The Dinosaur Train

I was commissioned last night to build a Dinosaur Train (yes, in caps - the real one, not just any old dinosaur train). It was required to have an engine, tender, coach, observation car, and caboose per Christopher's orders. Here was the result. I think he was impressed. He put his little dinosaurs in it and had to leave it up for today. And say goodnight to all the dinosaurs about 10 times...

Christopher thought it was really important that you get to see Ned the Quadruped.

Patrick got in on the action too, stealing Lora the Gigantosaurus and putting her in Tidmouth Sheds. Of course, Christopher had a fit and the moment was past, but it was good while it lasted.

I promise pictures from our weekend trip soon. I put them on the computer now, so I just have to go through and pick my favorites!

February Randomness

I have a whole bunch of pictures that don't really go together, but they're cute anyway! Thought you might enjoy them.

First, the two princes of my heart at a Valentine's Day party...pay no attention to Christopher's missing pants.
Patrick is much more resourceful, shall we say, than Christopher is (even now never mind at just 2). Here he's demonstrating his mad cooking skills. Or at least his mad pull a chair to the counter, climb up, and make trouble skills.

Christopher having a VERY deep, important conversation with Grammy.

Playing with Patrick's new water table. For the time being it is out in the sun so it's warm enough to play water. Once it warms up, I think we'll put it under the porch roof. As you can see, it's a big hit.
Patrick can't resisit drinking the water.
Why it's a bad idea to drink the water :-)
Slightly obscured but a good action-shot.
Coming soon - big boy bed pictures (I thought I took some, but I guess not, so we'll do that tomorrow) and pictures from our fun weekend trip to Phoenix!

Two

I don't know how it happened, because last week he looked like this

but Patrick has turned two. Yes, it happened last week, but somewhere along the way I have fallen off the blog wagon. He celebrated on Thursday with a super-fabulous breakfast of yogurt, toast and silliness. He also had a trip to the doctor (no shots, yay!) and dinner at McDonalds (because Mommy was away all afternoon).

On Saturday Grandma and Papa and his friends from playgroup came over to help celebrate. He had a great time. Thomas made an appearance in cake form (he knew who it was, so I consider it a win!).

He got more presents than one little boy possibly needs (and was mostly uninterested with the whole unwrapping process).

He got to munch Thomas' face, which didn't seem to weird him out at all (but this is Patrick and food we're talking about).

Patrick isn't in this one - I just thought it was funny that all the little girls were in the sandbox and all the little boys were digging in the fishpond hole.

All in all, it was a great birthday for everyone except Mommy, who is now completely without a baby :-( I will try to jump back on the blogging wagon - I have pictures of a big boy bed, train fun, Paul-like naughtiness, and Christopher gabbing with Grammy so stay tuned!

Snow, Arizona Style

While the rest of you were drowning in snow last weekend, we trekked up to Mount Lemmon to find some snow of our own to play in. Christopher was not interested in sledding at all until he did it once. Then we couldn't get him to stop. All in all, we were outside for over 2 hours before toes got cold enough to get back in the car and go get lunch. Patrick fell fast asleep in the five minutes it took us to drive to a restaurant.

Hey, mittens are pretty cool. They keep my fingers clean!
Sledding with Daddy - fun! For those of you with enquiring minds, yes, that's the top of a plastic underbed box we're sledding on. It worked great!

Mommy was sledding too. We took turns, but both were heavy to carry back up the hill.
Looking really big yet again! Guess who loved eating snow?
Next to their snowman. Mommy and Daddy forgot our gloves and the snow was really hard, so it's a tiny snowman.

I'll have pictures of our Valentine's Day adventures in a few days. Stay tuned!

The Little Boy Fort

I decided to clean out the closet under the stairs early this week to make a little hidey hole for the boys. I thought the kid cave was a good name for it, but Christopher has dubbed it the little boy fort. Here's how it looked when I started:


I cleaned it all out, vacuumed up the dead bugs, cleaned the baseboards, and voila, ready for little boys.

I added an old comforter, a bunch of extra pillows, and 2 battery-powered pop lights and now it's a fun place for little boys to go hide (or play the turn-around-until-we-fall-down game)!

And, it still holds coats and our vacuum. It's kind of a closet with a mullet - business in the front, party in the back!

A Day at the Zoo

OK, so it really was about 2 hours, but that's the great thing about our little zoo. We can see it all in a few hours and then get home for naps. It has elephants, giraffes, and even a polar bear (yes, I would also know what that polar bear did to offend God and end up in Arizona).

It was too snowy on Mount Lemmon for us to go Friday, so we decided a trip to the zoo would be good instead. It was about 60 degrees out, and I think the animals loved it too, because they were really active! We saw just about everything moving around!

We got there in time for the giraffe feeding - notice how I sent Daddy to do that part!

Checking out a wild, totally ferocious...

turtle eating a salad! Christopher thought it was so funny that the turtle was having salad lunch with carrots!

Watching the polar bear have a snack of canteloupe. A half a canteloupe that he devoured skin and all in a few bites.

Feeding the ducks. Patrick thought it was hilarious when he threw food in the water and the ducks swarmed in to gobble it up!

Had to stop and check out the bulldozer.

I am in desperate need of a new baby - mine is just too big. Exhibit A:

As soon as we get some lights, I'm going to post pictures of our new kid cave, or little boy fort, as Christopher calls it.

Kids + Scissors = FUN!

I got motivated the other day and decided crafts were in order. Christopher likes doing anything with his tiger scissors, and I figured if we were ever going to see snow, we'd have to take matters into our own hands. The result: lots of snibbles of paper and some pretty snowflakes to hang in the playroom window. Unfortunately two excited little boys and tiger scissors don't leave Mommy time for pictures, so you just get the finished product.

Also, you know your life is boring when the garbage truck is the coolest thing going. As soon as they hear it, C yells "ISSA TRASH TRUCK" and they both go running to the window.

Fear not, we're off to something fun tomorrow (either Mt. Lemmon for snow play or the zoo if there's too much snow to get up the mountain) so look for good pictures later this weekend!