Trains, Trucks, and Airplanes, Oh My!

Due to the unsettled, ever-changing weather, we spent most of the day inside today, even canceling a date with grandma-grandma.

This was fine with Dylan, who got to open and play with more of his birthday presents.  At one point we had the kitchen, hall, and living room floor all covered and set up with vehicles.  

Eva worked with the farm, and with her princesses.  She set up the cows in a pen, and placed the farmers around the farm.  When I asked her what she was doing, she replied, "The cows are eating the hay.  They are sharing it."
As for the princesses, they decided to take the train to the ball.

Dylan was completely into his digger engine (really?).  His engine climbed a mountain and started digging for bugs, on the top of the mountain.  

Dyleva played intermittently with the new Thomas and Chuggington parts, airplane blocks, and Tonka tracks for hours.  

For the record, as grateful as I am to the family and friends that came and brought Dylan gifts for his birthday, I have to say, boy's toys suck to put together!  I really was reaching my frustration level on some of his new toys, others I just gave up on.  As Jeff would say, I tried to be smarter than the toy.   
 
 

The Stranded Niña

As we moved through our day, we were invited to meet up with our friend Zoey at Daddy's park.

While the niños played, we couldn't help but notice the young girl almost in tears.  Apparently she was dropped off at daycamp, only to find that daycamp never arrived.  

She was nine years old, and had an impressive bank of knowledge.  In 10 minutes we knew where her grandparents lived, their phone number, her address, all about her neighbors, where her dad worked, etc, etc...

We waited together for her pickup, which happened within the hour. 

But the whole situation got me thinking.

"Eva, where do you live?"

"Bufalo."

"What's the number on your house?"

"Seven"

"How do you call Daddy?

"Mommy, Daddy is number three."

We have some work to do.  
If this young girl hadn't known all of this info, she would have been stranded the whole day in the park by herself.

Jumping with a Smile!

Dyleva went to the dentist today.  Eva reassured Dylan several times, "Dylan, I will go first so you can see what she does.  Don't worry Dylan, there are no shots!"

(For the record, 6 months ago both children had an uneventful, pleasant dental experience.)  

Eva told the dentist her life story, in between her cleaning. The poor dentist could hardly get an instrument in between chatter.

Meanwhile, Dylan sat silent, with his hands clenched over his mouth for about 20minutes, staring at Eva and the dentist.  He was also grasping the two peluches he brought with him in a death grip.  

When it was his turn, he freaked.  But our dentist is fantastic....which is probably why she is so expensive....Not only did she get Dylan to give her the peluches, but to open his mouth so she could check his teeth.

He was so proud afterward.  "Mommy, I be good boy?"

Next up we all had a playdate at Skyzone.  Dyleva had really missed their friends from playschool, and it was so nice to meet up with them.  




Dylan was so happy and relieved, he was dancing and shaking it and falling all over the trampoline.  








Eva spent more time in the pit.  She was obsessed with helping all her friends out of it.  




We topped off all the jumping with a little Mexican food to make mommy and daddy happy and called it a night.

Rockin in Kenmore

Tonight Dyleva and I went to listen to some live music in Kenmore.  The band was called Lustre, I think, and they were very good!  They played 'Rockabilly' which is 50's music (?)



The niños enjoyed it, I know that from the temper tantrum thát came when it was time to leave.  But they were surprisingly still as small children danced circles around them.  




Eva moved around a bit, but I suspect she was more interested in playing 'Lets see how far away from Mommy I can get.'  As she frolicked, she captured the attention of a Buffalo News photographer, who later approached me for her name for press!

Now, Dylan, had zero interest in dancing, but he was infatuated with the instruments and how loud the music was.

It was a beautiful night.  The musicians were fantastic and had a lot of fun with the kids.

Safari

Adventure explorers, Eva and Dylan traveled to the foreign country of Canada today in search of wild animals.  After their long journey, they arrived famished and parched.  After a brief recharging, they were off to begin exploring!

Almost immediately, they encountered lions on both side of their vehicle.  They continued along the road, ignoring the warnings to roll up their window from the PoPo.  





Dyleva ventured through the monkey passage soon to be bombarded with baboons!  They were on the cars, in the road, hanging from the trees! Dylan, the brave adventurer later shared how scared he was during this part of the trip.  

By now, the adventure seekers are out of their car seats and more interested in exploring traveling in the car unrestrained.  (Later to be shared as a highlight of the day for Eva.)

Dylan was very excited to see he
shared a common feature with
the baboons.

The young adventure seekers continued their safari through the park and encountered many lazy, tired animals.  But not to worry because more adventures lie in their future!

Dyleva had to battle a rock-tire mountain, a pit of plastic spherical objects, and climb to the heavens on a rope ladder, only to slide down to the adventure water park!

In hindsight, the travel agents were fantastic at calling the shots and planning around the weather (thank you very much).

Monkey Island

After the safari visit, the adventure continued.  Pushing past the attempt to leave Dylan on Monkey Island, the young explorers were homeward bound.  


During the journey home, the niños needed to stop for a pee break.  The chauffeur quickly pulled into the nearest lot, only to be reprehended by an armed guard protecting his property!  He was not real happy that we chose his property to answer to nature's call....But no one got shot or mauled by a lion, so we chalk it up to a successful mystery viaje. 

¡Nunca un momento aburrido!

Booby Traps

So the other day, we were playing in the yard, and Dylan was quite busy working on something behind our hot tub. Eventually, he comes to me sooo excited, and brings me over to show me what he has done.

"Look Mommy!  A booby trap for Daddy!"

I look inside the well that hides the hose, and sure enough, the hose is pointed upward and bubbling out at me!

He was so incredibly proud of what he figured out that it took some real convincing to let me shut the water off. 
(Read: temper tantrum) 

So who knows if it was Goonies, or Jake the Neverland Pirates, or the fact that April Fools Day went over famously this year in our house, but it has led to booby trap inspiration in both of my children.  

We spent an hour setting up booby-traps for Jeff when he comes home from work today.

Booby-Traps:

#1 Eva's idea
A noise maker hanging from the arch of a tree with a counterweight to drop and scare Daddy.

#2 Dylan's idea
Marley's squeaker toy hidden in the grass, so when he steps on it, it scares him.  












#3 Dylan's idea
Disguise the hose with branches, and as Daddy walks by, it sprays him.

#4 Eva's idea
On the top of the swing set there are two full buckets of water.    They will tell Daddy to look at something in the sandbox and WHOOSH!!!

#5 Mommy's idea
A dollar bill on a string.










#5.5 Eva's idea 
Two ice cream cones on a string.

¡Niños locos!

Lily Pads and Big Sticks

Todays adventure brought us to Reinstein Woods (Mommy's park).  Dyleva was very excited because Daddy was able to join us on our adventure today.  
We began with a picnic breakfast and a discussion of what todays walk would bring.  "So what do you think we will see?"
"ardillas....chippy" (Dylan)
"pajaros, ranas, " (Eva)
"shark" (Daddy)
"No Daddy!"   Which led to a discussion of whether or not we would really see sharks today.

As we began our hike, we came to  pond filled with lily pads.  It was peaceful.  Eva sat down to sketch the pond.... for about 6 minutes.

As we continued through the park, we actually encountered many different animals: ducks, geese, frog, insects, deer, snake (Daddy's favorite), birds, butterflies, squirrels, and chipmunks!

During the walk, Dylan found his own reason for visiting the park.  My little hunter-gatherer decided to collect sticks for when we have fires at home.  He carried them for more than a half hour.. and brought them home to our fire pit.

It was lovely.  The niños are so curious about every aspect of nature, it is delightful to watch them in this setting, even if we didn't see any sharks.  
 

Superhero Fever!

Today was Dylan's twin cousin, Charlotte's, birthday.  It was a superhero theme!  Thank goodness we had superhero pijamas because my costume creativity does not kick in until mid September.

But thats okay because Eva was on it.  She was fishing through the kitchen cabinets for her shield (pot cover).  Then she began praising Dylan for finding a circular baby blanket with straps that kind of resembles a shield.  

We spent an hour in the basement looking for capes.  I found several pieces of cloth that I felt could make suitable capes, but unfortunately did not meet the standards of the 3 and 5 year old.  We went capeless.

Dyleva had a huge bin of scrap fotos and paper to use today to create Charlotte's card.  They worked on those cards all morning.  Dylan's actually had several pages, which I spared the Koslosky family, and introduced to our recycling bin (sorry Dyl...)

But Evas, cracked me up.  She found random fotos of unknown men at the beach and cut them out for Charlotte's card.  That's my beach girl.

¡Feliz Cumpleaños Charlotte!

Dinosaur Bones and a Dam

Driving to the science museum, I hear Eva tell Dylan, "You know Dylan, there aren't going to be real dinosaurs there."
Dylan just nodded but I bit, "How do you know that Eva?"

"Well, because there is just bones.  Because the hombres just dig, and dig, and dig, and dig and they got all the dinosaur bones and then they put them together like a puzzle.  And then they bring them here, to the museo, and put that thing around it and keep it safe so everyone can see it."

Hmmmm.  So just wondering..."But Eva, how do you know he won't see any real dinosaurs?"

"I can't tell you Mommy."

"What? Why not?"  I asked, very puzzled.

"Because I'm not allowed to say it."

Totally confused, I respond, "Just tell me, its okay, I won't be angry."

"Because they DIED Mommy!  It was a long time ago and now they are dead!"

Meanwhile, searching my recollection for when I told her it was not okay to say 'dead'....(It is likely and possible...)


After dinosaur bones, we explored my favorite part- the Exploration room!

Eva and I got to work on building a dam.  It was quite challenging because the pressure of the water kept moving her blocks of wood away.  

Her initial strategy of just piling the wooden bricks didn't work.  Eventually, she turned them the long way so the resistance had less surface area and she piled the beanbags on top and it worked! But she had to use every single brick of madera.

We didn't have nearly enough time to explore everything the ninos wanted to see, so we will be back soon!

Slumber Party

Dyleva had their first slumber party!  (kind of).  They spent the night at Tia Lisas house, with Maya and Erin and Gavin. 

Coincidently, it happen to fall on the same night as Mommys 20th reunion.  They brought sleeping bags, blankets, babies, leche, books, num nums, slippers, movies....It was like they were moving in.   

So I asked Dylan, "What was your favorite part of the slumber party?"
"Girls, and watching the movie."

Dylan unpacking.

"Why did you like that the best?"
"I like Pooh and the snacks."

Same questions to Eva.  "Mommy my favorite part was the movie and to watch it with the niños."

"Why?"
"We got to pick what we wanted to watch.  At first they asked us if we wanted the smurfs, and we said 'No thank you' and then we chose Winnie the Pooh."
And so went their first sleepover.  I came home to two snugglebugs snoring away.

The Broken Pattern

This morning, we made patterns with our cereal.  It was a desperate attempt to get Eva to eat anything healthy before noon. 
I gave Dyleva a bowl of different cereals to create a pattern of their choice.   

 "Mommy, I have an idea.  How about we do something wrong in the pattern and we can see which one broke the pattern.  If we get it right, we don't have to eat it.   But if we get it wrong, then we have to eat it because we have to get rid of it."

Eva turned it into a game, and she was highly engaged.  She tried to stump me!  We practiced continuing a pattern, fixing an incorrect pattern, and identifying the unit (repeated part) of the pattern.  This is an overarching theme I am considering with my students next year, so I wanted to experiment with the ninos.  They did awesome!

Dylan completed a six unit pattern when I tracked it with my finger!  Eva was set on the broken pattern, identifying the problem and fixing it....but I still don't know how much she ended up eating.....

Goonies

For the first time ever, Jeff and I brought the niños to the drive-in.  We were dodging raindrops on the way, but lucked out with a dry night.  I even captured a foto of a beautiful rainbow on the way.
Titi and Tio Eric met us there and had everything all set to go.  They even brought family from Georgia!  Dyleva was sooo excited because they had a bed in the back of their truck!

Every Tuesday is 'Throw back Tuesday' and they have a great line up.  We took the kids to see Goonies.  I remember it being a supercute movie about a group of young kids that go hunting for pirate treasure!

I did not, however, remember that it began with an apparent suicide, leading into a car chase with gun fire, boys breaking a penis off a statue, and Chunk getting locked in the closet with a dead guy- all within the first half hour of the movie.   OOPS.

They seemed unfazed at the time, even though poor Eva had non-stop questions through the whole movie.

Then this morning it came over breakfast:  "Mommy, can we talk about the movie?"

Uh oh.

Thank goodness she was mostly hung up on the end and the jewels.  In the movie, Mikey empties his marble bag and fills it with Pirate treasure.   It is forgotten about and discovered later and saves the day, etc. etc.

"Mommy, but why would he dump out his marbles?  Didn't he want them anymore?"
"Why did the other niño have them in his mouth?"
"But why didn't he take One-Eyed Willie's treasure?  Did he know it was booby trapped?"

I patiently answered all of her questions and sighed with relief that they didn't involve broken penises.