Columbia

Within two weeks of starting school, the kids already had a mini-vacation, so the boys and I decided to band together with some friends and take a quick trip to Columbia.  I'm still amazed that they zipped through the zoo in under an hour (a world record?!?!) on Thursday afternoon and that they had so much fun at EdVenture on Friday that they could have stayed for 10 hours. Sandwiching an overnight stay in adjoining rooms with good friends just made it even better.


My favorite picture from the day was taken by my mom.  Can you believe the size of "Josh"?  The older kids (all but Griffin - he was a little scared of it all) LOVED climbing, sliding, and exploring inside of him (his heart, brain, digestive systems, etc...)


You can check out Trish's blog for more great pictures of the trip. Her pictures turned out much better than mine.  :)


I made a little video so the kids could remember their fun adventure in Columbia. **Guest starring Gram/my mom**

Untitled from Brooke Brown on Vimeo.

Publish Post

Franklin

Noah's T-K class shares "Franklin".  Each child has a chance to bring Franklin home for the week and the kids record their fun with him in a "Franklin book" that is also shared.  Noah loved having him here -- though we often forgot to take him out and about with us.  Ultimately we decided to just document how Franklin spent his time just "hanging out at home". 

Franklin LOVED the playset. 






And Franklin loved Noah's BFF, Jack.



Franklin heads to someone else's house today.  It was fun!  :)

Sweetness

Noah, Griffin and I had lunch with Miles at school on Wednesday.   It was our first time this year, since Miles' lunchtime is 12:50pm -- which is the exact same time I'm supposed to pick up Noah from T-K.  To make it work, I let Noah play hookie from school.  He and Griffin had so much fun playing in the playroom all morning until it was time to go.  They were obviously still feeling the love as we walked back to the car after lunch.  I'd completely forgotten about taking a picture of Miles and his friend Reid (who joined us) while we had lunch so I spent 3 minutes and snapped a few pictures of the little boys instead. 

I ♥ Faces: Smirk!

While running around in the mid-day sun (hence the blown-out background), my sweet godson stopped in his tracks and gave me & my camera this endearing little look.  Love the smirk.  LOVE him.    



Check out I ♥ Faces to see more cute smirks! www.iheartfaces.com.

Miles

Today was a huge day for Miles! 
1- He did great on his spelling test (no small feat....second grade words are tough, and Miles is already clearly a "math guy")
2- He was one of three boys in his class to go "shopping" today.  All three were out sick on Friday when the rest of the class went, so today was their day.  Periodically (couple times a month?) the students shop with tickets that are earned by good behavior (and taken away for poor behavior).  Miles had the most tickets of the three kids, so he got to shop first.  He was still on a high from this fact when he got home.  :)  He picked a 3-D dinosaur model that took us about an hour to put together.  Its currently resting right next to him on his nightstand. 
3- Miles started an after school soccer program today.  Its one hour a week and when I picked him up today he was soaked and HAPPY!  My self-professed "sports hater" had fun and learned a few things in the process (not that he told me either of those things happened....but a mother can deduce, right?)  He was in the BEST mood all afternoon/evening and didn't once mention anything about "not going back".  Wahoo!  

Gram

When Gram comes to town, the boys line up their lovies for some TLC.  I've assured them that I can operate a needle and thread.  They've assured me that Gram does it better.   I can hardly blame them.  Gram does really do it better.  :)
 

Uptown (Mary Poppins)

Miles, Noah and I went to see Mary Poppins today Uptown.  It was an incredible performance.  Loved all the music, loved seeing Mary Poppins fly through the theatre, loved sharing it all with the boys.  They did great for such a long performance (the 1st half in itself was almost 90 minutes!).  Looking forward to many more musical theatre outings (hopefully they are too :).

After the event we walked around Uptown, had dinner at Brixx (Mike and Griffin drove in to meet us), then I took the boys part of the way home on the lighrail and Mike drove to pick us up.

When we left the Belk theatre, an impromptu band starting playing some Jackson 5 music.
 

(check out the little guy on the end! he was not a day older than five.)

We walked around and tried to get a snack at Reid's grocery store. It was gone! We snapped some pics in front of their empty store windows instead.




The boys worked out their energy and just ran up and down the sidewalk.


Miles wasn't really in a picture mood.  I teased him that he was more in a "high five" mood since he kept putting his hand in front of the camera.




Noah was feeling smiley (I know - too many of these -- but I have about 20, so I am paring them down.)





I wish Charlotte had some abandoned train tracks that we could photograph. Do we?

The kids were ridiculously excited to ride the light rail. They practically slept with their tickets tonight.



Check out Miles' face. Who knows what freaked him out (I really didn't want to call attention to whatever he was wary of, so I didn't look over.)

At every stop they would say, "is this our stop?!"...."this isn't out stop!"....Noah asked if next time we could take the train on a "long trip." Love that their childhood includes access to a lightrail on a normal Sunday afternoon (though hard to imagine ever feeling comfortable letting them ride it alone when they are older!)

Soccer

Noah and Griffin started a soccer clinic for 3-5 year olds at the Y on Saturday. The 3 and 5 year olds are technically in different groups, but since I was there solo (Mike was doing a triathlon) Griffin rolled with the (mostly) 5 year olds so we could all be together.  (I forgot my camera at home, so thanks, Kate for loaning me yours so I could get a few pic!!)


Things started out touch and go, but the session ended great.
1) The coach started the group out with some stretching exercises. During this time, Miles, Noah and Griffin were all attached to me like velcro. Zero stretching from the Brown boys.
2) The coach encouraged the kids to play a red light-green light game (yellow, slow dribbling; green, fast dribbling; red, stop). Somehow, Noah got up the courage to play and when the coach transitioned from green light to red light Noah didn't stop right away (he was too busy laughing and kicking). The coach said, "hey, buddy! stop!" Poor Noah was so embarrassed that he burst into tears.
3) Noah begged to stop. He said he didn't like playing and was all done. This mama was determined for him to see it threw and told him to "be brave" and assured him that we weren't going anywhere. He got back into the clinic (at this point it was a new game) and enjoyed the rest of hour. Griffin followed his big brother and warmed up to it too.

They played a super hero game where the kids would dribble until they heard "super man!" at which point they would turn around with their ball and dribble in the other direction.

The kids also practiced trapping and kicking with their parents. Their favorite game was where they were asked to dribble and "score points" by kicking the ball against their coaches feet. Huge hit.

Here they are waiting in line to take shots on goal. Their coach taught they to "dribble - little kicks and shoot - BIG kick." Seriously, so cute.


Miles starts an after school soccer clinic tomorrow, taught by a professional soccer player (from the Charlotte Eagles). I'll have to try to sneak over to his school one Monday with a super zoom lens on my camera. :)