Girl Scout Movie Morning

This morning Maddie's Cadette Girl Scout troop hosted a movie showing at a local theater. All of our local Daisy, Brownie and GirlScout troops were invited to attend. The movie was a new release called "Hotel For Dogs."

The other troops were able to purchase tickets ahead of time from our troop. They could choose a movie only ticket or a movie/popcorn/drink ticket. A portion of all tickets sold came back to our troop.

I don't think I've written about this before, but Maddie's troop has a long-term goal of attending a girl scout camp in England. Whenever they do money earning projects they put it in a savings account, which is building up for the big trip.

We all met at the UltraStar Cinemas at 8am to prepare for a very early 9am showing of the new release.

Maddie's troop had a few responsibilites. They had to check in the other troops as they arrived, make sure they had paid their money, serve popcorn to the girls who ordered it and make some pre-movie announcements. Maddie's jobs were handing out popcorn and making the announcement "Remember, we are Girl Scouts and we always leave a place cleaner than we found it."

Our girls did a good job of managing the "controlled chaos" as most of the attendees were 5-8 years old. And the theater was clean at the end----but sadly, not cleaner than when they arrived:)

The Flintstone Car

This is a picture of a little car that we have in the backyard. (No-it is not our kid in the picture. I had to download one from the ToysRUs webpage.) As a sidenote, ours also has a long handle on the back so parents can push it along.

I call this car the Flintstone car because the kids have to push it along with their feet. Just like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.

For the last few days Matthew has been trying and trying to get into the car. This afternoon he finally made it in. Of course, that's because I put him in there. Once he was in he was very happy and content sitting there and holding onto the steering wheel.

Pretty soon James noticed he was in the car and tried to kick him out. Sadly, mom wouldn't let him so he decided to go another route.

James embraced the moment as big brother. He grabbed the handle and decided to take Matthew for a ride. He pushed him all the way around the patio and intermittently pulled down on the handle creating a "wheelie." Matthew was cracking up and James was having a lot of fun being the big brother.

These guys are gonna have lots of fun together.

Random Things

I've been having a hard time getting back into the blog routine, but thought I'd better write some random things that the kids have been doing over the last several weeks.

Matthew's hair began sticking straight up sometime in early December. It's funny looking, but cute at the same time. He gets lots of laughs when we're out and about.

James has developed a hilarious and very "forced" laugh. He knows it makes all of us laugh so he tries even harder to make it funny. He loves to get a laugh, just like Maddie when she was his age.

James has really gotten into truck videos. Owen, Maddie and he go to the library to check out DVD's on monster trucks, work trucks, building trucks--he loves them all!

Buddy has started chasing Maddie's carpool all the way down the street the last two days. I don't know what's gotten into him. We've been carpooling since Sept. and he's always out front with us and has never run off before. Today he almost got hit. We're gonna have to keep him inside from now on.

Matthew is starting to eat more table food. I forgot, even though it's only been a year, how hard it is to switch the kids from formula and baby food over to table food. We're trying lot's of new things. His favorites are cheerios, fruit, cookies and rice crispies.

Maddie is still loving her trampoline. She has also taken up roller blading this week.

Matthew is starting to climb up the play equipment at the park. I have to go up there with him, but he can pretty much crawl all the way up and cruise around on most of the things. Then we go down together on the slide. Sometimes we have a race with James if there are slides right next to eachother. Sometimes we make a train with all three of us and call it the "Thomas train", Yes--like the TV show--isn't Thomas a good name.

Maddie enjoys evenings dancing around the family room to 80's songs. Video Killed the Radio Star, I'm Too Sexy, You Can't Touch This, Ice, Ice Baby, etc. Her routines and facial expresions are priceless. Nikki and Ashley would be so proud!

These are a few of the thing's the kids are up to.

Different Personalities

Today we took the kids to the playground at the mall for a little time outside of the house. The play area is in the perfect place for our family. The little guys like it for obvious reasons, but it's also surrounded by a pet store, Payless Shoe Source and a book store which keeps Maddie entertained.

Anyhow I was sitting back watching the boys playing today and I really saw the differences in their personalities. James runs from toy to toy trying to crawl to the top and then jump off, then he moves on to the next obstacle to conquer. Matthew found a little car, took a seat, put one hand on the wheel and one hand on his knee, and sat back "low rider" style. No one was rushing him and he was happy just sitting in his car cruisin'.

Owen's quote of the day....
"Deb, I've gotta run to Target and get another Plasma Car. I want to take a ride, but James is on it and I don't feel right about kicking him off."

If you're not familiar with the Plasma Car go to this link and watch the video http://www.plasmacar.com/store/customer/index.php

icecreamaholic

With the Christmas season in full swing and lots of desserts around the house we happen to be well stocked in the ice cream department. So I've been having a little bowl in the evenings.

We've discovered that Matthew has an ice cream radar. No matter where he is in the house, as soon as I get a bowl of ice cream and sit down, he comes crawling right up to me with his little mouth open and ready for a bite. He'll stand right next to me waiting for more and more. Then, when the bowl is empty, his radar signal tells him to move on and off he goes. It's very cute.