Kristin's 40th!

Kristin's 40th Birthday Party! Vicki got this amazing cake:

We had a huge blast. Kristin loved it - about 25 of her friends and family showed up. We danced, ate candy, laughed a lot. Here's the fam:

 We celebrated the next day too at a Thai restaurant:

 And I got to see some of Kristin's friends at work:

 

The Chocolate Fountain for Traditions Day at School

For Traditions Day at school, the kids were asked to speak about a family tradition and bring in some traditional food. Leo brought in a chocolate fountain. And he spoke about Burning Man and the Zander Lander. I don't think any parent had any idea what he was talking about!



If you can't see the video, go to:

http://youtu.be/43YplEC_68I

I'm not sure why, but it was also mustache day so all the kids came into school with mustaches:

Party in a Box

Leo started a new line of cards:

Art

Some cool art in Lisbon. It was a free museum of some rich guy's collection. The museum went on forever. It was definitely more fun than the castles and monasteries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ljPIRuPMmE&sns=em

Leo as a roly poly for Halloween

Leo dressed up as a roly poly (pillbug) for Halloween this year. Paul and Leo spent months on this costume, dissecting real pillbugs to figure out how they worked.




If you can't see this, go to http://youtu.be/-T2ETFOi5c8

Oops! The videos should work now!

Sorry about the settings on the youtube videos from yesterday. It should all work now if you want to try again!

Sushi Chef Leo

Leo in his new happy coat making a happy meal.

This is O-nigiri, a type of sushi. I have O-nigiri every day for breakfast in Japan. I buy them from the 7-11, where they come in the refrigerated section and are wrapped with layers of plastic that keep the seaweed fresh. They come in all kinds of flavors: raw tuna, eel, plum, caviar, etc. Turns out Leo loves this stuff too!



If you can't see this, go to http://youtu.be/mJfCm8UdXK4

Stick Bomb!

I got lucky and finally found the stick bomb toy on my trip to Tokyo.

If you can't see this, go to
http://youtu.be/2UB1omYwFVk

Tokyo

Arrived in Japan about 4pm to figure out the long commute into Tokyo from the airport. We had big luggage so we took the bus which is more direct but got stuck in Sunday traffic. Got to hotel about 7 pm. Then it took over an hour to meet co-worker's cousin at subway station next to hotel because it was so confusing. We then met cousin and took two different subway lines (which means getting out and walkin to different stop and paying again). Got lost trying to find sushi place and finally arrived for dinner at 9pm. Ate some really expensive sushi (cheap for Japanese standards) and made it home around 11pm way exhausted.

I wanted time to myself so I left the group to find Studio Ghibli which unfortunately is very popular and has restricted visitation plus is far from center of Tokyo. So I went to the Mori Museum. Did the Tokyo City view tower and spent morning viewing contemporary Arab art! Very cool and disturbing stuff.

Then an hour wandering around trying to find tempura soba to satisfy craving. I can't remember my Japanese alphabet well so it takes a LONG time to try to read menus and am in the foreigners area so here's a lot of pizza and no soba! Plus some restaurants have ticket machines or eve computers where you order and it was too intimidatin for me.

Settled for tuna rice bowl. Like poke bowl. It comes with teapot of soup stock. Not sure why but it is yummiest soup stock ever. Nothing like MSG to brighten a soup!

Can't get data plan working on phone or ipad but I try to find wifi when I can. Hope all is well back at home!

Finally getting around to reading!

As you know, I've been frustrated with Leo's pace of learning to read. We made a big breakthrough this week! I bought a couple Dav Pilkey books at the community garage sale last week, mostly because the guys at the table looked so sad, like they hadn't sold anything all morning. Dav Pilkey is famous for his Captain Underpants comic series of books. We love Captain Underpants but Leo can't read it easily - "As the two boys discussed the similarities between elementary school and forced confinement in a harsh, authoritarian penal institue..." Someone must have told Dav that kids who like underwear humor can't read his books, because he created another series called Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot. It's a 'chapter' book in that each book has a dozen chapters, which makes a kid feel smart. But there are pictures on each page, only a few sentences on each page, and it's way easy to read. So we've finally got Leo reading books all by himself. I'm so excited. Next step is to get him to read silently...

Homemade Gold Claw Lego Bionicle Kit

Leo spent a week making this Lego Bionicle Kit. He calls it Gold Claw!

If you can't see this, go to:
http://youtu.be/eO2jGkAN3mc

Garage Sale

There was a community garage sale at the rec center yesterday, run by kids. Leo put together a nice display of toys with his box of 'free stuff with purchase' and halfway through, his "running out of business 50% off" sign. Here he is in front of his storefront with Samantha, whose store was the next table over. The kids did great with the math and customer service. They made a bunch of money too which Leo is very excited about.

Since there were about 20 families there, it meant we brought home nearly as much volume as we sold. Leo bought this fancy roboraptor real cheap because the remote was not working. We fixed the remote and it's a fantastic toy. Here it is operating in autonomous play mode, reacting to a dancing stuffed animal:

If you can't see this, you can go to http://youtu.be/qYi1WYxQMXA

Tomato Hornworm

Leo found a giant green tomato hornworm in the garden. Rather than let me kill it, he decided it should be a pet. So we cut off tomato branches regularly to feed it:

And after a few days, it stopped eating and started turning more brownish. Last evening, it shed its skin (you can see the big brown plop to the left of the chrysalis and you can see feet on that skin!) and made a chrysalis. Technically, I thought it ought to be a cocoon since it will grown into a hawkmoth, but sure looks like a chrysalis to me. This morning the chrysalis was all brown.

Vicki says it will take a long time to emerge. Until it does, this is our new kitchen table companion!

Leo the pirate

We went to the neighbor's pirate-themed birthday party and our neighbor's tenant (who is a professional face painter) did this great skeleton face for Leo. She forgot the crossbones, but that would have been too scary for the two-year-olds

Leo's Puppet Show

Leo has started doing elaborate puppet shows. Terry got an excellent video of one:




You can view it at
http://youtu.be/MjMDCNihckE

The Bone Napper!

Leo's rendition of the Bone Napper:



If you can't see it, go to
http://youtu.be/bMtceQsJSpk

Leo and Isa's dinner date

Leo and Isa can't have a playdate without turning it into a dinner date, a sleepover, and eventually a 24 hour playdate. Their dinner date ended up being a fancy event at Sushi Den. They dressed up in their fanciest wear and turned heads at the restaurant.

The Spot Party

Photos from Leo and Oliver's joint birthday party at the Spot Bouldering Gym:

Family in DC

We all met up in DC for seafood!

Throwing hatchets at dad

A child's dream - throwing hatchets at your dad while he's spinning on a giant roulette wheel



If you can't see this, go to
http://youtu.be/gs9QED_E768

Apogaea

We went to the Apogaea festival in Colorado. Art, games, weddings, trampolines!

This was the temple. They did not burn it because of the fire danger in Colorado right now.

The family on the Zander Lander which was a big hit, as always:

Leo learned to get himself into an overhanging hoop:

Leo on the trampoline:

Crazy child:

The cat in the hat:

The trampoline was a big highlight. We gotta get one of these:

For me too:

Black and White Umbrella Tricks!

Leo shows us his Black and White Umbrella Tricks! He's a pearl!



If you can't see this, go to
http://youtu.be/EGPjxAttXD4

And then for trick #2:



If you can't see this go to
http://youtu.be/_GJq_LvnomE

Leo and Isa Skating

Leo and Isa go skating every Saturday. They've gotten really good. Here they are doing the limbo, the partner limbo, the skate squat.



If you can't see this go to
http://youtu.be/xz7FEBS5gKY

Poetry

Leo wrote some poetry this morning and illustrated here.

If you can't see this, go to http://youtu.be/65YM593PXUU

Pear

Leo made this pastel picture of a pear in an art class. It blew us away. As you know, he is color blind, but here you can hardly tell. Anyway, the school lost it so we are bummed. Have to buy him some art supplies and have him work on more canvases for us!

Leo's new do!

Leo was getting 'helmut head', so we went to the hairdresser. We had to wait a while so we looked at the "women's hairstyle" book which was pretty frightening and then the men's hairstyle" book which is a lot less frightening. Leo picked out a bunch of hairstyles that he liked. They were all short with lots of hair goop. So we asked the hairdresser if she could do it and lo and behold, we've got a punky looking kid on our hands. He even got some 'hair glue' to keep it punky looking.

Leo's soccer award

Leo got an award from his Angry Birds team for his ability to play any position. you can view it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENW2A1bdKic&sns=em

More science experiements

Leo's teacher just amazes me. This is their science experiment on plants:



Go to http://youtu.be/q_mRLZxGaqU if you can't see this.

Angry Birds Soccer Team

The Angry Birds Soccer Team with Coach Phil and Coach Loren.

Birthday party at the rock climbing gym

Kids these days have the most amazing birthdays. Charlotte's birthday party was at the rock climbing gym. Kids got to boulder (climb sideways along a wall, short distance from ground), climb up some 20-25 feet onto giant rock formations, climb with a rope and harness, and try the slack line (tightrope). It was amazingly fun and all the kids had a great time. The birthday cake was pretty amazing too, a cake with a fondant covered rice krispie treat that was angled up as a giant flatiron (the flat rocks here in Boulder) with a climber dressed just like Charlotte on it. I don't know what the kids are going to say when Leo turns 7 and we have a party in our dandelion infested backyard with a few lawn chairs and a rope swing!

Leo is pretty safe and cautious, so he was heading up and down a lot of these rocks pretty slow (me, too, since we were roped in), and the middle clip of him climbing the giant rock formation without a rope was pretty scary for me, but he did great. I'm hoping to get him out rock climbing this summer. His good friends climb so we'll have company.

If you can't see this, go to:

http://youtu.be/imjb8N97vKE

Last day of black Trek lessons

Today was Leo's last day of ski lessons. He had an awesome second session, as there were only two kids in the black class. Conditions were slushy and it felt like summer and we were pretty baked. My thighs were pretty dead from leaning back on my skis so I could do the 'water skiing' that you have to do to get through the slush.

They skied every run that was open. Leo was falling asleep in the chair lift so they ended early. But he had a bug up his butt about skiing 20 runs today so he made me stay and do another 4 runs with him. This included two runs on Challenge which was a really nice mogul run today, soft and doable. Usually, it's hard and icy and not fun.

Anyway, here's the video clips.

If you can't see this, go to http://youtu.be/O_009FIzv8c

Teacher was really proud, said these were the two best kids of their age that he's taught. I was really proud, because I have a new ski buddy! He loves trees and bumps - what more could I ask for?

Leo the gladiator

We're all into gladiators these days. Leo's fighting and I'm renting Russell Crowe movies.

Red fish blue fish

Leo hadn't been reading much lately so I insisted he read something before playing video games. He picked up "Red Fish, Blue Fish" and read the whole book! I didn't realize how long it was - 63 pages, but he managed to persevere (another thing I'm worried about with him is perseverance) and make his way through. I'm really happy he's finally starting to break through on reading. He's been using raz-kids.org and their approach of reading books to earn points to buy space monsters has worked wonders for him.

Science Experiments

Leo had to demonstrate a science experiment today in school. He used his fave book The Encyclopedia of Immaturity (thanks, Rebecca!) to select air cannons. He made a couple different sized cannons and we have been having fun with them for the past few weeks. Then we got a smoke machine and discovered the great smoke rings you can make:

If you can't see this go to

http://youtu.be/1UmMCxHlWHE

It was a huge hit. Best part was that we did not trigger the smoke alarms!

NJ trip

Here are some pictures from our trip to NJ. Leo and Porpor had a great time.

Leo and Joylin made a magic show. I'll have to edit the clips to make a move of it. They are quite good.

I think Kristin won a prize in the magic show:

We went to the Franklin Institute with Jeff. They had this cool experiment where you can bike on a rope.