National Zoo in DC

Winter to Summer in just 5 days!

It's hard to believe that just five days after our big 8 inches of snow, we would be spending a beautiful Saturday at the National Zoo. When we heard that it was going to be 70+ degrees the first weekend in March, we drove to the metro, hopped on board the blue and red lines, and spent an afternoon finding the remainder of the animals from Mikie's sticker book which he saved from preschool playgroup last year. The highlight of our trip was hearing a lion roar for about 3 minutes. He was walking around his enclosure and letting us all know that he was there. We had a good time, but the boys were fighting off colds so it wasn't as fun as it could/should have been.

Can you spot the animal in the background?

The last time we were at the zoo, the elephants were inside the barn and put on a great show for Mikie by stepping on the scales. Of course, he remembers that and wanted to go directly to the elephant house to see how much they weigh this time. Unfortunately, the one and only elephant was outside for the day; so, no numbers this time.

Like I said, neither of them was feeling 100%.

This was my favorite part: The Rainforest! The animals roam free in this exhibit and we were lucky enough to see a monkey crawling across the vine above our heads in the canopy.

Zachary on the forest floor

"I'm touching the understory"

Time to take this little monkey home.

Dr. Seuss Day 1 & 2

"All that deep, deep snow...

all that snow had to go!"

-Dr. Seuss from The Cat in the Hat

It's as if Theodore Geisel himself was doing the weather report on the day of his very own birthday. As I mentioned in my previous post, we received 8 inches of snow on Sunday night which completely shut down our area the following day (March 2nd). Since there was no way the 4 other mothers from my MOPS group were going to bring their kids over for a Read Across America and Dr. Seuss Day Birthday Celebration, we rescheduled for Friday and Mikie and I spent the day in true Dr. Seuss form.....making messes:

Since we had just been to Seussical the Musical the night before, Mikie asked to read "Gertrude McFuzz". In this story, the bird only has one feather but isn't satisfied with her plain tail and wants a bigger & better one. She eats a pillberry and immediately a bright feather pops out. She continues to eat 3 dozen pillberries and now has an extravagant tail. (You'll have to read the book for the rest of the story) So, here is Mikie with his Gertrude McFuzz complete with a beautiful tail and 36 pillberries (he insisted we have 3 dozen!) which he thought of, not me. Perhaps there is some creativity in his little body after all.

Next book: Barthalomew and the Oobleck

Synopsis: The King is tired of the 4 elements that fall from the sky and summons his magicians to create something new. The result is a sticky green substance they call Oobleck. Which can be replicated using 1 1/2 cups corn starch, 1 cup water, & Green food coloring. I wasn't sure Mikie would even touch the stuff because he hates to be messy, but he played with it for about 45 minutes and loved it as you can see in the video below. It's not quite a solid and not quite a liquid. Michael described it as something similar to mercury.













Not pictured: If I Ran The Zoo with a mixed up animal flip book activity.

Dr. Seuss Day 2009

The day was a huge success and all the kids seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. We decided on 3 stories with 2 activities per story. We divided up into pairs and each planned an activity to correlate with the chosen book. It was so nice to have 8 different ideas/activities for the kids and only have to prepare for 1 of them. We had 5 moms, one grandma, and 10 children at my house to celebrate a day of rhythm and rhymes.

The Sneetches

Activity 1: Pin the Star on the Sneetch:

Activity 2: Painting Personalized Sneetch Beach Bags:

Zach loved painting/stamping the green stars on his bag.
So did Mikie, but I don't have a picture of him. This was my planned activity so I didn't have a chance to snap any pictures (not to mention my hands were continuously covered in paint).

I Wish I Had Duck Feet

Activity 1: Assembling a Which-What-Who using a picture of yourself

Zach's Which-What-Who

Mikie as a Which-What-Who

Activity 2: Turn yourself into a Which-What-Who with antlers & duck feet and then decorate and eat some duck feet cookies (Mikie's favorite part)

Zach's Antlers

Mikie eating his duck feet cookies

The Cat In The Hat

Activity 1: Make a Cat Hat Snack using cookies, frosting, and life savers

The fun was spilling over into lunch time and we still had one more book to get through so I nuked some Schwans Chicken Fries and called them Cat's tails. Here's Mikie with his life saver hat.

Activity 3: Color & Assemble a Cat In The Hat

The hat was suppose to be an AB pattern. Somehow this one became very unique. Coloring inside the lines is not of any interest to Mikie.

Lastly, it was time to sing Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss, blow out the candles, and eat some Star Shaped Sneetch Cake (which was so yummy with bananas & strawberries inside...Sabrina, please share your recipe). I happened to find red plates with white polk-a-dots that looked exactly like Horton's egg from Horton Hatches An Egg and one of the girls told me the napkins looked like beach towels from the Sneetch story. Perfect, I didn't even think of that!
It was a fun, fun day filled with many great ideas and a lot of hard work. We're already marking next year on our calendars and there is always room for more to join us.

Now, all day long I couldn't help but be reminded of my first and forever favorite Dr. Seuss Day with my mommy friends in Oak Harbor. Here you go, WA girls...enjoy:
Photoshow from Dr. Seuss Day in Whidbey Island

Snow Days

We had about 8 inches of snow overnight on Sunday March 1st and when we woke up we couldn't wait to go out and play in it. The first day the boys played in the driveway and front yard. The next day we anxiously awaited for Daddy to get home from work and then went sledding on a hill that is at the middle school behind our house. Both boys enjoyed riding down the hill on the sled and Mikie didn't complain too much when he had to climb back up. After 45 minutes of being cold, we were ready to walk home and warm up....however, we would have to endure the weather for another 1o minutes while Michael (dressed in a black ski cap) would "break in" to our house that got locked with the proper set of keys still hanging inside. He managed to only ruin the window screen and didn't have to break any glass to get the window shimmied open. (I'm not sure I feel safe in this house anymore since it was so easy to break in) Mikie got the privilege of saving the day when we hoisted him in through the opening and coached him on how to unlock the door.

Since it only snows once a year around here I see no need to buy snow boots that would only be worn once. Can you see how we improvised? I remember my mother doing this to us when we didn't have snow boots available.....two plastic ziplock bags held tight by a rubber band and then inserted into tennis shoes. (Amanda, how's that for thrifty?)




Zachary didn't really care to be outside. He wanted to be held the entire time; probably because the boots we had for him were double the size that he actually needed and the layers under his poofy coat were making it hard for him to move. He did help scoop a little.

Mikie thinks he needs to help daddy shovel, but instead ends up eating the snow and kicking it back down into the already cleared path...the path that has been cleared with a very small dirt digging shovel. A few minutes after I took the kids inside, I looked back out to see Michael had given up shoveling the driveway and was working on unburying his truck so that he could drive to Lowes and buy a proper snow shovel. Now that we finally own one, we'll probably never live anywhere that we'll ever use it.

Not only does Mikie not have any boots, he also has no gloves (see reason stated above). So, I let him wear mine and he didn't seem to mind....until they fell off and were too cold to put back on. We went directly in the house as soon as this picture was taken.

SLEDDING

Monster Jam Madness

Now, most of you know that I really love to stay busy and squeeze as much fun into one day as humanly possible, but....WOW....even I have to admit that this past weekend I think I may have packed a little too much into the short 48 hour time frame....and the endless amount of pictures on here will only give you a small sampling of our never ending weekend.

We were jumping from one thing to another beginning with the marriage retreat on Friday night. We hired a baby-sitter to watch the boys while we ate at The Bonefish Grill and then headed to church from 7:00-9:30 for part 1 of the marriage conference. What a great date....eating dinner with 2 hands and finishing all of our sentences without catching flying crayons and sugar packets, without having the ice cubes and lemons snatched out of our drinks by ketchupy fingers, and without people staring judgingly in our direction. In fact, as we left holding "grown up" hands, I'm pretty sure no one was mentally applauding our exit. A date, ahh yes I remember those and there needs to be more of them!

Bright and early the next morning we headed back to church (this time with the boys) for part two of the retreat from 8:30-12:30 (which ran over by 15 minutes setting us back just a tad). We quickly gathered up the boys, drove through Hardees for lunch, and made it up to Stafford for Mikie's friend's birthday party, only slightly late. The boys had a blast at the Monster Truck themed birthday bash and I am stealing several of these ideas for Zach's party in July. (Awesome job, Kelli!)
After a quick change of clothes in the bathroom (because when you're 4, birthday cake just doesn't taste all that great unless you get it all over your outfit), we strapped them into their car seats and enjoyed the 1 1/2 hours of silence (they slept! I should have slept!) on our drive down to Richmond. With only a short nap to recharge, we stood in the cold drizzle for 20 minutes waiting to get into the Monster Jam Pitt Party (yes, you read that correctly....we did indeed subject ourselves to yet another night of loud engines and redneck roughhousing). When I realized that this was the last time the trucks would be in this area until July, and considering how much fun the boys had at the last one, I couldn't wait to go again and this time we were even going to be able to walk right up to the trucks during the pit party. I knew they would love getting so close to the trucks and meeting the drivers, but my main goal was to get a picture of Zachary with Monster Mutt (the dog truck) so I could use it for his birthday invitations. SUCCESS!!!! The picture is adorable, don't you agree?:


Are you tired yet? I'm only half way done..........The Monster Jam Rally didn't end until 10:00 and we didn't get home until after 11:30. We no sooner shut our eyes and then had to open them again to go to church and teach our Sunday School classes in the morning. From there, we grabbed some lunch at O'Charley's and headed to the last "to do" event on Tracy's overly planned calendar: Suessical The Muscial. I'm really sad that I didn't have my camera, as it was a terrific production and Mikie enjoyed getting the autographs of four of the actors (Horton was his favorite). Zachary was enthralled with the lights, costumes, and music for the first 5 minutes, but alas his little battery did finally die out. He slept on our laps throughout the entire 2 1/2 hour show (including intermission when he raised his head long enough to be passed from Daddy to Mommy and then slipped back into his exhausted coma once again).

To end the night, I ordered up a giant snowstorm that would add an extra 20 minutes to our drive home and cause a 15 minute detour to the grocery store for some milk & sausage. When we finally arrived home, both boys opted to skip supper and head straight to bed at 6:30. Thankfully, due to the 8 inches of snow that fell, we were happily stuck at home for the next 48 hours to recuperate from the weekend.

Now if you are still reading this: THANK YOU, the fun part is next......pictures and videos!


Lenny's 5th Birthday Party (more details & picts on Kelli's blog)

Mikie & Lenny
Tire Ball Bounce (stealing this idea and the tires)

Race Track for Remote Control Truck (stealing this idea too)

Mikie drives the track

Video of reckless driving. Let's hope he improves in 12 years.

Pin the License Plate on the Monster Truck (yep, stealing this idea too)

The Cake with Great Bite the shark truck





These are two videos of a game that Zachary just loved! Very, very creative and educational, Kelli! I LOVE IT!

Zachary makes a sign to cheer for Lenny while he blows out his candles

Go Lenny! Blow them all out!

Zachary loved the ramp!

Lenny & his mom, Kelli, who organized this fantastically fun party! (Seriously, Kelli, keep it all. I will be borrowing it, PLEASE :)


Monster Jam Truck Rally in Richmond

BAD HABIT

Mikie next to the large tires.

ERADICATOR

Learning about the engine.

In this video, Zachary sees "Mon Mutt" and "Ave Igger"

Monster Mutt's driver, Whit Tarlton, signs Zachary's Monster Mutt shirt that Boagie made for him.

Doggie Kisses!

GRAVE DIGGER

BACKDRAFT

This one had flashing lights just like a real firetruck (Tate would have loved this one!)

MARTIAL LAW
(Every time this one came out Zachary would say "Blue" I think he thought it was Blue Thunder..Mikie's favorite truck)

After getting up close to the trucks, we had about 1 1/2 hours before the show started. We ate some hot dogs and bought the boys 2 new trucks. They killed the time by pushing them around while I tried to keep them from tripping people walking by.

When the amount of people increased, they were banned from the floor and decided to play on this register instead. This is a great picture of the cute shirt Boagie made for Zachary. If you click on it, you can enlarge it to see the ear, tongue, and tail. He loves the little Monster Mutt on the sleeve that he can look at. He shows it us all the time. We love it. Thanks Mom!

Time for the show to start. I'm starting to get annoyed at how Mikie can't focus long enough to take a picture. That shutter delay is just a huge inconvenience to his Monster Truck watching time.

Our little Frankenstein.

And you can't have a show without Popcorn!

The highlight of the show is when Monster Mutt ran into the wall after a slap wheelie and put a good sized hole in the brick structure. In the video, I stopped recording just as the truck slams into the wall with a loud bang. Sorry I missed it!