Tonight...

It's countdown until daddy gets home around here. We are down to 10 days I believe :o) The evenings can be the longest parts of the day... Thankfully tonight was activity packed!

It all started when I said I was going to make dinner. 2 seconds later they are sitting at the table ready to eat and I don't even know what I'm making yet! This is not good so I pull out my can of shaving cream which I had been saving for months just waiting for a desperate moment.

Scott dove right in while Sydney dipped a finger :o) Can you spot their personality differences?!

Wow, Sydney! Don't hold back!

Ahhh, yes... the painting of the arm. This is done with paint, markers and now shaving cream.

Now they are both into it!

So then dinner was ready and the picnic table was clean and smelling fresh. Talk about your win-win activity! Tonight's feast was dinosaur (chicken) nuggets. Scott ate the heads. Only after telling him he could not go outside in the rain did he eat some bodies.

It's now 5:30pm, dark and rainy. I have hours to go until bedtime and they both took a nap so the night looks long indeed. Outside in the rain they go! Sydney insisted on wearing her tennis shoes.

Then there was some painting (of paper and arms), baths and finally running around throwing clothes in the air. Scott finally stopped and said, "I'm tired. I need a drink and a snack."

Mission Completion!

Marble Painting

Today's art activity...

Painting with Marbles!

A little bit of paint, some marbles and a box. Shake and you have art!

Or perhaps you prefer dropping the paint with a spoon or just dropping the marbles into the box. Maybe you want to use a brush a bit too.

Scott's finished products:

Sydney's art:

Cutting and Gluing

There has been a lot of art going on here this week. I guess I'm just making up for lost time. It's also great to have everything right there in the same room and plenty of space for creating!

Glue and scissors are the favorites. Good thing I stocked up on glue at the beginning of the school year (like 30 bottles or more) because it's not used in moderation as you can tell.

From the time we put the house on the market to now, Scott's cutting skills have changed drastically. I don't think he picked up a scissors during that time frame but he's actually cutting pieces of paper now which he wasn't doing before.

Sydney is so patient. She makes little snips here and there. Her skills have developed as well. She can position the scissors by herself. They may be backwards...

What a mess!

Ally "cut" her fair share too!

Good thing it's still fun to clean up the mess.

The story of Halloween 2010

It's the eve of Halloween

And the children are a fright

In their spooky black shirts

And lots of candy in their sight.

Fright = Sydney and her pen colored knees

For Trick-or-Treating we went back to the old neighborhood and cooked out with friends. This guy, Darth Vader, showed up. A.K.A, Scott Maier so he says!

This is where I know I'll get it later in life from my daughter. I forgot her costume so she borrowed another little girl's "princess" skirt. I give you the mis-matched princess! I'll tell her it was an original idea.

She was really supposed to look like this. Thankfully when we went to Zoo Boo I managed to get her in full outfit for one photo.

Funny...the kids were up there for awhile and finally I went up to ask if they rang the doorbell (Scott's job since he's the tallest). He said there was no doorbell so they were just waiting...

He was fast this year!! Running from house to house. Unfortunately the other kids were 2 and under so not quite as into it as him. Sydney did keep up with him for the most part and shared in his enthusiasm.

Back at home we had a melt down. Nothing some milk can't fix!

Candy!

Scott placed it all in our plastic pumpkin and carried it to the cupboard where he said "Let's find a spot for this. We can put it in here. Good night candy. You stay in here just in case we need some more candy."

Happy Halloween!!

Progress Launch

Posted the pictures in the last post but thought I would write a bit about the launch. I was pretty amazing and certainly an unforgetable experiance. Flying into Kazakhstan we landed on an airstrip and then walked off the plane onto the runway and to the "terminal" (it was closer to a shed than a terminal). The landscape couldn't be more different from Moscow. Its desert-like and the town is the only thing thing for miles. Its a small little town, Baikanour, and essentially is there to support the Cosmodrome (launch site).

I got to explore the city a bit on some tours but the highlight for sure was the Cosmodrome. The Progress (Russian resupply vehicle) launch is a multiday event. On Monday morning the doors of the processing facility open at exactly 7am and starts it's train ride to the launch pad. As it rolls by you are just a few feet from it so its pretty interesting. It takes a few hours to slowly march to the pad, but once there people spring into action. Once it gets there it only takes about 30 minutes to lift it up and get it settled on the launch pad. The second day is reserved for last minute items and then Wednesday starts the launch sequence. They hold a commission to approve the Go for launch and then 9pm that night the launch starts.

Baikanour is an area of wide open landscape and horizon, so when its pitch black and the rocket lights its quite a sceen. Night becomes day in alsmost an instant and the rocket slowly lifts off the pad. In just a minute or two its hard to pick it out from the other thousands of stars you can see on a Kazakhstan night, but you can still hear it as it climbs into space.

Beyond the launch the historical portion was incredible too. The lauch pad used for Progress is the same one Yuri Gaugarin lifted off from and became the first human in space. Also out my window I kept seeing this little shack and until the day before I left I didn't know thats the cottage that he slept in before he launched. There were a ton of other stories from the experiance but I thought I would share a few. The pictures are posted on the link below from the other post. Enjoy!

Photos

Since I have been taking alot of pictures and can only upload a couple at a time in the blog I thought I would just send out a link to them all. I'll try and go through and mark locations and explain what they are on the site, but at least they are out there now.

Moscow

Baikanour

Enjoy!

Art Easel

We went to IKEA the other day. Sydney took quite awhile playing in the children's section so I had awhile to mull over the battle I have with myself each trip...get the cheap easel or don't get the easel. Well I bought it and finally bought a plastic table cloth to protect the carpet today so the kids couldn't wait to get started!!

Thankfully they were happy with painting together.

Gotta love the double paintbrush!

Sticking your tongue out helps with all things.

The finished masterpiece!

They were off to new things... Stamping

Sydney couldn't stay away too long.

Unfortunately her fun ended when she decided to continuously squeeze the paintbrush.