Category Archives: Kids
A picture for daddy!
Tom is away for work so we try to send lots of pics. 🙂
Sleeping cutie…again.
I just can’t resist taking pictures of her when she’s sleeping. Probably because she’s so rarely quiet I want to savor it and remember it. 🙂
This is a new one.
Lego ruined our night.
So every month, Lego offers a free mini build at their local stores. We saw it advertised on both a flyer and our Lego calendar so made plans to go. I made sure to check the website to see if there was anything else we needed to know. And there wasn’t. This is the entirety of the information about the event:
So let me just share with you what I wrote to Lego when we got home:
I am very upset and also have a very upset little boy right now. We received the monthly Lego calendar and saw the “free monthly build” advertised for tonight so we told him about it and made special plans to go (our first time ever!) and he was super excited. I happened to check the website to see if there were any special details I might need to know and didn’t see anything. So off we went. We arrive, wait in what I thought was the line for the free kit (which I expected to have to wait in line so no big deal), get to the front pretty quickly (I was actually impressed, but how long does it take to hand out a pack of Legos?), and was stopped dead in my tracks: “Oh, you don’t have a book? That’s the other line.” Which I then noticed out the other side of the store—and was, of course by then, way too long to even think about getting in and receiving the free kit before they ran out since the line was crazy long. So then I had an upset kid because he’d been looking forward to this for days. So a big fat thanks, Lego, for advertising the crap out of this free build but giving NO MENTION WHATSOEVER (even on the minibuild website!) that you need the special Lego “passbook” in order to get it. I’m extremely disappointed and would hope you can rectify this in some way.
Truth be told, I had seen a few kids carrying these blue passport-looking books around but didn’t think twice about it since I never saw any mention of it. I googled when I got home, and see that the passport is a fairly new thing—but technically it’s just for marking visits to Lego stores. There is a place to stamp that you were THERE for the mini-build, but I saw no mention of it being REQUIRED to get the mini-build. So now I’m wondering if this wasn’t a corporate decision, but a store-by-store decision. Regardless, I was pissed.
The next day I received this response:
Dear Jen,
Thanks for getting in touch with us.
We’re sorry to hear that you had such a disappointing experience when you visited one of our LEGO® stores! The LEGO Group is dedicated to providing excellent, consistent service in all of our stores. It is only with your honest comments that we are able to improve our services to better service the needs of our valued customers, so thank you very much for your email.
As a one time exception, I have sent out the parts you need to make the March Mini Build! Please allow 7-10 business days for delivery as they our sent from our warehouse in Denmark.
So I’m very happy they are sending us the kit, but still disappointed they didn’t even mention the passbook issue. I’ll definitely be asking at the Lego store the next time we go in.
My post-bath froggy.
Katie’s in Elmo’s World
Snow day Lego project!
This was Owen’s last new Lego project…The Research Institute:
I bought it for the super cool dinosaur, but since it was under 200 pieces it literally took him like 20 minutes to put together. 🙂
A jumping morning!
We were there a few minutes early and were able to skip the line because I’d bought tickets a few days earlier…so we had to wait a few minutes for the floor to open.
Look! BLOCKS!
Can you find Katie?
And mere seconds later after I stopped recording…some kids pushed it over and I got this shot:
I love the “flying” shots!
Meanwhile, in the non-toddler dodgeball section…our poser. 🙂
February pictures are online!
Our inaugural Saturday Night Spaghetti!
Some background…
I love having friends over for dinner. I like making new friends. So when I read this article last year—
Friday Night Meatballs: How to Change Your Life With Pasta (if you have the time to read it, please do!)—it hit a nerve and I immediately knew it was something I wanted to attempt. I promised myself that I would schedule something after the holiday season had settled down. Well, then life happens, and I didn’t actually get to schedule it until the end of January, with the dinner to be mid-February.
I posted the following invitation on Facebook and hoped for some responses:
[Photograph: Carina Romano]
Imagine my surprise when the RSVP slots were filled in less than 24 hours!! And lots more people LOVED the idea and promised future participation! 🙂
Unfortunately, the weather didn’t play nice and we had to postpone a week, but the original attendees were all still able to come! And everything went awesome! Six guests (plus kids) was just right. (This house is big, but for a dinner party, six guests is about the limit of dining space. I wish we had more room, or even a good place for another table!) Everyone got along and had a good time talking, the kids were all awesome (Owen had a new Lego buddy and Katie had a friend), and everyone stayed much later than I anticipated (they all left about 9:30). One couple said it was a great idea and they are thinking about starting something similar! Yay! During the event, I even stopped Tom and told him that I was very happy. He agreed it was a good night. 🙂 We both can’t wait to do it again!
Even though it wasn’t BUSY or lots of work, we were both kept busy visiting and prepping and whatnot, so I didn’t take pictures! The only one I took was of the kids’ table:
And this one was snapped by a guest (everyone liked the aquarium but the girls loved it!):
I hope all future dinners go as smoothly as this one did! 🙂
And then, even though it was WAY past the kids’ bedtimes, we let them stay up to watch one TV show to let them calm down. And this happened:
Kidisms 5
Katie: Mama! You have crazy hair! Up there on your head!
Me: Katie, can you fit in Maggie’s crate?
Katie: Of course!!
While watching photos on the TV…
Me: Oh! That’s Owee.
Katie: No, that’s me.
Me/Tom: No, that’s Owen!
Katie: Oh that’s right!
Owen let Maggie out to go potty.
Owen: Maggie’s tail is a door.
Me: What?
Owen: Her tail is like a door. It opens when she poops.
Me: 😐
Watching “The Wizard of Oz” for the first time with the kids.
When it turned to color:
Katie: “OOH! BEAUTIFUL!”
And when the munchkins came out:
“Ooh! Babies!”
🙂
Owen was shopping with Tom and there were Girl Scouts selling cookies outside the grocery store.
Owen: Ahhhh! Cookies!
Tom: Yes, but we don’t need any.
Owen: No, we don’t, but it’s nice they have them out.
Breaking boards at a birthday party!
Tom took Owen to a rescheduled-from-bad-weather-last-weekend birthday party today. They had a bounce house PLUS Owen got to break some more boards! He had a blast!
Reading from Katie’s chair
Owen’s Horsey!
After sleeping cutie wakes up!
This is a somewhat typical reaction from her after she wakes up.
Sleeping Cutie
Superhero Spirit Day!
Today was Superhero Spirit Day at Owen’s school! I had debated sending him in his complete Superman outfit but honestly worried about bathroom breaks… 🙂 So he wore his Super Owen cape and a mask! This was a picture posted to Facebook!
Post-snow sibling movie love
Snow day snowman!
Today marked the SEVENTH snow day this year (and the fourth in two weeks). Tom had a 2-hour delay but actually ended up working from home. Thankfully the kids weren’t ready to go outside until quite late in the morning. I think the major excitement of snow has worn off—though they still like it and want to go out and play in it, it’s not the very first thing they want to do!
Owen was pretending he was a ninja with his new scarf. He actually made me pull it up higher over his face. 🙂
The first thing I noticed was it was actually on the warm side—so I had a good feeling about the snow quality. One quick swipe of the snow on the car and yep—perfect snowman snow!! Time to make their very first snowman!!
The kids were excited…but weren’t much help. 🙂 Owen helped pack snow and find sticks and Katie wandered around.
It’s been probably 25-30 years since I made a snowman. It was hard with such a small yard and because we didn’t have that much snow—and what we had was on top of icy stuff—so it was a lot of scraping from all over. We could’ve tried the backyard but there’s a much higher chance of buried dog poop back there!
The kids LOVED him!
Then it was off to the backyard for more snow after they trampled everything in the front (it doesn’t take long).
But it was really wet and actually turning slushy so we went inside.
Owen LOVES his scarf…and looks quite dapper if I do say so myself. 🙂
100th Day of School
Owen came home with this 100 day project. Plus he’s excitedly wearing his new footie PJs. 🙂
And then he helped Katie eat some. 🙂
Sweatshirts are hard.
Katie is great at taking her clothes off if it’s her idea. But even then, sometimes she gets stuck.
Frozen birthday party
Katie with the birthday girl (turning 3). Costumes were welcomed!
Katie was introduced to plastic shoes…at a house with all wood floors. EEK!
All I could see was a sprained ankle in her future.
My ankles hurt just watching this.
And then another (mismatched) pair!
But she LOVED them! I just hope she forgets about these and continues to love her real ballerina slippers and “ballerina” crocs. 🙂
Counting 100 Froot Loops
This coming week the kids are finally celebrating the 100th day of school (a bit belated due to snow days) so Owen’s weekend homework was to count out 100 small things to bring to class. Since both kids HAD TO HAVE Froot Loops but it turns out neither really like them, we use them whenever we can for art and school projects (you may remember them on his disguised Thanksgiving turkey). 🙂
Counting out one each in 10 cups.
Thankfully it didn’t take that long to put 100 pieces in the cups one at a time. 🙂
Along the way I tried to teach him a little bit of math—reinforcing counting by twos, fives, and tens and how counting by tens relates to beginning multiplication (4 x 10 = 40 is the same as counting 10-20-30-40). We’ll see if it sticks. 🙂
Katie’s traveling stool
The stool has been next to Owen’s bed for like three years. Just this past few days Katie has started to carry it all over the house, both upstairs and downstairs, from room to room. It makes me laugh.
Katie sings the ABCs
With a little help. Owen had them down by this age, but we sang them to him all the time.
CHEEEESE!!!!
She loves saying cheese!
This is a new 4T outfit from Grannie Lin—the top fits perfect and the pants are too big (she’s swimming in the waste). But oh so cute!
Little girl cuddles!
Snow Day #2
First a trip to the grocery store where Owen learned how to pull off and open the plastic fruit/veggie bags and how to push Katie without hitting anything. 🙂
Then it was time to play in the snow! I got much better pics of Katie today!
Sledding wasn’t very good today so Owen did some snow rolling instead.
Katie peed on the potty!
We haven’t officially started potty training yet, but every now and again we will ask Katie if she wants to pee or poop on the potty. Sometimes she wants to but nothing happens and other times she wants nothing to do with any of it.
But tonight when Tom asked her she said yes! And then actually proceeded to tinkle!
We all made a big deal about it and she got to pick a toy from the toy bin! I think Owen was most excited, getting out the toy selection and picking her toy—until we told him she got to pick her own toy! To his credit, he was still excited for her!
She picked those growing capsule animals:
Of course I’m not expecting anything to come of this. Owen did the same thing and then it was another two years (!) before he was actually potty trained.