He’s good at building cars!

I have had magnatiles on Owen’s wishlist for quite some time but have never bought them because A) he has so many toys already and B) they are damn EXPENSIVE. So when I saw these Magformers available on Amazon Vine (the program where I get to pick items for free and then I just have to write a review on it), I snatched them up!

Owen picked them as his weekly Chore reward this week. (Normally expensive toys aren’t options, but since they didn’t cost me anything—and mostly because he saw them before I could hide them!—I let him choose them.)

As it happened, Tom Skyped in right as Owen was wanting to open them, so Tom got to watch the fun for about 20 minutes! Even though the age said 3+ I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to follow the patterns to make the cars without getting frustrated—but he jumped right in and before I knew it, he had laid out all the pieces for the spaceship with no problem!

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Then he made two cars (with a little of my help since the pieces kept snapping together) and then he was making his own shapes and vehicles without the patterns.

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Of course, now I want at least one or two more sets so he can build bigger and better things…I’ll be adding some to his wishlist. 🙂 The other good thing about these is that the pieces are big enough AND the magnets are enclosed so they are fine for Katie to grab and play with (though it tends to make Owen melt down when she does that).

Birthday Party

One of the playgroup kids had a birthday today. When telling Owen what house it was at, I told him “where you had cake and there was a waterside.” So we get there and as we walk in the front door, you can see straight through to the back yard where they have a bounce house set up. Owen was EXCITED. Before I know it, he’s in front of me pulling his shirt off and asking if he can be naked—I’m guessing he thought it was a water slide! I explained it was just a bouncy house (NOT a pool!) and he didn’t need to be naked. 🙂 Thankfully he was still excited!

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A bouncy good time!

We decided to give the bounce place another try since some of the moms were going. Owen HATED it before but that was two years ago so I was willing to try it. I explained it would be like the big water slides but without water. He seemed interested so I kept my fingers crossed.

We walked in and once he saw everything, he was almost vibrating with excitement! YAY!

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There was a toddler (under 4) area and Katie spent some time there…

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But she really wanted to go with the big kids!

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Playing with Owen and some other guests:

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Taking a break on Katherine’s lap:

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He’s a blur!

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Daddy Dolls

We decided to get the kids Daddy Dolls and this morning was the deployment, so-to-speak. I thought Owen would be THRILLED…but as you can see, he was LESS than thrilled…even asking for another surprise.

However, he eventually did like it…

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And even co-opted Katie’s doll…

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Throughout the day, he kept going back to his doll, saying he was “going to go get his surprise.” 🙂

Katie, of course, chewed daddy’s face—since everything goes in her mouth (I didn’t get a good picture of it), but she did play with it later in the day.

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Could the clothes be any cuter?

New birthday outfit from Aunt Marie, Uncle Doug, Gabby, and Robert. You can’t really tell from the picture, but the skirt is navy blue with tons of ruffles (and it’s actually skorts). I have other colors of the same skorts (also from Schwalms) so you’ll see them again in a better-photographed-color!

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She loves the house!

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Love that leg!

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Before & After

Every month or so we gather all the Legos, put all the correct pieces together, and see what’s missing. (I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before.)

Well, this month it was a net loss. We found four pieces that had been missing, about six of the same pieces were still missing, but then there were about eight new missing pieces. Ugh.

BEFORE

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AFTER

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DISFIGURED LEGOS

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Busy Brother

Katie was up—and screaming—so I asked Owen to go in and keep her company for a few minutes while I took a quick shower. This is what I walked in to see (though in the pic I’d already grabbed her from the crib):

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He had dragged his big bear AND his turtle into her room…and was reading from her books (well, reading in so much as it’s a picture book that has “one star, two cats, three balls, etc.” in pictures on each page).

Then when I got her out of the crib…I saw his two other bears in there!

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What a busy brother he’d been during my five-minute-or-less shower!

Missiles!

Grandma Marsha bought Owen some Captain America missiles so Uncle Rob and daddy took him out to play before dinner. Grandma and Katie came out to watch.

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A one-in-a-million photo: Grandma Marsha looking at the camera with her eyes open and nothing blocking her face! And as a bonus, Katie is ALSO looking at the camera with her eyes open! 🙂

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Lego Carnival!

We took Owen over to Traverse City to one of the museums because they were having a Lego Carnival! When we asked him what he saw, he said “LEGO HEADS!”

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A carnival sounds quite a but more exciting than it really was—basically just a few rooms of big pre-constructed Lego buildings and then a play area—but he enjoyed it. The hardest part for him was not being able to touch the minifigs that were with the buildings…especially the one that had fallen over. 🙂

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But then there was the big Lego tunnel with daddy…

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And then he got to the big Lego building area…and his running commentary was about like this: “Awesome. Awesome. This is amazing. Lets get going. Holy mackerel. Wow!”

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Yes, I realize that the last picture should be the first picture, but I didn’t feel like redoing the whole collage.

And his final product!!

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Then it was off to build cars! We got the base ready for him and then he did the rest. Daddy also built one!

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Then it was time to send them down the slide to see if they survived (both did!).

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Then he just wanted to play with his cars.

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Then it was back to the Lego building tables to rearrange his car pieces.

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Then we told him it was almost time to go and asked how many more minutes he wanted to stay. We never know what we’re going to get when we ask him open-ended questions (How many M&Ms do you want? is a typical one) so we all had a big laugh when he said “Five hours.” I don’t think he knows time that well yet but who knows. So we said 15 minutes and set a timer and when it went off, he just asked to run his cars down the ramp one more time so we did:

Then it was off to lunch at North Peak Brewery. Owen decided he wanted to eat outside and us three adults all looked at each other like “Ugh—it’s too warm” but we did it anyway…and it ended up to be REALLY nice as it was mostly overcast and there was a nice breeze! Owen passed the time putting together a new Lego set that Grandma Marsha had bought him for being such a good boy! (I helped him but he did most of it!)

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On the way home, we were thinking about stopping for ice cream but thought we could go either way…so we let Owen be the deciding factor.

Tom: Owen, would you like a treat?
Owen: No thanks.
Me: Don’t you want to know what it is?
Owen: Okay.
Me: Ice cream.
Owen: No thanks. Legos were my treat. [Remember, Grandma Marsha bought him the Legos earlier as a treat.]

This isn’t normal for a 4yo, right? To give up ice cream?! He constantly surprises us. 🙂

Road Trip, Day 2

Well, I had an awful night. The whole barking dog fiasco combined with a very sore back (a combination of having been to the chiropractor on Thursday and the passenger seat not being very comfortable since it’s tweaked to best fit Katie’s car seat) meant I tossed and turned all night…and was wide awake enough to see midnight, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5a on the clock. I gave up at 5 and caught up on email, Facebook, forums, Scrabble, the blog, etc. Tom woke up about 6, Owen was up about 6:15, then Katie woke up while Tom was showering. We were packed, breakfasted, and on the road by 7:30. Well, 7:40—as we were pulling out of the parking lot, Owen said “Where’s my B?!” EEK! He had had it in the room so I wasn’t paying attention…and he obviously set it down. Tom ran back in and got it. Phew!

The first sibling game of the day was sharing (that’s Owen’s B).

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Then we stopped in Troy. I had to return some shoes to REI and we wanted to grab some sushi from our favorite place and take Owen to his old park stomping grounds.

First, Katie had some fries.

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She usually offers to share.

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Daddy and Katie sharing a fry, Lady & the Tramp style.

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Owen was really excited about his fries on the way there, but once we got there he was way more excited about playing.

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So off he went!

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Katie after her first daddy-assisted trip down the slide.

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And this is how she wanted to attempt it on her own.

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Owen on his way up to the BIG curly slide!

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He went down it about 10 times! He almost attempted a belly first (which we were going to allow) but then he changed his mind.

Katie’s first time on a real swing (and not just on one of our laps). SHE LOVED IT.

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Owen would have stayed to play for another hour (and we hated to leave the memories as well), but we had to get on the road to Gramma Jean’s! Unfortunately, Katie had HAD it with the road trip and squawked for quite a bit. She did conk out for a few minutes, but about a half hour out she was JUST. DONE. Kicking and screeching and definitely not happy. I wanted to tell her I understood—I hate long road trips, too.

But then we were pulling in the driveway and Owen was so excited to be here and Katie was excited to be out of her car seat and the grandparents (including Grauntie Marge) were excited to see the kids…and then it was a flurry of activity as we unpacked, Tom’s mom and brother arrived, and we all ate dinner.

To officially start my vacation, I had a bottle of wine (yes, you read that right: bottle, not glass). And to make sure I slept that night (and didn’t get a headache from the wine!), I took two Excedrin PMs and a back pain pill.

WELCOME HOME!