Brass Concert at SPCO & Harpo's Birthday

Yesterday (October 26, 2013) we attended a Target sponsored kid concert at the St Paul Chamber Orchestra. It was focused on the brass family. We went ahead of time for the activities that were taking place 45 minutes before the 30 minute concert.

Isaac is really into instruments and has been for a while, so I was excited to get these tickets and seeing him get to see instruments played live. In the activities he got to make a spoon puppet (a turtle and a rabbit to signify allegro and legro) he just made the turtle. He also got to color, read books, and make his own 'french horn' out of tubing and a plastic funnel. They had a bags game he played with for a bit:




And they also had instruments set up for children to touch, explore, and try to play. Isaac loved this. These pictures are taken from the second and third time back to this station. We didn't get photos the first time but he was pretty enthralled and even stuck his face in the horn it was so cute.




 

I don't have pictures inside the concert as no photography or recording was allowed.

When we came home we celebrated Harpo turning SEVEN! Had to get the ol' trusty hat out. Although my numbers stopped at 7, I made the rest of the numbers during Isaac's nap. So we should be good to go for a while.







Today (Sunday) we did some winterizing, raked and put some of the lawn stuff away. Here are some fun pictures of Isaac playing in the leaves.










And it also served as a little photo shoot for my friend Bonnie that made the hat:

ZooBoo at Como Zoo

Tonight we went to a fundraiser at Como Zoo called ZooBoo. It's a fright-free Halloween event. We wanted Isaac to be able to wear his costume other than just one night on Halloween to our neighbors house. We are so glad we went and had a lot of fun. He, of course, was the cutest owl EVER! And even cuter because people would say "You're a cute owl" then he would respond "Hoo! Hoo!" :-) Proud mama moment.

The zoo was basically closed as all the animals had gone inside for the evening except for a few cold weather friends. And the indoor exhibits were closed off. But we weren't really there for the zoo anyway. Funny though how you can attend the zoo to see the animals but then we paid to go to the zoo when the animals were all put away, lol.

He was cooperative with putting his costume on when we got out of the car. I was a little worried how that would go as getting pants on to leave the house has been a recent struggle. This boy loves to go pantless. But he saw other kids getting dressed at their cars so that was a help.

Not the happiest at first.


But we were able to get some smiles pretty quickly.


They had parts of the zoo gated off so we all had to follow a specific track.






And they had sponsors handing out goodies, some candy and some coloring books/flash cards. It was nice that it wasn't all candy. We weren't sure what to expect. And it was also nice that the first few were non-candy items as this helped start the hype of adding things to his bucket. So when we did hit the candy he didn't bother asking to eat it because he knew to add it to his bucket. Oh we even got a thing of yogurt and some carrots.


I tried to get him to stand by a few of the owls but he wasn't having it...




But after he saw some other kids standing by the snoopy he was all about that:




He liked giving the volunteers/costume wearers high fives.




He also enjoyed poking his head in the little cut outs.




We saw a few animals








then hit the police car as the finale. He loves police cars and was pretty excited to sit in the back. He just sat there for a few minutes while a couple of other girls climbed in and out a few times over him. Didn't seem to bother him at all.


Overall it was a great evening and fun to see him in his costume totting about.

Almost 23 months

I keep thinking to myself "I need to write some of these cute things down because he's gonna change so fast". Well that was probably a month ago and now I forgot what that was. So I will try and rack my brain for his latest and greatest.

Sunday we discovered he knows 11!! letters! A B O K M S D F Q R T  he either called them by name or sound. I had a shirt on and was changing him Monday and he pointed to the O and said "ooooo!" Too cute. And since writing this, he knows E, C, Z... and maybe a few others. Crazy how fast he picks up on things. 

He's not big into TV but does like the Choo Choo Bob show. He says "ChooChoo (sounds like a train).... Bob!"

Some of his translated words:

Goo gar= police car

Gar=car

Eeeh dat=what's that?

Bop=stop

Our gar=our car (ie: we can touch our car but not others)

Lellow=yellow

Is always singing "Trot old joe" 

From his Halloween books he mimics and says: 

Urg for monster

Boo for ghost

Ah ah ah for vampire

Eeeh heeheehee for witch 

Favorite color blue, second would be yellow. 

And a post isn't complete without pictures! Here he was 'hiding' behind the sheer curtain. It was so funny seeing his expression as we said "Where's Isaac? Where could he be"




Then he was saying "Boo!!"

Grandma's Visit (first weekend of October)

Sorry I'm a little late getting this posted. A couple weekends ago Grandma Judy came to visit. We had a great visit and it was so nice for my mom to see Isaac in this stage and how fun he is!

Friday, Grandma attended ECFE with us then we had lunch at the Midtown-Global Market. For dinner we finally made it to the Black Forest Inn, which is German. And what better time to go than Oktoberfest!


Isaac and his little cup of water (that ended up all over him shortly after this photo)


Saturday morning Isaac wanted to get his blocks out. It's so crazy how he remembers we used to do this. He enjoys smiling for the camera these days:
22 months!




Grandma and Isaac reading together. Isaac loves his books!






Saturday during the day we went to a vehicle fair put on my our city. It was in the parking lot of where we attend ECFE. Isaac had a blast!
 



Sitting in a garbage truck


and an excavator
















Unfortunately we had a lot of rain. We had hoped to go to a pumpkin patch on Sunday but it was pretty drizzly all day. We went to church and mom helped me out in the Waddler room (18-24 month olds) then did a little running around. Mom's last full day was Monday and finally it was getting nice out. We went to a local wild flower garden. Although this time a year there weren't many wild flowers blooming.












We went for a walk along the Stone Arch Bridge near St. Anthony Falls.






And then we had lunch outside along the river watching the work trucks on the other side.