Walk for the Whisper 2007

This morning was the 7th annual Walk for the Whisper which is a 5K and 1 mile fun run hosted by the DFW chapter of the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition. I've been attending these since they began as a way to honor my mom who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1997. She is approaching her 10 year anniversary and is still cancer free. Thank you, Lord!

I walked the 5K while pregnant with Nicholas and once he was born he continued to go on the 5K with me and enjoyed the ride in his stroller. This year he wanted to walk by himself so we signed up for the 1 mile fun run. He walked the whole way and did a great job. I'm so proud of him - and I'm sure Grandmama Owen is as well.

I usually make a sign to wear as we walk to say that we are walking in honor of our mom and grandmama. This year I took it to a "'hole nuther level" and made us both custom designed t-shirts for the walk. The front of the shirt has one of my favorite pictures of my mom and says, "In honor of my mom/grandmama, Edlena Owen - 10 year survivor!!". On the back is a great picture of mom making a silly face and it says, "My mom/grandmama kicked cancer's butt! - 10 year survivor!!" Nicholas was excited about his special t-shirt and even asked me questions about how I made them.





The three of us enjoyed the walk. The sun was just coming up and a breeze was blowing so it was actually cool. We were out as a family getting exercise while doing something special to honor my mom and, most importantly, to raise awareness of ovarian cancer.













After the walk, there was fruit, bagels, water, and other good things to help replenish us. There was a Kid's Corner that had face painting (which Nicholas is still afraid of!), coloring stations, caricature artists, and balloon clowns. Nicholas loved his balloon sword.



Nicholas also enjoyed the music performed by Runnin' On Faith. Here he is dancing to the music.



and doing something like the moon walk...



WE LOVE YOU, GRANDMAMA OWEN!!

For the Birds!

With Nicholas in school on Wednesday mornings, we have not been able to attend the Parents As Teachers (PATs) get-togethers anymore and we miss it so much. So...I started my own educational playgroup that meets on Friday mornings. Today was our first get together. We met at the Grapevine Botanical Gardens and I led the class as we learned all about birds. We sat on a blanket on the lawn near the big water fountain in the front.




The weather was nice, especially under the shade trees. I gave each child a little bag and told them to not peek as they put their hand in the bag. They described what they felt and tried to guess what we were going to talk about today. The children were delighted to find little red cardinals with real feathers in their bags (from the floral department at our local craft store).



We compared the birds to people. People and birds both have eyes. Birds have feet like people but they don't use them as much as we do. Instead they have feathers and wings to help them fly. People and birds have mouths but a bird mouth has a beak on it which helps them break open seeds to eat. People and birds both sing. We talked some about how each species of bird has their own unique song and we all sang the song of a Chickadee. People and birds both have families but bird families live in nests in trees and we passed around a realistic-looking little nest with eggs in it (also purchased at a local craft store).

We talked about watching birds in our backyard and what we needed to attract birds - water, food, and trees. We talked about some things that can help us learn more about birds. I showed the children some library books on birdwatching including some geared specifically for kids and others that were field guides to help identify the birds in their backyard. Nicholas likes looking at our field guides so he was excited to help me present this part of the class.



Next we made our own bird feeders to take home by hanging ice cream cones on a pipe cleaner, smearing them with peanut butter, then rolling them in bird seed.


Of course, we couldn't let ice cream cones go just to the birds so next we got our own cones and made people feeders by covering them in peanut butter and rolling them in a mixture of granola, raisins, and rice krispies. Yummy!



Once our tummies were full we walked around the rest of the gardens together enjoyting the bird songs, flowers, and ponds.





We looked at a map to see where we were.


We saw some beautiful koi fish...


...and a cool looking dragonfly.



A nice lady let us pet her sweet little dog.



We finished up the day with lunch at Willhoite's restaurant in Grapevine. They have an awesome buffet that's free for children under 5 years old.


And of course, we must have ice cream!

This week at MES

This week at Montessori, Nicholas got a lesson in shoe polishing and apron folding. He did some water color painting and also learned how to paint "Aa". He learned that two of a kind is a "pair" and also worked on the Montessori knob cylinders. The class talked about Johnny Appleseed. They learned that a whole can be divided into parts and they graphed an apple chart. They made a ven diagram to compare/contrast apples. They measured ingredients and made an apple spice cake. Yum! The Good Shepherd lesson was Adam names the animals.

I'm so excited that Nicholas has the opportunity to be exposed to Spanish at school. Other than our wonderful neighbor who tries to teach me Spanish from time to time, we don't usually hear much Spanish being spoken around us. And although I can speak a little Spanish I probably don't have the pronunciation quite right and I'm certainly not ready to teach it to Nicholas. I hope that Nicholas will eventually learn French and Spanish, both wonderful languages in their own ways. But for now I just want him to hear the sounds and notice the differences in English and other languages. Today Nicholas was singing a little part of a song in Spanish. I was proud of him for picking it up so quickly. I recall learning French songs when I was in Montessori in Louisiana and I specifically remember Ms. Ylello teaching us to roll our R sounds. I have no doubt that this early exposure to French helped me to do so well in furthering my French studies through college. (It's a shame there isn't much need to speak French though!) However, in today's business world it is important to know how to speak other languages - and in Texas it's especially helpful to be able to speak Spanish.

Also this week we attended "Montessori Night" in which parents are invited to learn more about, observe and participate for themselves in the Montessori environment. Stuart was very impressed and learned a lot about Montessori. Even though I attended Montessori Night last year and was already familiar with the program, I was again impressed by the Montessori method of teaching and, in particular, this school and its wonderful teachers.

Playing and Painting

Stanton Oak Park is a small park near out house that we like to visit. There is just one playground structure to climb on but there are lots of trees for shade. There are always pine cones, pine needles, interesting leaves, and other wonderful finds at this park. We often spend more time wandering around the trees than we do actually playing on the playground.

Here Nicholas was playing on a big rock he found.


and learning how to climb trees...



We also went to Emma Rae's house to do some painting for an Original Works art project through the PTA. Nicholas made a great Texas flag picture using his handprint as the star. Next he helped Mommy put paint on her hand for handprinting.


Here's our final masterpiece...

Learning about an oil change

Stuart was doing an oil change on his truck this morning and asked Nicholas to be his little helper. Stuart gave Nicholas some gloves and a creeper. He did a great job of explaining the steps needed to complete an oil change as well as how to take care of your tools and how to keep as clean as possible.







I've always been so proud of Stuart for being so self-sufficient. He could easily go down the street and have someone else do the work on the truck for him. However, he enjoys doing these things himself and he takes pride in knowing that they have been done correctly. I'm also proud of Stuart for taking the time to include Nicholas in this task even though it makes the task take twice as long. It helps Nicholas learn how a vehicle works, how to properly maintain it, and the value in doing these things for himself.

Reading Aloud to Children

I love books. I always have and I always will. As I was growing up, there were always books in my room and in many other rooms of the house and I often saw my Mom and Dad reading books. It is a passion that I learned early in life. When I was pregnant and knew that I would soon be a parent, I knew that I wanted to instill the love of reading in my child. I bought classic children’s books like Pat The Bunny and Where's Spot? before Nicholas was even born. It may sound silly but I often spent quiet moments at bedtime reading aloud to my large pregnant belly. Once Nicholas was born, Stuart and I began reading to him daily. No, we didn't expect him to understand a single word we were saying but it was a wonderful way to interact with our baby. He heard our voice, including the inflections and sound effects we would make. He watched our facial expressions as we read. He looked at the brightly colored pictures in the books. He touched the books (and put them in his mouth). He may not have understood what we were doing but he enjoyed the time with his parents and he learned that books were a part of our daily life.

At our most recent meeting of the Greater Lewisville Early Childhood PTA (GLECPTA), our guest speaker was Sue Ridnour, librarian at the Flower Mound Library. She talked to us about "Raising A Reader". She said that one of the key influences in raising a reader is to have a "print-rich environment". This includes the child owning their own books, having their own magazine subscriptions, having regular access to a library, etc. Another important factor is role modeling. If the child never sees the parent read then why would they ever make the connection that reading should be important to them?

Ms. Ridnour also discussed the importance of parents reading aloud to their children and she mentioned a book that I read a few years ago called, The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. This week I pulled out the book again to refresh myself with it. The premise of the book revolves around the following statement, "Extensive research has proven that reading aloud to a child is the single most important factor in raising a reader." Mr. Trelease goes on to demonstrate how raising a reader also improves ones success and happiness in life. He discusses the importance of children finding pleasure in reading and being read to. “What we teach children to love and desire will always outweigh what we teach them to do." It’s more important to make reading fun than it is to force a child to learn how to read on their own. They will start attempting to read on their own when they are ready. Even Plato stated, “Avoid compulsion and let early education be a matter of amusement. Young children learn by game; compulsory education cannot remain in the soul.”

Why read aloud to a child? Trelease says, “…to entertain, to bond, to inform or explain, to arouse curiosity, to inspire,…to condition the child’s brain to associate reading with pleasure, create background knowledge, build vocabulary, provide a reading role model.” And please know that children are never too young or too old to be read-aloud to.

There is something so special and magical about reading aloud to children and I wish every parent realized it. I’ve seen it in my church’s preschool where I help out by watching a classroom of preschoolers while their moms are in a bible study class. If someone is crying or the class is getting a little rowdy, I will sit down on the floor with a good picture book and just start reading aloud. I don’t even need to invite the children to come over and listen. They just sort of migrate over on their own and suddenly I’ve got an entire class of quiet, interested preschool age children that are mesmerized by a book. It’s such a wonderful experience.

Nicholas is three years old now and he loves books. He has his own library card for the Flower Mound library and he loves going to the library. He even completed a reading program at our library this summer called, “Sail Away With Books”. He enjoyed this program. The library gave him a “map” and we would mark another square on the path for each day that we read for at least 20 minutes (which is every day for us). Each time that he had five squares marked he could bring his map back to the library and get a reward. He got a free ticket to the circus, a free ticket to a Rangers baseball game, gift certificates for free kids meals at local restaurants, toys, stickers, etc. He also got his name put up on a wall at the library (see the yellow treasure chest!).

Here's Stuart showing Nicholas his gift certificate for Chick-Fil-A and then Nicholas also got to pick out a book to keep from the box on the table beside them.


What an awesome program the library has to encourage children to read! Nicholas also goes to the library at Montessori once a week and checks out two books to keep at home for a week. We also go to preschool story time productions at both the Flower Mound and Lewisville libraries.

Stuart and I read aloud about 3-5 books a day to Nicholas. However, we also have begun reading aloud some chapter books like The Wizard of Oz. Nicholas loves putting the bookmark in it’s place and then finding the bookmark again the next time we sit down to read. Stuart and I love “reading time” with Nicholas. Sometimes Stuart and I are both in the room as one of us reads aloud for a family story time but usually it is just one of us, soaking up that quiet special time with our little boy. We read anywhere – at the library, outside, on the couch in the living room. However, we do have a favorite routine. Nicholas snuggles up in our lap in the glider in his room. The reading lamp above us is on a low or medium setting, just enough light to read but not too bright. Nicholas’ bookshelf is right next to us with its overflowing books that are now forming growing piles on the floor beside it. Sometimes we have some soft music playing in the background, sometimes a puppet or stuffed animal does the reading aloud, and other times a stuffed animal just wants to sit in Nicholas’ lap and listen to the book with us. It really doesn’t matter how, where, or when we read but we do read everyday and we do love every minute of it.

Nicholas and Daddy reading Flotsam by David Wiesner


I highly recommend The Read-Aloud Handbook to any new parent. It contains a great deal of information about the importance of reading to children, how to help children get interested in reading, as well as a giant treasury of great read-aloud books to choose from. There is are wonderful in-depth excerpts from the book at www.trelease-on-reading.com that completely summarize the important points that Mr. Trelease makes in his book as well as additional information you may find interesting.

Peter Piper Pizza

I'm on the fundraising committee at Montessori. Earlier this week we have a fundraising event at Peter Piper Pizza in which a portion of the all of their sales that night would go to MES. Of course, we had to go to support the school (but I was secretly pleased to get out of cooking for the night!) We had a Chicago style pizza which has some special seasonings. It was pretty good. Nicholas had a great time in their climbing structure and on their rides and playing games.







"Look! I got a thousand tickets!"

Art From The Heart and Kids Country

This morning we went to Art From The Heart with the PTA. We arrived a little early so we waited in the car for a few minutes. Nicholas was excited and since he was still buckled in his car seat I was able to catch a close up picture of him (he's always moving so quickly that these are hard to capture).



When we went inside we were impressed to find everything already set up for us. Each child had a 6'x 6' tile to do their artwork on. Nicholas painted his background with light blue, yellow, and green. Then he used a dark blue paint to make his hand print. The store will glaze and fire it and we'll pick it up next week. It was a fun project.





Next we had a picnic lunch at Kids Castle park in Coppell. Nicholas played with his friends from the PTA but also met some new friends that he played with as if he had known them for years. He has no problem at all making new friends in an instant.





We went home and Nicholas helped me water some of the plants...and he watered a lot of the decorative rocks too. He's very thorough!





Nicholas decided that it was my turn to water the plants so I took the hose and he took the camera. He has his own Kids Tough camera by Fisher Price which he uses a lot so he's gotten pretty good at taking pictures. (By the way, I highly recommend this camera!) Look at this one he took with my Nikon camera!



Of course, there is always a foot picture or two in every photo shoot...



We explored the front yard some and overturned some bricks to see what we could find. Nicholas found some cool bugs but also another little lizard. We have tons of these around the yard.



We found some little slugs and then the last brick we overturned we found an ant egg chamber. We watched as all the little ants picked up the eggs that were as big or bigger than they were and followed them as they carried the eggs away to safety. They are so fascinating to watch!

When we came in I gave Nicholas a bath. We were playing "Rescue Heroes" and using some of his sea creatures as rescuers of other sea creatures that were in trouble. I gave him a five minute warning that it was almost time to get out of the bath tub. When the five minutes were up I said it was time to get out. He said, "Well, I wanted to do five more rescues and we've only finished one of them." He held up five fingers then put down one of them and said, "That means we still have to do (counting remaining fingers now) one, two, three, four more rescues." I was tired of playing but proud of him for his subtraction skills so we played four more rescue scenarios (quickly) before I made him get out of the tub. He loves the bath tub. He could stay in there with his toys all day long.

Flat Earth Hot Air Balloon

Flat Earth chips are an incredible new line of chips produced by Pepsico. They are baked, not fried, and they contain a half serving of fruits or vegetables in every ounce. They are usually found in the produce section of the grocery store instead of the chips aisle. They have six flavors and they are all yummy! Tonight, Flat Earth unveiled their hot air balloon at Pepsico headquarters. Nicholas and I brought dinner to Daddy and we all went out to see the balloon. It is a very impressive balloon. It is seven stories tall and has several fruits and vegetables that extended from the main balloon envelope for a much more dimensional effect. They were giving tethered balloon rides but Nicholas was too small to ride. He did get to stand up in the basket and talk to the pilot and the chase crew. He went to the Highland Village Balloon Festival last year and he definitely remembered it. He asked more than once, "Where are all of the other balloons?" and "Why is there only one balloon?"

This week at MES

Nicholas has shown no signs of poison ivy. Thanks goodness! Boy, he would have been a difficult little guy to be around if that had happened. Thanks to everyone for all the emails expressing concern but he's just fine.

Nicholas has had a great week at school. It was our week to bring snacks for the class. Nicholas helped me make fruit kabobs. We used cookie cutters to make heart and star shaped pieces of cantaloupe and slid them on popsicle sticks along with red grapes and cubes of fresh pineapple. Along with his artwork and activities, today he also brought home a note from Mrs. Carrico. It said, "Nicholas, aka 'Mr. Sunshine', is our delight! He accepts each challenge with gusto and always presents his best work. Thank you Nicholas for the delicious fruit kabobs. Everyone enjoyed their interesting shapes."

Although Nicholas did help me make the fruit kabobs, I'd have to say he did a lot more sampling of the fruit than helping me. But that's ok. I'm glad that he loves fresh fruit and vegetables. He often picks his little yellow pear-shaped tomatoes right off the plant outside and pops them in his mouth like candy.

Each Thursday, Mrs. Carrico sends home a newsletter about what the children worked on. This week Nicholas worked on the proper way to carry scissors, folding and cutting paper, pencil grip, push pin and metal insets, print and sound of letters, predicting story outcome, first journaling experience, a science experiment to extract color from onion skins, and counting. The Good Shepherd lesson was on Creation. I'm glad to see that Mrs. Carrico is helping him work on his pencil grip. I've tried to work with him on this but I can't determine for sure if he's right-handed or left-handed. It's a bit challenging to teach a child how to hold a pencil when you don't even know which hand to tell him to hold it in! He seems to use both hands equally well yet when he initially picks up a pencil it is usually with his left hand. This seems odd because he throws a ball with his right hand and, as far as we know, no one in my family or Stuart's family is left-handed.

As I picked Nicholas up from school today, Mrs. Carrcico said, "He's just so sweet. I would give him kisses all the time if he was in my house." I just smiled and said, "I do!"

It started out as such a fun day...

We had planned to go to the apple orchard with some friends this morning. But then we lounged around the house a little too long and then it just seemed too much of a hassle to rush to get ready. Besides I think I just wanted some time with Nicholas all to myself.

So we started our morning at the library for storytime. It was great. We sang songs and played music with our bells.



We read The Little Red Hen which Nicholas loves to read at home. When the librarian was finished reading the story, she reviewed it with the children and asked them to tell her again what activities the friends refused to help the Little Red Hen do. Nicholas jumped up and said, "Thresh the wheat!" He was proud when the librarian said he was correct and she even complimented him on remembering the word "thresh". Next, they sang "I'm A Little Teapot" and made the motions to pretend to be teapots. They also read the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears".



As the children were leaving, they were each handed their own set of Goldilocks and the Three Bears finger puppets and encouraged to re-enact the story at home for their friends and family. Nicholas was so excited about the finger puppets that we didn't get 10 feet from the story time room when he wanted us to re-enact the story. I was Goldilocks and he played all three bears.



It was such a beautiful day that we both just wanted to get outdoors. So we went home and packed a picnic lunch and walked to the park. The sun was pretty strong so we followed the sidewalk into the wooded creek bed that we love to play around. We set up our lunch at one of the picnic tables in the shade of the trees.



Over lunch, we ended up talking about a class that Mrs. Deb taught us in the Parents As Teachers group that was about reducing, reusing, and recycling. We looked at our containers and found the recylcing triangles on them. We talked about how we should use containers that can be cleaned and reused instead of the disposable containers that his apple sauce came in. We also talked about the importance of putting trash in the trash can.

After lunch, we explored the creek bed and Nicholas decided to help clean it up by picking up a few pieces of trash and taking them to the trash can.



With our civic duties done, we went about playing...looking for unusual rocks to throw in the water, hunting for cool bugs, and all the basics of exploring the great outdoors.







We found some really big rocks to throw into the water. What big splashes they made!



As Nicholas was crawling out of the creek bed, he grabbed on to a tree to help pull himself on to the bank.



As soon as he got up on the bank, I noticed that the tree had a vine on it that looked like poison ivy.



I tried my best to explain to Nicholas that we had to go home right away to give him a bath. He didn't like that idea because he just wanted to keep playing. I finally convinced him to go home and we both got cleaned up. I called the pediatrician's office and spoke with the pharmacist at CVS. I gave Nicholas some children's Benadryl to try to protect him a serious allergic reaction. As far as I know, I've never been exposed to poison ivy so I don't know what to expect. Nicholas and I both have such bad outdoor allergies that I can't help but be a little worried about how he might react to it. So far he is showing no signs but the pediatrician's office said that it will probably take a few hours to show signs of a reaction and, in some cases, it may not show up for a day or two.

It started out as such a fun day. However, after the run-in with the poison ivy, I wish we had just stuck with our original plans for going to the apple orchard. There's probably not much poison ivy on those trees!

But when you've got lemons, make lemonade. I took the opportunity this afternoon to talk to Nicholas about dangerous plants that we want to avoid. We looked at pictures of poison ivy and poison oak and we studied how we can tell what it looks like in the wild. When Stuart came home from work tonight, Nicholas told him all about the "plant with three leaves".