Meandering Moons

Happy New Year, California

I am a bit behind in getting these pictures up... Noah and I had a wonderful trip to California the week after Christmas.  It was great to visit my family and friends and as a bonus the weather was fantastic!

We enjoyed a second Christmas when we arrived.  Noah's stocking was filled with cool science kits like this mini volcano.

and a baking powder and vinegar powered rocket...

that went quite high! (Notice the shorts... I know I already mentioned it but the weather was steller)

Uncle Adam surprised Noah with a real rocket engine powered rocket.  

Noah had a blast (hehe) launching all the rockets in his uncle's arsenal.

My neice Rosalie... the budding rocketeer :)

Pop and his girl.

Between the rockets and letting Noah shoot his air soft gun, Uncle Adam has achieved hero status :)

Last time I was home, I went the whole week without going to the beach.  I was determined not to have that happen again.  The weather was so nice that we spent two lovely days at the beach.

One of those days was spent with my friend, Liz and her two boys.   Here Noah is with his partner in silliness, Juan Diego.

We were able to get some horse time in, as well.  

Noah was super excited because he can finally reach the stirrups in the saddle Pop got him a few years back.  He also rode on  his own quite a bit ( and made sure that I got a lot of pictures to prove it!)

We had great New Year's Eve celebration... counting down the new year in New York :)

We played dominoes and drank sparkling cider, then at promptly 9pm (CA time) we went outside and had a ball with silly string.  As he was getting  into bed that night, Noah looked over at the clock and said something like "9:23... it doesn't get any better than this!"  Enough said... 

Melts my heart!

Santa was very good to Noah this year and got him a fish tank and a gift card for the pet store (to pick out his own fish) which had been at the top of his list for several months.  Well he came home with three little fish named Speed Limit, Now Open, and Massey Furgeson.  Well, Speed Limit never looked too full of vigor and sadly was found at the bottom of the tank by Noah this morning.  He was having a hard time with the loss and so I suggested that he draw a picture of Speed Limit so that he would always remember him.  Well, this is the result of that suggestion:

Never thought that I would be sad over the passing of a fish, but this just melted my heart!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Weekend crafts

Noah has discovered popsicle stick art... here are his lastest creations.

Tractor (of course)

and his pis de resistance... a combine.

 

Tis the season...

Tis the season... for Christmas programs (or, sorry... holiday programs).

Noah had his school winter/holiday program last week as well as the church Christmas program on Sunday. 

Download School

This is a video of his school program... hope it works.

He played the part of the Ram in the church program nativity play... he got to talk into the microphone (cool!) and say " I am the Ram with the curly horns, I guard the stall where the child is born"

You know you live in Kansas when... your child has a tummy ache and they describe it as  "like having a tornado in their stomach".

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

Here are a few random pics from the past month or so....

We were happy to have my parents visit us this fall.  They were especially happy to get to go trick or treating with their favorite ghost. 

This is a bit out of order... but the day before Halloween, we all visited one of the local pumpkin patches....

Bet you can guess why this is Noah's favorite pumpkin patch!

Whoohoo!!!!!!

The boys came home with a basketball the other day to get ready for January when Noah will play in a first and second grade league... hopefully he will pick up some moves from his Daddy.

These are Noah's very attentive students taking part in his doggie Sunday school class :)

This picture sums up pretty good what we've been up to... just trying to enjoy fall and all its goodness.

Back in business... have been minus a data card for my camera for several months. So happy to have everything in working order again. What makes me even happier is this smile I captured on my very first click after putting in the new card.

Family Trip (part 2)

 We visited the Mississippi River Museum while in Dubuque, IA where Noah came face to face with the biggest catfish I've ever seen!  I think Noah was dreaming about catching a biggin' like this some day.

Got one!!!... or maybe it's the other way around :)

He also got to feel what it was like to man the helm of a paddle wheeler.  If it has a steering wheel or handle bars, it is guaranteed that Noah is going to love it.

 Then it was on to Madison, WI where I attended a two day course at the University of WI.  We were treated to this beautiful sunset before watching a fourth of July fireworks show over the lake... 

Next stop was a surprise for Noah... Moline, IA, the official home of John Deere.

Well he certainly enjoyed his surprise!

They have an awesome John Deere museum in Moline, with several antique tractors and a variety of new JD's you can climb up into.

He had the time of his life going from tractor to tractor to tractor to tractor to..... you get the idea. 

 I had a blast getting so many smiley photo ops :)

I think that it was a testament to how wonderful the museum was that it took Noah three hours of being there before he asked if they had a gift shop!

He was thrilled to get a "waterloo boy" of his very own.  He fancies himself an antique tractor model collector now.  

The last night of our trip was actually on the fourth, to celebrate we had our own sparkler show in the parking lot of the super eight we were staying at in Lamoni, IA.  

The great thing about traveling with kids is that everything is new and exciting, seeing things through their eyes makes you see  the ordinary as extraordinary... it's wonderful, as was our trip.