Chuck E. Cheese

We had a birthday party for Matthew this week at Chuck E. Cheese.  Matthew was so excited for the party!  Here he is just before the party started.  Grant was afraid when he saw the big animatronic Chuck E. Cheese come out.  Poor Grant!

We invited some school friends, some church friends and some friend friends - 12 kids total.  We ate pizza, played lots of games, had cake, got to meet Chuck E. and then played some more games.  Here are the kids dancing to some of the Chuck E. Cheese songs. 

We got Matthew a cake from Sams Club - Mickey Mouse themed.  Matthew helped pick it out.

 Chuck E. Cheese came out to help us sing "Happy Birthday" to Matthew.

 Then they followed him around on a little parade and got some free tickets!  It was very exciting!  I think the kids had a good time and Matthew had fun too.   Matthew said his favorite game was riding the big truck.

Anna got a lot of tickets but she didn't want to surrender them all.  Here she is, with a little bit of frosting on her face still, turning in some of her tickets.  Anna took lots of sketch pictures of herself and rode the little roller coaster ride a lot.  I think she had fun too.

If you build it...

...he will come.

Scott showed me a neat trick with Grant.  We have trouble keeping Grant contained and Scott discovered that if he builds a tower, Grant will have to come and knock it down.  He just can't help himself.

 Destroy!

So, if Grant is starting to escape and head up the stairway (his new favorite thing to do) the siren song of a newly built tower will be too much for him to resist.

 He will have to come back...

 ...to knock it over.

 Grant subscribes to the "no stone left unturned" philosophy of tower destruction.

So I was glad to discover a new Grant containment strategy.  Thanks Scott.  You better watch out though.  Another thing Grant loves to get his hands on is the camera!

Uh oh!  He's spotted me!  Here he comes!

 Grant, you are so cute.  Now please stop climbing those stairs!!

Valen-Tired

We had a busy Valentine's Day this year.  The day before we had a fun playgroup party and the kids exchanged Valentines.  On real Valentine's Day we made sugar cookies.  The kids liked spreading the flour around.

 And we had to decorate the cookies.

The kids heavily favored the conversation hearts (Matthew calls them "fortune hearts") in their decorating.

We had to run a bunch of errands, including a last minute visit to the scout shop and when we got home we had some time to decorate with a few balloons.  We put some candies inside each one and blew them up.  Then the kids had fun playing with them.  Yes, it looks like Anna is about to attack Grant, but they were really just playing with the balloons.

 We also went to Matthew's preschool Valentine party.  Here are the kids playing musical chairs.

And our evening culminated with a romantic dinner...the Blue and Gold cub scout dinner.  Why did we have the Blue and Gold dinner on Valentine's Day?  Because that was our scheduled day (second Tuesday of the month) to have the room at the church.  I tried to get the date changed months ago (I am one of the cub scout leaders, which is why we went) but I was out voted.  If I'm in that situation again, I'm going to fight harder to change the date, 'cause I would have much rather been having dinner at home with the family or a nice dinner out with Scott than running a cub scout dinner on Valentine's Day.  In any case, it's over now and I think Scott and I will be going out to dinner some other night this week.  :)  Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!

Delegating

As my kids get bigger they are able to do more and more jobs around the house.  A lot of times they just don't want to help and sometimes I resort to bribery, but then there are those glorious times when they are eager to help.  Today the kids both vacuumed different parts of the house for me.  They had to fight about it first, but still.  They also both love emptying the dishwasher.  They can't reach all the cupboards and sometimes I'm left wondering what happened to all the spoons, but its still very nice.  And yesterday Anna wanted to feed Grant.  It's not my favorite job since he is resistant to eating and it takes a lot of time, so when Anna kept asking me if she could feed him I thought, "why am I fighting this?"  She sat by him and patiently fed him his baby food for at least half an hour.  She was very conscientious about her duties.  She even got him to open up for the food a lot.

She even chopped up some grape pieces for him with her cutting board and safety knife.  Lately whenever I have to chop anything for meals, she wants to help me with her own stuff.  And she does a pretty good job too.  She might have taken her feeding responsibilities too far 'cause the next day she kept trying to force feed me half eaten fruit snacks.  :)  It made me feel sorry for Grant a little bit.

Matthew is also a big helper.  After filling out all the invitations to his birthday party Matthew wanted to stuff and seal the envelopes.  I was going to say no at first but then I thought better of it and let him.  He said he liked doing all of it except the licking.  I told him he didn't have to seal them, but he said he wanted to anyway.

He made sure they were all sealed by karate chopping and punching them.  Done and done!  Thanks little helpers for making my life just a little bit simpler.

The Big Snow

We got a little bit of a snow storm on Friday and ended up with about 8 inches of new snow.  Scott got to stay home from work because of the snow.  Unfortunately he still had to take a co-worker to an early doctor appointment and had to go out in the bad weather.  He slid around a little bit, but luckily  he was ok.  Matthew was excited to have a snow day.  Here he is all dressed up to go out in the snow.

 A first tentative step out into the snow.

Matthew wanted to make snowballs and a snowman, but the snow was so dry that it wasn't holding together very well.  That's our Colorado snow.  Very dry and powdery.

Matthew made it look so fun that Anna wanted to join him.  She went out and fell in a drift and got stuck.  Luckily Matthew helped her out, so I didn't have to go out there. :)

They had lots of fun in the snow.

A Delicious Dinner

Grant does not love eating solid foods.  I keep trying to interest him in it by giving him new things to eat and little nibbly things he can pick up with his fingers.  He's only mildly into it.  My hope is that if he starts eating more solids he'll start sleeping more at night.  No luck yet.  Here is a video of Grant having his dinner.  See how much he likes it?  WARNING:  If you are like my older son and easily grossed out by babies regurgitating food, then look away.  You have been warned.  :)

When I Go to Church

Not much has been happening around here lately, but here are a few Matthew and Anna-isms I've been collecting.  Several of them are about church so I thought I'd share a few getting ready for church pictures from last week.  I always think it's a miracle when we get out the door (and all of us dressed) on time...although it's a lot easier now that our church has changed to 1pm.  Anyway, here are Matthew and I almost ready for church.  He has been rebelling against wearing a tie for a few weeks, which is weird 'cause he used to ask to wear them and insisted I buy some for him.  He decided he would wear one this week though.  :)

Anna isn't always cooperative about church preparation, but we get there eventually.  Here are some of her words of wisdom this week...

Me:  Do you like your Primary class?
Anna:  I absolutely DO love it.

Anna at a birthday party
Party dad:  What does your daddy do for work?
Anna:  My daddy goes to work with a suitcase (sad but true a lot of the time these days)

 Matthew again...in his tie

Scott (in primary class):  Can anyone read this? [on the board it said "Physical Body"]
Matthew (eagerly):  Population Body!  (so close)

Matthew (still in his primary class):  I can read 'cause my mom says I can

 Grant had nothing to say...he was looking good though!

 Here's Anna eating a last minute cheese stick before church...and a few more of her thoughts...

Anna's report about her primary teacher on Sunday:  [My primary teacher] was sick today and her tummy didn't feel good and she was bad tempered and she feels sorry, so we need to bring her some salties (Saltines) to help her feel better.
Matthew and Anna then proceeded to fill a bag will Saltines and write notes to her to help her feel better...I thought it was sweet.

While reading the Book Christmas in the Barn by Margaret Wise Brown
Anna: NO!  This book is wrong 'cause there was no snow where baby Jesus lived.**

**I actually agree with her on this one and dislike that book for that reason...among others.

Little Boy in a Big Tub

Grant likes to take baths.  He especially likes getting in my big tub with Matthew and Anna.  Matthew and Anna both decided to get out early this time so they could pretend to be spies, so Grant had the tub to himself.

 He was very happy.

 I even got a picture of his bottom teeth. I kept taking all the washcloths out of the tub and setting them up on the side so we could drain the tub.  Grant would stand up right away and throw them all back in.  He wasn't done with his bath yet, I guess.

 I like his little stick out hair in the back.

Here he is after the bath getting ready to get dressed.  Anna and Matthew helped him a little too much after the bath and he got bonked by the spy Anna (who was thrashing around on the bed with a blanket on her head).  Poor Grant, but he got over it and was able to get ready for bed.  Now if we could only get him to enjoy sleeping at night.  I sure like sleeping and wish I could do more of it these days.

A Visit from Grandma and Grandpa

My parents came to visit this week.  The kids had so much fun seeing them.

Here my Dad helps Matthew in a game of Battleship.

We had nice weather one of the days they were here and we took a little walk to the park.  Grant tried out the swings.

 Anna liked swinging too.

 Here's Grant in his stroller

We also visited the Air Force Academy chapel.

 And we saw Garden of the Gods and visitor center.  The kids like riding on the buffalo/bison

 Matthew kept talking up Focus on the Family to my parents, so we went there on Saturday even though it's just a place for kids to play.  We had fun.  Here is Matthew hanging out by the plane.

We also went to Cave of the Winds.  While we were waiting for our cave tour to start the kids did some caving in this wooden play structure.  It was small and claustrophobia inducing and meant to be like climbing though a small cave.  The kids liked it though.

Here are the kids climbing through.

 Scott was going to give it a try, but decided he was probably too tall.  I wanted no part of it.  :)

 And here we are in the cave.

 Anna and Matthew loved that they were small enough for all the skinny walkways.

We bought the picture at the end of our tour and were met at the end with a little snow.  It was lots of fun having my parents visit, but it went by so fast.  Hopefully they will come again!

2011 Picture-a-day

You may have seen this on my personal blog already, but here it is again.

This is the third year I've taken a picture a day all year. I wasn't sure I was going to do it this year and I ended up with a lot of pictures of inanimate objects, which seems weird. I also made a video of all 365 pictures for the year.  My song choices are kind of odd this year.  They don't have a lot to do with the pictures. But it is what it is. :) I don't know if I'll keep going with the 365 pictures. It was a little hard to keep up with it this year. We'll see. Anyway, here is our year in pictures. 

Look for us moving into our house in January, Scott getting taken away in an ambulance in February, Grant being born in April and Scott being promoted in July (its just a picture of him in uniform) and pictures from Oregon/Washington in July, Matthew going to his first day of school in August, our visit to Walt Disney World in September and Anna dressed as Minnie Mouse, a mermaid and Dorothy in October.
If you find all the pictures you win a prize: a hearty congratulations from me for watching the whole video.  :)

Hope you all had a great year!!

See the 2010 Picture-a-day video HERE.
See the 2009 Picture-a-day video HERE.

And as a special bonus, here is a second video - the same 365 pictures, but in less than half the time. Don't blink, or you'll miss this one. :)