Art LOVES his new tights. His preschool teacher dressed both her boys in tights until they were old enough to care (around five) because the don’t slip down like socks and they keep the legs and ankles warm on cold days. I also thought he would love a pair of tights because it is FUN to have your whole legs and feet be a new color! And he sure does find them fun. He wanted to wear them to school today without pants over them because he wanted to be able to see them. And when he got home it wasn’t long before he was just tight-legged. Here he is doing some serious jumping from the coffee table in his nice, brown tights.

Lewis, on the other hand, prefers to wear nothing at all lately. He pulls at his shirt and pants until he gets help removing them. There is a bonus, though – he went to the potty and peed in it today! Not possible had he been wearing pants. He did pee on the floor two times before that, though, so don’t be gettin’ the potty-training hopes too high. Here he is doing his yoga move… on the coffee table.

Nature Day at mn zoo.

I woke up today feeling a bit blue. A very cold gray day. But a cold gray nature day, so we bundled the kids up and headed to the zoo. We went through the huge tropics building which is really pretty amazing. And I realized how much seeing green and feeling warm and seeing beautiful animals can perk a fellow up. The kids were entranced throughout, and were even able to watch a scuba fellow feed fish.

More snuggled (and freshly cleaned) brothers.

–Sent from my handheld device.–

Lewis had a Grand Day Out.

Today Ben and I split up and each took one kid out for a "special time" with a parent. I took Lewis to the Children's Museum and Ben took Art to the airport on the light rail.

Lewis and I had a lovely time toddling around the Children's Museum together at his pace. He climbed around the toddler-friendly Habitot for about an hour and we chased each other through the little pretend caves. He thought the black-light was hilarious and answered back to the nature sound buttons, especially the timberwolf howl, ("Howooooooooooh!"). He played with magnet rocks for over 10 minutes in the gift shop and nicely lined up the toy monster trucks bumper-to-bumper. Later we went to the grocery store together and he pointed out all the foods he knew – "Apple!", "Nanna!", "Cheese!" – and mislabeling a tomato as an apple. (Dummy!!!) We had a lovely little time. It's about time, too. Poor little guy doesn't get a chance to run the show very often.

Art and I are taking a lightrail train ride to the airport for a cup of hot cocoa…

–Sent from my handheld device.–

A visit from Grandpa Tim (and a visit to Josh’s school).

My father was in town over the past few days. He tagged along with me at work for day, including an unusually good (and disgustingly violent) overtime hockey game at the Minnesota Wild.

And we also visited Josh at his school where we watched him amazingly keep junior high kids wide awake and learning in his Latin class (a video and more photos to be posted later from our visit to his school). For our entire visit kids and teachers would curiously look into Josh’s class to see what his father and brother looked like. And a number of times kids would pass us in the hallway and say, “Hello Mr. Garvins!”

And then last night my pops joined about 50 or so other friends and family at the house for a book party of sorts, complete with homebrewed Ant Farm Ale by my friend at work Jason.