Only Child Snowball Fight

Monkey is very content to be an only child but we discovered a notable exception over the past few days. The Zoo Keepers are just plain uninterested in playing in the snow for hours. They aren't that excited about snowball fights and they REALLY don't want to make snow angels. We like to think we came up with a workable compromise this afternoon: 

Monkey also got in a few hours of play time with our friendly neighbor Monkey, so don't feel too bad for him. 

The Man With The Bag

Our adjacent neighborhood held their playgroup Christmas party last night. Monkey had a fantastic time and whispered his requests to Santa quite earnestly. They were "Finn McMissile", "Rescuebots" and something unintelligible which could have been "Lego Darth Vader" or "Lego Table". 

Mr. and Mrs. Z would be overjoyed to get the new house for Christmas. It's in the works but is going to take some doing. Please add it to your Christmas lists if you have room. ;)

And this is only from today, folks...

Reading The Ox-Cart Man with Mr. Z: 
"Why does he make brooms?"
"To help support his family."
"Can I support you and mom?"
"If you want to."
"I want to.  What can I do?"
"You can go to school to learn things and maybe you could invent something."
"I invented the number 4."

While playing downstairs:
Mrs. Z: "Hey buddy, what are you doing?"
"I'm just playing."
"Playing with what?"
"A supermodel."
"A super bottle?"
"NO, a super MODEL. It's a tiny boat!"
Singing: "The ship of dreams, the ship of DREAMS!"

While coloring:
"Mom! Look! I'm coloring the Titanic!"
"Wow, buddy! What's all this?"
"It's all the things falling off the Titanic when it's sinking."
"What's that?"
"That's a guy jumping off the Titanic into a lifeboat. And there's a speed boat!"
"Great!"
Turns paper over
"This is half of the Titanic after it sank."
"What are these things?"
"Fish poop, fish poop, shark poop, shark poop, alligator poop, alligator poop."

Trick or Treat!

We had a very Happy Halloween and we hope you all did too! Green Lantern accompanied Iron Man to school for a super spooky party since Mrs. Z had to do her own school. (Boo.) Then we went trick or treating at our neighbors and with RHCR in Grandma and Grandpa T's subdivision. A good time was had by all. 

 

These kids. Such wackadoos. 

Boo!

Mrs. Z is on fall break this week (which translates to one day off for her schedule, but still) so we headed to our local children's museum for their annual haunted house 'lights on' hours. Iron Man was super excited to see the spooky stuff!

I was told in explicit detail: one circle on the chest, one circle on the hands, and two circles on the feet. (We spent about a week debating the shape on the chest: circle or triangle? Of course I had made the triangle patch before he decided it HAD to be a circle.)

He flies!

For real!

Inside the 'Witch's Workshop' - which owed a great debt of gratitude to Willy Wonka

We almost take a good picture of ourselves together!

No, wait. Spoke too soon. 

Portraiture

In his four years and four months on this planet, Monkey has drawn a face exactly one time prior to this morning. He exclusively drew machines, and preferably vehicles. The other day Grandma K asked him to decorate the pumpkin we brought her and he sat down drew a very correct Jack-o-lantern face on the pumpkin. We are both home sick today and in an effort to distract him I suggested he draw some people. Behold, a selection of Power Rangers for your enjoyment: 

Swimmingly

Things are going swimmingly, if rather quickly, around here. Mrs. Z is in her final year of nursing school, we're picking out a new kindergarten for Monkey next year and looking for a slightly bigger, more genteel zoo for all of us. So while we may not be posting much we are definitely keeping quite busy. We have, in fact, too many photos from the end of the summer, apple picking and even some pumpkin picking to post when we finally get to catch our breath.

In the meantime, Mrs. Z was finally able to upload some videos from her frequently broken phone (during class, of course), so here is a huge milestone from Monkey's summer: