February Fun

I seldom pick them both up these days, because they're HEAVY!!!!!

Liam has learned that he can blow things, like Cheerios, across the table without touching them with his hands

And then he eats them, of course!

Robin's preschool class did a Valentine exchange!  He wasn't feeling very well the day before, so we let him sleep in on Valentine's Day.  When he finally woke up, he was in pretty good spirits, so we took him to school late.  On any other day, I'd just have given him a day off, but I knew he'd been looking forward to the holiday.  It did wear him out since he wasn't completely well, but I'm still glad he had the opportunity to share...

...and to get all this loot!

A Valentine exchange between the boys.

An orgy of chocolate!

We went to Dean's parents' house to celebrate Great Uncle Rohn's birthday, and had chocolate fondue for dessert!

We went to a Superhero-themed birthday party for the daughter of an old friend.  Dean decided to go in costume

The kids all got capes and masks

Go heroes!!!

Then they chased down the Evil Villain, who had kidnapped a favorite stuffed animal.  When beaten, he dropped his stash of candy and small toys, too

Liam just liked knocking over the boxes.  Dean, and an older girl, kept setting them up for him.  He had a blast

Reading to both of my boys

I got to hold a friend's one-day-old baby!  Awwwwwwww!!!!  They're so darn CUTE when they're tiny!

And light!  Did I mention they're light?

Our neighbor installed a new dishwasher and was getting rid of the box.  "You want it?" he asked.  "Sure," we said.  A half-hour, lots of packing tape, and some extra cardboard later, Viola!  Space ship!

Hee hee hee!

Complete with porthole and lockable door

Robin wanted to make his own Slinky Dog with his slinky.  He'd been bugging us all day, and I had no idea how.  Poppa to the rescue!

Robin wanted to make it out of wood, but Poppa had a better idea, and made him out of toilet paper tubes.  (This slinky has since died, when Robin decided to stretch it all the way out and bend it all around.  This may be Robin's first experience with a toy that can't be fixed at all.  We'll see how it goes.)

Liam painting!  He loves to get involved in things like this.  The only difficulty is that I have to watch him so closely--that is, if I don't want my entire kitchen to be painted

Meanwhile, Robin drew this picture of the four of us.  (Liam is pretty tiny, you have to look closely.)

Liam loves hats these days.  It's one of the words he says most regularly.  I don't know if he likes hats because he can say the word, or if he was inspired to learn the word because he likes hats, but he's regularly putting them on.  He knows where we keep his winter hats in the closet (and they're down where he can reach now) so he's always trying to get them.  Well, on this day he found Robin's Mickey hat in Robin's dresser, and decided to put it on.

Backwards.  Our little rapper?  He's cute either way.

Every day at Robin's preschool, they have a snack, and it is provided by the students.  They take turns, and with such a large class, their turn only comes up every two months or so.  Except for Robin who, because he joined the class late, wasn't on the snack calendar.  (They created the entire year's snack calendar at the beginning of the year, so we weren't on it.  Mom, who taught preschool for 22 years, thinks that's a strange way to do things, but it is what it is.)  Anyway, two kids wound up leaving the preschool class over the last few months, so back at the end of Christmas break I emailed the Admin person asking if we needed to take over the snack days of one of those kids.  She, probably taking pity on our unemployed status, told me they had it covered and not to worry.

Now, Robin hadn't actually asked when he would get to be Snack Kid, but he'd excitedly told us about the song they sing to thank the Snack Kid each day, and told us all about it when one of his friends brought snack.  So I knew he would love to be Snack Kid himself.  And one snack day in two months wasn't going to break our budget.  So I'd been planning to talk to the Admin person and say "thanks for thinking of us, but Robin would really like a snack day, can he have at least one?"  I hadn't, however, gotten around to doing that yet, so it was a surprise when Robin came home from preschool one day at the end of January with the snack basket!  He was just glowing when he showed it to me, he was so excited.

So Robin got to be Snack Kid after all.

I talked about this with one of the teachers the day we brought his snack, and it looked like it was just a miscommunication between Admin and the teachers.  They assumed the Admin person would have told us that yes, we were taking over for one of the now-absent children.  I have the one other snack day that we'll be covering now, and have it on my calendar.  Because it would have been easier if we'd had advance warning of this--instead we had to make an extra trip to the grocery store.  Oh well, it was worth it for this happy kid.

We went to the Lego store, where Robin spent his Christmas money.  He was happy to pick his own Legos with the Pick-a-Brick option, where he filled a bucket with loose bricks of his own choosing.  The next day, he created this forklift all on his own, with his new bricks.  (All except for Superman, that's Dean's.)

We started potty training Liam on the 7th!!  Look Ma, no pants or diaper!  (He's wearing underwear, but you can't see them in this picture.)

It started off as messily as can be expected.  We went cold turkey (except during sleep time, of course) and so I had to follow him around all day, keep an eye on his behavior, and encourage him to get to the bathroom when it became necessary.  Here are some things we did to keep occupied.  The sensory bin

Drawing at the easel

And painting.  He's making slow progress, and proving that he has a different learning style from his brother.  Of course they wouldn't be the same, that would make things too easy.  But I'm happy with the progress that we're seeing.  Go Liam!

Breckenridge

We headed up to Breckenridge for a day trip to see their snow sculptures.  Pretty neat stuff!

The train was one of only two that we were allowed to climb on.  The rest were works of art.

It was quite hard to get both boys up here safely.  And me, too

Choo choo!

There were some ice sculptures too, though they're not part of the competition

There's some pretty amazing stuff here

This is an international event, with teams coming from all over the world to compete.  

According to Breckenridge's own information "The Breckenridge Ski Resort makes snow recognized to be some of the best in the world.  (They spent years perfecting their 'recipe.')"  So perhaps that's part of why this is such a big deal--they provide really good snow for sculpting.

Typical

Dean's parents have gone up to see the sculptures for the last few years, but this is the first time we've joined them.

It was neat, although I don't know if it was worth the travel time.  (Our travel time was hampered by a longish detour to avoid an accident, and not leaving until nearly an hour after we'd intended.)  Next time we'll have to make sure to leave earlier in order to make it more worthwhile.

Parking was particularly hideous, too--it is ski season, after all.  We were very fortunate that we drove past Grammy and Grandpa while searching for a spot, so we were able to set the boys free with their grandparents, and didn't have to listen to them whine about wanting to get out of the car anymore.  Thanks, Del and Cyndy!

Another possibility would be to get a room and spend one or two nights and make a weekend of it.  Then we'd have time to play around as well.

We did actually think of the overnight idea this year, but the resorts were so full (due to ski season) that Dean's parents weren't able to use their sway as vacation owners in Breck to get a room.  Oh well.

Again.... typical

The uncarved block of snow.  It looks like a Borg cube.  Or maybe that was the Rhoadarmer Gingerbread entry

Our family in front of the happy family Chinese entry

Now Grandpa is holding 60+ pounds of kid

You could climb on these horses too, but Robin didn't want to so we didn't wait in line

Pretty neat!  And we had fun.