March Adventures

Here's the round up of our adventures for March (in pictures):

J started trying to colour inside the lines

One day I couldn't find J during nap time (when he usually doesn't sleep) and it took me a moment to spot a hand and foot here.  He slept for 2 hours!

We went with friends to the new Perot natural history museum in Dallas.

J liked the interactive screens.

C liked the magnetic puzzle.

We had a picnic at the airport...

so we could see Auntie Naomi as she passed through

She brought presents!

We visited the Dallas Zoo with friends.

We had lots of fun.

J got up the courage to pet a native Texan possum.

After the keeper gave her talk.  Did you know they not only play dead to avoid predators but also let of a 'dead scent' to make the act more realistic?

The children's zoo had a fun spiderweb so our budding Spiderman had a go...

and was joined by his brother.

The weather has got warmer, and C has decided he likes air on his skin... a lot!

We went to a friend's 5th birthday party.  J discovered 'little legos' and was quite happy building with and without assistance.

The lego theme included a cake of 'bricks', chocolate bricks, gummy bricks and men, straws and streamers with lego-man faces, favours of lego-man soaps and crayons and lego notebooks and 'tattoos'.  E had fun getting ready!

And she lent us her silicone molds so we melted down some of our old crayons and made our own bricks.

And that was all before Easter weekend.  More on that later.

January Round Up

I thought I should get around to posting some of the pictures from January (post-birthday party).  So here's the round up:

 The chef's hat is mandatory when helping in the kitchen at present (according to J).

 We went to the park as a family and tried out J's t-ball set after swinging and sliding and climbing.

 It is warm enough in mid-winter to sit out on the patio area for afternoon tea - that's Texas for y'all!

 I got a haircut for the first time in ages.

 We swapped date nights with friends and our boys loved hanging out together.

 C discovered he could blow bubbles in his milk until they popped when they touched his nose.

 This was a source of delight for a good 15 minutes!  Not sure if much milk made it up the straw. ;o)

 C played with playdough for the first time.

 Note that the 10 colour pack we gave J for his birthday is now a uniform 'greywacke' grey!

The party tablecloth is now officially part of the playdough experience.

So there you go.  Not the best pics ever, but a sample of our month.

Advent 2012: Week 4

Week 4 of Advent is very short this year!  Here's how we prepared in the couple of days before Christmas.

December 22: Originally, I planned to make marshmallows to have in hot chocolate, but after a playgroup friend gave us this snowman

 I decided not to make work for myself!  We went for a family walk around the 'park' area of our apartment complex and then came back and made minty hot chocolate.  I took the picture after I'd made the drinks so just in case you can't tell, his head contains tiny (hard) marshmallows, his middle contains hot chocolate powder, and his base contains peppermint candy which was heated with the milk.  (I couldn't be bothered crushing it, as instructed, but it seemed to infuse fine.)  J thought this was a fantastic treat.

December 23: We lit the fourth candle on our Advent wreath, symbolizing love.

December 24: Today we retold the Christmas story with a kid-friendly nativity.  In the afternoon we attended the Children's Christmas service at church.  Then in the evening we skyped with family in NZ, where it was already Christmas Day.  After both boys were finally in bed, we nestled presents under the tree since they'd been out of sight to avoid prodding and poking!

 December 25: Christmas Day!  Among our other activities for the day we lit the final candle at the centre of our Advent wreath: the Christ candle.  After all, Christ's coming is the reason we have the preparation time of Advent and the reason we celebrate Christmas in the first place.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Advent 2012: Week 3

Well, Christmas has arrived, but here's our update on Advent activities.  They have helped me focus more on the season of preparation this year.  I felt surprisingly calm and organised - I hope it lasts!  Here's what we got up to in Week 3...

December 15: Due to a short ban on DVDs for a young man, we postponed watching a Christmas movie until a few days later!  Instead we opened our piggy banks and helped him divvy up some money to give to the Salvation Army bell-ringer at Walmart.  He has been fascinated with the bell each time we shop there, so he was keen to give - even if it was more for the bell than the need we explained to him simply.  Near disaster - the bell-ringer wasn't in place as we entered the shop but (phew!) was cheerily ringing as we exited.

December 16: We lit the third candle on our Advent wreath.  J can now tell me as I light each candle during breakfast, "That's the hope candle. That's peace. That's joy!"  He likes trying to blow them out too.

December 17: This morning we hosted our playgroup friends.  Only a couple of families were able to make it but we still expended some energy!  We watched "Jacob's Gift" as our Christmas movie and some relaxation in the afternoon.  It is based on a book by Max Lucado of the same name, telling the Christmas story from the perspective of a carpenter's apprentice whose family runs the inn by the infamous stable.  It has a wonderful message about gift giving.  We have watched and read the book MULTIPLE times during the week since.

Source: Amazon.com

December 18: We bundled the boys up in pyjamas and drove over to Highland Park (a swanky Dallas suburb) to see the Christmas light displays.  Many have been installed by professionals and they can be spectacular. (Not that you can tell from my evidence!  The blurry photos don't do the displays justice.  Props to anyone who can identify what is shown in the third photo.)  J could identify snowmen, Santa Claus, trees and houses that looked like "gingerbread house[s]".  I was disappointed that (here in the Bible Belt) there were hardly any nativity scenes.  I think I only saw one in half an hour's driving!

December 19: We made an early start and made Peanut Butter Squares before we went to the local library's story time and shared Christmas stories and cookies.  This is one of the recipes my mum makes around Christmas time, and is the reason I love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups so much!  Apart from the essence, they are pretty alike.  The boys helped crush the graham crackers to smithereens (since wine biscuits are hard to come by here) and I was amazed they didn't even attempt to hit each other. :o)  I think the recipe was originally from an Alison Holst cookbook but I can't be sure.

December 20: Today we made gift tags for presents.  I traced some shapes onto paper (stars for J and circles for C) and wrote in the to/from details.  The boys went crazy with the crayons and I doctored them up afterward and cut them out.

December 21: The boys helped me wrap the presents they are giving to each other and Dad.  We made sure to stick on the gift tags. At the moment the presents are stashed away because little prying fingers have no mercy and I don't have shares in wrapping paper companies.  They'll come out under the tree closer to Christmas Day.

Outdoor Movie Night

Last week our church hosted an outdoor screening of The Lorax.  

Source: Wikipedia

We sat on blankets, had a picnic tea, got a balloon puppy dog, and had a "good ol' time", all for the price of some food donations for a local foodbank.

(Check out my new glasses!)

A pity both boys had so much trouble getting to sleep after such an exciting night!

(By the way, I've changed the 'comments' settings so anyone can leave a comment now, not just Google bods!  I've added moderation to eliminate spam commenting though.)

A Belated Father's Day

Since N was away in NZ for North American Father's Day (in June)  and we completely missed NZ Father's Day (in September), partly due to a lack of commercial reminders(!), we had a belated celebration this weekend.




Daddy got to sleep in and then Mummy made waffles for breakfast.  The boys gave Daddy their presents: finger-painted card, handkerchiefs and a t-shirt.  Yes, those are the boys' handprints.  The t-shirt was a big hit!

In the afternoon we went to the park and played before the rain started.  Then we went for icecream.  It was J's first icecream in a cone.  I think the table got more than he did.  C licked his icecream off a spoon.  Check out Daddy's huge icecream split.  He didn't want dinner later.

And in the evening, after some wrestling with Daddy and watching some music clips on the computer, both boys went to sleep pretty much straight away.  :o)  Bonus!