So...sometime last summer, Memaw and Grandpa took the older boys to the Children's Museum for the day and became members. Somehow, I got a hold of an events calendar and saw this New Year's Eve celebration called "Bubble Bash 2008 - Bach to Bubbles". Um.....how much does Aiden love bubbles??!! That's all he asked for on his 2nd birthday! We went through at least 5 gallons of bubble solution in the back yard last summer! He's completely obsessed (as am I .... a little maybe) with Susan's double-bubble machine! He even collected all the bubble wrap from the Christmas ornaments, called them bubbles and carried them around for 2 days. So we're thinking, based on the name and the illustration on the calendar showing a little cartoon character conducting music with bubbles ALL around him that this is going to be a BUBBLE FEST....OF COURSE WE'RE IN! Um....it wasn't like that at all. It was FUN...don't get me wrong. But...it was basically a day at the Children's Museum with all these different activities going on like bands, crafts, snacks etc....but no major, crazy bubble action to be found. In fact...the only OUT OF THE ORDINARY bubble thing we got was our parting gift....a bubble blower and a bottle of bubble solution for each kid. Cool! Not as cool as we THOUGHT....but cool!!

Before we delve into Bubble Bash - let me back-track to Monday morning when Brady slipped (as a new walker) at a friend's house during playgroup and managed to ding his poor sweet head on the corner of a lower cabinet. We called the pediatrician...ran down the typical signs (no passing out, no vomiting, eyes not dilated, acting normal, swelling came OUT.....etc). They suggested that we take him to an urgent care facility only because of the location of the injury and the fact that he might get a scar if we didn't get any necessary stitches etc. He didn't need stitches....but they put a little skin glue (dermabond) on his laceration and we came home. Thankfully, Memaw was off for the week and watched the older boys and, thankfully, Bri was home to go with me. It was so not a big deal, but nice to have the help! While we were at urgent care, I told Brady that I gave him major props for having his spill when he did....at playgroup with 6 mommies around ready to rush in! Without having to do a thing, I had ice in my hand for his head, Anne packed up my diaper bag and put it by the front door, Susan and Kristin got the older kids dressed...Kristin even found my shoes and put my coat on for me. Way to go little dude! Brady's after-accident nick names: little warrior and son of Frankenstein.

This is what almost every child did all night long...pop up....
...wander upstairs for some food, water, a trip to the potty, just to check out what was going on etc. The only children who fell asleep and stayed asleep were Aiden and one other little boy. AND...those two fell asleep pretty close to 11 anyway so I'm not sure it was that great of an achievement.
When it was time to pack everyone up and go home, we left Aiden still snoozing in his sleeping bag until the last possible minute. I mean the WHOLE basement was cleared out, Brady's pack n play was broken down, Logan and Bray were in the car, everyone else had left...Aiden was snoring! Then we scooped him up, drove the 10 houses back home and put him in bed. During our 30-second drive.....Logan finally fell asleep!!!

So most of my loyal readers were here when this happened, but I have to post this story anyway. Remember when I wrote about the boys pretending that all our bananas were rocket ships? Well, when we went to change the cover on Logan's big Anywhere Chair on Christmas Eve, I found 2 bananas hiding in the back pocket of the chair! How lucky that we were changing it anyway because they hadn't quite crossed over into total nastiness. Interestingly....his new GREEN chair doesn't have a back pocket on it. He commented first thing Christmas morning "this chair has no pocket...where am I going to put my stuff?" Do you mean bananas dude? How about NOT in a chair!!

Despite the date stamp, I'm writing this post the day before Brian returns to work after being home for 2 weeks straight (I started uploading the pics on Friday!). We're kind of bummin' so it's nice to re-live some of the fun we had over the holidays. I haven't counted the pictures in this post yet, but I'm warning you all that there are a lot of them (with an added warning that I still have to post the pics from the neighborhood New Year's Eve party OR the Children's Museum New Year's event). I really don't have anything to say by way of introduction so....PICTURES!

A few days before everyone started arriving, the older boys and I made sugar cookies (like Grams wasn't bringing enough sugary goodness with her!) Logan and Aiden did a really good job helping me cut everything out!
I bought these cookie cutters as a part of a little holiday baking set in the Target "one-spot" dollar section....oh how I love the one-spot!

I have been SO slacking on the blog lately, but Brian has been home for the past 2 weeks so we're enjoying some much-needed family time (which includes me not being on the computer very much). I have so many posts floating around in my head right now, but when I cleaned up my camera today, I had to put them all aside in favor of this one.

Every time I take out my camera (which is often), Logan wants to play with it. Sometimes I just let him take it and snap away. He takes TONS of pictures, most of which I delete. I have wanted to do a post for a long time now with some of his shots and I'm sure that I've included a few in the past. There is even one in the last post. The ones on my camera today (which I had not seen until I downloaded everything) were just so fantastic. They made me smile, laugh out loud and then wonder at some of the pure artistic-ness (I know...not a word) of the young eye.

And so now I give you - "The 554 at Christmas Time...a little boy's perspective in pictures":


One of Logan's favorite things to do is to take a picture of himself and then flip the camera around really fast to see it before the display changes. Here he is near the front door of the house. I just started laughing when this one came up on my camera. Especially when I saw all of the others.After his self-portrait, he turned the camera around and did a nice up-shot of the tree and the ceiling.

After that (and after a few more pictures which I deleted), he made his way over to the table beside the tree and took a picture of the fancy shopping snow ladies.