Dress Up

My boys love dressing up.  We have quite a collection of dress up clothes.

 John and Gus like when they can coordinate costumes.  They will spend hours in these Transformer costumes making all kinds of noises as they switch from robot to car.  These characters actually have names, but I still have the names of all of the Thomas trains in my head and there just isn't any more room.

 Did you know robots color?

And while the Transformers play, the littlest Fiene gets bored and decides to relieve the shelves of all of the DVDs.  And we wonder why every DVD we own is scratched.

A Little Reading

This just makes me happy.  It isn't just that John likes to read.  It's that he loves to read and loves even more to read to his brothers.

If only these kids would be like this all day.  But inevitably they wind up wrestling on the floor and someone ends up crying.  Then 5 minutes later they will be reading again.  Just with tear-stained, red faces.  Reading and wrestling go together in the Fiene house.

A Mo Willems Event

I have written about Mo Willems before.  I just love Mo Willems. His books are funny and kids love them.  His books get checked out enough at the library that I asked if I could do a Mo Willems program.  So we set aside an afternoon for Mo Willems fans to read Mo' books and have Mo' fun.

All the kids had their own Knuffle Bunny name tags.

Once inside the room, the children and their parents were encouraged to doodle on the tables covered in butcher paper.  Mo keeps his dining room table lined with white paper and the walls are painted with chalkboard paint.  I did a little research for this event.  And by a little I mean a lot.  I felt a bit stalkerish.  I really like Mo Willems.

This is John's doodle.  I think he did pretty well.

Then we all made our own Pigeon hats.

I have to admit I was very specific about the color of this pigeon.  It had to be this specific blue because this is the color of the Pigeon.  I looked all over for this color for a craft that was most likely thrown out when the kids got home.  I'm a little OCD.

 Then we read a whole bunch of books.

 We even did a dramatic reading of an Elephant and Piggie book with John and another parent.  John has theatricality coming out of his ears so this was right up his alley.

 After some fun reading and learning some facts about Mo (yep, I let the kids in on some of the fun facts I found out while stalking Mo), the kids were able to make their own books.

 Creating and doodling together.

 Our neighbors Cassie and Kaylee came to the event.

Each kid went home with a folder filled with color sheets and games all centered around Mo Willems' books.  Oh, and check out the folder cover...that's right, I wrote to Mo and told him about our event and he signed a couple of posters for the library.  My stalking paid off.



What Do You Do?

When you have a kid like John you can expect to one good picture out of every thousand.  This just means that most of my pictures of him feature extreme silliness.   Which is very John.  His brothers seem to be following in his footsteps.

 John could not escape his character.  He is using a hose to take out a fire.  He told me firemen don't stop for pictures.

 But he agreed to smile.  Gus is driving a race car.  He looks constipated.  Maybe that is how race car drivers look.

 Anders would prefer to be watching Super Why so he is giving his fake pirate smile in order to speed up the process.

Apparently John has put out the fire, but Gus is still driving his car and Anders is still enjoying the show on TV.  Oh well, I guess I will never have to worry about forgetting what they enjoyed as they get older.

New Year's Eve Party

It's time to rewind again, back to the last day of 2012.  Yes, yes, we all must do this because I can't seem blog about events anywhere near the time in which they occurred.  At least I've already blogged about Thanksgiving and Christmas.  You can only ask so much of me.

Last New Year's we started a tradition of having a fun party with the boys, complete with noise makers and ice cream floats.  John remembered this fondly and, when someone asked me what our New Years' plans were, he quickly laid out plans I didn't even know we had.  Thus a tradition was started.  There is no going back now.  The nice thing about this is that our party starts at 4 pm and ends at 8 pm.

Anders was helping Hans make pizza.  And by helping I mean he was eating the dough.

 John played a little leap pad.  He could spend hours just like this.  Which is exactly why I set the timer for 20 minutes.  I've made the mistake of forgetting and then John tells me hours later that he is finished playing because the batteries are dead.

 Then it was time for a movie marathon.  This year they picked the Rescuers and the Rescuers Down Under.  I was utterly grateful we weren't watching all 117 Buddies movies.

Then we rang in the New Year...at 8 o'clock.  That's my kind of party!



A Boy and his Dog

Gus and I have been in a constant argument for about year about Fritz being a comfort dog.  I say Fritz is NOT a comfort dog and Gus insists that he is.  Gus is sure that Fritz is in training.  He gets mad every time I say that Fritz just wouldn't make the cut.  And somehow, even if Fritz is the one who committed the act for which Gus must be comforted, Fritz is able to comfort him.  So to Gus, Fritz will always be a comfort dog.  And you don't mess with a boy's comfort dog.

A Little Magic

John LOVES magic.  He has been enthralled with magic for quite some time.  This year my parents got him a magic set for Christmas.  A magic kit wouldn't be the same with out a tuxedo for the magician.  So they got him one of those too.  And what magician would go on stage without a lovely assistant?  Not John.  So Gus found the tuxedo we had from the Sir Topham Hat costume and rocked the assistant role.

See the serious magician and his box of crayons?

Ta-da!  The crayons disappeared. 

 Now if only these two could make the mess in the house disappear.

If you are looking for a magic set to get for your kid, My First Magic Set with Instructional DVD is wonderful.

Board Games

I am not a board game person.  I've really never been a board game person.  Even as a kid.  I know, I'm weird.  I remember having a good time playing board games with my family.  But I just don't get as excited about it as everyone else.  This trait was not passed down to my boys.  Which is a good thing.  They take after their Uncle Mark, who had an ongoing game of Monopoly going on with my mom for what seemed like years.   But playing a board game in this house is quite comical.  Anders usually moves the pieces where ever he wants whether they are his to move or not.  Gus doesn't have a long enough attention span to actually play, but BADLY wants to win and Fritz usually ends up in the middle of it all.

 They had a mean game of Chutes and Ladders going on here.  Complete with trash talk.  John is pretty good about giving and not at all good about taking.  In this family, if you dish it out, you have to take it.  This is apparently a hard lesson to learn.

 Fritz often comes by to make sure there isn't any food he can clear off the table for you.  He also wonders why so many people would be this close together and not be petting him.

 I believe this is Gus's turn.  See Anders moving that piece?  I'm pretty sure that wasn't his piece.

Fritz doesn't like board games.  He would be very happy if all gathered around and played, 'let's see who can pet the dog the longest.'  That's a game he could get into.

Three Red Sweaters

I love cute matching outfits.  The boys actually like to match as well.  For now they think it is fun to dress alike and I'm taking full advantage. My mom got these outfits for the boys and they are very cute.  I'm not sure if the boys liked the sweaters or the hats more.

 Poor Anders fell and hit is lip a few days before this.  Look at that big, fat lip!

 Anders didn't like this pose.  Can you tell?

 Of course we have to try to get a picture with grandparents.

Anders is trying his hardest to smile, but he can't get the left side of his face to work.  Makes for a funny picture though.

My Sickling

Right before Christmas, Anders came down with what we think was the flu.  Luckily (and amazingly) no one else in the house was infected.  But poor Anders threw up for 4 days.  It was pathetic and a little annoying.  Annoying because Anders didn't know how to make it to the bathroom...or even a hard surfaced floor.  He would just puke where ever he was.  Then Fritz, being the dog he is, would try to help us clean it up which just made Hans and I want to throw up.  At one point Anders threw up, Fritz came to clean up and then Anders threw up on Fritz.  I threw everyone in the bathtub.  This made for an eventful 4 days.

He was so tired that he fell asleep on the kitchen floor.  Being the excellent mom that I am, I covered him and let him sleep there for over an hour.

A Funny Book

Out of nowhere we heard Anders laughing.  Hysterically.  Then a pause followed by more laughing.  

 This Toy Story book must be pretty funny.

This went on for a good 15 minutes.  I hope this means we have another lover of books.

Early to Rise

The boys thought it was necessary to get up at 6:30 am over Christmas break.  Since we don't watch TV in the mornings before school they took full advantage of the ability to do that over break.

But an hour later they ended up like this...

My new rule will be that on days where there is no school, the TV does not go on until 7:30.  Maybe that will keep them in bed a little longer.  One can hope, right?