The Last Catch-Up: The Speed Racer / Dancing Fiend

This video is pretty long, but very cute.  The speed racer portion might drag on a little, but skip to the next part if you get bored because it gets better.  PS - Try to ignore my giggles.  Apparently I'm a giggly person.

More Catch-Up: Garden d'Lights

One last December catch-up. Last Monday we went to the Bellevue Botanical Garden with some of our favorite friends to see the Garden d’Lights. They use Christmas lights to create all sorts of beautiful things, like a pond, a waterfall, an aquarium, corn fields, grapes in a vineyard, and even a monkey! This picture just doesn’t do the place justice.

However, even with all the cool things to look at, I think Damian’s favorite part was splashing in a puddle while some on-looking ladies laughed at him.

Catch-Up Number 2 - KidsQuest Children's Museum

There's this cool place in Factoria called KidsQuest Children's Museum.  It's basically a hands-on museum full of fun things to learn and explore.  I've been meaning to take Damian for a long time, but the price of admission kind of scared me off.  A few months ago, I found out that the first Friday of every month is FREE admission in the evening.  After a couple first Fridays had passed, I finally put it on the calendar as if it was a real appointment - the only way I'd, A) remember, and B) not be tempted to postpone it in favor of playing with friends.  So we went, but our camera did not.  We forgot to bring it.  Luckily, Marty's phone takes pretty decent pictures.  Just don't look too closely if blurry pictures offend you.

There was a room in the Garage area with a bunch of kid-style hammers, nails, etc., and Damian loved playing carpenter with the tools.  Don't tell him, but he's getting a workbench for Christmas this year.  His fascination with the tools just made us that much more excited for his Christmas present.

I know this next picture doesn't look super exciting.  (And, I guess, neither does Damian.)  It's a chalkboard.  But in the background, there's a gigantic Light-Bright!!!  Damian liked playing with it, but I decided we're going to make one like that someday because I freakin' loved it!!!

Last, but certainly not least, we went to the Waterways area.  Damian totally loves water, and he had a blast.  You can't tell in this lame picture, but by the time we were ready to leave, he was thoroughly soaked.  Just the way it should be.  It was so fun to watch him explore, and we can't wait to go back!

Decking the Halls... 2 Weeks Ago

I was doing so great blogging regularly back in November.  Then, for a while, I was waiting for something interesting to happen so I had something to post.  But then the holidays hit.  So I have a few things that I meant to blog earlier, but today is when I'm getting to it.  So here is the first of my catch-ups: decorating for Christmas!

We decided to buy an artificial tree this year.  Fresh tree every year = $40 per year.  Artificial tree = $80 one time.  So, as long as we use it twice, we haven't lost any money.  And I think we'll get our money's worth.  It was a lot of work to fluff the stupid thing (ask Marty about his ornery wife during the whole ordeal), but I love saving money.  Here's Damian helping to trim the half-put-together tree.

As we were pulling out decorations, we found a wreath and Marty thought it would be funny to put it around Damian's neck like a necklace.  Or a race horse.  But the kid totally freaked out.  Here he is tip-toeing around the horrifying wreath after the traumatizing experience.

The poor thing is gritting his teeth and everything.  :-)  Anyway, it took a full week to finish getting the tree put together and decorated, but it's always worth it.  About a week after that, we finally put up our little 4-foot tree, aka, Damian's tree.  Here he is carefully hanging his ornaments. 

He's loved rearranging the ornaments and, um, plugging in the lights every morning.  It kind of scares me that he understands electricity like that, but at least he's putting a plug in the outlet instead of a fork.