The Camden Aquarium

Some kind-of-nice, but very strange people (HI SARA!) invited us to go with them to the Camden aquarium last week. They have an amazing season pass that allows for guests and we were happy to that we got to go with them and, bonus, for free! It was the best aquarium I've ever been to!

Views of the Delaware River and Philadelphia from outside the Aquarium




Walking through the shark tunnel

HIPPOS! Up close and personal! One of the best parts!

There were many touch tanks...here, touch a star :)

Why can't he smile normal?!

Stingray touch tank. Too bad no one wanted to touch them!

Penguins and more abnormal smiles :S

Lots of great viewing areas.

There were so many more things I didn't take pics of because I was too interested in what I was seeing. It was a great outing!

Schmoo drew this pic at school and said that he wants to be a fireman when he grows up. The teacher asked him why he didn't include a firetruck or ladder or hose.

Schmoo replied, "I'm on my lunch break."

His teacher tells us he has great potential in a union :)



In other news, the other day I asked him what he learned about Abraham Lincoln. He INSISTED that the teacher had discoursed on Jon Stewart and not President Lincoln. I asked him a bunch of questions and he reported lots of Lincoln facts but said that it was really Jon Stewart. I pulled the following picture out of his backpack and he said, "Yep, there's good ol Jon Stewart." We have no idea where this kid gets this stuff.

People are dying to get in there!

I was driving Schmoo and his friend home from pre-k today for a play date. We passed a cemetery and "A" declared, "Ooooh there's a graveyard!"

I kinda held my breath because Schmoo has never asked about them and I was wondering what A would say.

A: There's a graveyard! There are lots of dead bodies in there.

Schmoo: Yeah, like Abraham Lincoln.

A: Yeah, and George Washington.

(I'm guessing "Dead Presidents" must be the theme of the week at school :)

A Smart Man

We were playing wii tonight all together and Schmoo really surprised me with his ability at one part in the game.

I exclaimed, "Wow! How did you know to do that right there?"

Without missing a beat (and in a used car salesman voice) Schmoo declared, "A smart man knows what he's gonna do."

Honey and I just died laughing and Schmoo shrugged it off as if everything he says (see previous post!) is full of wisdom.

So here's what the schmoo had to say yesterday:

***Honey asks, "Do you know what fast Sunday is?"

Schmoo: It's where you don't eat anything except children.

(We were laughing for a long time. He was trying to say that adults don't eat anything. Kids can eat.)

*** He saw the lovely flowers I got from primary and says, "That's a beautiful bouquet."

*** We were leaving church and he looked me up and down and says, "Mommy your chest looks like two peanuts in a peanut shell." How do you respond to that? I didn't want to laugh! I did let him know that as a general rule, we don't talk about people's chests. Especially at church.

So here's how the week of Christmas went down...

On the Sunday before Christmas, Schmoo woke up, said he didn't want breakfast and then asked to go back to bed. Um, EMERGENCY! That has never not once happened. I sent Honey to church (and made him take care of all our obligations) and Schmoo started to vomit an hour later. Poor guy, he's never had a fever that high before, either. He got up over 104 and we were so worried! He missed a few days of school but was able to go back for the last couple of fun days before Christmas. (yeah, they went to school here until December 23rd!!!! That's nuts!)


We were glad that Schmoo got sick before the holiday this year as he has been sick the last 2 Christmases.

We used our Storybook Land season passes one last time to go see Santa and ride the rides bundled up in all our winter finery. They really deck the halls at Storybook land. Kinda reminds me of how they do Temple Square in SLC :)











We made our Gingerbread house


For Christmas eve, we were invited over to our good friends' home. We had a lovely dinner, and a great family night talking about the Savior's birth. Then we watched Mr. Krueger's Christmas and were surprised by their generous Christmas gifts to Schmoo and us. It was such a great night and we all went home content in so many ways.

We made cookies for Santa and left carrots for the reindeer



Santa left a note and presents for Schmoo! (The big purple box was for me :) Finally got the bedding set I always wanted!) On Christmas morning, Schmoo came tearing into our room at the very conservative hour of 7am to tell us that Santa had left him presents and a letter!

Aftermath of stocking


We were sad that we were going to be at home with no family around for Christmas, but we ended up having such a great day! We had a happy morning opening presents and having breakfast. We played all day, made a delicious Christmas dinner and then played all evening. It was just perfect! Late Christmas night we realized a blizzard was heading in and we hunkered down! Most of Church was canceled the next day and we spent it as a family doing a repeat of Christmas day: play, eat, play, eat, play! There was a 'state of emergency' here and Honey's work was actually canceled bc of the road conditions that Monday. It was a wonderful 3 days of Christmas!






Our fun family present is this little cotton candy maker that makes cotton candy out of any flavor of hard candy. We've had fun with this! In my opinion, Werther's cotton candy is the best! (Butterscotch and tropical lifesavers also AWESOME!)


Sad, but true, Christmas ended and two days later Schmoo was sick again. This time with the dreaded cough and all of its complications, but at least it wasn't on Christmas, right?

I need to blog more frequently! The grandparents are suffering! On to the good stuff...here are the things that Schmoo has said/done recently...

*Just found a bunch of pine needles under our Christmas tree. Would be normal except we have an artificial tree. As I sat there wondering why the needles fell off, Schmoo says, "Mommy, I *trimmed* the Christmas tree! Isn't it beautiful?" I just couldn't be mad. But we had to talk about what trimming means. And Homonyms.

* The cable 'Guide' function is not working and Schmoo just asked, "Is 'to be announced' a good show for kids?

* Mommy, I love you longer than the pickles.


He's been singing a lot. His favorites right now are the Kid's Bop version of "I gotta feeling" and Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You". Sooo funny to watch!


Lots of play dates after pre-K.


We had "Buddy Bear" visit us from Pre-K. Each kid takes him home for a week and you have to take him everywhere you go and take pictures to put in his journal.




We have a real-live friend in our building! They are so nice and invited us upstairs to decorate cookies :) This is some very SERIOUS cookie decorating!




Finally a real smile! I think it took 37 tries to get this picture!


And this one!

James got a video from SANTA!!!!! Here he is watching it on the computer. I love the look on his face in the second picture :)



You can (and should!) watch James' video from Santa using this link:

http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/WjMXNlS2jqwL3wJseZAy-g


We made the cutest Rudolph cookies for the Ward party. So easy, fun and yummy!