booster car

maddux is a pretty creative kid and patient at building with just about anything - even following the instructions. i thought that this one was worth a picture before he put it away. he couldn't stop talking long enough for a good picture (the flash over exposure didn't help either). love.

look at that manning bomb.

christmas legos

star wars legos

matt hates that i drag him to all of these things - but the kids and i love a free event! today we swung by toys-r-us for a free star wars lego event. while we were there we let the kids do a little christmas list making. love.

free around town

i am always dragging everyone around to free activities. the kids love them. matt? not too much. but he loves me and goes along.

the first stop today? building lego kayaks at toys r us to take home. 

next we went over to "arts in the park" put on by the school system. it was super cold, but there was still a good turn out. we made it just in time to look around and listen to a little singing.

we went home for dinner before driving out to a new-to-us park for "family fall fest" and it was still pretty cold. the activities were a little difficult with gloves.

owl puppets

colored mini pumpkins

we went for a preschool appropriate 1/4 mile "hike" while listening to a story about "phillipe" the frog.

 i thought that these horses made from pant legs were pretty cute!

now for a hayride...

we even passed a large deer! we were all pretty shocked to see it so close to the very noisy tractor. 

thanks for loving us, daddy! love.

playdate with mrs. karen

we have the sweetest neighbor. she has been so kind to us in every way since we first started building our house. (she agreed to be our babysitter when i went into labor with manning after just meeting us!) for the past few years, mrs. karen and the kids have discussed having a lego playdate. mrs. karen's older girls love legos and have a large collection at mrs. karen's house. our kids have been dying to give them a closer look...

so before everyone heads back to school, mrs. karen had us over. she blew us away! not only were there a ton of legos (sorted by color), but she had a lego cookie snack all ready for the kids. she let each child dye their own serving of frosting which ever color they liked and then top it off with some m&ms. look at those grins!

madelyn did a triple layer of frosting on her cookie by covering up the m&ms, putting more frosting, more m&ms and repeating.

mrs. karen and madelyn

then the kids asked to go check out the other toys mrs. karen has down in her basement. they really liked the rock 'em, sock 'em robots.

we have been so spoiled with great neighbors in all of our homes over the years and mrs. karen is no exception. now the kids are asking when their next playdate with mrs. karen will be... love.

lego transportation

the boys (and madelyn) have been working on lego vehicles - many with yet to be developed modes of propulsion. i had them gather them all to gather for a picture. they then gave a demo of how each one worked. many can fly (only if a certain block is in place as the "button"), some slide and some even hop. they sure are getting creative. love.

the kindness of neighbors

one of our neighbors is one of four children and her mother feels an affinity for me. she often shares tips (the color coded easter eggs, watching marching band practice, etc.). and on occasion - toys! we have received several outdoor toys (scooters, balls) and today she dropped of some mega blocks! usually my neighbor brings hand-me-downs over, but it was surprised by her mom at the front door today with a load of blocks. the kids were very happy to see her. love.

mason mixel creations

even more lego creations

we just spent a day hanging out at home, well, we were running in different directions and everyone who didn't need to go hung out at home. madelyn made this cute lego creation. love.

focused boy

where mason is the most likely to build something creative, maddux is his mommy's boy by being the most likely to follow the directions. he gets himself turned around every now and then, but he will see it through to the end and often builds things on his own. he is pretty good at building his own creations too. love.

lego sandcastle

every time we get the lego club jr. magazine, mason quickly finds the contest and asks to enter. this month the task was to build a sandcastle, but our kids had to build an entire scene. it wasn't exactly what the contest called for, but i was impressed with their creativity. i really liked how they removed the legs off of their mini figures to make it look like they were swimming. love.

creative bricks

maddux built this "air/sea plane" with his own creativity and some orange legos (and brick splitters). love.

legos to the rescue

a very happy day indeed! the day the three big kids receive their lego club magazines - and as an extra bonus, daddy's catalog came too. lego club magazine is free and they, obviously, allow for multiple kids per household. the kids spend hours upon hours pouring over every single page and set in ever issue. mason hangs on to his until they are literally falling apart and don't have enough left of the paper to even be able to tape them together again. madelyn is in a different age bracket so she got a slightly different issue - much to her delight.

they were all feeling inspired after looking at the submissions of other kids and got to work on their own creations. love.