What Makes the Perfect Thursday?

Making pancakes...chocolate chip pancakes, at that...with the best little chef around.

Trying out the bumbo for the first time.

Making a pretty awesome train track. (Notice the dinos, the trucks, the fire fighters, and all the extras around the track. Everyone was placed with a purpose, of course.)

Making a masterpiece...on your body.

Playing trash truck with Trash Man Daddy and Fire Dog Drake. (This is actually a nightly game in our house. The fireplace stoop is the trash truck and we go from house to house to house, picking up trash and dumping it in the hopper, aka the brown chair. Sometimes we even stop for lunch at Jake's or we have to fix the trash truck's brakes or pipes or fill up with gas. Drake is always required to go along on the ride. Luckily, he obliges.)

Having a dinosaur trash pile party. Those are Cooper's words..."Look, Mom, my dinos having party by my big huge trash pile!" Awesome.

Another day that I'm glad I didn't miss out on with my imaginative, creative, and awesomely playful little monkey AND my sweet and most cuddly baby Austin.

Santa Cooper and Reindeer Annie

Completely on his own... Our brown chair became Santa's sleigh, a green rope became his reins, and Annie was his reindeer. They flew in the sky to all the house, delivering presents and stopping for gas along the way. Santa did have to look at a map at one point to make sure he was going the right way. Good thing he had a trusty reindeer to help guide him!

12.21.2011

Trains with Poppi

This was the second year that we went to check out the Christmas trains with Poppi. Cooper paid so much more attention to the details of the trains this year. And he would pick one train and follow it around the entire track. Good thing it wasn't crowded because he was moving as fast as that train was moving, never taking his eyes off it, with complete concentration. He asked a lot more questions this year, too, about the trains, the way they worked, and what has going on in the different displays. Later in the evening, when he was telling Philip about the trains, it was interesting what stood out in his mind--the display with little kids on swings, a big billboard that lit up, and the train that had a guy (a bandit) popping out of the top.

Austin was there, too. This was one of our first big outings, and he slept the entire time. Phew!

After the trains, we headed to CFA for lunch. Coop kept telling us he wanted to see the Santa sleigh made out of nuts. I had no idea what he was talking about, but told him we needed to head back to the car. As we passed the turtle ponds on the way to the car, Coop stopped me and pointed up toward the ceiling, "There it is!" I looked up and sure enough, there was Santa sitting in a sleigh, with all the reindeer ahead of him, all made out of nuts. I guess he noticed it when we walked in. That kid amazes me.

A quick game of chase before heading to the car.

Such a fun, fun outing with Poppi; Cooper loves any opportunity he has to spend time with his Poppi. I'm looking forward to doing this again next year with both boys!!

12.14.2011