Today's Toby

Many thanks to YouTube for making a New Year's countdown available on demand. Happy New Year, one and all. May we bring love and kindness to the world.  

Toby, Dad, and Spencer trying out the Makedo tools. They are kid-safe tools for constructing whatever you can imagine put of cardboard. They whipped up an airplane (not pictured) and a good time was had by all.  

Laying the foundation with dad.  Decorating with Mom The finished house! 

When you find yourself at LL Bean, it's best to just go with the flow.  

He shoots. He scores!  

Stopping for a moment on Christmas to cuddle up to Mommy.  

Enjoying hanging out with Cousin Harry on Christmas Eve. 🎄   

Eagerly counting down the days until Christmas.  

Someone moved Toby's bag of beads from the middle of the floor, but who could it have been? He went into full crime-stopper mode - a marker behind each ear, his notebook, and a pencil - to solve the case. (Spoiler: it was Mom!)  

 You'll have to look quickly, but you'll spot Toby with some good concentration on making his ornament just right.

Toby was on his way out of dance class when they asked him if he would pose for a picture to promote the toy drive.  

Excited to celebrate Mommy on her special day. We're grateful for her everyday, but it's nice to have a special day to celebrate her. Happy Birthday, Cotton.  

Some excitement at 3:30 in the morning. A large rain storm caused a leak that shorted one of our CO alarms bringing a visit from the fire department. All is good. We're grateful to have a (mostly) dry home and that our downstairs neighbor has a chair on the porch.  

Relaxing in the kitchen before bathtime with the little bro.  

We had a great time today at Toby's production of Finding Nemo Jr. Here's some shots with a snippet of dancing during the finale below.

Getting one last end-of-day squeeze.  

Mom usually gets to read to Spencer while Dad reads to Toby. But tonight Mom got to read to both kiddos and the kiddos got double stories.  

Toby is in the middle of his tech week for Finding Nemo. He has a line and he gets to reprise his costume from SpongeBob. We can't wait to see the whole production!   

Toby made us a Christmas gift in school. But he insisted that we open it now because he just couldn't wait that long to share it with us. Understandably. He did a fantastic job. Here he is with two of the illustrations (February and March) from the 2024 calendar that he made.  

Ever since Toby finished SpongeBob, he's been planning a revival. But this time his plan is to cast the roles solely from within the family. Spencer is stated to play the titular character (though he's not taking it as seriously as Toby is).  

Throwback a couple of weeks ago to Legoland and the stack the bricks competition. Here's Toby with his teammates and their tower awaiting the results.  

Sometimes life comes at you fast and it's hard to tell which end is up.  

Quiet on the home front, brought to you by Grumpy Monkey (and all his books).  

Toby has invented a solo version of football that only involves kicking the ball. He practices it with great dedication.   

I love that reading books is just as fun as playing.   

The face you make when mom makes yet another hilarious joke.  

It's nice to have another kid in the house.  

When you can't find a single seat at Home Depot, you bring the project home.