Snowball Attack

My mom bought the boys some fake snowballs and a bucket when we did a little after-Christmas shopping before she left.  The boys didn't tell Brian about them and surprised him when he came home from work.

12 Days of Science

My mom and I took the boys to the Adventure Science Center the day after Christmas.  It was a great day to go - not crowded at all.  And they were having special events for their "Twelve Days of Science".  Thursday was "There's SNOW Place Like Home".

We got free tickets for the 11:30 Snow Throw Lab.  We got to learn how the muscles in the arm work to throw things and got to make a model arm with bones out of paper towel roll centers and muscles out of balloons.  Then the kids got to throw snowballs made from baking soda and hair conditioner.

Outside the museum they had ice carving.  We missed the actually process but got to see the result.

Besides that we just enjoyed playing at the museum!

And we also got to bring home an experiment we finally started.  It's a borax crystal snowflake.  It's just borax and water with a pipe cleaner shaped like a snowflake.  Crystals have started forming on the pipe cleaner and we can take it out soon.

Holiday at Cheekwood

Last Sunday we went with my mom to Cheekwood for their Holiday celebration.  On the weekend they have special things for the kids to do and see.

Our first stop was making a Christmas ornament at the Drop-In Studio.  Rylan had fallen asleep on the way to Cheekwood and was still asleep in his stroller while Carter made the ornament.

Next we headed over to the Frist Learning Center atrium and got to see 2 of Santa's reindeer (he was inside getting his picture taken with kids).

Carter got to "try on" some antlers!

Santa even left his sleigh outside for us to try out!

Carter then got to make a reindeer antler hat inside the building.  He traced his hands to make the antlers.  Then Rylan finally woke up and both boys got to decorate cookies.  They each got a little cookie and cup of frosting.  The got to spread the frosting on the cookie and put sprinkles on the cookies.

Yum!

Next we went into the Museum of Art to see the Christmas trees.  This year's theme was "Christmas in Color" with each tree reflecting a different color.

Before we left Rylan had to do a few things he's missed out on while sleeping (making a reindeer hat, sitting in Santa's sleigh, and seeing the reindeer).

Preschool Presents

The boys came home on the last day of school with lots of Christmas presents.

Carter got Spiderman gifts from his teacher.  Ms. Denise gave the boys a Spiderman coloring book, markers, and paddleball set.  The girls got the same things but I think they got a My Little Pony version.

Quinn always gives the rest of the class presents at Christmas and the end of the year.  This year was a Slinky, pencil, and stickers.  She is the youngest of five kids and has an awesome family.

Carter also had a gift to give Brian and me.

We waited to open it until Christmas morning.  Carter helped Ms. Denise make both ornaments for us.  I really love them both.

Carter also had the couple of ornaments from his Christmas party.  Lauren stopped by the classroom and took each kid's picture and made us these ornaments.

She also asked them what they wanted for Christmas and prepped these ornaments for the kids to decorate during the party.

Rylan got this bag of things for himself.

There was an ornament with his picture attached with a bear and nativity ornament inside.

Carter got this same bear in a lighter color his first year at the school.  His teachers from that year (Linda & Toni) are next door to Rylan's current teachers and they seem to have a lot of the same ideas.

One of the little girls in Rylan's class (Maddie) also gave the kids in the class some treats.

Rylan had a present for Brian and me too that we opened on Christmas morning.

There were two ornaments inside.  The wreath is just like the one Carter made in his class.   And then there was a snowman handprint ornament (like Carter did in Linda & Toni's class and we do all the time at home).

Elf on the Shelf Friday

Mr. Elf has returned to the North Pole.  Rylan is missing him a lot.  When he woke up on Christmas morning, he wasn't excited to open presents.  He just kept telling me in his sad voice that he missed Mr. Elf.  But he would never go find Mr. Elf in the morning while he was here.  Rylan always wakes up before Carter but he and I couldn't leave his room until Carter was up so we could all find Mr. Elf together.  Rylan is such a confusing child!

On Saturday we found Mr. Elf having a "North Pole Sack Race" with the boys' Disney characters.  Of course Mr. Elf was in the lead.

Mr. Elf must of had a craving for pancakes because he put on the boys' baker hats (as they called them - they went Christmas shopping for me with Brian on Saturday morning and got a special treat while they were out) and left out the pancake mix.

He also wrote a note in some flour to make sure we knew what he wanted.

On Monday morning we found Mr. Elf trapped in a cocoon made by a couple of spiders!!!

Tuesday was our last day with Mr. Elf.  He left the boys some Reindeer Food and a note.

The Reindeer food said:

Sprinkle on the lawn at night
The moon will make it sparkle bright
Santa's reindeer fly and roam
This will guide them to your home

The note said:

Bye, Carter & Rylan!  It's been a fun month!  See you next year!  Love, Mr. Elf

Bye, Mr. Elf.  The boys are going to miss you.  Brian and I, not so much :)

Recent Pictures

Carter asks me all the time to take his picture with Charlotte.  The boys really play with her a lot now.  They are probably annoying her just as much as she's enjoying it, but they chase her around the house and give her lots of hugs.  They also give her way too many treats!

A few weeks ago we went to a birthday party for Andre at Monkey's Treehouse.  The party was Mickey Mouse themed and Mickey Mouse even showed up!

The boys loved the cookies.

I had to grab a picture of Carter dressed up like a baker.  He thought it was really cool :)

Another day when speech interfered with a nap (I was so jealous and wanted to trade places with him!) ...

Two weeks before Christmas was "K" week in Carter's class.  For show-and-tell he wanted to show the kangaroos in his Australian-version of The Twelves Days of Christmas.  "On the fifth day of Christmas my true love game to me, five kan-ga-roos."

Last week the kids got to bring in anything related to Christmas.  Carter brought in this Santa that he's had to sleep with every night since we pulled out our Christmas decorations.

We went for a walk on Sunday and I let Carter hold Charlotte for the first time every.  I'm usually scared she's going to pull him down or he's going to let go of her.  But Charlotte had her prong collar on and didn't seem crazy so we tried it.  And Carter walked her for at least half a mile.  He was so proud!

We had some nasty storms come through our area on Saturday evening after we put the kids to bed but we were still up.  When the EAS tried to broadcast a tornado warning, it screwed up Comcast and we lost both our internet and cable for the next 3 hours.  Perfect.  Now we didn't have a radar to watch.  Luckily Brian was able to rig up a solution to pick up one local channel.

Rylan is starting to put together smaller Lego sets without a ton of assistance.

Rylan helped me with the Whirley Popcorn popper the other day ...

Rylan's Christmas Performance

Rylan's class doesn't do a Christmas program on the big stage since he's in a 2-day-a-week class instead of a 3-day.  With his summer birthday, he could have been in either program (as well as the rest of the kids in his class), but in this program, I get to spend one day a week with just him and he doesn't have to be potty trained yet!

Rylan's class has music class on Tuesdays with a class of older kids and they learn the same songs.  So the music teacher decided to have the kids perform for just their parents in the music room.  So even though these kids are just as old as some of the kids performing on stage in the morning performance, half of Rylan's class wouldn't have handled it well (though they did do this performance during their normal nap time so that may have had some effect on them).

Rylan was next to his best friend in class - Luke.  Whenever we see Luke before school, he gives Rylan a big hug.  After getting to see them together during the performance, I figured out why they get along so well.  They are both silly and like to make others laugh.  But they also listen really well in class and follow the rules.  There are only 3 other boys in Rylan's class (and 8 girls) so I'm glad Rylan has found a buddy.

Here are all the songs the kids performed.  It's the same ones Carter did plus a little introductory song at the beginning that the kids always do at the beginning of music class.  You can actually see Rylan so these are more interesting to watch than Carter's performance.