First Snowman

And possibly only snowman, given our current latitude and longitude.

This happy scene quickly degenerated into a raucous snowfight.

Hey, thanks Kansas City for providing us one final delight on the morning of our departure. We'll be back...

Workin', workin', workin'...

I've been a workin' gal! I've filled more orders for Christmas gifts, birthdays, stocking stuffers...

And somebody and their sisters are getting Team Earrings for Christmas... though I won't say who, lest their sisters inadvertently blog spy on me... he he! So fun to be in on little Christmas secrets!

Is there anyone else out there who was hoping to get an order in for Christmas? Let's do it, ladies!

Never Too Cold...

... to play at the park.

Look at that dimple. Seriously! Who are you, boy?

One of Cody's saucy cute faces.

And, as always, the swings acted like a narcotic on the boy. 30 degrees out there, freezing rain falling and he settles down for a long winter nap on the swings.

Yup. This is what we do on Black Friday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nathan learned this festive little ditty in his Pre-K class, and made the outfit to match.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Tomfooleries-or, The Date Night

Ryan and I left the kiddos with Grandma and Grandpa and went out on a little date night in KC. First, we went walking around a district called the Country Club Plaza. Amazing architecture and art! They've got over a million dollars in outdoor artwork just everywhere! (It seems like the thing to do if you're rich in Kansas City to donate art to the Plaza.) Awesome! Fountains and towers and statues, mixed in with shops and different fun things. Of course, most of the shops were too ritzy for us, but still fun to look in. We popped into Restoration Hardware and found these delightful little Christmas stocking stuffers.

German Goggles. What every discerning Restoration Hardware shopper needs. I'm so sure! How random! I thought they were quite amusing, so I tried them on, which miffed the sniffy little clerk, who seemed affronted that I would have the audacity to tease any Restoration Hardware product.

Well, I mean, I know RH in general has supremely fabulous taste, but honestly. Any product that can make an otherwise charming girl like myself look like this really ought to be reconsidered. :)

After browsing and taking in the awesome ambiance, we stopped in for dinner at a little restaurant that is a Kansas City original (and I don't think they've branched out anywhere else yet.) Tomfooleries. Cute, quaint, random little place with trains running on the ceiling and a live band playing.

Do you know what you are looking at here? A bucket of fried pickles. Yes. I said fried pickles, and fried pickles I meant. When we saw that on the menu, we just had to try it. (I wouldn't usually be taking pictures of what we ordered at a restaurant, but I felt that a bucket of fried pickles was blog worthy.) Actually, fairly good. And if we'd had room after dinner, we would have ordered s'mores for dessert-completely on the menu. Why not?

A delightful date night in KC.

Union Station

Ok, I am going to rave about something that most of you may never come into contact with, but if you are ever in Kansas City, this is a complete MUST DO with your kids! Ok. Union Station. Utterly gorgeous old train station converted into a science center/children's museum/IMAX/planetarium/train museum-all around cool stuff. It was amazingly well done, especially compared to some other large cities that we happen to be aquainted with (shame on you Dallas! Your children's museum is BUPKIS compared to Kansas City!) We absolutely loved it! It was very clean and well kept-in no way run down, even though hundreds of kids pass through there. It was spacious-big enough that even though there were a couple of concurrent field trips (as one must expect), we didn't feel crowded or overrun by 4th graders. All of the exhibits were seriously interesting and fun-my boys loved each and every one of them. It wasn't like there was 2 cool ones that everyone wanted to be at, then 18 lame ones-no, there were 50 cool ones! They were creatively done and well thought out. They worked science into the coolest, most fun little activities. My pictures in no way do it all justice, because I was mostly trying to take pics of the boys-but the attention to detail? Awesome. Just little details everywhere that made it so amazing! Kansas City is still a huge train crossroads because it's kind of in the middle of everything-150 trains pass by Union Station every day. Ok? Ok. So yeah, my boys loved that part! Then, they have just HUGE model train displays-on top of all the other cool, fun stuff. Really, really, really recommended. If you're ever in the area, you've got to do it!

I would like to start this pictoral adventure out by saying that when we saw this particular statue, Ryan asked Nathan,

"What flag is that?"

"The Texas flag."

Right. Is there any other? Dude has lived there 2 and a half years and it's already that deep. It is really no wonder that after a life time of Texas soaking into the system, Texans turn out the way they do.

Helicopter simulator-WELL beloved by both boys.

"Hey, get in and shut the door! This chopper's takin' off!"

(P.S.-This helicopter simulator had a screen that you could work on landing and flying the plane-pretty cool...)

Nate, at the stick, concentrates on taking off safely, while his co-pilot Cody is still a bit concerned that they haven't been able to close the door and shake the paparazzi yet. And the passenger in the back? Looks like a sketchy character.

After the successful helicopter navigation, the boys figured they were ready to up the technology a bit as they climbed into a NASA shuttle simulator. Again, all the buttons and knobs did cool stuff, and you could watch the results of what you were doing on the screen.

Nate discovered a dinosaur dig, which, by the looks of things went pretty well. He unearthed quite a few fossils. (But then, they had all of these fossils, as well as a lab where they processed fossils-and you could buzz into the lab and ask the palentologists a question, if you were so inclined.)

Cody was a serious fan of Music Alley, where they had about 15 different ways of making music and noise (even the floor was a piano.) Cody thought that banging on trash cans that all made different sounds was a pretty awesome experience.

So cool, in fact, that soon Daddy and Brother got into the act and formed their very own Three Man Band.

I really didn't even take pictures of half of the cool stuff. So you'll just have to trust me, it was cool, it was worth it-and the boys had a ROCKIN' time.

But now. A little Warning. If your world would be shaken by seeing photographic evidence that Heidi Weed does not always follow the rules, you should skip to the end of this post and make your comments now because what follows may be disturbing to some.

You still with me? Ok, one of the cool exhibits was a bike, suspended by a crane aparatus-you could get on and pedal this bike out over mid air. Pretty cool. So here's Grandma Heidi before she began her lawless behavior.

And here she is. Caught right in the act.

Shocked, aren't you? What, you don't see the problem? She removed her hands from the handlebars (OVER a crowd of about 50 3rd graders, mind you) and started her circus act. All the while, the operator of this exhibit (a 70ish year old man) was shaking his finger and chastising her for not following the rules. (Now, one mitigating factor might have been that she was not completely aware of the rules, but anyway.) I decided to stop taking pictures while she was receiving her tounge lashing from the little man. There is a limit to how much ought to be documented in pictures. Indeed, it was a moment of infamy from the generally straight laced Heidi Weed.

Now. I'm sorry if that little expose shattered anyone's little world, but I have to tell it like I see it. If you do something blog-worthy, you're just on the blog and that's all there is to it. :)

All in all, we had a SUPREMELY FABULOUS time-and many many great big thanks to Grandma Weed who took us there!

Proof that Object Lessons Don't Work

Yesterday, Nathan was a visitor at Grandma Weed's Primary, where Grandma happened to be directing the music-thus, I have a fairly reliable first-hand witness for this account.

Apparently, the lesson in Sharing Time was on... sharing, of all things. So the Primary Lady asked 3 children up to the front to be part of her little object lesson. Trying, I am sure, to be kind and inclusive to the new kid in Primary, she chose Nathan as one of the three. To begin this lesson, she handed each child a bag full of Starburst candies, and told them that they would soon have to make a choice about this bag of candy. (Note to future Primary Ladies who may work with Nathan: this poor woman lost him at this moment. From the second that fat bag of Starbursts hit his hand, he ceased listening to whatever she was trying to teach him and started plotting about what he would do with this glorious bag of candy.)

Anyway, so as these three children were holding their bags of candy, the lady proceeded to tell a very nice story about sharing and how it makes everyone feel good, etc. Then, she turns to the first little girl.

"Kaylee, what would you like to do with your bag of candy? Would you like to share it with everyone in the Primary or keep it all for yourself?"

"I would like to share it." (Imagine a tiny bell ringing as a halo suddenly appears over her head and a shower of sparkling stars rains down upon this child who got what she was supposed to say and said it.)

Nathan was next.

Perhaps I should insert that at the time that I heard this story, I was already well aware of what had come home from church with us-a fat, full bag of Starburst candies.

"Nathan, what would you like to do with your candy? Would you like to share it with everyone or keep it?"

After only the briefest of pauses in the which he looked at the woman as though she might have gone mad, he confidently declared, "I would like to keep it."

Only slightly ruffled as she moved on to the third boy, she asked,
"Joey, what would you like to do with your candy-share it or keep it?"

Joey observed the situation. There was angelic Kaylee, whose halo had slipped slightly as the realization dawned on her that she'd been duped. Then there was Nathan, smiling and holding a fat bag of candy.

"I want to keep mine too."

And thus, my child single-handedly derailed this carefully planned object lesson, proving that object lessons and 5 year olds don't mix.

One final note about the Primary Sharing Time Debacle: After Nathan was excused to go sit down, a slightly crestfallen Kaylee started going down each row, doling out one Starburst to each child. Nathan quickly stuffed his bag of candy under his chair so that he could snag himself one of kind Kaylee's candies. That's what we teach our kid. Hey, hard economic times-grab Starbursts when you can. Get while the gettin's good. Those are the words we live by.


And now, just a few pics from the park we went to with Grandma today.

Look at those fat lips. I can't help it-I just think he's cute!

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Oh dear. I think his father has gone to throw himself in the river.

How'd this happen to a nice girl like me?

Once upon a time, a nice girl (very much like me) had a baby. He was so cute.

But there was a problem. He kept growing. And growing.

(This is my favorite picture of him as a baby. Now that Nathan's personality has been on display for 5 years, can't you just see his little personality, even in it's 6 month form?)

And all of a sudden, I find myself the mother of a 5 year old. FIVE YEAR OLD. What.Ever. A five year old who goes to school and for whom I went to my first parent-teacher conference today. So interesting to hear other people's impressions of your kid. Interesting to see how he does when he's away from home. He's pretty much the same. Addicted to the routines of his classroom, and won't let his teacher forget any little piece of it. He likes to help the other kids, and thinks he's the assistant teacher. He's kind to the other kids and has no behavior problems. His teacher tested his language skills, and he scored as high as you can possibly score. His teachers really like him. He's doing great at school. It's all great.

Until I get out that photo album and go, "Wait, that's my baby. Who is this big lanky school kid and where'd that cute sweet baby go?" Tiny tear. Sigh. A little nostalgia.

The Actual Party

I should mention also that Friday morning, Nathan's Pre-K class celebrated his birthday, so I made treats for him to take to school. They played a few games and he was the guest of honor all day. He got a little 10 cent prize from his teacher that he was thrilled about and a birthday certificate.

Any guesses as to how he felt about that? Anyone? Uh. Yeah. This is a kid who's feeling pretty good about himself.

Let's move ahead to his party- it was a little too chaotic for me to be taking pictures, so the pictures I have are compliments of the great Whitni Parker, who grabbed my camera near the end and started taking pictures. These next few are all of the Pirate Naming Ceremony...

Toria the Treacherous Thunder, Brianna the Black Buccaneer Bandit, Jossi the Jamaican Jacknife and Captain Nate the Notorious.

Samantha, the Savage Scourge of the Seven Seas, Caleb the Cursed Crusader, Asher the Arch Avenger, Jolly Roger Jackson, Crossbones Cason of the Carribbean.

He looks pretty into the naming ceremony, doesn't he? :) After each kid got their name and came up to get their bag, I had all the other ones say, "Ahoy Captain Nate!" Or, "Yo Ho Samantha!" :)

Nate receiving his pirate name. See that little dimple creeping out? He can't help it. He's trying so hard not to be overly pleased with this event, but he really is pretty delighted. :)

The present opening-an obvious favorite activity.

Cupcakes with treasure chests on top-and the Happy Birthday singing.

Captain Nate the Pirate. Dressed in his little 50% off pirate costume. :)

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Ferocious pirate duo, hm? PS, have you noticed the necklace and bracelet? These are the things that delight me about the thrift store-who else is going to have a gold necklace and bracelet with miscellaneous coins dangling from it-perfect for a pillaging pirate.

Natey and his pirate mommy.