Yep, I stood in the middle of the street for this one. The things we’ll do for the perfect shot!

My favorite angle I think…

We learned some interesting things about the TX state capitol while we were in state. First, we learned that the TX capitol is the largest state capitol in our country, but not the tallest. This fact seems to annoy the Texans and what seems to be even funnier is that the Wisconsin state capitol building is one of the 4 capitols taller than the Texas’. Oops? :)

So, these two picture have to go together and although I could have put 10 to complete the “story” series I had to cut down a bit. So here’s the cliff notes: Aby scored 2 goals at soccer game, which means we go eat ice cream. After ice cream the kids play on blue cow and make a new friend boy with blonde hair. Very quickly boy walks over to blue cow and tries to climb up. Eventually he pulls over chair, puts foot on tail and climbs onto cow. Nolan then climbs on chair uses other foot and in an awkward and almost injury causing way manages to get on top of blue cow. Aby, however, in an attempt to be ultra independent insists on moving the chair, or using different sides or angles, but doesn’t make it on top of the blue cow. After many attempts to reason with her and show her what they are doing they are still unsuccessful at getting her up there. We really thought..one of the boys was going to grab her butt and push, but that never happened! Anyway, at last Nolan convinces Aby that he will climb up there and then offer her his hands to help her get up—she finally accepts the help and finds herself on the cow. It was absolutely hilarious to watch. P.S. Check out Nolan’s hands in photo number one!

We spent Sunday afternoon at the Austin Children’s museum—and that rocked. Here Aby is making me something delicious to eat— although I think it turned out rather crunchy and plasticy.

Nolan made me some stew and he was giggling so hard I was worried to look in the bottom of the bowl and see EVERYTHING he put in there. (Sometimes it really is better not to know!)

Kelly and Nathan found themselves recycling more often than usual…especially with a squealing audience…

and we had some great family band moments…

“…twirl me in circles, daddy!”

Whose steak do you think will land in the sand first?

No, there’s no competition in our genes at all…

OMG—they opened the slide!!!! And it was really dark in there! giggles, giggles, giggles—let’s do it again!

This always makes me think of the Omniplex! So they don’t have speed blur behind them, but I kind of like them frozen in time. Funky!

Learning how to skip rocks from the pros…

Yep, that poor fishie is missing it’s little eyeball!

Uh oh…

are words even necessary?

“Watch this Aunt Natalie…”

“I have only one leg!”

A well loved light pole…

One reason never to get rid of anything!

Now, seriously. What’s with the missing letter “i”? It’s not like one more letter is going to be too long for the sign or anything like that. It’s kind of like Oklahoma’s Git-n-go. Why does misspelling the word “get” make it a faster stop? Can someone explain this to this okie turned midwesterner???

Oh yeah, this was the “traveling bar” that was indeed traveling so fast I could not get a clear photo of it. Maybe that’s where the letter “i” went!

Hmm…interesting…

Yep, we are a visitor…now if we can just get on that duck boat with nobody looking….

QUACK!!

Yes it was monstrous and yes it was really expensive, but it was really fun—and thank goodness for fast reflexes to avoid wet lenses!!

Yep, they’ve done it. They’ve built a building that looks like an armadillo—complete with an armadillo tail!

Another picture???

What a great trip! That’s all for now—what a double post. That should make up for some of the gaps…shouldn’t it? Coming up next? That would be my crazy 6 year old in full/complete hockey gear!!!

Welcome to Austin, TX!

We went to a park with free roaming peacocks…and I found myself wanting to spend the entire day there!

The kiddos enjoyed the park too.

Even the dads found something to keep themselves busy—yes, they are both holding cans of the drink called “Rockstar”.

I offered to take a father/daughter picture and although big bro thought he’d be funny with the arm—the picture turned out beautiful!

We found an extra person hiding in ours!

The 2nd plane to TX was bumpier than a Jeep on a gravel mountain road and that meant that 1)the motion sickness (and vertigo) symptoms weren’t going to leave me alone for a few days and 2) Kelly would be the adult riding in the backseat…for the whole week!

Nathan took us to his favorite Friday night hang out. It was a market, a restaurant, a live music stage/sitting area and a playground. What else could you possibly need?

Oh yeah, it also had large birds that swooped down at your food or landed on your plate for a quick bite if you weren’t looking! (yes, that bird has a french fry in it’s mouth!)

We took a brief tour of the outside of Aby’s school—and checked out some of her work on the window.

The kids loved clowning around on the school’s playground and…

Uncle Nathan left some souvenirs behind (a red frisbee and a pink soccer ball up high in the trees branches and a little skin tissue in the tree’s bark!)

The states are painted on the basketball courts…and Aby and Nolan had a fun time finding Wisconsin and Texas—man I had to zoom out to fit Texas in the frame!

“Anything you can do I can do better…”

Kelly got his moment with the fairly new Stevie Ray Vaughn statue—one of his favorite musical icons.

I had the kiddos transcribe thank you/appreciation letters to their parents…oh, maybe I was a little biased…:)

We went to Aby’s soccer game Saturday morning too and I am glad she was playing and not me—as it was hot and sticky that day…

but she didn’t seem to notice! (Maybe it was knowing she’d get ice cream after scoring those two goals that helped keep her cool!)

And OF COURSE we had to fill up on incredible TX barbeque—I could smell it in the air the moment we stepped off the plane!

Even Kelly got his fingers dirty with a few bbq slathered ribs…

and found him self on the crazy side of the table again!

“Anything you can do I can do better!”

You didn’t think we were going to bbq only once did you? Check the signage out—is there anything they don’t sell?

Bring on the sauce!

We played Scrabble almost every night that we were there. This board was our game from the very first night—check out my game starter with “Lobsters”!! That netted me over 70 points! Take that dictionary man…:)

“Anything you can do I can do better…”

We balanced out the bbq with a very tasty french breakfast! Aby ate like normal and Nolan ate his plate, some of mine and some of Kelly’s—we have no idea where he put it all!

Just north of Austin we took a tour of the Inner Space Caverns. The openings were huge, with large rooms and tall ceilings. It was incredible. Aby and Nolan both took the chance to leave a little bit of their body oil behind.

Yes, that looks like homemade ice cream, but it’s actually all rock!

And of course it wouldn’t be a complete trip without a great sunset! Thanks for a great week big bro!! Enjoy the pics and I’ll have part II up soon!!

Playing in the snow! The first picture is one of my favorites of Nolan in quite some time. It’s hard to get him just relaxed and smiling naturally–too much over thinking the smile. And of course he had such a beautiful smile!

Yes, being the Kindergarten room parent this year has really increased my baking hours–for better or for worse. I did not burn any of the lemon poppyseed muffins, which is great, but I did put small pink candy hearts on top and thought it a good idea to put them on in the oven. Alas, they melted. So, the daily lesson? Candy melts in a 400 degree oven!

Yep, Nolan had to stay home and miss the ever-so-cool Valentine’s Day party at school. I was the guilty mom for a day…and then he was so sick he missed the entire week and then I was so sick I was on oral steroids for two weeks…and at that point I had decided it was the right thing to do!

40 and sunny means too warm for sledding and just right for a little spring fever!

Here are some of Nolan’s school projects. He is reading really well and his handwriting is looking great—he’s had a busy Kindergarten year so far!

As room parent I was in charge of our room’s carnival booth for the school’s big winter carnival event. It was a little fun…although my plan to have the kids help me with the information on the signs didn’t go quite as I thought it might. Somehow, though, the people that came to our booth were able to figure out the number of tickets and number of rings anyway.

Nolan participated in the after school chess program this year. He loved it and beat Kelly and I both multiple times afterwards….

He has also really gotten to know his 5th grade reading buddy, Robert. This is a program where the school has the different 5th classes come to the Kindergarten classes and either read with the kids or listen to the kids read to them.

THE SCIENCE PROJECT…woes….

So, the directions in the kit actually said to stack 2 paper cups on top of each other with a hole in the top for lava flow, but what it didn’t say is that lava may flow out of seam where two cups meet. It was kind of cool to see it flow up and out of a cup, but not as cool as it would have been coming out of a small hole! So….

ADULT MALE ENTER STAGE LEFT:

Hmm…what else do we have that is taller and has holes? A martini shaker—yeah!

Oh my gosh…Papa made a mess…that is soooo awesome!!

Let the birthday celebration begin!!! Mama made special carrot cake muffins to celebrate my birthday with my classmates. They were awesome and I got a surprise 2nd one in my lunch box!

Mama wasn’t sure the kids would be into the carrot cake and cream cheese frosting, but every kiddo ate one and at least half the class asked for a second one!

Despite a major asthma flare-up and an excessive amount of steroids, I was able to crank out 28 party invites for Nolan’s hip hop themed bday party.

We are gearing up for the big party. Nolan decided that this year he wanted to do a hip hop party at his hip hop dance class studio—and I was so glad we weren’t going to have 24 kids in our family room!

There was also the special birthday cake…yep, I made it up all by myself and maybe even got a little carried away with the candies…although I had a certain somebody’s help with that.

Here is the whole crew for the party…17 including the birthday boy! They all got to warm up to fun music, learned an actual hip-hop dance routine to a popular Usher song, plus played with both hula hoops and a parachute—and of course ate my delicious chocolate cake. It was an incredible party. Below I’ve posted pics from the dancing and playing and at the bottom I posted a video of the learned dance routine that they all performed for the parents at the end of the party. Thank you to Move Out Loud dance studios—Stephanie you are amazing!

Okay…so when I saw the “inflatable boombox” available for purchase on line I guess I didn’t realize that it would be so large you wouldn’t even be able to see Nolan’s head. However, I have to say it was friggin’ hilarious every time he attempted to put it up on his shoulder…even his teacher couldn’t contain the laughter it invoked!

These are just some of my favorite dance moves she incorporated. One was called the DJ–with left hand on left ear (& invisible headphones) and right out straight in front like your rubbing a record. The hip-hop hooray hands up movement and my favorite the “zombie” walk. Check out the video below to get a better idea of the action part of these moves.

It appears as though I have developed a new theme for posting in 2011: the “random inconsistent posts of months past and present”. This is what happens when 1)you become a Kindergarten room parent, 2)live in a state with lots of winter and never say no!!! So, to keep the new theme consistent…below you will find a post about some really fun Christmas lights we toured during our visit to Duluth, MN over Thanksgiving break.

Welcome to Bentleyville! This walking light tour used to be just outside of Duluth and was always put up by one family. Since it has been such a big hit the last several years the family and the city of Duluth decided it would be fun to make it front and center—right smack dab on the shores of Lake Superior in Canal Park.

It is incredible! I have so many great pics from our walk through that I thought I’d just post the pictures and let you ooh and ahh at your own pace. I might surprise you here and there with some spotty commentary too.

It was nice and warm—perfect winter outdoor weather.

This is a replica of Duluth’s drawbridge and one of the many boats passing through.

oooh…psychedelic…

Somewhere in the center there was a Santa Claus and a really long line. We decided not to stop.

A close up view of Santa’s throne.

We decided to meet up with Mrs. Claus instead. I decided she is probably the real driving force behind all of those toy deliveries!

You could even roast marshmallows over an open flame!

I don’t know if it’s clear in the photos, but the blue tree is HUGE!

I think Gran’Mary needs a set of these lights in her yard!

We also met Rudolph and shook hands…although Nolan was worried that maybe he wasn’t as “in shape” as he should be!

Technically the tour is free (with free cookies, coffee and hot chocolate), but there are donation boxes scattered around to help cover the teeny tiny electric bill.

And while the band played…

we danced until out of sight!

During the trip Nolan spent a lot of time helping Grandpa Sam and Grandma Kathy dust off their Uno brains.

And Grandma Kathy kicked mine and Kelly’s butts at Scrabble! We’ve finally added Scrabble to our home game collection so hopefully next time we’ll have a more interesting match! Enjoy the photos! Now all I have to decide is whether I should actually post some February pics soon or wait until March! :) See you next time!