Visitors from Outer Space!

or you know, Canada, which isn't the same at all. But! We had real, live Canadians in our home this weekend! So since there was no American football on... or hockey... or basketball, we were forced to amuse them with...

Food.




Gardens.






Geocaching (which is not mutually exclusive from gardens).


And our awesome toy collection. Ahem.


In return, the Canadians made us sing, go for walks and answer ridiculous hypothetical and philosophical questions.

Zoo... again

Wow, a quick search of our blog reveals that we go to the zoo quite a lot. How unusual for a family with 2 toddlers!

Our latest zoo folleys:


Jeneric cajoling a friend into touching the goat.



Before finally touching the goat herself.



Hijinks on the bench.



Hop, hop.



And ending with a great picnic lunch.

Glueing Glitter

Maybe this project was more suitable for a 4 or 5 year old, but both Jeneric and Toddler Wily thought their friend's idea for an art project was fantastic!

The camera wasn't fast enough to catch Toddler Wily's hand:


Not everything made it onto the paper:


And here is who we have to thank for the art materials:


Any bets on how many months until all the glitter in the carpet is gone?

RIF

Reading is Fundamental! Does anyone else remember that ad campaign? It was out around the same time as Woodsy Owl (Never be a dirty bird!). But I digress. Jeneric and Toddler Wily are enormous reading fans. In the past few days, Jeneric has taken to reading to Toddler Wily.





And every so often, the girls convince someone else to read them a story... or four.

Going north of the border

We visited the Ninja family over the weekend, where we were treated to all manners of America's Test kitchen recipes, several games of Little Insurgence (which we failed to win), Wii Resorts, Super Mario Brothers, tricycle riding, lizard puppeteer-ing, Bruce Lee documentaries, Counting-to-the-number-four and various toddler-induced shenanigans.


Let's color on the paper, not on the hardwood floor. Or each other.


We introduced Ninja boy to large-scale peek-a-boo.


Toddler Wily really wants a turn on the trike. A few moments later she elbowed Jeneric aside.


When lizards attack, best to bring in both the fire department and giant butterflies.

Let it snow

We had a dusting of snow last week and made the most of it with our friends.

I share, you share

Toddler Wily is sort of, kind of, not really getting the hang of sharing. At a recent play-date, Toddler Wily played side-by-side with S., although at times she questioned his shape-matching abilities.

Bouncing Around

Toddler Jeneric was clued into a fun place to play by a friend last month and has been working hard to spread the word. She's taken a new group of people each of the last two weeks, getting more and more daring each time. The biggest challenge is an 8' climbing wall to get to the last slide on an obstacle course, which she scaled without assistance after the 3rd try.






(I've already climbed a few feet up the wall in order to spot TJ!)

This week brought Baby Niemi and her family to Wily Jeneric's house, as they made the trek from NC to MN.

Baby Wily welcomed Avalon and the two quickly got the party started.


Toddler Jeneric led an excursion to a local children's garden.
Back at the ranch, Avalon helped Toddler Jeneric with ski jumping (on the Wii) and then danced the night away with Baby Wily. And despite her best efforts, Avalon was unsuccessful in teaching Baby Wily to sit down (though she did leave her with a few new dance moves).

On an unrelated note: Baby Wily is now sporting two shiny new teeth. Chomp, chomp!

Right hand yellow

No, your right hand. Right! Yellow! No, not blue. Yellow!



Toddler Jeneric and Eric had a play date on Saturday while Jenni worked. Toddler Jeneric and her guest busted a move with Twister.


Then capped off the morning with a little Bob the Builder video-game action.