Traveling to England

Christina took us to England with her on a 

business trip. 

 Waiting for the airplane in Canada!

In line at British customs.

 Found a phone box, smoky...

Our first blue English door in Bury St Edmonds

More posts to follow...

Christmas decorating

We decorated for our Christmas party we had the Saturday after Thanksgiving

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Christmas Family Party

A snowball fight, icees, gift exchange, nativity story and a yummy dinner.  All at our Arizona family party.

 

Dentist visit

123 out.  1...2...3...out.  Advice from the dentist today to a Daddy that struggles with tooth brushing time at night with our son. "It builds confidence and trust."

On a positive note, our son loved his visit with his awesome dentist.

Seeing Friends

A lot of our friends and Hal's family are living in Southern California. We had dinner with Hal's aunt on Saturday night, dinner with Hal and Christina's friends on Sunday and dinner again with even more friends on Tuesday night. It was fun for our son to play with his wonderful new friends and for Christina and Hal to catch up with old friends.

SeaWorld

On sea world Saturday we attended all the shows it could. G even found out he loves, loves, loves roller coasters.

SoCal vacation

We have been anticipating our southern California vacation for months. Our first day was spent at Legoland. Our son loves getting his drivers license and exploring to many places that Legoland had to explore. It is the perfect park for four-year-old.

Race for the Cure

Christina a is a 2 year survivor or breast cancer and is a model of the importance of early detection.

We blinged up with pink and marched in the Komrn walk with thousands of other people downtown.

And We're Off!

England, here we come!

Mother's Day Happiness

My favorite is the last line. He fights me every night. I guess I'm making an impression?

Crafts and Memory Lane

Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week and this is the kick off card/craft. I asked little G what he wanted to do for the craft, and he said, "color, paint, cut, paste, everything!" So that's what we did!

This craft reminded me of my mom, who died almost 18 years ago. She made sure that we had paper, paint, crayons, markers and glue, then we had to "find" the other materials for our art projects. 

G and I looked for yellow pictures in catalogs, then used markers or crayons to saturate the color. Then we cut and tore the paper to the sizes we wanted. The white petals are kitchen parchment paper, and we also used aluminum foil. G finger painted the paper first, we let it dry, then glued on the other pieces. We used white and glitter glue (which I apparently need to buy more of since he loves it sooooooo much). I had the buttons in my craft box. 

It was fun to see G's creativity as we waded, cut, tore, colored, painted, mashed and arranged. G did about 75% of the work himself. I directed colors and materials, and he decided that it should be a flower scene. There were some tense moments with the paint and glue since I didn't want it all over the house (and letting him use his 3 year old creativity - Mom, let it go!), but we were both happy about the way it turned out, his teachers LOVED the creations, and I'm learning to let my son become more independent.

#1- Two Wonderful Things

1. Little G has been going to bed earlier. He is definitely a night owl. The more he sleeps, the more opportunity we have to sleep. I am not a night owl!

2. There is nothing more exciting than a bunny cake for Easter for a three year old. Sometimes the simplest things can be the best things. Lesson learned for Mom ... Make more food crafts ... Pinterest, here I come!

Happy Easter from the Brights!

The Brights in matching Easter clothes. 

We are dancing for the camera here. You can see Hal looking through the door. Silly is something that we are very good at!

Easter Preparation

Table ready for Grandma and Grandpa. We eat formally for Easter and Christmas to stay in practice. Grandpa grew up in a fairly formal household, and he enjoys a little taste of the home he grew up in. Something funny is that we have been drinking out of water bottles since Little G started eating with us at the table. I finally bought some glasses that I won't cry about if they get broken. 

An excited little boy ... food as a craft! And we get to eat it afterwards. He wanted to eat the piece with the whiskers.

Making icing for the bunny cake.

Getting Dad's secret Easter present. G loves to pick things out and carry them home. He thinks that he is so big ... and he is right!

Easter Craft

When you have a 3 year old, you do a lot of crafts. Making these egg-bunnies and chicks was super fun. There was no way to make them stand up, so Little G and I tried several things before figuring out that we needed to stick a squared off sticker to the back to help them balance.

Painting Chairs

Little G helped his dad paint the chairs. Lots of fun and the paint MOSTLY stayed where it was supposed to!

Kite Festival

We decided to do something different today and go to the kite festival. Fun kite flying and more face painting! 

Face Painting

At a school activity, G wanted to face paint ... On Mommy's face. I went to work to a meeting before washing it off. 

Boy Dress Up Clothes

There just aren't enough dress up clothes for boys. The ones you find are firemen, doctors, cowboys ... in other words, no swirl factor. G has expressed his interest in the the swirl factor based on what I have found him dressed as when I pick him up at school. Even though I an not particularly crafty, I managed to make him a cape/cloak, which gives him plenty of swirl, swoop and swish. He wore it to the grocery store last week instead of a jacket. I think he looks like an elf, but he claims to be a mysterious pirate, or a bird.

Mommy - Son dates

Hal works one night a week and a tradition Christina has established is Mommy - Son dates at least once a month. They go to the outside mall for an alphabet treasure hunt or a tricycle ride at the local train park. Wherever they go, they have a ton of fun!