Day 2

Felix was found in the bathroom this morning.

It looks like he brought some snow back from the North Pole and used it to give us a little reminder for the morning.

Felix the Elf

 Santa's helper has come once again this year to help remind us to be nice..

This year he brought a tiny countdown chain so we would know how long he would be visiting.

We also started our advent countdowns.

This year we added a new one - Lego City!

He's my brother

The last few weeks, Peter and Eli have started playing really well together - which is huge since their personalities are so completely opposite.  Peter is very methodical and likes to take his time with things to do them right whereas Eli is just a huge bundle of energy and must be climbing and running and jumping all the time - he has no time for things like Legos unless someone else builds them for him and he can just zoom them around.  Lately, however, they seem to have found a middle ground where they can play more harmoniously and it is glorious to see.

Clearance

They were on sale for only $10 each, so we stocked up!

(This is how you spend an hour in Brenham when your tire blows out on a Sunday evening on your way back from Houston.)

Battleship Texas

 After spending Thanksgiving at Grandma and Papa's in Houston, we stayed over until Friday to play some more and decided to take a drive down to La Porte to see the San Jacinto Monument and Battleship Texas.

We mostly just drove by the monument and read the history engraved at the bottom, but we ended up spending almost 4 hours exploring the Battleship! (with only a brief stop at lunchtime to revive blood sugar levels)  They've restored a lot more of it for touring than was open back when I remember going to see it as a 3rd or 4th grader.

We practiced shooting down enemy planes...

I actually think I need one of these to do something in my house - it would be a great way to teach cooperation and collaboration since one gunner raises and lowers the barrel and the other rotates the gun back and forth.  I'm sure there could be some home application, couldn't there?

And we swabbed the deck.

This was actually much more effective after it started raining.

Too bad I can't get them this excited about mopping at home!

 The next time we redo the boys room, we are totally doing this!

It would be even cooler if we could set it up on a pulley system so we fold it up against the wall or ceiling when they're not sleeping and have a lot more room to play.

It was a good day of cool exploring and boat watching in the Ship Channel.

Thanks Grandpa!