Kick off to the Christmas Season

Although the temperatures in Las Vegas were below normal this Thanksgiving holiday, we stayed true to our tradition and headed out to Opportunity Village last night. For those of you that don't know Opportunity Village is a place in Las Vegas, where you can go walk through the Magical Forest of lights, get your picture taken with Santa, enjoy a warm cup of hot cocoa, and a train ride. There are also other fun things for kids to do like a giant slide, a carosel, and this year a putt-putt golf course. But the hightlights are Santa, the train ride, and the magical forest.

Owen was excited to talk to Santa this year and even took a decorated pinecone he had completed at preschool to show Santa. Max was mesmorized by Santa, which surprised me. I was anticipating him not wanting to be placed on his lap.

I loved watching Owen walk through the Magical Forest this year. He stopped at every display and took it all in. Max on the other hand just liked the freedom of walking and as a result he and Gavin were way ahead of us, so most of the pictures are of Owen. A great time was had by all.

The video at the top of the blog is a result of our evening!

Happy Halloween!

This free picture collage created with Smilebox

Thank you to all who voted on my poll, but I decided to go with 2 firefighters! I did browse through Target in search of a dalmation costume, but did not see any, so I stuck with the firefighter costumes! Personally, I think they look adorable in their matching costumes!

Romzek Rock Stars!

Make a digital slideshow

Pumpkin Picking

Click on the link below to view the video I made of our fun fall morning on Saturday. I learned about animoto in one of my classes, so I was experimenting with it, and have now fallen in love. Making this slideshow video was so easy and didn't take long at all! Enjoy!

Pumpkin Picking

Excuses, Excuses!

Owen likes to get away from family dinner time and sneak in a little alone time playing (without Max around) with the excuse that he needs to let his food cool. And sadly he does get away with this for ten minutes or so.

Well, tonight, we had Subway for dinner since we had to take Max to his 18 month check-up. Owen sat down with his turkey sandwhich and announced, "I'm going to go play a little while this cools down."

I responded, "but it is already cool, it was never hot."

To this he replied, "well until it warms up then."

At least he knows the opposite of cool is warm!

Life with Boys!

Another digital slideshow by Smilebox

Picture Perfect Moments

I am curious as to why picture perfect moments only last a millisecond.

This evening for example, Owen got out the Sequence for Kids game. We set it all up, he decided who got what color chip, we dealt the cards, and we were ready to go. He is the youngest so he gets to go first; he sat still, decided which card he wanted to lay, placed that card off to the side neatly (didn't throw it), placed his chip on the animal that matched his card, and then drew a new card. Then I took my turn, Daddy took his. And that explains the picture perfect moment!

Then the craziness started, Owen playfully put Daddy's chip on the board instead of his own, then said, "just kidding, daddy!" Next, he pushed all the other chips off the board. I put all the chips back in their original spots, just for Owen to take Daddy's chip and put his chip in it's spot instead, then when he got scolded, he took Daddy's chip, put it on top of his own on the same animal and said, "I'm just kidding, Daddy, we can share!"

Finally, he got up and started playing hopscotch across the board, that's when the game got cleaned up!

A few weeks ago, Gavin had to work late at school and so I had to eat dinner with the boys alone. Normally, getting Owen to sit at the dinner is a struggle, but this particular day he sat down with me, and for a millisecond I was eating and both boys were eating; it was a picture perfect moment and then.........

Owen threw his plate on the floor and said he didn't like it.

Oh the joys of parenthood!