Star Wars at the Museum

The boys and I met up with some friends at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham today for a special Heroes, Villians, and Special Effects event. Star Wars characters were the main attraction for many of the little kids...Joey and Johnny included! They got to pose with Imperial Officers, Princess Leia, a Stormtrooper, and R2-D2. The boys got their faces painted. Joey decided on Darth Maul, and Johnny picked 'blue boy'. It was neat to watch them get it done and then to enjoy being done up. The boys also got to paticipate in a green screen Star Wars battle. Think about watching the nightly weather person give the forecast only Star Wars style. There was another area training stunt choreopgraphy. And, we got to watch some stunt people fall off a building (onto an air bag). We always enjoy the museum, and today was extra nice.

All the pics are here. You'll also see Joey climbing the rock climbing wall and Johnny doing the fireman pole outside for the first time.

Frank Is Here!

The kids and I put up some Halloween decorations inside the house tonight including some door wreaths and 3 light up lamps in their room. Meanwhile, Rick put Frank up. The kids were quite pleased. The boys and I also made a Frank cake using a skeleton face cake pan.

All the pics are here.

Kids and Cameras

For a while now, the kids have been interested in taking pictures. I gave Joey an inexpensive, but real, Kodak camera about 2 years ago. Occassionally he would get it out and go to crazy taking pics of things interesting to him in the house. I came across a 3.1MP Sony Cybershot at the local thrift store for $5 and gave it to Johnny for his recent 4th birthday. Now that both boys have a camera, their interest in taking pictures has increased, and they are just going to town taking pics.

One of their absolute favorite things to take pics of is each other taking pics. They also enjoy taking pics of mom and dad, toys, and any decorations up in the house.

Here are links to 3 albums from this week. The pics that start 100_ are Joey's camera. The ones that start DSC00 are Johnny's camera.

Album 1

Album2

Album3

It's all in the name...

I'm proud to report that Johnny successfully wrote his name for the first time yesterday. He's been trying for months, but last night it all came together. The letters were in the right order, he said what they were, I used lines to help him make the letters a reasonable size, and most important, he made the 'N' all on his own. N has been giving him lots of trouble.

Please take a minute to click on the link below to watch the videos of him in action. I had to break it up into two small videos to keep the size small enough for upload to Picasa. And, also, please ignore Joey's crying; he was having an extra tough night

Pictures and videos are here.

Experimenting with Glass

I experimented with broken glass pieces (bought at A. C. Moore) on a clear (but swirled) glass plate today. This is what I came up with. The rest of the pics are here.

Is it Halloween yet?

I haven't blogged for a while. There are several new albums out on my Picasa site, but I haven't featured the albums in a blog...sorry. Instead of trying to back up, I'm just moving forward starting tonight.

It's kindof my own fault, I know, but I keep getting the question, "Is it Hallween yet?" especially from Johnny. Nevermind that it's only 9/8, but all the stores have the Halloween stuff out, and I'm proud, sad, happy, guilty and excited to report that it's going up at our house too. When Joey was born, I envisioned putting up the Halloween stuff AFTER his early October b'day so that we could enjoy his b'day as a separate entity. That is such a laugh now! Let's face it, I love Halloween as much as the kids, so why postpone something that can last for, well, 6-8 weeks.

We have been doing Perler Bead Halloween projects and hanging them in the boys' room for over a week now.

Tonight, we got out our fiber optic goblins, a haunted house (think Little People play house), and a bunch of McD Halloween toys. The boys had a lot of fun playing with the toys while I made dinner.

We are also REALLY into reading our Halloween books. I'm glad to give us all renewed interest in sitting down to read (for a long time) together. The house already echos with "The House that Jack Haunted":-)

Frank is coming...........................(those that need to know what that means know;-)

All the pics from tonight are here.