Movie time

Well we took Chris to see "Springsteen and I" last night and he really enjoyed his first movie theater outing! He was a little tired so during the parts of the movie that had a lot of talking, he just lay down on the seats and rested. Otherwise he rocked out and ate lots of popcorn!

It's really fun to watch him while he sings along with the Boss to "Born in the USA!"

The BIG Slide

At the end of his swim lessons today, Chris went down the big slide at Matt Ross! It is a full-blown water slide that the big kids go down and Chris had so much fun! It was exciting to see how excited he was. Here is a video of his first try. Wait for it, wait for it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5c3Rt8hwrw

He went down it another time and was just as thrilled... In other big kid news, we are taking him to see his first "in the theater" movie tonight... without a nap... starting after his bedtime. Whatever, it's summer! We are all seeing "Springsteen and I" a movie about the Boss that has a bunch of concert footage. How many kids can say that was their first movie?

Stopping to Smell the Roses

After having a nice lunch at Eden Alley Cafe with Daddy today, Chris, Kasey and I spent the afternoon at Loose Park. Besides running through the fields, watching the ducks and playing at the playground, we took a detour through the rose garden which was in full bloom. Although the roses were all different colors, Chris and I really enjoyed the red ones which we thought smelled the best. Here they are and here is Chris stopping to smell the roses...

Mt. Vesuvius in our Kitchen

We erupted a volcano in our kitchen this afternoon! Not to worry though. There was minimal damage. Here is Chris watching it as it first got going...

And later he "evacuated all the people on this zeppelin..."

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the very fun birthday present! Chris got so many interesting gifts this year, many of which have to do with science. Each afternoon (after his morning camp class) we have been trying different experiments from the different science kits he received. This was just the latest in the scientific fun! Chris also got a book treasury that includes the story "Martha Speaks" about a dog who eats alphabet soup and is able to then speak English. Here he is enjoying the book on his own...

This story has been so popular with our little boy that we read it at least several times a day and listen to it on CD in the car wherever we go!

Trip to New York (better late than never!)

So for 4th of July this year, Christopher and I made a trip back east to see grandparents and cousins! After having 4 weeks off for his sabbatical, Brian thought that it would be wise to stay in Kansas for this one. We missed Daddy a lot but we stayed super busy and had a great time in New York. We got to Westchester on the 4th and saw fireworks at Manursing with Grandma Jan and Grandpa Eric. It was Christopher's first fireworks show and he loved it! The next day we headed upstate to see Grandpa T and Nancy, G.G. and my stepbrother Dave (along with his wife Abigail and their two children, Luca and Amelia). We had a great time just being outside endlessly, playing with the dogs, flying airplanes... Chris even got his first foul ball at a minor league baseball game! After a few days upstate, we returned to Harrison to celebrate an early birthday for Chris with Poppy, Elsie, and Bennett along with Uncle Peter, Aunt Dabney, Vicki, Grandma and Grandpa, Andy, Reina, and Gabriela. It was quite busy at the Woglom house! Here are some pictures from our trip...

5 Years Old

Happy 5th birthday to our Christopher! Last night I went back and read a few of the blog entries from when I was in labor and when Chris was a baby and it is crazy to think that was five whole years ago. We feel so fortunate to have such a wonderful, smiley little man!!! We are celebrating by having treats at camp (and Mommy gets to read a story to the class) and then lunch with Daddy at Spin Pizza (Christopher's favorite) followed by dinner at our house with Grammy and maybe a movie night? We'll see how the birthday boy holds out. Happy birthday buddy!

(Oh and just so it's clear, the picture above is of his first smile. A few people thought he might be crying in this picture. No--just the first of many big sunny smiles!)

Neighborhood birthday celebration

The kids in the neighborhood came over this afternoon for cupcakes and craziness to celebrate Christopher's 5th birthday! Here is everyone prior to chocolate. Chris decided to blow out his candle a little early...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wspX0OLdHMs

Things got nutty after the sugar and we had kids of all ages running through the playroom, backyard, and throughout the other end of the house. As Chris likes to sometimes say, "We got a little crazy up in here!" John (also a 5 year old boy) picked out some fun gifts for Christopher including a storm trooper mask to go along with the light saber he go the other day. The boys had a blast!

We are very thankful to have such a great group of kids that live on our block!

Christopher's 5th Birthday Party

We celebrated Christopher's birthday a few days early with a glow party at Pump It Up! It was super fun and if you are wondering what the glow part is... the second room we went into had all black lights and a lot of the kids wore white so their shirts looked really cool. As the guest of honor, Chris got to hold a flashing glow stick and he really had fun playing, jumping, and dancing with all his friends!

It was wonderful to have all of Christopher's friends there to help us celebrate!

Pump it Up is an inflatable place and one of the most fun things (according to the kids in attendance) was the super fast slide. Here are some of the kids coming down the slide!

After all the jumping and fun, it was time for pizza and cake! Chris chose to have a lion cake this year.

And of course, we are so happy to have shared Christopher's birthday with new friends and old. Olivia (and Tristan) has now been at every one of Chris' parties!

When we got home, Chris opened his presents. He got a lot of fun things. Here he is training to be Darth Vader...

Daddy was practicing too...

One of our favorite things was watching Chris "read" through a book that his friend Nico gave him:

We are so grateful to all our friends (and Grammy!) for helping to make Christopher's 5th birthday very special!

Bye Bye Hawaii (sniff sniff)

I guess good things must come to an end and we did need to leave paradise to come back home. But even at the airport, Maui gave us one more rainbow to look at. This one lasted about an hour!

Our plane was a bit late so someone was very excited when it finally arrived and was all fueled up to go home.

And being that we had an overnight flight, Chris slept the whole flight! I actually had to wake him up as we were landing. We are very lucky to have such a great traveler!

This was truly an amazing, perspective-changing trip and we are so lucky both to have gone and to have shared it with our little man. And now that we know Chris can handle an 8 1/2 hour flight the question is... where to next?

Out and About in Maui

During the last few days we had in Maui, we spent a lot of time at the beach and pool, but we also checked out a few sights and cool places. First, we went to the Maui Ocean Center which was an aquarium that specialized in sea life native to Hawaii. We saw some really cool fish there! Some were a little unusual...

Ha! No but seriously, we saw some beautiful fish and they had a huge shark tank with rays and multiple types of sharks. The tropical fish they had there were beautiful too!

The aquarium also had a number of sea turtles which were great to see up close. We saw some of them at the beaches in Maui. One swam right past me at Napili Bay Beach and we saw two others in the waves at the beach right in front of our hotel. Since they're endangered though, you are not supposed to get too close to them.

After our visit, Chris found some dolphins and whales to "swim" with!

Another thing we did during our second Maui visit was check out the town of Lahaina. It's an old whaling town which is now a cute little spot to shop and walk around. There are many art galleries there and we ended up getting a few pieces for our house that will remind us of the beauty of Hawaii!

And on our final day (actually on the way to the airport) we stopped at Maui Tropical Plantation, a beautiful collection of flowers, plants and produce. They also had zip lining but Chris was only three pounds short of being big enough for it. He told me he wanted to do it so maybe next time we will try it out. A lot of the pictures from the plantation I included in the flower section so here are just a few more...

Oh and I don't want to forget another overly friendly duck who paid me a very close visit!