Buddy

I put Buddy in charge of loading the dishwasher the other night.
It's a little messy.  And one cup is on its side.

Buddy and Little Guy playing their version of Risk.

Buddy made this bridge for Lego vehicles out of Duplo blocks and Little Golden Books.

Lego Creations

A couple weeks ago we brought all the Legos down from the boys' bedroom, documented their creations (see below) and spent some time each day rebuilding Lego creations from their instructions and organizing the Legos so that Buddy will be able to keep them organized and nice.

Airport

The boys, fresh from seeing the Space Shuttle ride on the back of a 747, built airplanes, control towers and an airport out of Legos.

Little Guy build the row of teeny little Lego planes.  I told him the first one was adorable.  He went away and came back with a bunch more and asked me if they were adorable too.  Later on, he found out that adorable meant cute and he wasn't sure he was as happy about having "adorable" planes.

Lego Madness

The boys' room has run out of flat surfaces on which to store Lego creations so we had them go through some the other day and took pictures of them before we dismantled them.  These are things that Little Guy or Buddy have built.

Kids with the camera

So it turns out that almost this entire upload is pictures the kids have taken.

Styling Rapunzel's hair (photos by PS):

Lego/Book Bridge designed and built by Buddy (photos by PS): 

Pictures of Little Guy and other (by PS):

Paris

In my internet wanderings trying to find something else (what, I can't remember), I came across a fun little unit on Madeline and Paris.  We just finished up Charlotte's Web a couple weeks ago and are reading picture books for language arts right now so I thought, why not Madeline, even if we don't need to study Paris or France this school year (for Virginia's Standards of Learning).

Wafer Eiffel Tower idea from here.

Accordion book of the sights of Paris from Madeline found here.

And in all my wanderings, I also came across Lego Thursday here.  So, here's our Lego Eiffel Tower.

And our Lego Eiffel Tower grounds, which turned into a hotel swimming pool.

And our Lego motorcycle.

National Building Museum

Today we took the Metro into DC. I knew we wanted to go to the Museum of American Art on this trip into the city, so I was excited to see what else was near the museum and see that it was up near the National Building Museum.  I was even more excited when I saw that the NBM has a special Lego architecture exhibit right now.  Right up our alley (although Legos got a timeout this morning because B stepped on Legos three times this morning).

We started at the Building Museum because it closed earlier.  It's free, but there "suggest" a $5 donation.  We paid $5/person (except Little Guy) to go to the Lego Exhibit, so I counted that as our cheapo donation.  The donation box (pictured above) was one of the highlights for the kids.  It was a replica of the room (hall/entrance/courtyard) we were in, made out of Legos.

I thought the Building Museum exhibits would be a lot cooler (for kids) than they were.  B and I liked them okay.  Little Guy hated them.  PS and Buddy could usually find something in the exhibit that was of interest to them.  PS had read a little bit about the World Fairs so she liked that exhibit.  The city scape and symbols in DC were fun enough for Buddy.

The best part was the Building Zone (but most of the kids there could barely walk).  It's for baby to 6 years old and PS was allowed because we had a three year old with us.  They all enjoyed it (a lot), but it was obviously geared for younger kids.

And then on to Legos.

Famous Skyscrapers made from Legos.

Everyone's favorite part, creating our own Lego buildings.

Little Guy's building: an orange and white rectangle (two versions of it).
Buddy's building: on the left of him, it is multi-colored starts as a pyramid, narrows to a column and then a larger rectangular prism on top.
Princess Sparkley's building: sort of A-framed brown and black (above her head to the left)
My building: red, white and blue skyscraper with windows on the top level.
B's building: red and then black skyscraper with pointy roof.

 The National Building Museum used to be something else, but for whatever reason, when they turned it into something else, its architecture was perfect for it being made into some sort of architecture/building museum.  It's pretty cool.

Lego Madness

Buddy got a TON of Legos for Christmas. He and B built all the sets and over the past weeks they've started to slowly fall apart from all the playing. So Buddy and B decided to rebuild ALL the Lego sets we have and somehow I got dragged into it too.

Here are some of Buddy's solo creations we photographed before we started knowing that we'd probably have to disassemble them for their parts. The "garden" is mainly Princess Sparkley's creation with some help from me and Buddy.



The rebuilding all started last night and was taking place in Little Guy/Buddy's room so everyone went to bed a bit late due to the Lego craziness.

Today we finished everything up, carried it all down to the table and photographed everything (proof that at one point we still had all the right pieces to build all the sets we have ... they'll get played with a lot and start to fall apart again in a few weeks).

Kids with the Camera

The kids get a hold of the camera and I have no idea what I'll discover.

Princess Sparkley took pictures of us putting the first load of family presents under the tree.

Then they built some stuff with Legoes. Mostly tall towers (during which, Princess Sparkley figured out how to use the self-timer! She's 8! Some adults can't figure that out). PS also built a rose out of Legoes and Buddy built a Shake Weight (B takes them in the As Seen on TV store at the mall too often).

And Buddy documented some train track layouts he made and was being forced to clean up.

Interstates

Highway Building

More pictures I found on the camera when I uploaded images. I'm not sure if PS or Buddy took these.

If it ever takes me awhile to open the door when you knock, this is why.



For some reason, Buddy (and Little Guy as well), love to use this tile by the door as their spot to build cities, etc.

Buddy's Airplanes

Lego Air Control Tower and Airplane

We've been getting Buddy a lot of National Geographic movies from the library. He really likes the ones about lions, Arctic polar bears, Air Force One, and one called Ultimate Factories that shows UPS sorting facilities and airplanes, etc. So while Baby X, Princess Sparkley and I were grocery shopping yesterday, and B was at home studying, Buddy built an airport control tower and a UPS airplane and used a Fisher Price parking garage from the 80s as his package conveyor belt.


UPS airplane (I think he just turned a car/truck into a plane)


Airport Control Tower

Baby X Builds

Baby X built this tall, tall tower.

Buddy Builds

Buddy has had these Legos for awhile, but has mostly demanded that we help him (forcing me to discover that I am not very good at following the Lego building instructions). He finally started creating these little vehicles on his own.


11/13 a Jeep


11/28 a Cherry Picker Truck