pics from the videos:
Getting ready to bake cookies for Santa!
Fresh-baked cookies and a Christmas shooter (vanilla egg nog) for Santa!
Owen wanted to put his new Lego creation out for Santa.
Christmas jammies and Santa hats…
Along with lots of outtakes!
One good family picture out of about 15 attempts!
Uncle Grob!
And then a ticklefest ensued.
I promised Katie she could jump in the puddles when we came out of the store. She was having sooooo much fun I just let her keep jumping and jumping and jumping. My quick run to the dollar store morphed into over an hour once the jumping was done (she was jumping for almost half an hour!)!
I couldn’t decide on the best in-flight pics—it’s amazing how high she actually jumps (which you can’t tell just watching in real time)—so I included all of them. 🙂
If you just want the slow motion jumps in one video:
And if you want them as individual gifs you can copy and paste elsewhere:
Only 184 pics of playing in the snow this morning. Narrowed down to 30. The best one? Before we got outside! Katie wasn’t much for looking at me today!
Maggie thought she wanted to go outside with us…but of course she can’t stand the cold and snow. Even with a sweater. 🙂
Getting buried by daddy!
The neighbor girl came out while her dad was shoveling. Owen said he liked her after about 13 seconds. 🙂
Owen’s turn to get buried by daddy!
Racing to the top of the hill!
Ten pictures snapped in 10 seconds and not one with Katie looking at me!
Sledding in the back yard (from the neighbor’s yard to ours)!
After almost two hours outside? Hot cocoa!
Tom was scheduled to receive an award at work (the Meritorious Service Medal) and we had decided we would ALL go, which meant taking Owen out of school. Since Tom knew he’d get the rest of the day off, we decided to make a special day of it and do something really worthwhile of missing school—take the kids to Baltimore to the National Aquarium!
A family selfie before we headed out:
Thank heavens for the HOV express lane—this was the standstill traffic on the way into DC (well worth the few bucks it cost us):
Then we had about a 3/4 mile walk in to the Pentagon from the parking lot. Yeesh—Tom has to do that twice a day. Tom was obviously already cleared, but the rest of us had to go through a metal detector and get wanded. Then once we were inside the Pentagon, we had to walk clear to the other side. With my horrid sense of direction, there’s absolutely NO way I would not get lost if I was on my own.
I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. 🙂 There were lots of wide open hallways and empty corridors with nondescript doors and exiting one ring to cross a “street” to get to the next ring. And while logically I know the Pentagon is HUGE, it didn’t seem as huge as I thought it would (if that makes sense).
And then we were in his office. No windows in the whole thing, of course, and a tiny cubicle:
Before the award ceremony we had a brief meeting with Tom’s commanding general (the Senior Communications Officer of the entire Marine Corps) where he met me and the kids and had a few get-to-know-each-other minutes. Owen was really great with him and shook his hand and answered questions.
Then it was off to the conference room to wait. The kids had fun checking out the big room and seeing themselves on the big TV:
And as more and more people filed into the room, Owen got more and more shy and hid behind me the entire time. Katie was shy, too, but at least sat quietly in a chair.
A coworker of Tom’s offered to take pictures so I wouldn’t have to worry about it so that was nice (even though I hated to give up control).
The general welcomed everyone and jokingly asked what time people were thinking of leaving and there was a pregnant pause while no one said anything so I piped up “9:07” (implying we’d be leaving as soon as the award ceremony was over) and everyone laughed and the general said Tom was welcome to leave and go celebrate and everyone else was to leave at noon. 🙂
The kids with free reign to run through the halls on the way back to daddy’s office:
The view as we are leaving Tom’s ring and heading directly across the courtyard to the other side to exit the building and head to the parking lot (this is where it seems much smaller than I thought it would be):
Letting Owen ride the escalators on our way out (since he loves them so much):
Then Tom gave us a mini tour of the food court area, some of the shops on that level, and we stopped at the chocolatier for some yummy treats! Then it was the long trek back to the car!
Then it was an hour’s drive to Baltimore for the next part of our adventure…
Tom wanted to go to a fish store to see what they had—and of course the kids wanted to go…so we all went! On the way there, we saw a Trader Joe’s (which we hadn’t been to here yet) so we stopped to pick up a few things. I tried to get Owen to push the kid-sized cart and he was having NONE of it and turned into a grouch. Fine. So then we hit the fish store and the kids loved that but then it was almost lunch time so I searched Yelp for something close by…and we ended up at a really yummy pizza place at the Springfield Mall! Well, then since we were at the mall, we decided to check it out (we hadn’t been there yet, either). And that’s when Owen discovered the escalators. Well, he had been on them before but this time he LOVED them. And he’s old enough now that he will go on them without us…which he did. A few times. 🙂
Katie wasn’t too sure and held daddy’s hand pretty tight.
This was Owen’s third and fourth trip around the escalators. Like mother, like son…I remember doing the same thing with my cousins Lisa and Lori (though at a little bit older age) at the Saginaw Mall! 🙂
And then as we were headed to a store I wanted to briefly look in…we ran across a bouncy place. YES. IN THE MALL. So in we went…and let the kids run wild for 30 minutes! (Contrary to what you see in the pictures, there were a bunch of other kids there!)
As a last special thing…on our way out, we stopped to get frozen yogurt!
We were downstairs coloring a welcome sign for Grannie and Papa when Katie pulled out her peekaboo bear…and the excitement began. Holy cow.
He was doing SO well on his own that I started recording…and then he kinda lost it a little bit…but finished with some help. You can tell he was getting VERY excited about getting to 100. 🙂
I don’t think he’ll have a problem mastering the Kindergarten first quarter expectations of counting to 10. 🙂
Papa happened to call right as we were walking in, so I Skyped them back so they got to watch Owen do a few jumps and watch Katie swim around.
He kept doing this and I finally asked what he was doing… You’ll never guess. He was trying to do a somersault! 🙂 I told him I’d help him when we were in the big pool!
Katie saw Owen holding his nose, so she was trying to do the same thing!
The kids she had been playing with in the kiddie pool were going home, so she was at the fence saying “Guys! Guys? Where are you going?”
He loves just floating like this.
If you didn’t know he liked to do it, it might freak you out because he looks…well…dead.
This is how Owen moves across the pool when he’s not actually swimming.
And then it was time for the special surprise! Not only was daddy at the pool with us…but we ordered pizza for dinner! Poolside! (Ever since Owen saw the signs and saw someone have pizza delivered, he’s wanted us to do it. Since the pool season is almost over, today was the day!)
She loves being tossed in the air…but can’t quite manage to count to three. 🙂
My turn with Katie. The video isn’t that great (meaning Katie doesn’t appear to be having that much fun) but she really was…and it’s rare for me to actually be in a picture or video with the kids. So here it is. 🙂
I finally got a video of Katie getting out of and back in the pool. However, she only did it once. The other day, she just kept going up the ladder then back into the pool—time after time after time.
And the bonus to the whole day? I started talking with a girl at the pool (she was there with a little girl who Katie was playing with in the kiddie pool) and long story short, she’s a babysitter and lives in the neighborhood! WOOHOO!
And the funniest thing of the day? While I was at the kiddie pool talking to the girl, Tom came over to tell me what Owen had just said. Tom said they had a race across the length of the pool and of course Tom won, but when Owen finished, Tom asked if he was tired or if he wanted to go talk to me. Owen’s response? NO! I’M PUMPED UP! LET’S GO! 🙂
Gramma Jean wanted to try out her new fire pit…so we all headed outside. The kids loved running around and of course Owen had to get out his new water gun. 🙂
Uncle Rob was nice enough to go in and fill up the water gun…but surprised Owen by shooting him! It’s blurry but I love Owen’s body!
She stayed pretty far from the fire once daddy yelled at her for getting too close. 🙂
Watering Gramma’s flowers.
Smoke bombs! They certainly didn’t last as long as I remembered them to…
Katie liked the pooping dog—except for the popping and crackling at the end.
In addition to Katie’s first fireworks (MUCH earlier than Owen’s first fireworks!), she also got her first sparkler. She was okay with it…but not thrilled.
And then we all went out to the front yard looking for Petoskey stones in the landscaping.
Tom was power washing some equipment on the back deck while the kids were riding around. Of course they liked the mist, and eventually got out of the car to run directly in it…then of course daddy started spraying them directly and that was even more fun!
Katie kept running at it with her mouth open!
Happy wet kids!