Spoiled Dogs

They went from being homeless on the streets and crashing in Missouri animal shelters to lounging on Pottery Barn pillows…

We spoil our girls!

Fighter Jet

For those of you who do not receive the journal from Christopher's school, I am including a picture of one of Christopher's (MANY) homemade airplanes that he has made in school for their class year-long airplane project. Today Ms. Rommel brought in some new materials to create with and this little aeronautical engineer got busy building! When I came to pick him up from school, she told me that I "have a very excited little boy this afternoon" because of the new materials. Since I picked him up, he literally has not put the plane down!

The Harlem Globetrotters

This afternoon, we took Chris and his friend Noah to see the Harlem Globetrotters at the Sprint Center. First of all, Christopher was very excited to have a buddy in the car with him and the boys were so fired up because of all the tall buildings they saw as we approached downtown KC. Our seats were pretty good and the boys were fired up to watch as the Globetrotter players were announced and they started showing off some of their fancy moves!

After they stuffed their faces with some popcorn, the boys watched as the players showed everyone some of their crazy antics. As you can see, they were quite impressed!

After the first quarter, things started going downhill for Christopher as it was getting a little too loud. Silly Mommy, thinking we were past this point in his life, did not pack headphones. Note to self, bring headphones to all future indoor sporting events. Noah had a blast and found the whole thing entertaining so he stayed in our seats with Brian while Chris and I hung out in the hallway, then up in the back of our section. After awhile he settled down but we did watch the remainder of the game from farther back. All in all it was a fun afternoon and we were happy to have Noah join us!

Plane Construction

Whether it is out of Legos, paper or cardboard, Christopher can make a plane with essentially any kind of material. Today we worked together to build a triple decker Luftansa plane (his idea totally) out of a shoebox and tinfoil. He requested that we put it on the blog for everyone to see so here it is!

Meanwhile, the dogs, who are not so interested in plane building are always giving us sad looks to make us feel sorry for them. Here is Kasey, wondering why no one will play basketball with her…

And here is Holly, wondering why no one ever feeds her…

Don't worry, while we don't play basketball with our dogs, we do feed them well. They've got it made in the shade, these two!

Lego Master Builders

Christopher is just a little obsessed with Legos at the moment. Every spare second at home is devoted to building the coolest, most streamlined planes he can think of. Daddy is his favorite fellow builder so on this Martin Luther King holiday when Daddy is off of work, this dynamic duo is putting their heads together to design. I took the dogs out for a walk and when I came home, they had constructed two really cool fighter jets! This is a very fun hobby to watch Chris enjoy because both of his parents really liked to build with legos when we were young.

If you've been wondering what else this little man has been up to, he's had a very busy social schedule! Mommy doesn't always take pictures at playdates anymore so I'll just tell you with words who he's been hanging out with. Last week he had his friends, Finley and Georgia, over to our house for a playdate. They could have played forever, he loves those two so much! Chris is also continuing with swim lessons at Matt Ross Community Center, which he still enjoys very much. Last week also involved playdates with new friends, Jack and Zoe, as well as John, Katie and Mary Jane from down the street and old friends Lahna and Liam. Friday night we had over the Petrowskys for pizza (that's Nate P. from his old school and his sister Molly). Basketball went much better this weekend and Chris even made a basket on his own! Sunday he had a blast at his friend Lincoln's birthday party. The weather here yesterday was gorgeous so they had an outdoor bouncy house in their yard and a bunch of kids from Christopher's class spent the afternoon jumping, playing, and eating while the parents all got a chance to visit. While it's not as warm today as yesterday, it is still sunny so we'll spend some of the day at Science City and more of it outside this afternoon!

Air Christopher... Kind of

Christopher had his first day of Bitty Basketball at Pembroke this morning. He got his own jersey and basketball and was trying out some new skills throughout the morning. Of all the sports that exist, basketball is probably the one we've never really exposed him to so he was really starting from scratch which can, to say the least, be very frustrating for a kid who wants to do things right as soon as he starts something. After a few tears (and of course he wasn't the only one!) we practiced some bounce passes, shooting and dribbling and he started to like it a bit. A bunch of kids from his class are playing too which made it fun for him, at least at first! Anyway, it was an experience and we'll see how the rest of it goes. Here are some more pics from the morning...

Here is a picture of Chris and his friend Finley from his class. Christopher loooooovvvves Finley!

Special Reader

Christopher had a special visitor come in to read at school today. Grammy brought The Scrambled States of America in to read to everyone and the kids really enjoyed the story. What makes it so funny is that the states all decide that they want to switch places and Kansas is the one responsible for encouraging them all to do so. It's also funny that Kansas ends up switching places with Hawaii but doesn't like being in the middle of the Pacific ocean! Ms. Rommel and I agreed that we would be very happy if Kansas was, in fact, in the middle of the ocean. Anyway, here are some pictures from the reading…

Cue the Tooth Fairy!

Well, after hanging in there for well over a week, tooth #1 has officially fallen out! There is a nice little gap where it fell out. So crazy to see this guy with a missing tooth. Now the question is, what is the going rate for the tooth fairy these days?

Engineering Day

Happy new year everyone! In our quest to keep from freezing this weekend, we ventured over to UMKC to take part in their kids engineering day through a group that sponsors a youth science and math club (think Science Olympiad). They had multiple activities where kids (ages 5 through 14) could design different machines and devices. For example, the kids could design an air cannon, hovercraft, popper scooper, egg toss and Lego city block using found materials like cups, straws, tape, etc. This was right up Christopher's alley as he loves to tape recycled materials together all the time at home. Some of the activities were definitely a little above his level but with a little teamwork, he was able to figure things out. His most successful thing was figuring out a way to protect an egg that would be shot out of a catapult using only tape, 2 straws and two magazine pages. Miraculously, he was able to keep his egg from harm! Here he is waiting for it to be launched...

It was a fun thing for him to experience and I can definitely see some sort of Science Olympiad in his future! Here are a few other pictures of him putting structures together.

One of the most exciting things for him was going to see where Mommy went to "college" (I got my masters at UMKC) and he couldn't believe he was going somewhere that grown-ups go to school. His perspective is so cute!