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Battle Droids and Force Fields

October 2, 2013 by Mom on the Make Leave a Comment

As you all know, I love recording some of the very random questions that my five year old son asks throughout the day.

For those of you that don’t know, here’s an example…….

When we were driving back from our trip to Point Reyes a few weeks ago, we were enjoying amazing views of the farmlands in the Point Reyes National Seashore area. The car was quiet, and we were all lost in our own thoughts.

Out of the blue……

Bam-Bam asks, “Dad, do all battle droids have force fields?”

Pretty. Darn. Adorable.

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: family activities

Legos are the Bomb!

February 12, 2013 by Mom on the Make Leave a Comment

Bam Bam loves his legos.  He has a corner in our living room dedicated to lego building.

Our hope chest that used to serve as a nifty window seat, is now Lego central.

Its the perfect height for his building activities.  There are usually either space stations that he built adorning our hope chest or cars with lego people driving around.

Today, I was treated to a long period of time in the kitchen without interruption, so I could focus on making dinner.

I would peek in on Bam Bam and see him busily building something.

At last, he runs into the kitchen saying , “Mommy, Mommy, look what I built”.  At that point, I was going to say, “What an incredible Empire State Building”.  But, right after I said incredible, Bam Bam said “Rocket ship taking off for the moon!!”  So, I immediately changed my words in my head to say “incredible rocket ship”.  🙂

I had to snap a photo of this one.  This is one of the taller of his lego projects.

I’ve mentioned my love for legos before, and I still think they are the coolest toys going.

I also love our storage method – a fisherman’s tackle box.  Lots of compartments and easy to open and close.  Highly recommend.

Here’s the Empire State Building, er, Rocket Ship to the Moon!!

lego building

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: family activities

Reviving my Poor Little Blog

February 2, 2013 by Mom on the Make 1 Comment

I have been off the blogging map for 10 days.  It feels like an eternity.  It has been a crazy couple of weeks, and blogging fell by the wayside.

Well, I’m back now and intent on posting again at least five times a week.

We watched Bam Bam play indoor soccer this morning with his 5 year old friends.  This sport is way too cute.  There’s basically no rules.

Just run and kick the ball, hopefully to the appropriate goal.

Today, I think there were only two goals scored in the wrong goal post.  🙂  As a spectator, you’re never quite sure what to do when someone on your team scores a goal for the other team.

On the one hand, the five year old who scored said goal is so excited to have kicked the ball in the goal, but on the other hand, we should probably let him know that he actually scored for the other team.  Its a little tricky.  We usually wind up clapping and smiling.

In this indoor soccer league, you can kick behind the goal, there are no out of bounds lines, kids are falling all over the place, and a random parent volunteers to be the referee at the beginning of the game.  So, this is super serious stuff. In fact, the referee today, for part of the game, was carrying her two year old on her hip as she was blowing the referee whistle.

Tonight, we are thinking of going out to a burmese restaurant.

I love family time on Saturdays.

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: family activities

California State Railroad Museum

January 16, 2013 by Mom on the Make Leave a Comment

This past weekend, we were lucky enough to take the family up north to Sacramento to visit the California State Railroad Museum.

This place is really quite amazing with original, real life trains bestowing the museum’s floors.  There is one train there that gives you the feeling that the train is moving as you’re walking through it with lighting changes and train whistle sounds.

We decided to take Amtrak up to the train museum as the station in Sacramento is easily walkable to the museum.  The train is so darn fun with little ones.  Its also something a lot of us do not consider nowadays, but if you have a young family, it really is a great way to travel.

For Christmas, I finally broke down and bought myself a DSLR camera.  I was tired of seeing lots of parents taking action shots with the greatest of ease at sporting events.  The pictures are just so much crisper.  So, I finally broke down and purchased a DSLR, the Canon Rebel T4i, to be exact.

I’ve been tipping my toes into the world of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed in this past week, and decided to dive right in and try out the DSLR with the trains and pictures of Old Sacramento.  I really think just adjusting the settings after you take each picture is the best way to learn what your settings should be in different lighting situations.

This was our train coming to the station.  The train was probably going 60 miles per hour when I took the photo, but  with fast shutter speeds, freezing a moving object becomes so easy, as you can see.

Amtrak Train

Below are some photos of the incredible trains we saw at the museum:

2013-01-12 11.24.52 2013-01-12 11.23.49 2013-01-12 11.36.35 2013-01-12 11.45.44 Trains at California State Railroad Museum 2013-01-12 12.02.22

Trains used to have badges on their cabooses like these…..

2013-01-12 12.08.17 train badges

There also used to be a different china place setting used depending on the destination…..

2013-01-12 11.38.01

The American River runs along Old Sacramento.  Caught a few shots of boats on the river…..

2013-01-12 14.49.16 boats on the american river Love these boats.  They reminded me of the Mark Twain boat at Disneyland.  🙂

dixieland boat on american river

Beautiful golden bridge crossing the American River……

golden bridge on american river

Pretty flowers we encountered on our walk along the river……2013-01-12 15.08.01 flower photos

Love this photo of Bam Bam throwing up leaves……..made possible by my DSLR.  🙂

throwing up leaves

Check out a train museum near you soon with the kiddos.  Lots of interesting stuff to learn and the kids have a ball!

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: family activities

What’s for Dinner Tonight?

January 7, 2013 by Mom on the Make 4 Comments

Today was the first day back to school for the kiddos.

For some reason, this Christmas break seemed longer than others.  We stayed home for the most part with a few local getaways thrown in, so that might have contributed to it, or maybe because Christmas day was at the beginning of the break , or maybe because having the position of Director of Entertainment for my three little ones every day, all day, is a bit daunting after 14 days.  Whatever it was, it seemed long.

So, this morning, the school morning rush began once again.

We started by not being able to locate Bam Bam’s Darth Vader lunch box for at least 15 minutes.

Until we realized, we had never removed it from his backpack TWO weeks ago when Christmas break started.  Oops.

At least, there was not any chicken or mayonnaise left in the box.  Only one z bar wrapper.  Phew.

Then I had to remember which of my three have hot lunch at our school on Mondays.  Only one of them. So that meant, I needed to whip up two lunches and one snack.

Anyway, we finally pulled ourselves together and arrived early to school.

Wow, the house was quiet.  So nice to hit the blog with sheer quiet.  I was supposed to go do a three mile walk, but the force  of my peaceful home would not let me put my sneakers on to brave the cold walking path.

I decided that I deserved to be in my quiet home today. 🙂

During my quiet time, I realized that I needed to get back into my meal planning routine for the week.  The planning kind of  (ok, completely) fell to the wayside in these past two weeks.

So, I decided to go with one of my favorites.  Easy peasy, healthy, warm, and the whole family loves it…….recipe is here…..

White Chicken Chili

It is on the stove now, and it smells so yummy.  Both of my girls have basketball practice tonight, so this is perfect, as it just sits warming on the stove as people come in and out of the house.

white bean chicken chili

Scoop of deliciousness!

 

Filed Under: Dinner, Recipes Tagged With: chicken, chili, family activities, recipes, white beans

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