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. 🙂
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!
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.
First we stopped at the Lego store just to see if there was anything on Clearance. Just under $200 later…we left there and headed to the play area. On our way out, we stopped to gather the kids at the building station and a mom complimented us on Katie being polite—she said her son dropped a piece and Katie handed it to him, he said thank you, and she said you’re welcome! She said it was very unexpected from a 2yo. YAY KATIE! 🙂
Then we hit the mall play area. It was complete chaos because most parents are lazy and don’t actually parent their too-old and too-tall and too-aggressive kids and let them RUN WILD while little kids are trying to play in an already-congested area. So we didn’t stay long.
Then Katie wanted a ride. She loved it! (Sidenote: it was 75¢—seriously?!)
And then Owen learned the hard way not to beg for McDonald’s. We were near the food court getting them small treats at the customer service kiosk and he saw McDonald’s and wanted it. Tom and I said we were going to Red Robin instead. He kept asking for McDonald’s and I told him we said no and to stop asking. He asked about three more times…so he lost Red Robin. He was not happy about that (and neither were we!) but hopefully he learned his lesson. On the way home he asked about four times if we were going to Red Robin for dinner. Nope, not for lunch, not for dinner, not at all today. (Apparently he didn’t learn his lesson about repeatedly asking for things.)
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!
There was unmatching wrapping paper under the tree so the kids were curious… Thank you Aunt Beth and Uncle Jim! Both were a huge hit! As Owen was opening his he saw it was a Magic School Bus item right away and commented that “MAGIC SCHOOL BUS IS SOOOO AWESOME!” Tom and I were both like Huh? What? How does he know what that is? (We still don’t know.)
He loved his new shoes—they have FLAMES on them! A size 3 if you can believe it!
Digging into her bag!
A Pirate Lego game!
The Frozen headband had to go on right away!
TUTU PANTS!
She got a Yoda ornament and put it right on the tree. She also got a fragile Princess Sofia ornament and of course wanted to play with that one!
She got her own old iPhone so there are no screaming fights about sharing Owen’s.
Owen was SUPER EXCITED about getting this dollar store skateboard! He had mentioned a skateboard a few times I didn’t pay any attention because I had already bought all his stuff—but I saw it at the dollar store Christmas Eve when I went to pick up a few stocking stuffers so had to get it.
From walking in to the last stocking present opened, it was just under 30 minutes! Phew!
Katie loves her ballerina that she just got from Grammy and Papa.
I was waking her up gently since it was time to get up from her nap. When the flashes from the camera didn’t rouse her, I gently rubbed her arm. With her eyes still closed she grabbed her dolly and then rolled over. 🙂
We celebrated Christmas this morning because Owen was home from school…due to ongoing constipation issues (he had been heavily medicated but NOTHING was happening and I hadn’t wanted to send him to school just in case).
She LOVED her princess tutu, crown, and wand! After about 10 minutes, we were all tired of the wand because it lit up AND made noise! (The crown lights up, too, but thankfully doesn’t make noise!)
Uncle Rob helped Owen with the Legos after Owen got stuck and I tried and gave up. 🙂
Owen has wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese for quite some time now. Neither Tom nor I wanted to go because the food really sucks and it’s just a money pit. So, we told Owen that he could go when Uncle Rob came down (that way it would be seen as a super special treat and he wouldn’t ask us to go all the time). He was actually very good about being patient—it’s probably been over a year that we’ve been telling him this.
So when we learned that Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob were going to be here this week, Owen knew what was going to happen! And boy was he exited!
Me: So who’s all going to Chuck E. Cheese?
Owen: Me and Uncle Rob.
Me: Just you and Uncle Rob? Not daddy?
Owen: No! Daddy, too. But not Grandma or you or Katie. Just the three boys!
The plan was to take separate cars to see Santa and then the boys would go to the restaurant and the girls would go home. I figure why get Katie excited about it when she really didn’t care to start with. I did, however, make Tom promise to take pictures. 🙂
These are the two pics Tom texted me.
I really really hoped he had taken more than that…and he had! 🙂 I saw these when he got home.
His $45 “prize”—a Dory fish from Finding Nemo.
Yes, they spent about $45 total on food, drinks, and games…and he only got a trinket worth about 49¢. It was a great lesson…we asked him if he’d rather have the little fish or a big Lego set. He obviously choose the Lego set. He was surprised that he could have had something so big instead of something so small. We said it was okay to go and play games and have fun, but it was really expensive so that’s why it was a super special treat that we didn’t do very often. He said from now on he’d rather have the Legos. 🙂
Katie was super excited to go to Owen’s class today. As soon as we walked in the room, she asked if she could go play with the dolly. 🙂 So off she went and I busied myself getting more yarn ready for the same art project (I’d have the rest of the kids—including Owen—today).
The teacher told everyone Owen’s mom was here again and so was his little sister. For the most part, Katie being there was NO problem whatsoever. There was only one time when I saw her over playing with the blocks…and some of Owen’s classmates got sidetracked and were there with her, too. A quick talk from the teacher sent them back to their groups and it was fine after that. She pretty much stayed in the “housekeeping” area (with a table and chairs, kitchen, dolls, dishes, and pots and pans) except for once when she wanted to get on the computers and two very short times she came out and wanted to come with me. I simply pointed to the kitchen and told her to go play—and she did!
Today Owen was at the coloring table and my art project table. He was being a bit boisterous at the coloring table—yelling across to a friend at the art table—and I had to tell him to sit down and color a few times. (But it wasn’t just him. I had to talk to a few of the kids.) Then once he was at the art table, he was being a bit of a showoff and I had to subtly tell him to cool it. He was lacing standing up out of his chair and making all these grand sweeping movements and loudly saying how easy it was and how fast he could do it. I was like “Where did this obnoxious little boy come from?” (I mean, it was partially cute but if it was any other kid it would have annoyed me 100% so it was partially annoying me. If anyone else had done that I would have told them to sit down as well.) So that was interesting.
Towards the end of the hour, I went over and asked Katie to pick up all her blocks…which she did! With no further prodding from me! Yay Katie! Then at the very end of the hour she picked up most of the housekeeping toys, too. 🙂 When the teacher had the class thank us for coming in to help, the assistant also made sure to tell the class that Katie picked up most of the toys by herself. (I’m guessing they have issues with the kids picking up after themselves!)
I’m so glad I got to be there for two days! And since Katie was so well behaved, we were invited back any time! (This is a big deal because little kids generally aren’t welcome.) YAY KATIE! 🙂
Grauntie Sue sent a dolly and some bears for the kids. Katie was enthralled with her dolly—as soon as she saw it in the box, she was saying “MY DOLLY! MY DOLLY!”
