Wordless Wednesday: A Million Little Things

Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things.

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Play Date at CMOR

Last Wednesday we shook our play date up a bit! My good friend, Jillian offered us 2 free passes to attend the Children's Museum of Richmond with her and the kids. We happily accepted! Ethan had not yet been and I had not been since my parents visited two years ago when I was pregnant with Ethan! The museum has had many wonderful improvements done. There is now a cow you can milk, news station, apple tree that you can pick "apples" (red balls), fill a basket and then put 'em back into the tree to be redistributed through plastic tubes to go collect 'em all over again!

This is how we started out! Two adults in the front and five children in the back, ages 6, 4, 2 1/2, 1 1/2, and 2 months. Vans are awesome! It was not the space that was the issue it is the space the car seats themselves eat up! But they are a much needed necessity and we managed to get everyone securely fastened in, see...

So off we went... two ambitious mama's with 5 little eager ones in toe!

The day went very well, Ethan ran and ran! I felt like I hardly saw Jillian and her kids because Ethan was all over the place! It was great to be able to see him just freely run. He is not one to be easily intimidated, there were a couple of large groups of field trip children running about, and he hung right in there!

I loved the stage area and could have stayed there all day!

The photo with the tubes is the inside of the apple tree... so cool!

The morning started out chilly, but warmed up enough for us to enjoy an outside lunch. With all the distractions of playing Ethan didn't eat that much lunch. But it was a great time for Jillian and I to be able to chat for a moment.

After lunch water play was next on the list! Ethan's shirt was so soaked in the end, that I had to take it off and but his red zip-up Christmas sweater on him. He played hard!

Thank you Jillian! We had a wonderful time and the kid-os were thoroughly exhausted!

Toddler Tales: Reindeer Games

Ethan is growing and absorbing life in leaps and bounds!

Vacuuming has become one of his favorite Mommy mimicking activities:)

He is quite like his Mommy about Christmas too... he loves it! His favorite is the lights, he exclaims, "Lights!" and "Wow! Wow!", it is great to see every time:) The large bulb lights are his favorite, he loves to hold 'em in his hand, as they are painted glass and only warm to the touch. The stars are another favorite... stars! stars! stars!

Underneath the Christmas tree is one of his favorite places to play these days. So much so that I am finding tree needles in his diapers:) Removing and rearranging the ornaments, pushing the one musical ornament we have, dragging pine needles all about the living room floor. But not once has he pulled it to the ground, thank goodness!

~New Talk~

Circle, square, triangle, rectangle, red, blue, green, yellow, coloring, hot, water, mail man (oddly enough), helicopter

** Flower, gives a sniff, sniff after he says it!

** Ethan to Mommy: "Drink?", Mommy to Ethan: "Would you like something to drink?", He eagerly relies: "Okay!"

** Want to go outside - know this it not new new but the why he now demands to go outside & play is!

** I went poo-poo, thank-goodness for this one:) He used to be a frequent offender of hiding while doing the do. But over the last couple of weeks he has been alerting me to when he has gone. So, YAY, I know it is after the fact but he is acknowledging it and that's a start in my book!

** He babbles the babble with frequent recognizable words. So we are well on our way to sentences. He gets that look upon his face, he knows he is saying something and to him it makes sense, he's just waiting on his Mommy to catch-up!

He has also been frequently having lunch and sometimes breakfast out of his highchair and at the table. Excuse the dirty morning nose:)

~Play Dates~

Thursday was a much better day for our play date last week, mainly because it rained all day on Wednesday. Only down side, mud! mud! mud! So it quickly turned into a 2 pair of pants and socks day for Ethan:) Which I don't mind, he is still at that age (which I love) where he doesn't realize or may be just doesn't care that if he goes down the slide his bottom is going to get oh so muddy and a little wet! These were not Ethan's muddy pants, but take a closer look at his very wet pant legs and shoes. He decided to take a walk in the culvert, which was flowing with rain water.

Squabbles have given way to sharing, as you can see the boys love switching rides. Luke really really loves Ethan's motorcycle and Ethan loves to ride Luke's tractor!

It's great that Luke is slightly older than Ethan, he is teaching him all kinds of new things. Like not to run with the ball but to pass it to a friend. I have been trying to get him to understand this concept for a while now.

After a little over an hours outside play, we headed into the house for inside play and a little craft time. My friend, Allison, graciously offered up a spin-off idea from our Thanksgiving Turkey Rolls... Reindeer Rolls! Thank you Allison, much easier to cut 4 little hands, instead of 16 little ones. So while the boys played with match box cars and indoor slide (makes an awesome ramp), I crafted their Reindeer Rolls to Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree per Luke. He found our one musical ornament and had a field day repeatedly pushing the star when it stopped playing. It was quite cute!

~Reindeer Rolls~

Ethan's Reindeer                              Luke's Reindeer

Once finished we went back out for round two of outside play! The big wind chimes out front are a favorite of the boys.

A great test for my new Bulb Wreath I made, absolutely kid-proof! If you look closely you can see the second child (red stripped shirt) behind the door, as knock back and forth.

It was a wonderful, warm day of play!

See how our two families spent the evening together below.

Toddler Tales... Play dates for Lil' Turkeys

For the past two weeks on Mondays & Wednesdays, Ethan and I have been hosting play dates with Luke. It has been glorious fun for both of the boys. Ethan gets bored of just his mommy play time while Orion is at school, and Luke has two older siblings that are home schooled and Jillian also has a 7wk old to tend to. So it works out great for everyone! We have decided it will be a staple for Wednesdays and Mondays are more of a play it by ear, depending on if the two older children have Co-op.

Our first Monday play date consisted of

beautiful fall weather for much outside play.

When the older kids finished they came down and joined

us for a snack on the front porch. It was very surreal to me...

handling four hungry, hungry children at once, two of whom

could not operate juice boxes on their own:)

Our first Wednesday play date was

rainy rainy rainy due to Hurricane Ida.

So YAY for crayons and happy inside play.

Although I will say, was very surprised by

Ethan's reluctance to share his toys at first.

He went after everything Luke touched

like he had never seen the toy before.

We also started these guys...

Can you guess what we made?

Older kids had Co-op the next Monday, so Wednesday

we enjoyed some morning outside play. Then came in for

some coloring and a snack, while I finished up the craft we started last week.

Morning Play Favorite Moments

>Luke being such a trooper about sharing Ethan's Lightening McQueen

>How Luke hugged Ethan's Lightening McQueen Pillow

and shouted "McQwen! McQwen!"

>How they get to giggling together:)

>How Luke called me "Christmas", instead of Christine,

when he needed something. This may explain my

Wordless Wednesday from this week.

>How Ethan was so impressed by Luke's equal to,

if not a tad squealier squeal. For a few moments it was a

competition back and forth until... Ethan stopped

and exclaimed, " WOW! WOW!" at Luke's squealing abilities.

And they continued to squeal happily together:)

By far the best moment!

Best Buds in the Making!

So on to the craft... did you figure it out yet?

We made Turkey Rolls:)

Sorry so many photos but they were so cute I couldn't resist!

~Ethan's Turkey Roll~

~Luke's Turkey Roll~

Saw this concept used online for another animal

(can't remember what now) and thought it would be great for a turkey.

Little more 3 dimensional than a paper plate.

We're having so much fun and are really looking forward to more play dates!

Check back to see what else these two lil' turkeys are up to!

Wordless Wednesday... Christmas!