CBS Christmas Concert!

Now that both boys are in classes at CBS, I was excited to see them both perform Christmas Songs this year!

Last year Bastian was not super pumped about singing... but this year his teachers told me he is one of the loudest singers in his class!  I couldn't wait to hear him!

 Unfortunately, Bastian did not sing loudly this year! He actually only sang one song!  AND his teacher forgot to put his button down shirt back on him... so this year was not all that I was hoping for! BUT- Bastian does say that he had fun.. so I will take that!

Aaaand here is Gabriel-  right before he burst into tears, when his teachers wouldn't let him off the stage! I did end up going to get him and he sat on my lap for the entire performance!
  (Notice- the Thomas train in his hand.. this is his new lovey. As long as Gman has Thomas we can take him anywhere.. as soon as we lose Thomas the world ends! Unfortunately, Thomas let us down this time! )

The Christmas program was insanely cute! I really cant wait for Bastian to be excited about performing in it! Although that day may never come!

Merry Christmas!
Peace,
Nikki

Inflateable Palace

In a desperate attempt to induce labor we all headed to Inflateable Palace for some fun and enrgy burning! If the boys are super tired at nap time then Mommy gets a nap too!

 This was a giant hug from Gman after we went down the slide together!

Gman was cooking up something in the kitchen!

 Bastian loves to zoom through this one now!

The slide at the end is the best part!

While I didn't go into labor and I don't necessarily recommend it for that purpose.. we did have a ton of fun and the boys were spent afterward! Totally worth it!

Peace,

Nikki

Making Christmas Ornaments!

We've decided to start another tradition... Starting this year we will be decorating our tree in homemade decorations. One reason is that they are just cooler, and the other being that if they get broken... we can make a new one!

Now that Aunt Steph is here we enlisted her help with the ornaments and we had a blast!

 After we were done with the cutting and the baking we started painting!

Bastian was a painting fool! He loved it and he painted at least 3/4 of the ornaments!

Gabriel was less excited about painting the ornaments and chose to paint his body!

Here are some of our finished products! Well almost finished.. we still have to toss a few coats of clear coat on them!

Whoo hoo! Hooray for Christmas Crafts!  Merry Christmas!

Peace,
Nikki

Felt Board and a Christmas Tree!

We've decided to make at least one Christmas Gift for the kiddos each year. This year I knew that I wasn't going to be feeling up to it on/around Christmas ... so I not only made the gift early, but gave it to the boys early as well!

We had a huge peice of plywood in the garage- so we covered that sucker in felt and cut out some rad shapes and BAM! Christmas Gift!  Not the most creative or cool.. and trust me when I say that I had some creative/cool ideas! But  they actually like it and play with it!

I like it because it inspires imagination and they like it because they can make monster faces!

I saw a really neat idea on Pinterest, where you cut out a felt Christmas tree and then cut out ornaments so the boys could decorate a tree over and over.  Little did I know that when you have boys they dont really care about decorating trees with stinking ornaments! They like to make monsters and aliens and Halloween Faces!

I made the zig zag lines for the ornaments and Bastian says "Hey mom, I need some more of those angry mouths!"

 We do like to encourage creativity.. so I can't complain too much! Its a good think I like it too!


 Peace,
Nikki

Museum of Play- Rochester, NY

Before we left for NY a friend gave us some tips for fun places to check out! The best tip was Museum of Play in Rochester! 

 Because we are members of The Children's Museum of Richmond, we didn't have to pay admission! It was great!

This was by far the best museum that we've ever been too! We went to the museum on 3 different days and explored different stuff each time!  The first day we checked out a room full of manipulatives! Both boys were in love!  We played with tangrams and drums and this really neat pully system where you load the big bouncy balls and watch them roll along some guide wires on the ceiling- this was Gabriel's favorite part!

 They also have a whole Sesame Street Area. The boys liked to see Elmo and drive in a car with him.. they also got to check out Elmo's World! It is funny how much they loved it considering we never watch Sesame Street!

  They also had an amazing Butterfly House! Bastian loved it! He was very cautious of th butterflies and making sure that everyone was quiet so that we wouldn't scare them! He loves to pretend that he is an explorer!

 My favorite part was the Kiddy Wegmans! It blows the Kiddy Martins that we have at CMor out of the water! Each person gets a cart and can buy 5 things, then they go to the check out and actually check out! Everything scans with the item description and price! Then you pay and take an actual Wegmans receipt!
 Both boys kept going for the same things each time- Bastian got produce, fish and a box of popsicles and Gabriel picked 5 loaves of bread! Every time! 

 We also spent some time building cars and monsters!

 And playing a giant game of chess in the Giant's House (From Jack and the Bean Stalk)

We spent the most time in the Story Book part for sure!

There is WAY more to the museum that this.. and honestly we would go back to Rochester just to check out this place again!  It is worth it!

Peace,
Nikki

Rochester NY Trip

Tony was asked to go to Rochester NY for work and luckily Grandpa Bill works for the same company and was also asked to go!

Tony decided to bring the whole family! Which was great! We had a cheap vacation and time with family! You cant beat it!

We spent the weekend with Bill and we got to check out Niagara Falls! I wasn't too pumped about this.. but it was way cooler than I expected!

 Bastian thought it was cool and then he got too close to the edge and got freaked out!

 And then we found an awesome tree for everyone to climb!

This is my favorite shot of them together!

We also sat in a grassy area for a few minutes before beginning out hike back to the other side and an asian woman came up at asked if she would "tayka pikcha" and I was shocked but said ok... and then she gathered our whole family and her friends and took a picture with us on the ground! Then another asian family saw what they were doing came over to take a picture with us! It was hilarious... but I am pretty sure that we are going to be in some creepy advertisements in China soon..

Peace,

 Nikki

Preparing the Garden!

We had to give up a little early on our raised beds this year. Partly thanks to a little stinker called the Squash Beetle and partly thanks to a nasty little thing called Powdery Mildew.

We still had decent yields from our Garden this summer- quite a few squash and cucumbers, only a handful of green peppers and enough tomatoes to make sauce for 10 families! (not really- but we had a lot!) We also grew spinach- but I didn't plant enough to be worthwhile. We tried to grow melons, broccoli and potatoes, but had zero success there. Im not sure what went wrong, but we will try again next year.

Because our biggest failures were in our raised beds we decided to start the garden prep now so that next spring it will be good and nutrient-y!

Gabriel had a blast digging and Bastian loved looking for bugs!

Each time we found a worm Bastian would grab it and dig a hole for it... and then help him get cozy in his new home by burying him again!

Gman just likes to dig and throw dirt! He had fun just being outside!

Here's to a better garden next year!

Peace,

Nikki

Grandma Beth and Janey Poo come to visit!- The Sequel

Grandma Beth was apparently going through Bastian and Gman withdrawals and decided to come for a visit!

The boys love it when we have company! Especially when the company comes to play with them!

Both boys were napping when Grandma and Jane arrived, but on the way down the stairs after waking their faces lit up at the sight of them! It was really funny!

This was a relatively short trip so we had to fit as much excitement in as possible! But still attend Bible Study on Wednesday- so that kind of cut into our visit a bit.

We went to Maymont- one of my moms favorite places and Jane hadn't seen the farm yet so that was an easy choice for us.

Checking out the Donkey- Normally he gets a little worked up by Echo, but this time he ignored them completely.

Gabriel still loves to chase birds.

Luckily, they are fast than him!

The goats were not sure what to think about Echo this time! Every goat in the pen came to check him out... and finally the smallest one started head butting the bars to try to scare them away!  

Hanging out with Grandma and Echo- checking out the Hawk.

One of the only pictures with Jane!

Gabriel has a way with Goats! He was the only one who could get them to come to the fence with out food!

As it was time to leave we realized that Jane had locked her keys in the car! This is her speaking with the locksmith! 

The next day we decided to wear the boys out at The Inflatable Palace!

I am pretty sure that Bastian won this game!

Of course- in a room full of inflated awesome-ness Gman plays basketball!

We also had to take them to Sweet Frog (once you bring an out-of-towner there, it becomes an important part of every trip!)

And we had some fun just staying home and wrestling on the floor!

I'm not sure if it is seeing someone that we haven't seen in a while, or the jam packed days or the frozen yogurt... but we really seem to like company!

Peace,

Nikki

National Zoo

This was probably our last trip of the year to the National Zoo.   Although it rained and was freeeeezing, we still had a blast!

One of Gabriel's favorite things to do right now is sit and look at our Encyclopedia of Mammals, we were pretty sure that this would be his first super exciting trip to the zoo. We were totally right! He loved every minute of it! The hardest part was to convince him to leave one animal, but he soon realized that this meant getting to see another cool animal... then our transitions went much more smoothly!

Because we bought this hat at the zoo (last year) Bastian insisted on wearing it. He had it crammed on his head as far as it could go! It was really funny and super cute!

Bastian has mixed feelings about the snakes apparently...

We went on Big Cat day, which was pretty neat! We got to see them toss a bunny to the tiger and although we couldn't see it once the tiger took the bunny to it's den we did hear someone say "Oh yeah! It ripped off the head!" It was really cool to see what we did get to see and I don't know that I would have liked explaining anymore than that to Bastian!

The lions didn't get to eat anything cool, but they were more playful than we have ever seen them. Gabriel loved watching them! He kept  saying "Lion, ROAR!, Lion ROAR!"

This was also the first time that we've ever seen the Ring Tailed Lemurs on Lemur Island (This was our 5th time at the zoo this summer, so we had pretty much given up!)

The main purpose of our trip to the zoo was to catch up with friends who had recently moved to the area! It was really cool to see them and now we are looking forward to our next visit with them!

It was a fun day and 3/4 of our car celebrated by sleeping the whole way home! (Poor Tone Tone!)

Peace,

Nikki