The Games Kids Play





The happy relief of their arrival.

 My son, Sharif, and his family living in Japan visited us again, this time for just two weeks, in February.

Right after they arrived his two sons (Liam who turned 7 in January and Chris who will turn 4 in March) seemed to feel at home in our house.  Liam improvised a game right away wherein Chris would 'hide' his eyes and Liam would hide some stamps around the house.

Here Liam shows off the grid.  Chris
is shy and refused to pose with Liam.

Then Chris would look for the stamps and when he found one he would stamp a grid that Liam had drawn.

Liam loves to build things, and I gave him these snap together blocks that he used to create these magical creatures.

I let them set up a electrical 19th Century skating rink from Christmas.  Chris was fascinated with the skaters that floated around this little Christmas tree on a  magnetic track.

 We visited the Art Museum
for a program

on Black History and then made colleges in the Cast Gallery.

We made pom-pom Easter eggs, rushing the season a bit. 



Later the boys hunted plastic Easter eggs with small amounts of candy inside them.



Liam asked if he could eat a piece of candy.  I said, "OK.  One piece."  The next thing I knew Liam's mouth was so full of candy he was unable to speak.  All candy in his eggs was gone, gone, gone.

The weather improved until we could enjoy the outdoors despite the overcast skies.  Chris helped his mom rack leaves up in the front yard. It hasn't looked so good since the last time we mowed it.

Here Chris is letting his dad know that he does NOT want to ride the bike nor wear the helmet that Sharif is preparing to fit on him.

Then they bounced on the trampoline with the neighborhood children.

They had plenty of drawing and painting experience.  Here are our ROCKETMEN!!

Time to leave.  Off to see cousins in California and enjoy Disneyland.  Now they are back in Japan, and we miss them still.