Oobleck!

I brought home some leftover corn starch from school a couple months ago (we used it in a lab). Last week, we finally got around to making some oobleck.  As you can see, Abby had lots of fun! We played with this stuff for well over an hour. 

Trash

While cleaning up the living room this afternoon I asked Abby to throwaway a box from a new case of batteries. "Sure" she said and she disappeared.
Seconds later she returned, tears streaming down her face.
"I loosed it" "what?" I asked her.
"My pony brush" she said. When I asked to throwaway the box her hands were full of Christmas goodies that she refused to put down and apparently her new My Little Pony brush was lost in the kitchen trash can.
Thankfully Dave had taken the trash out in the last hour and it was safe to reach down inside and save the "pony brush."
Crisis adverted at least for now.

'Twas the night before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the Pleimann house...

Abby is so excited for Santa to visit tonight. She's left out some petite fours, which as soon as she fell asleep Proton promptly ate. She can't wait to see if Santa brings her a purple dress, (word from the north pole is this might actually happen!)

 We spent most of the evening at Grandma and Grandpa's both kiddos were pretty tired by the time we got home. We put out Santa's treats, read the 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and they were out. Now Santa has some serious work today.
Merry Christmas Everyone!

1st Christmas

Abby was only a month old when we celebrated her first Christmas. We spent a lot of time trying to get a great picture of her in front of the tree.

 This is still one of our favorites. She's actually laying on my shoulder with the tree lite up in the background. 

So Noah is nowhere as little as Abby was and it feels like Noah has been part of our family forever but I still wanted some special 1st Christmas pictures... It wasn't quite the same but he's so great. I had to bribe him with cheerios but I was able to get some decent shots.

 Snack break after only a few shots.

 Much happier standing up

 Ho, Ho, Ho, he's too funny.

 I'm still hungry

He's my little Noah man

Quotables: Taking a Bath

So many conversations with abby amuse me lately.  They're getting more and more funny as she gets older.

Peggy: "Who wants to take a bath?"
Me: "I do, I do!"
Abby: "You can't take a bath with us."
Me: "Why not?
Abby: "You're too big for the bath tub!"
Me: "No, I'm not.  I want to take a bath."
Abby: "No, you belong in the shower."
Me: "I do?"
Abby: "Yeah, you belong in the shower with mommy!"

Haha.  Thanks kid.

Holiday Cuteness

I've been saying for awhile we need to get a picture of the kiddos under the Christmas tree and we finally got a few shots tonight before bed. Noah is been on his new meds for few days and he's a different kid. It's amazing how much happier he is when his ear isn't clogged. And you can't even tell he has pink eye. Thankfully he's been really good about taking both medications this time around.

 And yes, Abby is wearing mismatched jammy's. She loves her nightgown but tends to get cold legs so she wears her jammy pants underneath.

O-N

Tonight at dinner, Abby informed us that she had to go potty.  This seems to happen pretty much every night.  Sort of a mid dinner break if you will.  Ugh.  So, we got her down and sent her in.  She wanted me to come turn on the light.  So I told her to use her stool to turn it on. 

So, we hear the stool moving over.  All the sudden, Abby says "It has an O and an N.  And that means it's on!"

Peggy and I looked at each other, trying to figure out what she was talking about.  Then it hit us, she was reading the ON that is written on the light switch.  It dawned on us that neither of us have taught her that is on there. 

I went in there to undo her overalls, and asked her how she knew it said ON.  She said: "I teached it to myself!"  She was very proud of herself.  And we are too.  Too smart I tell ya.

We just gotta work on that teached/taught thing.  Heh....

A-dessert

When Abby finishes her dinner, we usually let her pick out a dessert.  It's usually a cookie, graham cracker with chocolate, or something of the sort.  We've been doing this for a while now, so she's become pretty accustomed to it.

Well, I guess when talking about her dessert, we usually say "a" before it.  As in, "what do you want for a dessert?"

So now Abby thinks that desserts are called "a-desserts."  She always says things such as "Can I have a cookie for my a-dessert?" or "what I have for my a-dessert?"

Heh, it's pretty funny.  Right up there with her "skank you" instead of "thank you."  We still have yet to catch that one on camera though.

The "Center"

Abby is a huge fan of the St. Louis Science Center or as she calls it "the center." This past week with Auntie Sally in tow we made the trek to the center for some hands on fun. Best part the center is Free! Being a school day we had the place to ourselves. We parked near the planetarium and took the bridge to the center so Abby could check out all the cool astronaut memorabilia they have, sorry no pics of it. Abby loves astronauts. Plus there are a lot of hands on activities on the bridge for kids. Most have scientific reasons for being there, Abby just thought they were for playing with. 

Traffic accident!

 Learning to use the bridge

 Abby and Mommy attempting to put together a bridge....

 Complete failure... we should have brought Daddy.

 Noah laughing at our lack of progress

 We made a virtual fish

 Plus one of Abby's favorite rooms, dinosaurs! They have real fossils from different dinosaurs found in the US plus models of those dinosaurs so the kids can identify them.
In this picture Abby is holding part of the frill from a triceratops. There are a few volunteers in this room too and since no one else was there Abby was able to ask questions and take a lot of time learning about the bones.

 In another area is a model tornado, Noah loved it.

 It freaked Abby out, this was as close as she would get and this took a while.

 We watched a show while we were there call Splat! we've seen it multiple times. This time there was a small audience and Abby even volunteered! She had to hold a  cup while water was dropped from 60 feet above and she had to catch it.

 You can kind of see the water drops coming down.

 They also have a bird exhibit, with a ton of hands on exhibits. She loved it.

Minnesota Thanksgiving

For the first time in more than five years I was able to get the Thanksgiving holiday off so we decided to pack up the kids and head to Minnesota. We drove up on a Wednesday, it was a long day in the car. The kids weren't impressed with the 10 hour car ride or the rush hour traffic we hit once we were near St. Paul. We stayed at Bobo's place with Gabby the cat. The kids stayed true to their routine waking up on Thanksgiving morning at 4am! Bobo even woke up with us to entertain the kiddos before the sun was up.

 Thanksgiving morning Jon and Anna came over and we headed to Ihop for  brunch. The kiddos loved the pancakes, afterwards we hung out at Bobo's letting the kids burn off some energy.

Laughing it up with Aunt Anna.

 There was a small pile of snow outside of Bobo's place, just enough to make one small snowman.

 Thanksgiving evening we headed over to Gram's house to eat with Jon and Anna, my Aunt Heather and her twins Alanis and Shelby. We had a wonderful time, after dinner us "kids" took the kids to the local park. I think it was the first Minnesota Thanksgiving I remember heading to a park not to sled but play on the playground.

 Running for the slides!

 Slides, slides and more slides!

 Uncle Jon teaching Noah to do the rings, while daddy played on the zipline.

On the swings!

 Daddy telling Abby all about how he proposed to Mommy on a digger... so many years ago.

 When we got back to the house it was time for pie, and Grams had even picked up candles to celebrate Abby's 3rd birthday. Abby loved it.

 Look how happy she is.

 Enjoying her own pie...

 On Friday we were very low key in the morning, working on a few things at Bobo's house but mostly just hanging out enjoying each others company. Friday afternoon we headed back to Grams for Christmas! Abby helped Grams decorate her Christmas Tree.

Thoughtfully picking out her next ornament to hang.

 The many faces of Noah

 While we were eating dinner, Grams put all the presents under the tree. Abby was very excited by the gifts. She loves her new dolly.

 Vogue-ing in her new princess dress.

 On Saturday we were up early and headed out to the Mall of America to check out Sea Life. One of Abby's favorite places to visit on our trips north.

Noah loved it was just smiling the whole day.

 Touch tank

Checking out the jellyfish.

 Christmas trees at the mall!

And this is the project that kept Bobo and Dave busy during our visit... turning this into...

Bobo calls it "headlights"