Valentine's Party

Why yes, these are mainly pictures of other people's kids and not my own. Mine wouldn't hold still long enough to get in the pictures. What can I say, there was a lot of sugar available.

Ok, Michael's in the background here. At least I put him in red, but he was no match compared to all of the girls in their party dresses.

Luke and some buddies--gotta love Ella's pigtails.

The Baby Brigade: part one--Lola and Molly.

The Baby Brigade: part two--Matthew and Rachel.

Girls love chocolate. I think Amelia and Alison were at the fountain most of the day.

I repeat, girls love chocolate. My friend Alyssa took this picture of Mya. I think it's one of my favorite pics of any kid ever!

Valentine's Day work

It's Valentine's Day and we've been very productive. No school tomorrow, but we are going to a playgroup Valentine's party. I've already assembled and addressed 40 valentines (20 for each kid). Technically, Luke should be signing his own, but there's just so many. On Friday we did his school Valentine exchange and he signed about 6 before he lost interest. Tonight, it was just easier for me to do it. I also made two mailbox-looking-type-receptacles. I'll take pictures tomorrow once the glue is dry--not because they are good, but because I made them at all! I also just took brownies out of the oven. Wow, that's a lot for me considering I've been doing a pretty good impression of a slug the last few months.

Matt's working, too. Yesterday, the boys went to a model train expo, so they are back into trains and vehicles again. I was out at Toys R Us and found a wooden track set on clearance. I wasn't expecting much for the price, but when I assembled it last night, it turned out to be pretty big--it took up our whole coffee table. I originally chose it because it came in it's own storage tub, but after assembling it once, we realized we had no desire to assemble it over and over again. So today Matt went to Lowe's and bought a piece of press board and, as I type, he is gluing the track to it. I bought some paint today and my job begins tomorrow night when I will try to paint some landscape features on the press board. I have no idea where we are going to store this monstrosity, I think it will have to go in the boys' bedroom. But, hey, we are now the proud owners of a train set and we are feeling like quite the crafty parents.

Three-headed Monster

A snowhill

Another big snowstorm this week. On Tuesday, the roads were too bad even to take the kids sledding, so Matt built a snowhill in the backyard.

A Snow Fort

Columbus is buried under almost a foot of snow! At Christmas I bought the boys plastic molds to make snow bricks, but the haven't worked very well with the dry snow we've had. But this is the heavy wet stuff and they worked great yesterday and today. Matt helped Luke to build a big fort yesterday, but it collapsed overnight . Today Matt, Luke and Ethan started over and built two snow awesome forts. Too bad Ethan later decided to destroy one of the forts after a snowball fight, but at least one is still standing.

A Birthday Party

Michael has been to birthday parties before, but usually for friends of Luke or family friends. This was the first time he was invited to a classmate's party as his own person. Isabella's party was at Kingdom of Bounce, a big indoor inflatable playground. He had a great time!

A Story by Luke

In the car today, Matt was telling Luke that the story of Eragon (a movie Luke likes) was written by a young boy, not a grown up. Luke decided that he needed to write a story of his own. It's hard to write a story when you don't really know how to write, but Luke did his best.

According to Luke, the story is about a gang of good prehistoric mega-sharks who are fighting a gang of evil Tylosauruses. A bit like West Side Story for Sea Monsters. Luke has been obsessing about sea dinosaurs for about ten days now. He recently acquired a National Geographic video game and dvd about Sea Monsters. The Tylosaurus was the biggest and scariest creature in the prehistoric ocean. Luke LOVES him and is patiently awaiting for him to arrive in toy form (yes, they do make toy Tylosauruses if you are willing to spend enough time googling them).

A zoo to ourselves

Matt was going to take the boys ice skating after mass today, but the open skate hours weren't good. So we decided to bundle up and go to the zoo. It was EMPTY!! The Columbus Zoo is one of the largest and best rated zoos in the country. But I guess when temps are only in the 20s, most people would rather stay warm at home. We really only did the inside exhibits: the aquarium (Luke is in a shark/sea monster phase), the manatees, the reptile house and the Asia house. But it was so much fun to have the place virtually to ourselves. I thought it was funny that the only other people we saw there were families with young boys like ours--"airing them out" as my mother would say. Check out these very rare pictures of an empty zoo!

This is the entrance where people are normally lined up to buy tickets.

Just inside the main gates.

Luke walking on the concrete "balance beam" back towards the nearly empty parking lot.

Behind Michael and Daddy you can see the other parking lot, normally full, with not a single car in it!

Superheroes

This is a new game the boys have been playing first thing in the morning. They put on their hooded towels and run around saying that they are superheroes. Not sure real superheroes are supposed to be this cute and cuddly. And I'm pretty sure real superheroes don't finish up their missions by asking for warm milk.

Big Boy Underpants!

Here's Michael flashing his Handy Manny underpants. I was a pretty lazy potty training mom this time around and Michael wore pull-ups for about three weeks. But he's definitely ready for the real thing now! A few more good days, and we'll be off to the John Deere store for a big boy reward! On a side note, who thought putting Handy Manny's face on the butt was a good idea? Look at where his nose is!

A Room for Big Boys

We finally ordered the other half of Luke's bunk bed set when Nan was here and it came today! Matt rearranged the whole room. The beloved, but peeling, truck stickers on the walls have been replaced with Spiderman. The boys weren't nervous at all about their new beds and both of them slept great! Thanks Poppy and Nan for such wonderful bunk beds!

Luke-isms for Nan . . .

These have already been posted on Facebook, but Poppy and Nan have probably missed them since they don't check in that often.

Earlier this week:
Mommy, why does Jesus get to go to heaven with his skin on, but we only get to go up with our souls?

Tonight:
"Mommy, I'm afraid of ghosts because they have sharp horns and teeth that bite and they jump around." "Really? I didn't know that about ghosts." "Remember, Mommy, we saw them at the zoo?" Ummmm. "Oh, GOATS, you're afraid of goats." "Yes, goats."

Godsons

We had our friends the Doughertys and the Maseks over for dinner tonight and, goodness, our godsons are getting big!

Benedict is almost 16 months and was contemplating a more interesting beverage than the apple juice his parents offered.

Mark is 6 months old and loves his feet.

Monster Jam

Matt took the boys to see the Monster Jam monster trucks yesterday. These were the "real" monster trucks that Luke and Michael have about a zillion of at home in toy form. Our neighbor Ethan and his dad Josh came along, too. It was loud and crazy and our kids loved it--Ethan was less impressed with the monster trucks, but liked the motorcycles and ATVs.

Our Mighty Knights

This is Sir Armor the Silver Knight posing with his battle axe.

This is Sir Me the Star Knight whose battle cry is "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

Here the knights are preparing for battle.

And here they are fighting the evil Sir Grackamel the Black Knight. I believe he was vanquished . . .or maybe just exhausted.

Coldest Weekend Ever!!!

For some crazy reason, we decided the first weekend of January would be a great time to drive to the cottage in Canada. We made it up without too much trouble, although the last couple of hours from Toronto to Waubashene were pretty dicey. Matt says Blue Thunder handles great on the icy roads, though. We got in just as the gale winds were starting and the temps were dropping towards zero Farenheit (they were already well below zero Celsius). Granddad and Grandma Sylvia mainly use the fireplace to heat the cottage, so it was warm enough when the fire was going, but the nights and mornings were brutally cold. Once I got the kids in their long underwear, they didn't come out of it all weekend. They even slept with long underwear and socks on under their blanket sleepers (the fleece jammies with feet). Nobody bathed or showered for two days because it was just too darn cold! Thank goodness I remembered to pack slippers for everyone because you couldn't walk around the cottage without them.

Luke's only wish for months has been to skate on "Granddad's lake" which happens to be an inlet of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. So we bundled up the boys: long underwear, sweat pants, sweat shirts, two pairs of socks, snow pants, jacket, mitts, hat, hood, boots. Matt and I got as bundled as we could and we all ventured outside on Saturday. Michael promptly face planted and started screaming and that was it for him. He stayed inside with mommy the rest of the weekend. Matt and Luke quickly realized that they needed to cover their faces and came back in to regroup. They tied scarves around their faces and headed back out. They shoveled a rink and went skating three times that day! We think the wind chill was around -20. I'm so proud of them for braving the cold and having a good time.

Meanwhile, Michael and I did something more our speed, we explored Canadian culture via Sylvia's cracker collection featuring various flavors (or should I say flavours) found only in Canada: dill pickle, ketchup and "all dressed" (a very strange flavor that defies description). The boys also got new tool benches from Granddad for Christmas and they spent a long time playing with them.

The weather did not improve on Sunday, although I did get my peameal bacon fix. We were supposed to go see Uncle Greg's new house in Toronto that afternoon, but the driving was terrible. It took us five hours to get from the cottage to London, Ontario where we decided to stay the night and break up the drive. I'm sure glad we did. As we drove the rest of the way today, we stopped counting after we saw ten cars abandoned in the ditch.

Why no pictures of this wild and wintery Canadian weekend? Because the minute I turned the camera on, the batteries died--or froze. We do have the skating on video and when we finish the disc maybe I'll figure out how to post it.

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday afternoon we endured the 4pm Children's Mass at Immaculate Conception with every other Catholic in Clintonville. Phew, what chaos! We were very happy to get home to our Antipasta and Gnocchi dinner. Then it was off to bed for the kids and off to work for Santa's elves who purged all the broken toys from the house and put two giant bins of baby toys into storage. Good thing we made lots of room for new toys because Santa and the grandparents were overly generous.

The morning started dark and early at 6am. This is Michael's monster truck ramp from Santa. He won't stop playing with it.

These robots came from Grandma Carole. They are loud and obnoxious and the boys love them!

Poppy and Nan sent Luke TWO building sets. This is the recycling truck set. It's really cool.

And this is the pirate ship set. Luke's favorite part is the giant octopus.

Michael got Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse car sets from Poppy and Nan.

Luke had been asking for "robot animals" since he saw a commercial on tv. Santa found these baby pandas. They have bottles for feeding them and make eating and sleeping noises. Luke, especially, likes taking care of his panda. I wonder if he'll be quite as excited about taking care of the new baby in April?

Imitating Caillou

This is Caillou. He's Canadian and does a lot of winter activities. Luke learned how to ice skate by watching Caillou. Today Caillou was sledding. The boys were disappointed that there wasn't enough snow in the backyard for them to take their sleds out, so they practiced inside instead. Hurry up, big snow, the boys want to be like Caillou!

The First Snowman

We got just enough snow a few days ago for the first snowman of the season. Luke named him Rocky. He's no longer with us, but I'm sure there'll be another snowman along soon.

Wildlights

We went to Wildlights at the zoo tonight. Matt thought the boys should walk, but by the time we got dinner and got parked, it was almost 7pm, which is usually bedtime for our kids. So, we ended up renting a double stroller and it was very nice to have the kids contained all evening. By the end, Michael was totally zoned out and Luke was pretending to be asleep. Both zonked out completely on the ride home.

Superheroes

Have you met the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel?

Reading with Nan

Michael's posse

This is from before I left for El Paso when Michael was in full goose-egged forehead mode. Michael has quite the stuffed animal crew and he is usually accompanied by at least two of them. Monkey and Elephant go with us most places around town. He reluctantly leaves the rest behind, but once home, he likes to have the whole gang around.

Some news

I haven't blogged for a while. I took a quick trip to El Paso for my Grandpa S.T.'s funeral. It was a time of remembering with my extended family. I got to see all of my cousins on that side, which is very rare considering one lives in Taiwan and another lives in Beijing. I got back just in time to teach my last class. Nan arrived yesterday in the middle of a major windstorm. Today we had our "big" ultrasound and . . .

IT'S A BOY!!!!!

We've been hearing a lot about My Three Sons.