Off to Neverland

While at Neverland (Kuphal's new adorable home) this morning, Peter Pan (Elyse) spent her time guarding the silver key from getting into the hands of Captain Hook (Aiden). 

All seriousness, this is how they spent their morning playing together.  I really do love how cute they are together; and I couldn't get enough of Aiden's pirate earring.  

Races

It is not uncommon to see Elyse and Caleb running and having races with their big toys around the house.  And lately, Kallen has begun participating :) 

Fun in the Snow

So our big snow fall of the year took place way back in December.  Sadly with having snow gear packed, moving and then being way too cold out, the kids had not been outside once to enjoy it; that is until last Friday.  The temperature hit 41 with sun and we couldn't help ourselves but to go have some backyard fun.  I do love playing in the snow and when it's 41 degrees with sun, I really love playing in it!  We had a blast and made a great family memory.

Swimming in -6 Degrees

What to do when it's -6 outside without windchill?
Go swimming!

 

Since Nate had a three day weekend, we decided to take the opportunity to have a fun family afternoon doing something memorable and unusual for us.  We packed up dinner and our swim stuff, and then headed to a local hotel that has open swim with a no entry pool.  Thankfully no one was there but us.  Our time started with the kids having tears of uncertainty, but ended with tears of frustration that their time was up.  One word to sum up our time, enjoyable.

 



Kallen Turns 10 Months

Another month already?!? Today Kallen turns 10 months old.  So here's to celebrating our littlest happy, chatty, energetic, busy, two teeth, comical, adorable, exploratory and spunky son's day.

Kallen, we love you and hope you have a wonderful 10 month birthday!

Typical Thursday

Elyse is dressed up and dancing

Caleb is playing with his cars

Kallen is pulling himself up onto everything

A typical Thursday?  You bet!

Camouflage Night

Tonight was "Camouflage Night" at Awana and Elyse didn't want to miss out, but didn't want to look unfashionable either.  She tried on Nate's coat and quickly informed me it was too big, heavy, not stylish and not pretty.  So she improvised.  She decided to wear his camouflage belt as an accessory and go in all black and brown.  She then said to me after getting ready, "Mama, see I make camouflage look good."

I also asked her to just stand by the wall for a picture and by no surprise she starts giving me a bunch of different poses.  Well you get the idea of her outfit.

Big Tub

For the last five months or so, Kallen has been enjoying his baths in the pink duck.  Unfortunately due to some unknown holes, we have had to say farewell to the duck.  Last night I let Kallen take a bath in the kids' tub that he watches them play in each night.  Needless to say, with all the room and toys to play with, he LOVED his bath and was smiling the entire time.

Sorry about the poor picture quality, they were taken with phone.

Eventually I will let all three bathe together and I look forward to that night, but right now I'm more afraid Kallen would be attacked just a little too much. :)

Rainbow Map Game

So when Kallen takes his morning nap (which I can't wait for him to be done with) I often hear the words, "Mom, I'm bored."  So I randomly came up with what we call, "The Rainbow Map Game" and needless to say it made 45 minutes of our morning fly by.

DIRECTIONS

• Get a piece of paper and make color squares for each color of the rainbow.
• Finally make an X at the bottom symbolizing the end of the map.
• Set timer for 5 min (each round decrease the minute, ex. 4 min, 3 min....)
• Say go, and watch your children run around the house looking for an item with that color.  They then put the item in the bag and once they collected all the colors they rush to bring it back to you before time is up.
• If succeed, they get a taste of the rainbow, one Skittle.
• If failed, they have to try it again.

The game also worked using shapes (not age appropriate for Caleb).
Note to self, collecting all the items and then putting them away also takes a good 10 minutes :)
Hope your kids have just as much fun as mine.

Pajama Day

As many of my closest family members and friends know, I am not a fan of character wear.  I ask people to please not purchase any clothes that have what I consider dumb phrases or pictures of characters on them.  Although I do make an exception to pajamas.  I don't care what pajamas people buy my children because they never wear them outside the home.  Well that is until today.  Elyse's preschool had "Pajama Day" today and boy was she excited!  She came running down this morning in both her princess top and Hello Kitty pants.  With a big smile on her face she said, "I couldn't decide which one to wear since I love them both so much, so I am just going to wear one of each." Plus to top off her day, she gets to carry around Rapunzel too :)

It Might Just Be the Best Seat in the House

Whenever Nate moves our little bench in front of the windows, the kiddos just love sitting up there. I  can't blame them, it really is both beautiful and very peaceful.

Top Reason Kids Love to Move

Because their dad can build them a humongous cardboard fort/castle with look out towers and tunnels.

Funny story...I spent easily over an hour unpacking and organizing the basement toys.  Just to discover Nate spent all that time on the other side of the room making the fort.  Not surprisingly, it is by far what the kids play with all the time.  :)