Sweet Dream Snuggles

Xander can be trying at bedtimes sometimes.  It takes Aria about 15 min to put to bed, but Xander is an hour investment.  He needs to have both Mommy and Daddy snuggle him before bed.  Yesterday, I told him that he was only getting a hug from me because I was going to go snuggle Daddy.  Daddy needed snuggles more because he was sick.  Much to my surprise, that was enough for him.  He actually cared that his daddy needed snuggles more than he did. No whines, no endless requests for water, stories, bathroom.

Tv breakfast

There's a neat catering restaurant that we recently found in Redmond.  For kids, they use these glazed tv dinner trays.  While Aria and Xander don't mind food touching, they do prefer different items separated.  What a great way to serve food to kids!  Both kids loved their simple breakfasts.  I had to share my eggs with Xander as he finished all of his.  Surprisingly, he would even touch the blueberry jam.  Aria is much more of a sweet tooth and she made quite a mess of the jam.

Triple Yum

We found a replacement for Chuy's here.  The restaurant called Triple XXX Rootbeer is full of crazy decorations.  The food is insane with deep fried everything and plated sized burgers.  There is not even diet soda.  This is a "once in a while" restaurant unless you want a heart attack.  It's nicely situated in the foothills.  After a long day on the slopes, greese and rootbeer floats might just be the right thing.

Pantry house

Aria has been spending a lot of time in our kitchen pantry.  For whatever reason, she loves to play in there. Sometimes she pretends to shop.  Sometimes she is just stealing crackers.  We have to keep the kid proof food on the bottom shelf to ensure her curiosity doesn't result in a mess.

Favorites!

Xander is Star of the Week at school this week.  He gets all sorts of special attention at school.  One of the things he is required to do is make a poster about himself.  On his poster, he listed that soup was his favorite food.  This is kind of cool and also a little sad.  Since we have moved to the NW, we have hit up tons of Asian soup restuarants (pho, ramen, udon, you name it).  Xander is totally a fan of brothy soups with noodles.  What is sad is that his previous favorite was enchiladas, beans, and rice.  Soup is great, but I hope my boy doesn't lose his love of Tex Mex.

Counting

This weekend, I was making dinner as Aria was playing in the living room.  As I walked into the living room, I saw Aria playing with Xander's Skylander toys.  She had lined them up in a straight line.  Then, I heard to point to each one and say "One, two, free, four, five, six, eight, nine".  Yep, she was counting them!  She counted all the way up to 11.  I didn't even know she knew number words!

Gangnam Style

  Aria took this video while she was at school.

Swapping work stories with my 4 year old

Xander sometimes asks us for what we did at work.  It's REALLY hard to try to explain my work to a 4 year old, but I try.  I want Xander to be open about his day and so I try to share something of my own day.  Most of the time, I end up talking about what had for lunch as I'm not always feeling exceptionally enthusiastic about talking about work after a long day of work.

Our conversation today:
Xander:  Tell me about your day at work today
Me: Um....hmmm...I lost a bet and I owe the guy a dollar.
Xander:  What's a bet? What's a dollar?
Me:  Well, we played a game.  I guessed a computer would do one thing and he guessed it wouldn't do something.  The computer didn't do it so I owe him a dollar. A dollar is money.
Xander: Next time, you need to guess that the computer didn't do it and then win all of HIS dollars.
Me:  I think that is a really good idea.

Xander:  Then, when you win all the dollars, you can put them in my dinosaur piggy bank. Then we'll have lots of money < rubbing his hands together>
Me:  What will you do with the money?
Xander:  We'll buy things.
Me:  What will you buy?
Xander:  A Kindle Fire so we can play "Where's my water". 

Little does he know...."Where's My Water" App may very well be stored in the computer system that the bet was over. 

We have started to try to explain to him how a Kindle works. Signals from the wireless router over the internet all the way to Mommy's work.  It's the least I can do to try to make my job sound a little bit cooler to a 4 year old.

Minecraft

I used to think it was just an anomaly that Xander was into Minecraft.  He brought one of his toy Minecraft pick axes in for show and tell today.  As soon as he got there, one of the other kids in his class, Jordy, started talking about it.  He, and apparently, others in Xander's class knew all about it.  Xander and Jordy go into a debate about whether it was for digging holes (Xander) or killing animals (Jordy).  I like that my boy focuses on the more peaceful aspects of the game.  He likes to make things and be constructive, which is exactly what I like about the game, too.

Legos

Aria is enjoying her duplos these days.  She loves the little duplo people and likes to say "girl" and "boy".  She doesn't always come to the same conclusion on the gender of the dolls as I would.  Good for her to have a more open mind.