O Christmas tree!

Nicholas has had fun with all of the Christmas decorating around the house. He helped me put clips on the lights for outside. He helped to hang the stockings. He helped to put out our little Christmas village with all of it's little houses and people. He even helped Daddy do some electrical work to two of the houses that wouldn't light up. Stuart is such a great Dad. He finds these teachable moments with Nicholas and takes advantage of the quality time together - even though he could get things done twice as fast without Nicholas "helping". However, Nicholas has fun learning the things that Stuart teaches him and it is such good bonding time.



Of course, the most fun was picking out and decorating the Christmas tree. Nicholas loved running through the rows of trees as if the scent of pine had a catnip effect on him! We finally picked a great tree and brought it home.

This is our first year to decorate with a lot of color. I've always had solid (not blinking) white lights on the tree with gold and burgundy ornaments, a sort of Victorian look. Outside was always solid white icicles lights and no other "gaudy" decorations in the yard. Simple and elegant. However, now that I'm a parent, I think of the Christmas tree my brother and I had when we were little. It was bright and colorful and covered with fun characters that we loved. It was so exciting each year to pull out each of the fun ornaments to put on the tree. My mom really did a great job of making it fun for us and I would do anything to still have some of those ornaments again. So now that Nicholas is here, Christmas is all about him and I have to decorate for him and not for me. So last year I took advantage of some really great after-Christmas sales (75% off!) and we stocked up on outdoor colored icicle lights, a giant inflatable carousel for the front yard, as well as colored lights and colored ornaments for the tree. We also have a few character ornaments like the whole clan from Pinnochio as well as some Star Wars and Batman ornaments. And yes, the multi-colored lights on the tree not only blink but they have 8, count them, 8 different patterns of blinking to choose from. Nicholas loves it! My old self (pre-Nicholas) shudders at the sight of it all sometimes but the Mommy in me doesn't really care as long as Nicholas is having fun. Maybe this year I'll go out looking for an after-Christmas sale on a big gaudy lighted Santa Claus and reindeer for our roof!

It snowed this morning!

It snowed this morning! Ok, so it only snowed in the front yard of one house in Flower Mound but still, it snowed! We had our educational playgroup on Mrs. Julie's house today and she taught us all about snow. She first talked about water and how it can be a liquid such as the water that we drink or it can be a solid like ice and snow. She talked about snowflakes and let each child make their own unique snowflake with paper and scissors.


We invited some friends from our church to check out the playgroup. Here's Nicholas and Brendan posing in front of the "humongous penguin"!

Then we got to the real fun. Mrs. Julie had rented a snow machine for our playgroup! It was so much fun! It was kind of the consistency of scooped up bubbles from a bubble bath. Thick and fun to blow in the air but it dissolved quickly so it didn't leave a mess behind. The kids ran around in it for quite a while.

After all the fun, we enjoyed cookies and hot chocolate. Here's Nicholas eating a cookie with his friend Elizabeth.

Next, Mrs. Julie read a story about snow while everyone finished up their snack.

Mrs. Julie had asked the moms to bring pillows so the children could build igloos. Nicholas had a lot of fun just running and jumping into the pillows.



At one point Nicholas and some of the other children went to collect sticks to make a pretend fire in their igloo. How cute!

Nicholas and Emma Rae played with chalk on the driveway. Emma Rae outlined Nicholas' body then they worked on coloring it in.


What a fun way to spend time with our friends - playing in the snow (without the freezing temperatures, reading stories, making snowflakes, and enjoying cookies and hot chocolate!

This Week at MES

This week the class theme was Native Americans.

Montessori: Nicholas practiced buttoning, cutting, tracing, and push pin work. He decorated his own holiday t-shirts. He also made some awesome rain sticks from paper towel rolls.

Language: Nicholas worked on the letter S, Sound Box with labels, and learned about the Native American Big Book. He reviewed the moveable alphabet.

Math: Nicholas worked with Math Mats and practiced the Bead Stair and Teen Board.

Good Shepherd: Nicholas learned about the Annunciation Story.

Helping and having fun at MES

Stuart and I had a wonderful experience today as we spent the day in Nicholas' class at Montessori. Mrs. Carrico and I had talked earlier in the year and I had offered to help the children make holiday t-shirts in class. As it turned out, Stuart was off the day I was scheduled to work in the class so he came along with me. We got to watch the children sing so sweetly in chapel. What a lovely sound that is! Then we headed back to class to start on our project. Stuart and I each worked with one child at a time. We showed them the various foam stamps of snowflakes, hearts, christmas trees, and stars that they could use as well as the different colors of paint to choose from. Then we let them decide what to do with their shirts and except for a little help spreading paint on the stamps or cleaning brushes, we let them do all the decorating themselves. What beautiful t-shirts they made! There is actually something so charming about sideways christmas trees and upside down hearts when you know about all of the excitement and pride that went into making them. We stayed until about 12:30 and we had a great time. Mrs. Carrico was very grateful for our help and even wrote a thank you to us in the weekly newsletter to parents. We had to leave the shirts at school to dry but Nicholas already can't wait to wear his.

We got to peek in on Nicholas in P.E. class before we left. They were working on practicing the basic moves in jumping rope.

Learning to shave just like Daddy

Nicholas has always loved imitating us. He watches us when we don't even realize it and then does his best to act just like us. Stuart was shaving at his bathroom sink and Nicholas decided that he needed to shave too. He stood at my sink, closed the drain and filled it with water, just like Daddy's. Then he got out a clean little plastic flossing tool which sort of looks like a razor and he dipped it in the water, just like Daddy does with his razor. He ran the little piece of plastic down his cheek, just like Daddy. He even pulled his mouth to one side to make the skin more taught, just like Daddy does. He finished shaving and rinsed off his face, just like Daddy.



SO CUTE!!!

Fun at Paradise Pond

Nicholas had a great time at his friend Brendon's birthday party. It was at Paradise Pond, one of Nicholas' favorite places to go play.

Besides climbing on the three level playground, playing in the grocery store, the magnet room, and the trucks and car room, he also got to dress up as a race car driving Incredible Hulk!

He and Brendon played together a lot at the train table. What little boy doesn't love playing with trains?


Nicholas also spent some time on the climbing wall.

We always have fun with our friends at Paradise Pond!

A little chat with Jesus

The other day, Nicholas and I were in the car running errands and out of the blue he said, "When I die, I'm going to come back to life." He hesitated for a moment then clarified. "Well, I'll actually come back to life in Heaven. Then I can talk to Jesus. I'm going to ask Jesus why he made poison ivy and poison oak!"

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nicholas was a great helper in the kitchen as we prepared our Thanksgiving meal. He helped a lot with the beans. He washed the beans and he loved hearing them "snap" when we broke them into smaller pieces.


I put aside a few of the bean pods so we could look at them more closely. I cut one open and let Nicholas take out the individual beans. Then he took another bean and wanted to taste it raw. He liked how crunchy it was.



Nicholas also helped Daddy brine the turkey. He helped me put our yummy rolls from Great Harvest Bread Co. on the baking sheet before we warmed them in the oven. He also helped set the table.

While we were waiting on the gobbler to roast, Nicholas kept busy by making a monkey magnet from a craft kit he got at a birthday party recently. He did a great job gluing all of the pieces down.

Once it was dry I wrote his name on it and we stuck it on the refridgerator. At one time, I vowed to never cover my refridgerator with things hung by magnets. But once you have a chld, you just can't have enough magnets (or refridgerator space) to hang all of the wonderful art work that they do. Now Nicholas can be proud of his art work and the magnet that holds it up.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal and spent some great family time together. After our meal, we cuddled up on the couch together and watched a little football... and napped a little.

Meet Capaccio

Nicholas won a prize from Excite Gym! It's a cute little Webkinz bulldog puppy. Webkinz is an interesting concept. You pick out a stuffed animal for your pet. You go to the website at and enter the secret code that came with your animal. You then give your pet a name and adopt him. You even get a cute adoption certificate to print out. In the online Webkinz World, you have a pet that looks just like yours and you are responsible to feed it, play with it, and keep it happy and there's a monitor to show you how your pet is doing in these areas. You can do activities and games online to win more cash to buy food or things for your pet's room. It's a neat concept to teach children about earning money, saving money for a purchase, and the responsibility of taking care of a pet. We have not let Nicholas play any computer games yet so he has no experience using a computer but I think this will be a fun way to introduce him to using one. So far he has been perfectly content to just play with his stuffed animal. He named it Capaccio and he loves to snuggle with him at bedtime.

Let's Go Fishing!

Our educational playgroup got together this week to learn about fishing. Mrs. Macey had a craft project for us all. We colored some water on our page and then put together paper pieces to make a fish. Really cute craft!

Next we read some books about fish and Mrs. Macey explained the different body parts of a fish. Nicholas enjoyed pointing out parts that he knew.

We talked about fishing including the equipment we needed and the need for bait. Next each child was given a string with a paper clip on the end and a gummy worm. Nicholas loved putting his worm on his paper clip hook. He quickly found a stick to make a mock fishing pole to practice his cast. He had to keep going back to the box of gummy worms though because he couldn't stop eating his bait!

Now it was time to fish for real fish! Everyone was so excited. We had each been instructed to bring our own fishing poles from home along with a pack of hot dogs to use for bait. We hooked a tiny piece of hot dog on the hook and Nicholas tried to cast it out. He was struggling with it some so I helped with releasing the button while he took care of swinging the rod. We made a great team and caught two crappie with very little effort. We released them back into the water.



We undoubtedly could have caught more fish but by this time Nicholas and several of the other children were entralled with looking at some fish that someone had caught and put in a bucket of water. Mrs. Macey had lunch for everyone including Goldfish crackers! We had a great time fishing with our friends and we can't wait to go back!

Musings on Mother Nature

Right before my surgery last week, I received a big care package from my mom. It was full of pampering items for my recovery such as robes, night shirts, slippers, CDs and a CD player, lotion, etc. She is always so thoughtful. Mom often sends me newpaper clippings and there were two included in my care package. One of the articles was on "citizen scientists" or amateur naturalists. "Citizen scientists count birds, chase butterflies, test water quality, observe the behavior of loons and falcons, follow the tracks of bobcat, bear, and moose, and perform countless other tasks It is a great article that encourages people to get more involved in nature which is something my mom is passionate about and she has instilled that passion in me as well. Here's a little note she included with the nature article:

Remember to tell Nicholas how everything has a purpose in Nature. Even the creepy, crawly things. Insects are Nature's cleaning crew. They clean up dead animals, work in composting and provide themselves, even if unwillingly, as food for higher ups on the chain."

"I told Bob Synest, our Master Gardener instructor, that I believe there is a reason behind all things in Nature given to us by God. But I still couldn't find a use for slugs, except to annoy gardeners. About a month and a half after this conversation, I rad where slugs were providing answers to help children with that disease that causes extreme mucous formation and early deaths in children - I don't remember the name of the disease. But we need to understand there is a reason God made the world the way he did - even when we don't understand it all."

I love it that mom is sharing her passion for Nature with Nicholas, even from a long distance away. I hope that I can adequately model her love for Nature with him as well.

To participate in a citizen science event, please check out the Project Feeder Watch conducted by the Cornell University Lab of Orinthology at . It's a grass roots, citizen scientist annual survey of birds at feeders in winter. What a great way to get children involved in nature and participate in research to learn about the distribution and abundance of birds in your area! We just signed up and will receive a research kit in the mail soon. Check back later for updates to our Feeder Watch!

American Blessing Mix

A quick little recipe that is fun to make and can prompt some neat discussions about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving.

American Blessing Mix
Makes 16 treat bags

2 cups Bugles original flavor snacks
2 cups small pretzels
1 cup candy corn
1 cup dried fruit or raisins
1 cup peanuts
1 cup M&Ms plain chocolate candies
16 Hersheys kisses.

1. In a large bowl, mix everything except the kisses.
2. Place 1/3 - 1/2 cups Blessing mix in small cellophane treat bags.
3. Add one kiss to each bag.
4. Close bag with chenille stem or twist tie.

Here is the meaning behind each of the ingredients:
Bugles - shaped like cornucopia or Horn of Plenty, a symbol of our Nation's abundance.
Pretzels - arms folded in prayer, a freedom sought by the founders of our country.
Candy Corn - sacrifices of the Pilgrim's first winter. Food was so scarce that the settlers survived on just a few kernels of corn a day.
Peanuts - Promise of a future harvest, one will reap only if seeds are planted and tended to with diligence.
Dried Fruits - Harvest gifts of our bountiful land.
M&M's - Memories of those who came before us to guide us to a blessed future.
Hershey's Kisses - The love of family and friends that sweetens our lives.

This Week at MES

The children have had a few service projects recently. These are great opportunities for them to have hands-on experiences with serving and helping others. A U.S. Navy sailor who was days away from leaving for Iraq came to the school and visited each of the classrooms. The school started a drive to put together care packages for our soldiers and all of the children were proud to participate. They have also just finished up a canned food drive to benefit Christian Community Action (CCA). This organization served over 12,000 individuals last year and is a major service organization in our area. The children were delighted to see just how many cans and packages of dry food they had all collected.

The class has created several beautiful craft projects this week. He did some leaf etchings, and stamped with leaves. He also made a beautiful turkey that he (and we) are very proud of! He painted some wooden ice cream spoons and decorated one of them with googly eyes and a pipe cleaner beak and wattle. He then stuck the wooden spoons in an apple and voila, a turkey! How cute!




The class worked on cooking, smelling, and eating! Nicholas practiced folding and table setting. He worked on some matching works. He learned the parts of a turkey and loves pointint them out to me. He did some more practice on printing. In Math, Nicholas worked on adding by 2 and he had fun learning to listen with Math Mats. The Good Shepherd lesson for this week was on Jonah.

Grandmother Chance comes to visit

Friday, November 9, 2007

Grandmother Chance flew into town on Thursday so she could stay with Nicholas during a minor surgery I had on Friday. He was so excited about her visit that he told his teacher all about it. She wrote down what he said. "Guess what? Today is the day Grandmother Chance is coming - after my nap! She's my friend and it's her birthday!" Nicholas was surprised when we arrived to pick him up and Grandmother was with us! She had caught an earlier flight and they were both excited that she was able to go with us to pick him up. She even got to take a little tour of the school while she was there.

Nicholas had lots of fun playing with Grandmother. He loved showing off his fort to her and she even climbed up to the top floor with him. She took him to a pancake breakfast at McDonald's sponsored by the GLECPTA. He loves playing on their indoor playground! Grandmother played air hockey and then let the Rescue Heroes play air hockey together. Grandmother even seemed to enjoy playing with Nicholas' foam swords!




Saturday, November 10, 2007

Although Grandmother said that she was planning on being Florence Nightengale for us, I foiled her plans by not needing much of a recovery at all (praise be to God!). We went to the Fort Worth Stockyards on Saturday. During the drive over there, Nicholas started chanting, "Stockyards, Here we come! Stockyards, Here we come!" He and Grandmother came up with a new way to chant. When they held their fingers together, they would quietly whisper the chant. Then they would open their fingers wide and then they would chant loudly. Nicholas loved this new twist!




We were hoping to get there in time for Grandmother Chance to see the cattle drive down Exchange street but we just missed it. All she saw was the back sides of the cattle a few blocks away.

I watched from a raised deck as the three of them made their way around a human maze. They not only had to find their way out of the maze but they also had to find the four stamp machines around the maze that stamped their cards with an "M", "A", "Z", and "E". They did a great job and finished the maze with their cards stamped in 11 minutes. They each got to pick out a little prize for their win!




We had lots of fun just walking around exploring the Stockyards. There is so much to see and do.









A Care Flite helicopter landed in the parking lot just for fun. The pilots let everyone come take a look at it.

Next we visited the Fort Worth Herd CowKid Roundup. It was a great free event tailored for children. The wranglers demonstrated how to crack a whip, rope cattle, and control a horse by the use of reins.



The wranglers even spent time with each child to show them how to spin a lasso and rope a bull (even if it was just a bull head on a bale of hay). Nicholas has tried to figure out how to use a lasso we have a home on his own. He had a great time learning how to do it from an expert!






Next we watched the Grapevine Vintage train roll into the station and then it continued on to the round about where it was turned around to face the opposite direction. That was cool to watch!



We all went to church together on Saturday night. Stuart showed his mom the camera he works on when he volunteers. She looks quite comfortable behind the camera...Lights! Camera! Action!

Saturday night we just spent time together around the kitchen table. We played with pipe cleaners to see who could make the most interesting things. Daddy made a cool baseball hat for Nicholas. Then we played a few games of Bingo while we snacked on some left over Halloween candy.


Grandmother Chance read to Nicholas each time before bed. Here she is reading Puff the Magic Dragon while Nicholas lets his dragon puppet read with them.




Sunday, November 11, 2007

Sunday morning we enjoyed a great breakfast at Main Street Bakery in Grapevine. They have a great selection of french pastries for breakfast. Grandmother got some impromptu snuggling from Nicholas.

Then we headed over to a park in Coppell called Kids Country. Nicholas loves playing here. There are lots of structures to climb on, games to play, and places to hide. There are also lots of swings and a huge sandbox.






When it was time to go, Nicholas was covered with sand and needed to put his shoes back on. He kept squirming around because he wasn't ready to leave. Stuart playfully wrangled his leg and held his leg still so he could get his socks and shoes on. Nicholas loved it and giggled his little heart out!




We spent the afternoon at a children's play, Charlotte's Web, at Casa Manana theater in Fort Worth. It was a great production and Nicholas had a great time. Grandmother bought him some farm animal stickers and I got him a little spider toy. Nicholas was pretty worn out and he slept most of the way back from Fort Worth. That's one tired little boy!

We went to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Mikado's Hibachi Grill. Yum! I think Grandmother really liked it too. After dinner, we enjoyed relaxing on the patio at Starbucks. We had some nice conversation, in between the entertainment provided by the one and only Nicholas!


Monday, November 12, 2007
Grandmother and Nicholas spent the morning playing with one of Nicholas' favorite toys, a simple cardboard box. They made a steering wheel, propeller, and two little side guns to shoot the bad guys. So much fun from such a simple household item!

Grandmother, thank you for coming to stay with us! You came to help out during my recovery but instead we all ended up just having a great time together. Thanks for the yummy food and fun entertainment. Nicholas loves the orchestra book you gave him. We have been listening to the CD with it every day!