WinterShow at the Botanical Gardens–Take 2

Adventures with Nick and Sally No Responses »
Dec 022011
 

On Thursday, we headed back to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens with more friends.  This first photo is the grand tree in the lobby.  It’s super tall.

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Clark Hall has an entire display of trees that are sponsored by the affiliate garden clubs.  This year all of the trees are themed based on children’s books.  The snowman tree is my favorite.  I don’t quite understand a Hanukkah tree!?  There was story time at 11AM in the library.  One of the books was about red mittens.  It ended with a craft to make a pair of red mittens out of paper, yarn and cotton balls.

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We took a look at more gingerbread houses and collected some more ideas for making our own.

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We played in the spice shop.

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Sally and the little boy really enjoyed the carpet where story time was held.  Throughout the building, there were tons of beautiful poinsettias.  I may make a stamp out of this photo.  A couple of years ago, I bought some photo stamp kits on clearance.  I paid less than the value of the stamps at that time.  It turns out they are good for the current first class postage.  This year, we’ll be printing our own photos for stamps instead of buying the current holiday stamp at the post office.  It’s nice to have something that is appreciating in value.

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It looks like we have one or two more trips to the WinterShow before it ends at the end of the month.

Sally’s Birthday Recap

Adventures with Nick and Sally No Responses »
Dec 012011
 

Sally turned two yesterday.  We started the day at the JCC where she played in the playroom (also known as Kid Kare).

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She liked that it snowed.  She was willing to wear her gloves just because she wanted to pick it up.

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She’s at the age where it is fun to take off your shoes and socks in the car.  She removed them on five separate occasions yesterday.  We visited the library for story time.  The group sang Happy Birthday to her.

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She played in the fire truck and grabbed a book to check out.

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My husband, Nick, Sally and I went out for ice cream at Mitchell’s to further celebrate the day.  There are two candles lit, but you can’t tell in the photo.

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Nick got her a stuffed elephant.  She immediately fell in love with it.

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She had fun opening the rest of the packages.

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She ended up with the elephant, some stickers, new sheets for her bed and a doodle.  She loved everything, especially all of the attention.  Christmas is going to be so much fun with her this year.

WinterShow Take 1

Adventures with Nick and Sally 2 Responses »
Nov 292011
 

Today, we went to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens.  From now until the end of the year, they are featuring their annual WinterShow.  WinterShow to me means gingerbread houses and Christmas trees including a huge one in the lobby.

We met up with some friends.  It was our first outing with the twins.

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Sally was so excited for the trees.  The twins looked adorable.  I can’t believe how big they are getting.

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The gingerbread houses were great.  I hope to make one with Nick this year.  We collected lots of ideas.

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This barn was really detailed.  I liked the one the garden.

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The kids section was full of holiday oriented things.  There were jars of spices to smell and guess the item, a Claus Café complete with all of the makings of coffee and tea, and there was also a store for buying holiday spice items.  Ornaments for coloring and decorating the tree were also available.

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At my friend’s request, I took some photos of her with the kids.  In my opinion, this one is the best.  Since she’s always the one taking photos, she doesn’t have many with her and the kids.  I was happy to oblige.

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Around 11:30AM, my kids started getting really hungry.  It was time to go.  Sally couldn’t understand why she couldn’t eat the pretzels.

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These two left me wondering where I could buy sugar cubes in bulk.  I think Nick would have a great time building with cubes and icing.

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We were on our way out when this photo was taken.  The kids were hungry and tired.

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We didn’t get to look at one section of houses and we breezed by the tree display.  It’s a good thing we have another outing planned for Thursday.

Alice Returns to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History

Adventures with Nick and Sally No Responses »
Nov 272011
 

Last Saturday, November 19th, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History had a welcome back Alice party for the return of the Allosaurus.  The Allosaurus was dismantled in 2008 so it could be rebuilt to reflect current dinosaur knowledge.  It was originally found in Utah in the 1960’s.  The museum had many special events to celebrate the day.  Nick, Sally and I had a great time.

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We aren’t used to crowds at the museum.  I lost Sally twice during our first 10 minutes.  After that, we got really good at holding hands.  On Wednesday evening, it’s not necessary.

Our first stop was the registration table to fill out a drawing entry and pick up our Allosaurus trading card.  Then, it was off to hat making.

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Sally and Nick both colored a hat template.

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Nick declined a hat, but Sally loved it.

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We signed up for the roaring contest.  While we waited for it to start, we played museum bingo.

Then, it was time to gather the participants and head up to the balcony for roaring.  Nick and Sally thought it was cool to be upstairs looking down at the dinosaurs.

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After some time outside in the Perkins Wildlife area and other displays, it was time to head home.

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I’m glad the kids enjoy the museum so much.  We definitely get our money’s worth out of our membership.

The Muppets, Luigi’s, Swenson’s and games

Adventures with Nick and Sally, Family No Responses »
Nov 252011
 

We spent the day with my family.  We started out with a 10:30AM showing of The Muppets.

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We beat the rush and arrived to find an empty black Friday parking lot.  It wasn’t even that crazy by the time we left.

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This was the “passing of the torch” as the new generation of cousins carried on with the tradition of a movie the day after Thanksgiving.  This is a tradition that I grew up.  Sally is still a bit young, but Nick enjoyed his first movie with 2 of his cousins.

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He enjoyed popcorn, previews and the whole movie theatre experience.

After the movie, Stephen and Nick spent the afternoon at home.  I enjoyed Luigi’s with my siblings and some shopping with my sister.

Later, we met up at my parent’s house for Swenson’s and some pre-birthday cupcakes for Sally.  She even got a few gifts.

We ended the evening with a few rounds of Bananagrams before heading home.

Bowling!

Adventures with Nick and Sally No Responses »
Nov 202011
 

We went bowling with another family today.  We had a ton of fun!

Wickliffe Lanes have “birthday parties” where you basically rent a lane for 2 hours and can bowl as much as you want.  We were first there last February for Nick’s birthday.  It’s great because you can also bring in your own food and you don’t have to worry about how many bowlers you have or how many pairs of shoes  you need.  Speaking of shoes, I really liked my bowling shoes today.  Maybe someday I’ll find a pair to use with a  clown costume.

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Nick liked watching the ball go down the lane.  These lanes have programmable bumpers.  You can set them up or down by player.  It was a nice advancement in technology since our last visit.

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Sometimes I think the kids like watching for the balls to come up the return more than they like bowling.

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We lasted just over one game before we headed for dinner.  Everyone had a great time!

 Posted by at 7:22 PM  Tagged with:

Swim Lessons for Nick

Adventures with Nick and Sally No Responses »
Nov 172011
 

For the past couple of weeks, Nick has been taking swim lessons at the JCC.  We’ve been going “after nap time” on Thursdays.  It works well because Sally can go to Kid Kare and I can focus on Nick.

I used to take Nick swimming when he was just a few months old.  He always liked the water.  During the summer, he enjoys splash parks.  This was his first formal swim lesson.

He’s always so excited to get to the pool.

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It’s his favorite part of Thursday.

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He’s in a class with several of his friends from the playroom at the JCC and that makes it nice for him.  There’s usually 6 or 7 kids and two instructors.

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There are some group skills as well as individual attention throughout the 30 minute lesson.

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After his shower, he’s always hungry for a snack.

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And he loves putting his swim trunks into the spin dryer.  The trunks aren’t 100% dry after a cycle in this machine, but most of the moisture is gone and it’s much nicer to pack for home.

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He has one more lesson in this session and then we’ll probably sign him up for more since he loves it so much.

Lowe’s Build and Grow

Adventures with Nick and Sally No Responses »
Nov 132011
 

Yesterday Stephen and Nick participated in a Lowe’s Build and Grow workshop.  Sally and I perused the Christmas lights and decoration while the guys headed to the lumber area.

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This project was pretty easy since it only had 8 nails.

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Sally and I went to check out the production and could tell we were getting closer when we started hearing lots of pounding.  There were a dozen or so kids putting kits together all over the aisle.  I hope that no one actually wanted to buy some wood!

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This kit was called “Science Lab” and Nick is excited for his finished product.

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Lowe’s offers these projects throughout the year.  They are free!  It’s nice for us to have another activity to add to our arsenal for keeping the kids engaged.  I think the suggested age is 5-12.  Sally is a bit young for them.  Nick had lots of practice when Home Depot had some workshops at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History this summer, so we knew he’d do fine at the store event.  Home Depot offers workshops the first Saturday of each month.

Both stores offer aprons to the kids during their first project.  Then, pins or patches are given for each completed project.  It reminded me of a scout vest or sash.

We’re looking forward to more building soon!

 Posted by at 9:29 PM  Tagged with:

First Snow of the Season

Adventures with Nick and Sally No Responses »
Nov 112011
 

Today’s post is brought to you by mother nature.  We had our first snow overnight.  I couldn’t find Nick’s mittens, so he’s wearing a pair of my gloves.  Sally took her mittens off before we ever made it outside.  We didn’t have much time to play (build a snowman), but the kids had fun checking the snow out before we left on our errands for the day.

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Rumor has it, we are going to get lots of snow this winter.    Both Nick and Sally seem to like the snow this year. I see many snowman in our future this season.

 Posted by at 9:03 PM  Tagged with:
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