Kids and Fuse Beads! Then more Fuse Beads! Then more…

Don’t know if you’ve heard of this craze called Fuse Beads but Kate has the bug. They are small, hollow, colorful plastic beads that you place in the order you want in a pre-shaped mold. When your design is complete you iron the beads to fuse them together. Since the lovely Pacific NW weather is not always conducive to outside activities, Daddy decided to pick up some supplies for the times when indoors is best. And Kate signed up to show little bro how the whole deal works. Voila — the tutorial.

Everyone so happy with Saturday morning, jammy time fun.

Jake really took to the Fuze Beads like gang busters. His style is very colorful and pointillist.

Kate’s color palette is diverse but her placement style is very orderly and mirrored.

Time for their close up, Mr. DeMille! Kate’s work ready for the iron.

 

Time for Puss… In Boots

Saturday morning and time to try another trip to the movies for Jake. By the age of 4 we’re really hopeful that he will be able to sit through an entire feature film. However, to date we’ve not been successful. The last attempt was with Shrek 4, and Jake ended up melting down about 1/2 way in.

This round we’re trying Puss In Boots. We brought along reinforcements in the cats from Kinectimals. Kate told Jake that the cats really want to see the film so that maybe he will watch the whole thing.

Kate decided that tiger was going to attack panther. ROAR!

Pre-show hijinks complete, popcorn and snacks were purchased and we made our way into the theater. Joyful day, Jake made it through the whole film without complaint. Now we know that films are back on the list for potential entertainment with Jake.

Math Night at Einstein Elementary

Kate’s school puts on an annual, family event to reinforce all the fun you can have with math at home every day. Grandma Roo is now doing all the Bulletin Boards at Kate’s school so I thought I’d include her much applauded Math Night homage.

At the event Kate, Grandma Roo, and I learned how to play 2 new math games. First was a dice game where we did our best to avoid rolling 1′s and could continue to risk rolls for more points until we hit them; the first to reach 100 points wins. The second was a card game, similar to war, but add a twist with multiplication. Once you removed all the face cards, you split the deck evenly among the players. To play, each player turns over their top card and the first to correctly answer the product of the 2 numbers wins the cards. The first player to obtain all the cards wins.

After all the fun with learning new math games, the school does a great job of reinforcing how much fun math is by serving ice cream and giving away estimation jar candy prizes. Who doesn’t love math when it’s served with sugar? Here are Kate and Grandma Roo enjoying the fun.

“Honey Badger Don’t Care”

In August there were back-to-back weekends where Candice was a single parent while Pete was hiking with Joe and then while Pete was celebrating Geek Paradise at PAX. After all the fun of those weeks, Pete recommended that Candice and Roo (Roo helped out with the kids during a bridge time where Candice had a conference to attend too — remember it takes a village) schedule a girls weekend to have some fun, kid-free time of their own. Roo thought it would be nice to spend time with both of her daughters and so Tricia was brought in to the fold.

A few different ideas were bandied about but the girls decided that being tourists in their town was a wonderful way to go. Candice set about coordinating the relaxing trip for early November with massages at Ummelina’s, dinner at Anthony’s Pier 66, and a hotel room downtown so that a restful evening and morning could be enjoyed doing whatever came to mind.

As the adventure kicked off, the girls settled pretty quickly on their theme = “Honey Badger Don’t Care.” The theme was well conceived and served it’s purpose through the whole trip.

Harry Potter takes over the Giffins for Halloween

So I didn’t realize just how much our family was going to be recognized as the family who dresses up in a costume theme. That is until we were trick or treating in our neighborhood and I was stopped over and over by folks to confirm that “Yes, we are the family that dressed up as Star Wars last year,” and “Why yes, thank you, we appreciate how much you like our Harry Potter costumes this year.”

Yes, Miss Kate’s plans were again realized and 2011 was the year of Harry Potter. May I introduce the cast of characters:

• Harry Potter = Kate
• Professor Snape = Auntie Tricia
• Professor McGonagall = Grandma Roo
• Dobby the House Elf = Jacob (at his selection, no less)
• Hagrid = Peter
• Olympe Maxime = Candice (Get it? She’s the giantess from Beauxbatons School and dates Hagrid )

We started at Microsoft to get the majority of the candy gathering out of the way and to have fun wandering around where it is warm and dry. Here are McGonagall, Dobby (as a free elf… the sock), and Harry ready to go.

Snape joined in later for the trick-or-treating at home and Jake really got his Dobby on once we were back at the house.

 

And now may I introduce Hagrid and Olympe joining Harry and Dobby — take that Voldemort! Keep your hands off Harry!

Snape showing off his love-hate relationship with Harry.

And then, when they just can’t fake it any more — Snape and Harry go after each other. Isn’t that always how it goes…

One of my favorite parts of the evening came towards the end when Auntie Leah was able to join us. She dressed up as our theme for 2012, testing things out to see how complicated it was going to get. May I introduce Butter Head Zombie from PvZ.

Pumpkin Carving 2011

Pumpkin carving this year was a slightly different affair, at least for Jacob and Pete as Jake’s pumpkin decoration went much more smoothly with power tools. I found adorable, Mr. Potato Head-like gear for Jake to decorate his pumpkin. At first Pete was trying to get the pieces in without assistance, but then he decided the drill was the way to go.

   

Jacob was so very proud of his Count Pumpkin-ula.

And thankful for Dad’s decorative assistance.

Speaking of boys and their pumpkins, Pete decided to decorate a pumpkin this year too. So after helping Jake, Pete moved on to realizing his own pumpkiny artistic stylings. Can you guess his direction or will you need to wait for the reveal later?

During all the pumpkin planning and execution outside, Kate and Auntie Tricia were quite focused on Kate’s creation indoors.

Kate is very detail oriented and Auntie Tricia was her perfect helper for all the fine motor work.

Finally, the product of all this hard work. Here are Tricia, Kate, and Jake reacting to the kids’ terrifying creations.

Now may I introduce Pete’s masterpiece — the Death Pumpkin.  Can you feel the disturbance in the force as millions of pumpkin seeds cry out?

And here are Kate and Dad’s works of art lit up side by side.

Show Me Your Moves

It is not unusual in our household to have a few diferent Xbox games of interest vying for TV time. But for the first time we have a game that Jacob is infatuated with called Once Upon a Monster (Sesame Street and Double Fine). Enjoy Jake and Kate dancing their hearts out with Elmo and Cookie Monster.

Crazy Hats at Target

A routine trip to the local Target turned into a photo shoot when we came across these absolutely adorable hats. Kate went panda while Jake was all over the penguin. I know I am biased but these two are pretty cute.

Testing Limits

Kate has already proven herself in the testing role on behalf of her father on his Windows Phone games (Pete’s motto is stolen but accurate “Kid tested. Mother approved.”). But she’s also continuously building out her skill set in engineering and limits testing. Case in point–this is how my girl plays Jenga.

Kate’s LEAP Day with Mom

2012 may be our next Leap Year, but LWSD has LEAP (Learning Enhancement Academic Planning) Days that are sprinkled throughout the school year. October 7 was one of those for Kate. She was originally scheduled to spend the day in extended care with the Y (our usual practice) but as I was driving to drop her off, she craftily observed that she would be perfectly content to spend the day with me in the office. Since I had no meetings and I adore spending time with my kids, I decided we’d give that a go.

Microsoft is very used to catering to employees with kids and they often hold fun Friday activities in our cafeteria space called the Commons. So not only did Kate spend the day hanging with me at work, but she got to have a little more fun than usual after lunch. Bouncy slide anyone?