Kansas Hold 'Em

So Christopher's new favorite pre-bedtime activity these days is playing cards. It goes back a few months to when Chris started partaking in craziness, such as dancing or simply running into furniture at full speed right before bedtime, and we had to crack down and do a "quiet game" before sleeping. We taught Chris how to play Go Fish and Memory with these cute Thomas cards that Kay gave him last year and now he wants to play these games all the time. Today, he found our Skip Bo cards and was setting up his own little game of Memory. Of course, because he is a 3 year-old boy, the games usually last about 5 to 7 minutes and then it's on to something else, but it's a start!

Back in NY

Well, we are here in New York for the Thanksgiving week and as you can see, Christopher is already having a blast...

We arrived on Friday and made our traditional trip to the Mamaroneck Diner (with the algae eater!) after driving back from LaGuardia. On Saturday, we went down to Brooklyn to visit Uncle Peter and Aunt Dabney and, of course, Poppy, Elsie and Bennett. Chris was super excited to take the Metro North into the city where we stopped to be tourists for a moment at Grand Central...

After arriving at Grand Central, we hit the streets in search of the F train. On the way, CJ picked up his very first New York City pretzel (yum!) and took it to snack on while we waited for our subway. Buds loves the subway and his favorite part is when they say, "stand clear of the closing doors please," a phrase you will hear him saying in this little clip from our F train ride...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRO7quoFLkY

Chris was so excited to see his cousins! They are growing so big and the kids all had a great time together. They played, had lunch, napped, and even went to Brooklyn Bridge Park to ride the carousel, admire the city and run around in the green space. Here are some pictures from our day...

We stayed for dinner and then the kiddos busted out some good dance moves. First, Christopher showed his stuff and as you can see, the triplets were standing there wondering about the tornado that entered their apartment. Later, they took part in the fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RtBmqEu1os

After watching Chris for a while, Bennett wanted to show everyone what he can do. He is such a cute dancer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSrwJBh24ho

Later, Chris and Bennett did a little pas de deux to some of Bennett's favorite tunes. Check out Bennett's big jump! Obviously, the boys were having fun together!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LIjsJMQO1U

After our big day in the city, we headed upstate for some country fun with Grandpa T, Nancy, and GiGi. Chris had so much fun shadowing Grandpa T in his dog-care duties. Our little guy helped his Grandpa feed and walk the dogs, put out corn for the turkeys. He also got a chance to hear Grandpa play the accordian! Here are some pics from upstate...

After some accordian playing, we busted out some Tchaikovsky and had a guest appearance from a local ballet dancer named Nancy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8euD6bHYxns

It is good to be back east and we are looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with our east coast family! 

New York State of Mind

Hey New York... are you ready for me?

Meet up with friends

This morning, after music class, we went to Emerald City to meet up with some friends from my mom's group. Chris was very excited to see Emily and Connor, who he had just played with last night. Olivia and Elliot were there too and the three big kids just went off to play by themselves which was fabulous for us! Here are some pics from the morning...

Adopt a Turkey

In the picture above, Christopher is holding his "Adopt-a-Turkey" certificate. Visit our other blog for more information!

healthyforlifekw.blogspot.com

Company

Tonight we had the LaBarge family over for dinner. They are currently without a place to eat as they are having a total kitchen remodel so we invited them over to eat with us. Emily, Connor and Christopher had a great time together, as these post-dinner antics will show...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEF1NdKHluc

Thankful

At breakfast this morning, the discussion was about things we are thankful for...

CJ: Mommy, you know what I'm thankful for? I'm thankful for looooovvvve. And I'm thankful for you. Mommy, I love you...

Of course at this point, I am melting.

CJ: And Mommy, I'm thankful for blackberries and my big boy bed too.

Random boy!

Little Yogi

After lunch, Christopher declared that he wanted to do a workout. Because it was getting close to naptime, I didn't think his usual circuit training would be appropriate so we put on a relaxing yoga DVD for him. He and Daddy got straight to work on their mountain poses and standing forward bends...

As you can see, Chris chose to increase the difficulty level by doing his practice on a block. What was most amazing to us, however, was when he had to do tree pose (not one of Daddy's favorite poses). It is a pose where you have to stand on one leg, put one foot up like a kind of triangle on the inside of your standing thigh and then place your hands in prayer position. Christopher totally nailed it! And he did it on the block too. It was so funny to see how proud he was of himself.

Perhaps yoga is in our little man's future. I suppose it's better than football... definitely fewer concussions!

Flurp!

Christopher had a sleepover at Grammy's house last night while Mommy and Daddy went out with some friends. Apparently, he had an awesome time not only playing with Grammy, but also playing with her Flurp Silly Putty. She told us today that he played with it for hours and only stopped when it was time for bath last night and time to go home this morning. I think I know what we're bringing on the airplane with us next week!

The Mote Control Car

Just on a whim, we went to Toys R Us and got Chris a little remote control car. He calls it the "mote control car" so we'll just go with that. He is figuring out how to make it go in all different directions and it has even taken a few off road trips down the steps! According to its driver, the car has snow tires on it (we just got snow tires on Brian's car) so it will be set when winter officially arrives. Here is a little snippet of the new vehicle and you can see what Kasey thinks of it too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKZ_7o_DVfc

P.S.-- I think we may need new floorboards after this one!

If You Give a Moose a Muffin...

So today was supposed to be Christopher's theater-going debut. We went downtown after music to the Folly Theater with our friend Emily to see the stage production of the book "If You Give a Moose a Muffin," a book that is loved by our little man. Here are the kiddos before the show began:

Well, we lasted about 5 minutes. The show was way too loud for Christopher and he basically freaked out. Poor guy! We went out to the lobby and then tried again a few minutes later. No go. Buds was done. I had to leave him with a nice lady usher while I ran back in the theater to get by bag so we could leave. Oh well, at least the tickets were only $6... We made the best of being downtown though and went to visit Daddy at his office. Here are the boys taking a break from picking stocks...

Leaves

We went over to Olivia and Elliott's house for dinner tonight and, due to more unseasonable beautiful weather, the kids were able to go outside and play in the leaves. Here they are having fun while the leaves rained down on them...

Later on, we played inside and Chris had a lot of fun with both Olivia and Elliott. Here are the three little ones during an unusual moment of sitting still...

It was a very fun evening filled with laughter, chasing, and dressing up. Everyone had a blast!

NYC Marathon in Kansas

Well, Christopher was up early this morning, not a surprise on daylight savings time. But it wasn't until a little while after breakfast before I realized why Chris was up before the crack of dawn today. It's NYC Marathon day! Of course! We put on the live video streaming for him to see the runners and he took off running around the house...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jhDsvceDmQ

When I was a kid, I loved watching the marathon on TV and I would usually go outside after the coverage was over to run around my neighborhood. Eventually it led to me actually running the race in 2002 and it was the experience of a lifetime! We don't necessarily have channel 4 out here in Kansas but now with the online streaming, maybe Chris will get as excited about the race too!

REALLY???

I'm not sure who I should be more infuriated with right now--You Tube or Yoko Ono. I'm glad a lot of you were able to see that montage yesterday... when it had music! Probably because I used a John Lennon song, the audio has now been disabled on the slideshow so all it is now is, well, a slideshow. "Beautiful Boy" was probably the most perfect song for that montage and now all it has is silence. So if you didn't get to watch it yesterday, I apologize that there is no audio today. I'm going to have to find an alternate method of posting it or maybe I'll just change the songs I used. The Beatles ruined rock and roll anyway, right Grandpa Eric? :)

Gotta Have a Montage

As we prepare for Christopher's bar mitzvah, we would like to take this opportunity to... what? He's only three? We're not Jewish? Oh, well I have this slide show prepared of some of our favorite pics of Christopher and his friends and family and it reminded me of something you'd see at a big coming of age event or a wedding so what am I supposed to do with it? I suppose all you blog followers can enjoy it for yourselves...

Every once in a while, Brian and I will browse through old blog entries or pictures and crack up at how much Chris has grown and how different he is now. We wanted to share some of our favorites with you and so I present to you the Christopher Montage. When you get to it, expand the video to full screen and make sure the volume on your computer is on. Enjoy! (I know all you grandparents out there will especially enjoy this!)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6g3AUfWoDg

Emerald City Gymnastics

Now that cooler temperatures have arrived, we are back to Emerald City's open play time. Yay! While we were at Kindermusik earlier in the morning, Christopher was jumping around like a jumping bean for almost the whole class so I thought for sure that he would go crazy at Emerald City. Well, it took him awhile to warm up but he found his niche on the trampoline...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acxfp6piFQ4

And to continue his jumping, Chris found a big ledge to jump off into the foam pit...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HILxnIxxbQ

When he got tired of jumping, our little man ran his heart out on the "bouncy runway..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWFLG2xM5A8

It was a good morning of exercise and now buds is working on resting up after all that playing!