Going Out on the Town

 After our nice little Saturday with the kids, we invited our niece over to babysit and we went out on the town with friends to see a show.

We started at Harry's because... Harry's.  Andrew tried to take our selfie.

 Needless to say, it did not go well.

 So then I tried.  Better!

 But then some Phi Mu's offered to take our picture for us.  They were graduates coming back to visit their first year out of school.  That was an interesting conversation!  Boy, that time of our lives was a LONG time ago.

 Well not long enough that we have forgotten... :)
So we made our way from Harry's to Elliott.

 The show was super fun!

It was a stage of many colors.

 The front man for the band was definitely a showman! He was all over that stage.  He had moves like jagger, if you will.

 He wore a red sport coat and gold shiny boots.  I loved him.

At the end, he got dragged across the stage by his feet.  He also sang Last Dance with Mary Jane and dedicated it to us (Indiana town people) which made me really happy.  I love when there's even a little bit a personalization.

A great time was had by all! Nice to get out and do some adult stuff once in awhile. :-)

Nice Little Saturday

We haven't done much lately but we have had a great time with our everyday tasks.  We really enjoy running errands on Saturday.  We always have to go to the grocery and take recycling.  We usually try to go out to lunch too.  On this particular Saturday, we went to Firehouse Subs and stopped by Gigi's to see if they have any vegan cupcakes.  They don't offer them in the case unless there was an order that ended up with extras.  We asked if they had any and this week, they had carrot cake! 

Tommy was excited to try it so we grabbed it to go along with Charlotte's frosted sprinkled pretzels and our chocolate chip cookie sandwiches with chocolate chip cookie dough filler.  Yeah, they exist and they are amazing.  

 Tommy really liked his cupcake.  One thing I did not think about was the fact that carrot cake sometimes has nuts in it.  FART.  There were walnuts in it.  He only took one bite of the actual cake and then ate the cream cheese icing (vegan cream cheese icing, whaaaa??? so good!).  But I don't think he is allergic to walnuts. I need to put out his listing of freaking nuts that he is and is not allergic to.  We normally just stay away from all of them but this was a rare situation.  Anyway, he was pleased he got to chow down on yummy icing so it will still a win.  Plus I got to eat the crap out of the cake and it was AWESOME.  Yum.

 After the cupcakes, we headed to Target... of course.  Charlotte was a big hit with everyone we passed.  She decided to stay in her jammies and then throw a mermaid princess dress over the top. Fashionista.

 She really rocked the look.

Seriously, these are the best days.  Fun little outings doing whatever, wearing whatever, eating fun foods.  Like sands through the hourglass, am I right? :-)

Tommy is a Shoe Sheriff!

Tommy is a shoe sheriff!
What exactly does that mean? When you learn to tie your shoes and prove it at school, you have a Shoe Sheriff Celebration! You get a certificate and everything! Very cool!
I tried to show him the one-bunny-ear way.  It was really hard to do that and teach it backward.  So I decided to do the two-bunny-ear method.  That was a lot easier for me and Tommy picked it up after 2 tries!  It was amazing.  Now he loves to do it.  He not only ties his shoes but he double knots them. Then he double knots them again.  And again.  And AGAIN.  They are so knotted up, there's hardly any tails left.
But I guess no one wants to deal with untied shoes. Tommy just wants to be super prepared.

Congrats, Mr. Tommy on your brand new skill for life.  You're growing up!

Sunday at the Park... in February??

For some reason, we had an incredibly beautiful weekend in February.  It was sweatshirt weather.  That calls for a trip to the Celery Bog! 

We walked so many trails.  The sun on our faces, it was such a beautiful day.  I'm pretty sure I got a little sunburned. 

We climbed trees! I'm not sure we were supposed to do that but we did.  

 It was terrifying for Charlotte.  Not so much for Tommy. You can't tell from this picture but they were really high up in the tree.  The tree was phenomenal for climbing. But we had to pick them up and put them in the tree reaching up really high above our heads.   So no wonder Charlotte was scared and wouldn't let go.

 There was a ton of running on the trails too.

 Yeah I saw this coming.  :-)

We walked down close to the water to see what we could see. 

We saw tons of turtles sunning themselves on logs.  By the time we got close, they all disappeared into the water.  They could hear us coming even from far away.  But a couple brave ones returned so I could take their portrait. :) 

 We stopped at every bench I'm pretty sure.  Benches just need sitting, don't you think?

 What a super Sunday at the park.  Can we get some more beautiful weather like that again SOON????

Finishing Up Valentine's Day

Welllll I guess I've definitely forgotten about the blog for a bit.  So now it's time to catch up. Yikes!  How about I finish up Valentine's Day real quick?

 Tommy cut out and wrote his Space Valentines.  They turned out pretty cute with the bouncy balls as planets.

 Charlotte's Valentines were super easy and included her favorite candy.  She was really jealous and wanted to give one to herself.

 Tommy's teacher knitted scarves for all the kids for Valentine's Day.  How sweet!

 The kids passed out their valentines into their boxes.

They also did some activities with candy hearts.

How cute are these pictures that his teacher made? They crack me up.

 For the evening of Valentine's Day, I took Tommy to the Purdue basketball game.  It was a nice little Mother Son Date Night.

 We had a great time, as you can see!

 Tommy even got to see his best friend and they happened to be wearing matching shirts!

Charlotte went on a Daddy Daughter Date to Culver's.  They also had a great time involving ICE CREAM.  What more could she want? Daddy and ice cream, best Valentine's Day ever!

Another super fun but late reported Valentine's Day! Happy Heart Day!

Valentine's Day Boxes

 We received notes from the school that the kids needed Valentine's boxes for their party on Valentine's Day. I made the mistake of getting on pinterest and the rest is history.

I let Charlotte pick and she wanted a princess castle box.  So I put these boxes together and...

...created this! I didn't have to buy a single thing.  I used a whole lot of hot glue though.  We have an abundance of princess stickers and that really put the icing on the cake, I think. :) Plus the gold "sprinkley" paper, according to Charlotte.

 It was then time to make something for Tommy.   I gave him the options between a dinosaur and a space shuttle.  Can you guess what he chose?
I had an old toner box from work that I thought would work perfectly.  I had to cut it in half and it was perfect.

 With another crap ton of hot glue, it really started coming together.  However, I didn't have anything white to cover it.  I looked at a couple different stores for bright white contact paper and didn't find any.  I decided to just buy plain ol' white card stock.

 Here's the finished product. I printed off NASA and American flag logos for the wings.

They both loved their Valentine's boxes. I felt awful that they really couldn't help since I was using a hot glue gun and an Xacto knife.  Not for kids, folks.  But they did help pick them out and they helped adorn the boxes with their stickers.  ANNDD I got mega hugs for it sooooo.... totes worth it. :) 

The Dinosaur Show

 Purdue hosted a traveling dinosaur show and Grandma gave us two tickets.  We decided to buy two more tickets so the whole family could go.

We walked in and a local dentist had sponsored dinosaur masks for all the kids! Awesome!!

You could also have your picture taken with an inflatable T-rex.  For some reason, today was the day when Tommy decided he wanted NOTHING to do with any type of moving dinosaur. He refused to have his picture taken with the T-Rex.  Charlotte was cool with it.  But she didn't know what to do with her hands. :-)

They had toy dinosaurs for playing.  They also had animals from the Columbian Park Zoo.  Did I mention they had toys for sale too? Expensive ones! Ha! They had a Dino Light Saber.  Because... $15! Why not?? Tommy picked that out first but then switched to asking for a dino egg instead. Whoo hoo! Charlotte didn't want anything.  Even better! ;-)

Since we bought two of the tickets later, we didn't sit together.  Charlotte and I sat in the back.  It was a good thing.  She was scared and we were able to have the whole row to ourselves.  We also sat on the top of the seat so Charlotte could see.  Nice!

I wanted to take a picture of Charlotte with the stage.  She looks so excited, huh?

We still had a few minutes before the show so we went down to visit the good seats.  I made them make dino faces for the picture.

One more set of dino faces in front of the stage.

The show was really cool.  Full of science facts and HUGE dinosaurs.  This was a triceratops.

The T-Rex was the scariest part for the kids.  They teased the kids that they needed to be really careful in case he would attack.  Plus he got "loose".  Terrifying.  Charlotte was shaking in my lap! Poor kiddo! You forget how real it is for the kids.
They also had baby dinosaurs, a 3 foot wide dragon fly, anda gigantic plant eating titanosaur.  Tommy was hoping to see a spinosaurus or an amphicoelias. Those seem to be his faves lately.

After the show, the puppeteers had the baby dinosaurs out in the hallway so you could meet them.  Once again, Charlotte was the only one brave enough to meet one.

She wasn't brave for long.  She was outta there!

Even though Tommy wasn't in the mood for any pictures, they both had a great time.  It was a cool little experience.  Thanks Grandma for the tickets! Thanks Purdue for doing stuff for the community!