Owen is starting his 996-piece King’s Castle set he bought with birthday money he’s been saving for years. (Well, he technically wasn’t SAVING it so much as we just kept stuffing money he received in his bank. We’ve been trying to teach him about money lately—and how expensive Legos are—so we counted out over half of his savings for this set.)
He is one happy little boy!
Katie: Are you done?
Owen: Does it look like I’m done?
Owen: School is closed! I love that kind of day!
Owen upon seeing Katie this morning in her dino PJs:
Hi little dinosaur-y.
Katie, as she’s done eating dinner:
Okay, I’m done eating. Goodbye.
Owen: Ahhh, this is comfy.
Owen, after a bath:
Mom, if I wear comfy stuff, I’m calm. If I don’t wear comfy stuff I freak out.
At Back To School night, we had to sign the kids up to be Star of the Week—basically an “about me” board to share with the class—and I was able to grab the week of his birthday. So this weekend we worked on it. I had asked him to think about what pictures he wanted to use, but that was too broad. So I started asking him about specific pictures, but of course he wanted every picture I suggested. So I just picked a bunch of good pics and then once I saw the actual instructions (the theme turned out to be more “show why your child is a star” vs. a general About Me page) we concentrated on four areas:
I printed out all the pictures and text and had Owen cut them out (which he did pretty good at, but we need practice on cutting evenly around things). Then I arranged most of the pictures—but let him do all of the gluing (which was an exercise in frustration—plus I see now how kindergardeners go through a zillion glue sticks).
Then he wrote a few sentences about things he liked. He did really well with the Star Wars and Family sentences (even using his pinky to allow for spacing between words) but then kind of lost it when it came to the Lego sentence… But overall, still an awesome job!
I have a feeling it will end up with more stickers on it by the time it goes to school Tuesday… 🙂
A tiny bit of background… Owen decided maybe two months or so ago that he wanted a pool party at our community pool for his birthday. We were totally on board with this idea since it would be inexpensive (no cost for the pool and we just have to buy food and drinks) and he could invite his whole class. Well, loooooong story short, we are still going to have a summer birthday party, but we will only be inviting a select number of friends…and in honor of his actual birthday, we are letting him have his very first sleepover!
So in preparation for the sleepover, one of the invitees came over for an extended play date today—it would also be his first away-from-home sleepover and we thought it best for him to be comfortable with us, the animals, the house, etc. His mom and I chatted for about a half hour (they were the ones we sat with during Bingo Night) and then she left.
The kids had a great time! There were light saber fights, beanbag jumping (with only a few warnings to be careful), and then finally…Legos!
When the visit got extended and I needed time to prep dinner without wondering what they were up to about the house, I finally let them watch a half hour of TV. 🙂
The kids wanted hot chocolate after playing outside. It’s the one time Katie gets a real mug. 🙂
Super hero time!
Owen had a snow day, so of course we were all out in it by 8:30! (Well, I was out, but not IN it!) 🙂
Owen: Mama, can I brush the snow off this?
Me: Knock yourself out.
Owen: Mama, can I brush the snow off this?
Me: Knock yourself out.
I’ve been very bad about scanning and posting Owen’s schoolwork/homework and art projects as they come home…so these are not really in any particular order, except I guessed on the dates and they’re all from about Thanksgiving to the end of the year. 🙂
The robot-like creatures are from a video game he plays with daddy and the numbers above them are their “health” in the game.
At the time he told me what this was, but we’ve both since forgotten.
This was from months ago, but I just took a picture of him with it this morning. It’s a playground he designed.
I love this monster!
Better pictures of the satchel he made for the Thanksgiving Feast.
He came home with this turkey and honestly, the vegetable- and God-feathers threw me. One, he dislikes vegetables and two, we are not religious (and there has been no discussion of religion of any kind—not on purpose…it just hasn’t come up) so we were confused as to how he’d come up with being thankful for both those things. We asked him and he did the shrug-his-shoulders answer. I was thinking maybe he brought home the wrong turkey or took someone else’s feathers (because they didn’t really look like his handwriting) so I actually emailed his teacher! Turns out, after more subtle questioning, he just borrowed ideas from his classmates and copied some of the things they wrote!
Owen was VERY excited about the Hour of Code and everyone got a certificate! (The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics.)
Mom, notice the bubble light? 🙂
They learned about all different holiday traditions…
We went to Manassas today to see one of Tom’s coworkers at a Farmers Market (he’s part owner of a BBQ place) and then we went to the fish/coral store. Of course I couldn’t get a good pic of the cool colors under the lights…but the pic still turned out cool.
Drawing!
On the way home, we stopped at the park:
Katie LOVED this part. She had daddy help her the first time and then she had no fear.
And then Owen starts being Owen…
And then I promise them a treat if they sit nice. 🙂
This was a Christmas present from Aunt Beth and Uncle Jim and today we finally decided to do it. Owen was SUPER excited: “This is going to be AMAZING!”
Reading the instructions. We should have done this part before getting Owen involved. 🙂
As you can see, the “test” explosion wasn’t very crazy and the goggles really aren’t warranted. 🙂
The compilation video:
The PTO had a pizza dinner/Bingo event tonight and we all went! Unfortunately we didn’t win any bingo games, door prizes, or raffle items…but we all had fun! After almost every game when someone else won, Owen would say “OHHHH! I ALMOST WON!” Even if he was five numbers away. 🙂
Two out of four looking…that’s about right. 😉
With Aden, one of his classmates (and the one he went to the martial arts event with and broke the board):
The picture taken by the school principal (she’s at every event and walks around taking pictures with her iPad!)—again, two out of four looking:
Aden’s family (our table mates):
Afterwards, since the kids had been so good, we stopped and got froyo on the way home. 🙂
We’ve casually thought about getting bunkbeds for Owen’s room (one with steps instead of a more dangerous ladder) but didn’t want to spend a lot of money on them because we didn’t need them. So one night I happened to see on a Facebook yard sale group that someone was selling a set for a decent price. The bonus was that they were shorter overall so the top bunk was not super high. Long story short, we ended up getting them. It was mostly a spur of the moment decision, but Tom and I both agreed on it so there you go.
Well, have I mentioned that I hate bunkbeds because they’re a total PITA to make? But I thought maybe I was misremembering or blowing it out of proportion and even if it was awful, I’d suck it up for my kid…but holy crap it’s just as awful as I thought.
And.
I thought I’d like that they weren’t full height beds…but holy crap are they low. There’s no way Owen can sleep in there (under there) long term because he can’t even sit up—he can barely roll over. And there’s no way adult guests could fit comfortably in there (when we need an extra bed, we’ve put someone there and move Owen to Katie’s room). And of course that makes making the bed even harder.
So at this point I was thinking we’d made a huge mistake.
But.
Thankfully Tom is handy and he can lower the base of the bed so there’s more room.
Worst case, we take it apart after a few weeks of testing and sell it (hopefully getting what we paid). :/ Best case Owen loves it and we get a lot of use out of it. (Mommy guilt sucks. I’m tempted into things I’d otherwise not be.) And for now, the kids loved playing on it while we were assembling it…
“I can touch the ceiling!”
Bed time!
And it’s rare to get a moment of calm in the same bath as Katie…
I was really proud of Owen. He did this set today—the biggest he’s done so far at 550 pieces!
I only had to help him attach the wings and daddy had to do a bit of post-build surgery to insert a missed piece…but otherwise Owen built it all himself!
Katie was fake scared of something on TV and she jumped into Owen’s arms. 🙂
I recently bought a pound of random Legos on eBay but didn’t want to just give them to Owen without a reason (since we just had Christmas and his birthday is coming up) but I didn’t feel like hiding them until his birthday…so today we told him if he learned how to fold kitchen towels and did a good job, he’d earn a treat.
Well, he learned how to fold towels AND did a good job. Amazing what Lego-motivation can do, eh? 🙂
And I knew he’d be excited but I completely underestimated just how excited he’d be about random Legos. He was POSITIVELY GIDDY. 🙂
He kept saying “Mom! Look! I have this piece!” or “Mom! Look at this piece! I don’t have this one!” It was adorable.
Level 8 of the parking garage across from the aquarium. Owen was pretending to swim like a turtle when I snapped this!
On the drive here, I saw that there was a Capital Grille very close by—a restaurant we both miss from Troy—so we decided to eat lunch there! We stopped at Panera first to get the kids a bagel, and then it was a few doors down for our fancy lunch!
The kids enjoyed the bread basket, Tom had a lobster and crab burger with truffle fries (which Katie ate most of), and I had scallops with wild mushroom risotto and a side of lobster bisque (and the obligatory food porn shot with the single lobster piece for mom):
And then on to the aquarium! (We actually bought a family membership because tickets for today alone would have been about $100 and if we want to go again within the next year—which we will!—it would be even more because Katie will be over the “free” admission age—and we got a discounted membership for $155. It also gives us discounts on parking and gift shop purchases.)
The kids spent the whole time running from exhibit to exhibit like crazy people. Pretty much all Owen said the entire time was “COME HERE! LOOK AT THIS! OH WOW! MOM! DAD! COME HERE! DID YOU SEE THAT? LOOK AT THIS! COME HERE! COME HERE! OH MY GOSH! LOOK AT THIS! COME HERE!” Katie was a little less vocal but enjoyed everything but LOVED all the turtles and the penguins and puffers.
The octopus actually looked fake but was definitely real!
Super cool looking star fish! I just want to squish him!
This was the view from about the third story. That turtle was HUGE—probably 6-7′ long. The guide told us she was only 16 years old!
Heading up into the Amazon Rainforest: “It’s raining! It’s raining!” (They had misters at the very top of the escalator so it did feel like it was raining!”)
Owen loved all the escalators!
Then it was time for the 4D Spongebob movie ($5 extra per person of course!). We couldn’t take pictures during it, but it was AWESOME. I hadn’t been to a 4D movie since Honey I Shrunk the Kids at Disney probably 20 years ago! This production had bubbles, rumbling, lightning, wind, snow, and jellyfish tickling our legs! 🙂 OWEN LOVED IT…but was confused when it was over so soon because he only knows movies to be LONG.
And then my favorite exhibit—jellyfish!
Owen had a bit of a meltdown after our trip through the gift shop because everything he wanted was either too expensive or stuff we just didn’t want to get (he just didn’t need MORE cars or stuffed animals or a $30 T-shirt or cheap plastic toys). We offered a handful of different items (books, a Lego-ish type shark to build, etc.) that he could get but he didn’t want any of them and was just in a total snit about it. We explained he didn’t need to get a surprise every time we went anywhere and we did have limits on what he could get, and if we was going to act this way after a big day full of special things, then we just wouldn’t do stuff like this anymore. By the time we walked back to the car he apologized. 🙂
Katie was out before we exited the parking garage:
On the way home we both decided we didn’t want to cook dinner, so we were going out to eat. The place we wanted to try at the mall had an 1:30 wait—NO THANKS!—so we went to a 4-star Yelp sushi place across the street where we were the only patrons! The kids made do with rice but balked at the shrimp and veggie tempura we got them (who doesn’t like deep fried anything?!). Owen made a puppet out of the bag from the chocolate we bought earlier:
And then after a whirlwind day…we finally headed home.
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…
I was getting Katie out of bed and had her on my lap when Owen came running in and gave us both a big hug. I took the opportunity to also snap a quick selfie. 🙂
This is what I walked into this morning in Owen’s room. 🙂
There was no school today due to expected bad weather so I was cleaning and organizing the kids’ rooms while they played. Then Katie wanted me to read her favorite story (If you take a mouse to school) and Owen volunteered!
I let Owen put together the Lego set I got for me… 🙂
Daddy couldn’t Skype on duty so we texted funny faces instead!
Owen was working on homework so of course Katie had to come up to the table and do something too.
It looked a little bright outside when I got up this morning…and lo and behold it had snowed!
Owen was excited looking out his window and this is him excitedly showing Katie in her room when we woke her up.
On the way to school!
She LOVES the snow!
