The Pink Pig

We took the kids to ride the Pnk Pig last night. Sydney really looks forward to it each year. Every time we drive past Lenox Square she asks if it's close to Christmas yet so that we can ride the pig. Jaxy just likes any train - pink or not.



After the Pink Pig we went to a hibachi restaurant. It was the first time for the kids. Jaxon loved the "fire", but Sydney hid on the floor until I could assure her that the volcano fire had stopped.



She recovered quickly when she saw the broccoli and carrots on her plate (she gave the mushrooms and shrimp to Donnie, so everyone was happy). Jaxon and Sydney both liked using chopsticks, and they really liked the dipping sauces.


All in all it was a fun night.

Just smile and say okay

On Wednesday we told Sydney we would be meeting with her teacher the next day for a parent-teacher conference. We told her that we were going to talk about her. She then looked at me and said, "My teacher might tell you that I have been bad, but you just smile and say 'okay', and then don't really listen to her."

After I managed to check my laughter, I began to worry. We were not sure what to expect when we met with her teacher. Thankfully, the conference went well, and Sydney is doing a great job at school. Her teacher said she listens well and follows rules (why not at home?!), she is doing great with her numbers, letters, sight words, and math with manipulatives.

She loves art time, and she is very creative. Ms. Parker said that all of the kids have too explain their pictures so that they can lable them (to show the state Pre-K board when they check up on the program). She said most kids will say, "that's me," or "that's a dog." Sydney likes to tell a story: "This is a little girl who loves to play outside, but she is sad today because it is raining,"
That picture was a girl with a frown and large blue dots (rain) all over the place.

Most of her pictures were that way. Sydney has always been very creative - and a little dramatic too :-).

The only thing she really needs to work is resting time. Sydney refuses to lay on her mat and sleep, so she sneaks books under her blanket and "reads" while everyone naps. She hasn't willfully napped for me in 3 years, so I'm not much help there.

O Christmas Tree

We took the kids to pick out a live tree this year. They had a lot of fun, but it was really, REALLY cold, so we didn't spend too much time at the lot. Luckily, we were able to find the perfect tree pretty quickly.

The man re-cut our tree, and tied it to the roof of the car. He handed Sydney and Jaxon a string each and told them to "hold on tight so tthe tree doesn't fall off." Sydney thought it was funny, but Jaxy took it pretty seriously.

We decorated the tree the next day, after school.

The only way to get these two to nap...

is to let them run wild at the aquarium and hope they pass out at home.

"I not Jaxy, I Woody"

That is what I hear from Jaxon about 15 times a day. For his birthday (about 6 months ago) we saw Toy Story 3, and everyone bought him a present along those same lines. Thus began the transformation...


Fast forward a few months to Halloween. By this time, Jaxon has been watching Toy Story (the first one) on an almost daily basis, and playing with his birthday presents non-stop. Jaxon picked out a Woody costume, and proceeded to wear it every day. The only time he would take it off was at night when he would change into his Woody pajamas that eerily resembled his costume.


See Jaxon not only tells me his name is Woody, he tells everyone he sees his name is Woody. He cannot be in the house - or out of it - unless he is in full costume. On the one hand, we have definitely used all $19.99 of this costume, but on the other hand, it is time to scale back a little.


Jaxy, I mean Woody, has made multiple trips to the grocery store, the bank, the post office, the aquarium, the zoo, the museum, Target, and a little bit of everywhere else in full costume.


The worst part of it all is the costume is "hand wash only!" AND we only have one, so hopefully he outgrows his obsession before the costume is reduced to shreds...

Halloween

Sydney chose a Halloween costume in September, but Jaxon was a different story. Everytime we asked what he wanted to dress up as, he would tell us "a super bad guy." We could not figure out exactly what that meant, so it was a little difficult to buy a costume for him.

Finally, the Monday before Halloween, we went to Party City, placed Jaxy in front of the costume wall, and told him to choose anything he wanted. He eventually opted for his other obsession - Toy Story. Jaxy has been in a Woody and Buzz lovefest since he saw Toy Story 3 for his birthday.

We totally made a mistake with the whole costume thing though, he wore the costume 24/7 the entire week before Halloween, and now we are on Wednesday after Halloween, and he continues to wear the costume non-stop. it is the first thing he asks for each morning - "Mom I need to be Woody!"; and it is the worse part of each night - "Jaxy you need to wear pajamas to sleep, not your costume."

It wasn't so bad last week when we went trick or treating at the aquarium one day, the zoo the next, and then a party at church...but when I had to run into the bank, or the grocery store, or when I pick Sydney up from school...I get a lot of strange looks.

At my parents' ward party, another little boy came dressed as Buzz Lightyear. Jaxon was totally fixated on this kid. He kept walkinh up to him and checking him out. When the kid would walk off, Jaxon would ask,"Mom where is Buzz Lightyear going?"

When trick-or-treaters came to our house, Jaxon would tell them, "Hey guys, I'm Woody!" I think his grip on reality is slipping a little. At least he's cute, right?

Washington D.C. part deux

At the risk of being the weirdos who force their "friends" to sit through six hours of videos of their incredible trip, here are a few more photos of D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Last weekend Sydney and Jaxon stayed with my parents, and Donnie and I took a little trip to D.C. It was kind of a last minute trip, and it was short (we took the first flight up on Saturday morning and the last flight home on Sunday night), but it was so much fun!


It had been a while since Donnie and I did anything without the kids (we have never left them overnight since Jaxy was born over 2 years ago), so we wanted to do something special. We had such a great time, and the weather was perfect.


On Saturday we started at the Spy Museum. We did an interactive spy mission at the museum, and then we did "Spy in the City." Spy in the city is a GPS-guided 1.5 mile tour. Each person gets a little device to help you as you travel the city trying to solve a case. Each case is based on a real CIA file, so it was kind of cool to work on a "real" spy case.


For us, there was a NASA employee trying to sell government secrets to Russia. We were to find out who the employee is and then intercept the delivery of materials. We were sent a picture, and we had to find out which street corner it was shot from, and then we had to go there. We then were sent around to various places (Department of Justice Building, Navy Memorial, FDR Memorial, the Old Post Office, Benjamin Franklin statue, a cathedral, and old bank building...and a few others I can't recall right now).


At each place we were either given a clue by "finding a fingerprint" with our special scanner, intercepting audio transmissions, or cracking codes from parts of different monuments. In the end we found the girl, took the package, and she was "apprehended by federal agents." We watched that last part on our little video screen :-) It was fun, but I don't think we'll do that part again.

We walked through the National Mall, and Donnie took A LOT of photos, as we checked out the sights. We headed over to the Holocaust museum next. We spent a little over two hours there. It was a very sombering experience. It's just sad that so many people can be convinced to support such evil. It was pretty neat to see toward the end of the exhibit a giant wall with names of people, listed by country, who actively worked to help Jewish people during Hitler's crazy campaign. There were so many people who saw a wrong and stood up for the right. Unfortunately, so many people still had to suffer, and even lose their lives.

We left the Holocaust museum when it closed, and headed to Chinatown. We walked all around, checking everything out, before we decided on a Texas BBQ place for dinner. Donnie is still baffled how I managed to drag him to a BBQ place in Chinatown...

We walked down to a frozen yogurt place back by the spy museum for a treat after dinner. There was a hockey game in town, so it was pretty crazy around Chinatown. And BTW, that was seriously the best fro yo I have ever had. We hopped on the Metro and headed back to the hotel after that. It was only 8p.m., but we walked all day, so we were pretty tired.

Sunday we ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant, and then caught a shuttle to the Metro. We took the Metro to the Archives station, and then we walked to the capitol building. It was actually quite a walk, but Donnie wanted to take pictures, so we pretty much took the long way a lot :-).

We decided to walk from there through the National Mall to the Museum of Natural History. That weekend there was a national science and engineering festival on the mall, so we checked out a few of the tents, and took a pic with two of the stars of NCIS:Los Angeles.

We spent a few hours at the Natural History museum, and then walked down to the White House. It was crazy how crowded the sidewalk outside the front gate was! We hit a food truck for a quick snack, and walked over to the Washington monument and then the Lincoln Memorial. We checked out the Wolrd Ward II Memorial. It was quite impressive. Donnie took pictures of the Georgia post, and the Idaho post :-).

We walked beside the reflection pool on our way to the Lincoln Memorial. The water was pretty dirty...it was not such a good reflector. We climbed the stairs to the top and took photos from inside and outside the monument.

We then walked out to the Arlington National Cemetery. Although we were walking pros by this point, we took a guided tour around the cemetery. It was neat to learn the backstory of the cemetery, and to have someone point out the more famous of the graves, and also the different areas. We stopped at JFK's gravesite, watched the changing of the guard ceremony, stopped at the original house, and then back at the gift shop/visitor's center. It was such a good tour.

We then headed to the Metro, and on to the airport. It was pretty late when we returned to my parents' house, but Sydney wast still awake. She needed to let me know that she was just going to stay with Grandma and Granddaddy. Apparently we were not the only ones who had a fun weekend...