Thank you, Granddad Owen!

Being from South Louisiana, Stuart and I feel a little home sick this time of year because we know we are missing out on the Mardi Gras celebrations. However, for many years now, Granddad Owen has made it a tradition each year to have an authentic king cake sent by overnight delivery to us.

Well, today we received our delectable king cake! Fed Ex must send a lot of these each year because the outer Fed Ex shipping box is always specially printed with a Mardi Gras theme of beads and doubloons in the traditional purple, gold, and green. Nicholas must remember this box from last year because I didn't even have to tell him what was in the box. He saw it and started squealing, "King Cake! King Cake!"

So it doesn't get all messy and smooshed, Gambino's ships the cake plain and lets the customer add the icing and colored sugars. Nicholas loves decorating the cake himself and he got quite good at gently tapping the little cup of colored sugar onto the icing. I was pretty impressed with what a great job he did.



In addition to the cake, there was also a Mardi Gras poster as well as lots of beads and doubloons in the box. It's not quite like being there for an actual Mardi Gras celebration but thanks to Granddad it's pretty close! Thanks, Granddad!

What's in your Turtle Basket?

For his very first Easter, Grandmama Owen gave Nicholas a little plush turtle basket filled with wonderful Easter goodies. Of course, the goodies are long gone but that little turtle basket is still very loved. Nicholas keeps it filled with various little trinket toys and it stays in his bed right next to him each night. He will sometimes bring the basket to other places in the house during the day and play with all the little toys or he may dump out the toys and use the basket for some other purpose. Sometimes the toys get changed out with other toys he's playing with that day. But, no matter what, we must make sure that Turtle Basket has made his way back into Nicholas' bed by night time or we will never hear the end of the whining and begging for it. I've even had to go out to the car at night in the cold just to retrieve it for him so he can go to sleep.

Every now and then we just pull out the toys from the basket to see what he's collected in it recently. I asked him what was in his basket this week and he proudly displayed them all for me.



Turtle Basket has:
1. A mini measuring tape that can hook on something
2. A futuristic-looking Hot Wheels car that looks like it is covered with solar panels or something.
3. The remote control for his Moon in My Room (another thing that he MUST have at bed time!)
4. 2 little brown seals that are actually bath tub toys
5. A rubber snake
6. The Batman cake topper from his 3 year birthday party
7. A Mega Blocks police car
8. A food basket from the Fisher Price Little People Noah's Ark toy
9. 2 green army men that he got as a prize from Chuck E. Cheese
10. A mini Batman in a yellow and black costume
11. A blue ring from some infant toy that has long been put away
12. An astronaut
13. A yellow fish squirt toy, another bath tub toy
14. Luke Skywalker action figure from Uncle Steve
15. A purple CAt Woman keychain which was some kid's meal toy
16. A little blue ninja (he calls it an "inja") that he got as a prize at Peter Piper Pizza
17. A helicopter
18. A giraffe from a Fisher Price Little People Noah's Ark toy
19. "Baby Blue Bear" which is a little beanie baby that I got at my baby shower. It says, "It's A Boy!". Nicholas loves to sleep with him at night.
20. And last, but not least, a little brown bear that my brother gave me as a present when we were young.

Wow! That's a lot of junk! But let's see, there's a story here somewhere.

Alert! Cat Woman has stolen 2 seals, a snake, and a giraffe from the zoo. The zoo keepers call in the police and the army to seal down the zoo to protect the rest of the animals. Batman, his mini-clone, and a ninja are called in to try to rescue the stolen animals. They throw a blue ring around Cat Woman to capture her. They have saved the animals!

Suddenly, two giant bears the size of skyscrapers appear on the scene and start tearing up everything in sight. Luke Skywalker gets in a helicopter and uses the measuring tape to see just how tall they the bears are. Wow! They are bigger than he thought. He's going to need reinforcements! He calls his space friend, the astronaut to help. The astronaut flies up to the bears in his Hot Wheels space car and squirts them with water from the squishy fish. The bears start to melt! Hooray! Everyone is safe again!

What a night! I guess it's no surprise since we all know that the crazies come out when there is a full moon like tonight. Everyone is tired and hungry. They take a break and enjoy some of the wonderful food in the crate from Noah's Ark.

Hmm, they just seemed like a bunch of random junk toys to me. I guess there's no telling what can happen when you throw them all in a turtle basket together!

Making Meatballs

Nicholas helped me make dinner last night. He loves spaghetti and meatballs so I let him make the meatballs. First he added some seasonings to the meat and mixed it up with his hands.





It seemed like it would be a good hands-on experience for him and I thought it was going well. I even expected him to want to play with it some like Play-doh before we shaped it into meatballs. Maybe we could at least make little snowmen with the balls before we cooked them. Well, I guess it wasn't quite the texture of Play-doh as I was thinking. Nicholas did not like squishing his hands in the cold meat and proceeded to make it clear what he thought of it.





Aren't boys supposed to like getting their hands all messy? Nicholas certainly doesn't have a problem with Play-doh, wet sand, and certainly no issues with mud. Oh well. It looks like I'm still on my own for making meatballs in this household.

Mad Scientists

This morning our playgroup was supposed to go to Slappy's Playhouse to watch a puppet show of Beauty and The Beast. However, with forecasts calling for icy roads, we decided to cancel and stay indoors. Nicholas and I decided to pretend to be scientists so we pulled out an experiment kit to play with.



We looked through everything in the kit and decided to just start playing with some of the equipment such as the pipettes. I got two glasses of colored water and let Nicholas play with suctioning the water into the pipette and squirting it back out. Then we talked about how to use a pipette as a measuring tool to suction up the water to a certain line on the pipette to get 1 ml of water. Nicholas did great and it was a good exercise to build the pincher grip for writing skills. By the way, we still don't know if he will be left-handed or right-handed because he continues to pick things up and use them with either hand, although he may be still be favoring the left hand.



Before we really got into our experiments, we talked about how scientists have to be sure to keep themselves safe while working in the lab. We got out one of his many pairs of goggles, his work apron, and rubber gloves. And a mad scientist was born.



We tackled a basic experiment to make slime. What fun! We followed the enclosed recipe and measured out the two liquids provided in the kit. Nicholas mixed them together and voila! We had slime.







As I'm trying to type this, Nicholas is sitting on the floor here in the office. He has his wooden blocks spread out everywhere. He has built a "big, giant, star destroyer" (I believe this is something from Star Wars). He keeps flying blocks right in front of my face and telling me all about whatever various rocketship he is pretending to fly. Do you think he might be trying to get my attention? :) I asked him to be quiet for just one more minute while I finished typing this. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "But Mommy. I'm just a noisy little guy. There's nothing I can do about it."

I think I'm going to go play with blocks with my sweet little boy now. We are going to have fun being noisy together. Happy Friday!

This Week at MES

Nicholas reviewed his studies on the continents this week. He also practiced zipping and lacing - both of which he is quite good at. He also loves to button and will button and unbutton his shirt twenty times in a row just because he can. He is working on tying his shoes and gets the first part right but gets a little tangled up when it comes to the two loops.

The class read the story, The Mitten, and did creative dramatics to go along with it.

Nicholas also worked on numberal tracing and letter printing.

Math: Nicholas learned about the 10 boards work and made some numerals 11-99. He also learned to count by 10's to 100.

Good Shepherd: The class discussed Baby Jesus.

Mrs. Carrico said that Nicholas had a rough day at school yesterday. She said he was unusually distracted and just not himself. I've been seeing the same type of problems at home all week. As I thought about it some, I considered that he does have some congestion and maybe he just hasn't been sleeping well at night. But also I wondered if perhaps it was the Xoprenex/Albuterol medication for wheezing that I've had to start giving him this week in his breathing treatments. I called the pediatrician's office and discussed it with one of their fabulous nurses. She said that the Xoprenex wouldn't cause hyperactivity but she mentioned that the Pulmicort in his breathing treatments has a tiny amount of steroid in it. Nicholas has taken a steroid medication (Omnipred?) in the past that made him so hyper he was climbing the walls. However, she said that Pulmicort has a minuscule amount of steroid compared to that previous medication. She didn't think that would cause any problems. We reviewed his other medications and determined that Aldex is probably the culprit. I started giving it to Nicholas this week for his cough. He takes it twice a day and it works really well. But the nurse explained that Aldex works so well because in addition to the cough suppressant it also has an anti-histamine and decongestant. These medicines can cause drowsiness. Now for most adults, we would want to go to sleep with medicine like this. But a three year old, at least MY three year old, is more likely to be so tired that he ends up getting the crazies, aka totally hyper. We determined that I could give him the Aldex at bedtime but in the morning I will give him a different med just for the cough. I tried Delsym this morning instead of Aldex. Mrs. Carrico and I talked after school today. She said that he was calmer and more focused today and seems to be back to his usual sweet self today. I can tell a difference too. Mystery solved!

The Wiz

Today we saw a high school theatrical performance of The Wiz, a spunky take on The Wizard of Oz. I was a little worried that Nicholas wouldn't like the fact that they changed up some minor details of one of his favorite stories but no problem. He loved it.

Nicholas loved sitting next to his friend but the two of them had quite a lot of "discussion" about who the arm rest belonged to. Finally they decided to share it.



At one point in the performance, the lion mentioned that he has an owl friend. Nicholas decided that he needed to discuss this further with his friend. Here's what he said..."I know about owls. They can hunt for food at night. And I know another animal that hunts for food at night! Do you know? It's a bat! Bats can find food in the dark by using echo-location!" I was proud of him for being so excited about his animal knowledge but I had to quiet him down because he was starting to talk louder and louder as he got more excited!

The wizard was questioning why Dorothy would want to go to Kansas. He said, "I can understand why you might want to go to Bora Bora or the Bahamas or even to Flower Mound. But why Kansas?" Nicholas got excited again and said to me, "Hey, that's where I live! I live in Flower Mound, Texas!"

Nicholas also had to comment on the wicked witch as she told someone to "Shut Up!". He turned to me and said, "Shut up isn't nice!"

We had a great time at the performance. We're hoping to go see Beauty and the Beast at Slappy's Playhouse tomorrow morning. However, it will depend on the weather. The forecast says that there will be freezing rain. Ick!

Drawing a Plane

Nicholas likes to draw and color with crayons but he has always been more inclined to just scribble on a page than to draw a real object or color in the lines on a coloring page. However, lately he has suddenly shown an interest in drawing real objects. It's fun to watch him at work. Sometimes he has to still explain what he is drawing but other times it seems rather clear. Here is his latest work. It is a little abstract but it's a plane. I think he did a great job, especially since he wasn't looking at a plane as he drew it and it was all from memory.

Learning through Art

Nicholas has been learning about dimensions, particularly the difference between 2-dimensional objects and 3-dimensional objects. He explains that a 2-dimentional object is "flat" and a 3-dimensional object "sticks out". Makes sense to me! And what better way to reinforce the idea than by creating something 3-dimensional with his hands. Check out his latest 3D art project - strips of paper glued to a card.

Free Rice Addict

Although Nicholas is too young to benefit from this, it is quite educational so I'd like to share it with you. A friend of mine just sent me this link today. Check it out:



For each vocabulary word you get right, 20 grains of rice will be donated to help end world hunger. What a great idea! You can expand your vocabulary while “earning” free grains of rice for those in need.

Some people are addicted to the game Suduko but I'm not a numbers person so that just never caught on with me. Others are addicted to Mahjong or Tetris-type games. Too much hand-eye coordination needed for me to like those. However, I love language and vocabulary so I guess I've found a little game I can get addicted to. I keep going back to the site for "just one more word".

Fish Tape

This weekend, Stuart was in the garage with Nicholas looking through some of his tools for electrical work. He showed Nicholas some fish tape. Nicholas was intrigued by the name and asked, "Is that used to stick things to fish?" Cute Stuart smiled and explained that it is used to "fish" wire through a wall. Nicholas didn't seem too interested in the varied uses for fish tape. However, he did ask to see how far it would reach and then he pretended to be a fish. Apparently there was fish bait on the end of the fish tape because Nicholas then proceeded to pretend to get caught by the fish tape. Silly little boy!

Singing en Espanol

For the last few days, Nicholas has been singing a Spanish song he learned at school! Unfortunately, he can only remember the English translation of the first three lines and my limited Spanish is of no use!



Buenos tardes, Buenos tardes. (English: Good day)
Como esta? Como esta? (English: How are you?)
Muy bien. Gracias. Muy bien. Gracias. (English: Very well. Thank you.)
???? ????? (What the heck is he saying? I can't figure this one out! Any suggestions?)

Note: Please excuse me if I've misspelled the Spanish version of the song. I'm just winging it.

Going Bonkers

We went to a birthday party at Going Bonkers today. We've never been there before and were excited to check it out. It was impressive. It is one giant climbing structure. I can't even explain how big it was except that it wrapped around a large part of the inside of the building and was about four levels high complete with tunnels, slide, ropes to swing on, etc. Nicholas played with his friends for a while but eventually he came over, grabbed my hand and said, "C'mon Mommy! Let's go climb together!". Well, I can't resist that sweet face so up I went. It was a lot of fun climbing and sliding around. They didn't have cool things like this when I was a kid. However, each time that I'd go up with him I would somehow get left behind as he apparently does not have the same pull of gravity that I do and therefore can climb much faster than me.

Nicholas enjoyed birthday cake and fruit punch and lots of games in the arcade area.





Then he went running back to the playground for more climbing fun. That's when it happened. The freak accident that I couldn't have foreseen coming. He and another little boy collided with each other as they were both running for an entrance to the playground. They both instantly started crying and the other mom and I just assumed they had just bumped heads or something typical like that. No, not my child. His forehead collided with the other little boy's open mouth and he ended up having teeth marks in his forehead. The other boy was, of course, not happy because I'm sure he felt like his front teeth had just been shoved up into his head. Nicholas did have a cut on his forehead from the "bite", if you can call it that. I cleaned him up and he seemed fine. They were both ok although Nicholas continued to be bothered by his cut. He has been very touchy about injuries ever since he ran into a table in Louisiana which resulted in a bad cut on his head and he saw his blood all over my face and both of our clothes. Now he can just barely bump himself into something and he will run over to us and ask in a panicked voice, "Is there blood coming out?!" Well, today that is all he kept saying. We would be climbing along and playing just fine but every five minutes or so he would tear up and ask me again, "Is there blood coming out?" Finally, I got a band-aid from one of the attendants, patched him up and kissed the boo-boo. Nicholas was suddenly back to his carefree, happy self. There isn't much that a band-aid and a kiss can't fix!

ROAR!!!

What a cold day! We looked for something fun to do inside and decided to visit the Dallas Nature and Science Museum. We tried to see a show at the planetarium but they didn't have any shows playing today. Bummer! But we found a great IMAX movie to watch - Dinosaurs Alive!

While we sat in our seats waiting for the show to start, Nicholas started pretending to be a meerkat. We were talking about meerkats earlier in the week - how one stands guard as sentinel while the others dig a burrow, sleep, or look for food. We talked about how they travel in packs and communicate with squeaks and barking sounds. It was pretty cute how he stooped down on the floor and then stood up looking around like the sentinel meerkat. I absolutely love to watch Nicholas pull together information that he has learned and then process and demonstrate it in his own way!

Nicholas hasn't been to many movie theaters and there wasn't any popcorn or candy to distract him so I wasn't sure how he would do once the movie started. Would he run up and down the aisles trying to chat with everyone around him? Or would he just get bored and fall asleep since we were now crossing over into his usual nap time? Neither - he did great! His eyes were glued to the screen and he was asking questions and commenting to me throughout. We whispered to each other and talked about what the dinosaurs were eating, why they fought with each other, and what a paleontologist does. Nicholas was really interested and we both enjoyed the show. With dinosaurs on his mind, he spent much of the day saying "ROAR!" to those we passed in the museum. Fortunately most of them were other kids who often roared right back at us :)



Nicholas was very excited about this money-making contraption pictured above. You give the machine 2 quarters and 1 penny. It keeps your 2 quarters and gives you back your penny that is now smooshed and stretched and stamped with a design not conceived of by the United States Mint. However, it does have a cool picture of a skull on it and the name "Nature and Science Museum" neatly stamped across it. I could be wrong but I believe my penny is now useless. It probably doesn't matter much now anyway since I think it has already gotten lost along the way.

We enjoyed many of the other exhibits. Of course, we spent a lot of time in the children's museum. We love the farm section. There is a platform area designed to let children "plant" seeds in holes of the garden. Then the child or a parent can go through and place the vegetables in the garden as if they had miraculously sprouted up then the child can go back through and harvest their garden. Nicholas was fascinated with the garden. However, not in the way that it was intended to fascinate him. He soon discovered that when he dropped his "seeds" into the garden holes that they rolled to a collection area underneath the platform at the edge of the garden. This is really only intended for the museum attendant to know about since she regularly has to collect the seeds and return them to the seed bags at the entrance to the garden for the next child to plant. But once Nicholas discovered it there was no stopping him. He would plant his seeds then run over to collect them himself. Then repeat 50 times. When the attendant came by, he joyously helped by picking up all the seeds and putting them in her collection bag for her.

Of course, on the farm you also have lots of animals. There is a little hen house complete with a series of nesting hens. You can go through the hen house and collect eggs that the hens have laid. The attendants place the eggs just inside the bottom of the chickens so that it gently rolls out if the child lifts the chicken to check the nest. However, if the egg didn't roll out on its own, Nicholas would not just move on to the next nest. He knew there must be an egg in there somewhere so he would just dig his hand around inside the chicken until he pulled it out. It seemed like a terribly aggressive way to collect an egg. Fortunately he isn't really a farmer or the chickens would be the ones painting billboards that read, "Eat more beef!"

In the farm there is also an incredible cow that children can "milk". Although we've been to the museum several times before I don't think Nicholas has ever milked the cow. So here he is in his first milking attempt. I think he did better at milking than he did as an egg collector.



As we were leaving, we found a giant statue of a Woolly Mammoth. Nicholas said, "Wow!" and walked around the giant statue in amazement. Suddenly, he shouted out, "Oh, there's his bottom! Look Mommy! It's his bottom!" Ok, dear! Thanks for pointing that one out to me.

We stopped at the gift shop on the way out. Of course, the ever-present scientist in me wanted to buy one of each of their books on all these great subjects like dinosaurs, butterflies, bugs, experiments with magnets, weather, etc. but I resisted. Instead Nicholas left with some freeze-dried "Astronaut Ice Cream". Sounds yummy but we both thought it was really just yucky.

Nicholas has some new fireman pajamas. As he was putting them on he pointed out the neat pictures all over his PJs. One time he pointed and said, "..and here's the fire dog." I asked, "What is the real name for the fire dog?" He said, "101 Dalmations!" So Nicholas learns a lot by reading books, as you can see :)

As we were reading our bedtime stories, we ran across a picture of a salamander in our book. Nicholas asked, "How does he defend himself?" I thought it was a bit of an odd question. Then I realized that the salamander looked very similar to one of the dinosaurs in the movie we saw today. Nicholas was recalling how each dinosaur had different strengths and weaknesses in terms of offense or defense during a fight. So we talked about it some more and tried to come up with ideas of how a salamander might defend himself. He may be camoflauged by his surroundings making it harder for a predator to find him. He can run quickly or climb to get away from predators. And finally, he can hide in small places so the predator can't find him. Apparently Nicholas thought I was playing multiple choice with him because he said, "I think I'll go with the camo answer".

This Week at MES

Nicholas had a great week at school. He practiced cutting with scissors by cutting strips of paper and also making snowflakes. He also did some push pin work and even worked with a Light Brite type project. These are great for building the muscles in the hand to improve fine motor control and strength for writing.

Language: The class worked on story sequence. They made a snowman story by placing the story pages in the correct order. Nicholas and I do this type of project at home and he always enjoys it.

Math: Nicholas worked with the Montessori Teens Board. He also practiced counting, sorting, and bead stair.

The class also learned about 5-10 sided shapes.

Wednesday was Mrs. Carrico's birthday so Tuesday night Nicholas and I worked in the kitchen making her a special gift. We made Madeleines for her. Although Nicholas works in the kitchen with me all the time, we had never beat egg whites before so that was an exciting new experience for him. He watched as the gloppy egg whites slowly whipped into white froth and then stiff peaks. What a neat thing to watch! He also helped me grind the almonds, measure and add all of the ingredients into the mixture, then fill the cups of the madeleine baking pans. We made two batches of them so we had enough to keep for ourselves. They were great for breakfast the next morning!

Here are some suggestions for applying Montessori principles in the home as written by author Joan Beck of the Chicago Tribune, 1965:

~ Whenever you can, arrange your home so that the child can manage for himself. Make his table and chair low enough, his toy shelves easily accessible, his clothing equipped with fasteners he can operate, his clothes rods the right height, etc. Then don't do anything for him that he can do for himself. "Any unnecessary aid is a hinderance to learning", said Maria Montessori.

~ Teach your child with real things. Take the time to show him how to handle materials and equipment carefully, and he will be capable of far more than you realize.

~ See that your youngster has as much choice as possible in his activities. He can't live up to his potential unless he has the opportunity for independent work.

~ Don't insist that your child try a new activity if he isn't interested. Don't make him stick at a learning task when he doesn't want to.

~ Make creative use of silence. Encourage your youngster to be still for a moment so he can hear more acutely. This not only stimulates his sense of hearing, but gives him a feeling of self-mastery.

"When a child pleads to "help me do it myself", he means to help him develop his capactities to the fullest, whatever those capacities may be, to become what he was meant to be, a unique, remarkable human being."

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that what each one of us needs most of all is someone to confidently expect us to do what we are capable of doing.

A Sweet Reminder of Summer

I just ran across this misplaced video clip from last summer when we were playing in the pool. It's nice to look at things like this when we have freezing temperatures outside. It's a good reminder of all the summer fun we have to look forward to in just a few more months.

In case you couldn't understand it all, Daddy pops his head out from under the water and Nicholas said, "Huh?! It's Daddy! I thought that was an Orca!"

Spending the day with the PTA

We started the morning with our monthly GLECPTA meeting. We had an incredible speaker - Lynda Morley. It is awesome to speak with her about children because you can just hear the passion in her voice. I met her last year when Nicholas and I went to the Heritage Farmstead where she is in charge of the preschool educational series. After the meeting I just hung out near her so I could soak up all the knowledge she was sharing with other moms who were asking questions. I have her book, Outings and Adventures Everywhere! in which she describes how to plan outings for young children and includes suggestions for age appropriate activities that you can do on most outings like parks, museums, etc. Nicholas and I love outings and this book has been really great for inspiring me with fun activities outside of the normal outing.

While I was in the meeting, Nicholas worked on a snow craft project. After the meeting, many of the moms took the kiddos to McDonald's for lunch and playtime. Then a few of us went over to Rheudasil Park (aka the duck pond) for some more fun. We fed the ducks and played on the playground.

Nicholas and I then ran a few errands and headed back to the house. He played outside for a little while. I caught this picture of him as he was "dusting" his fort with a plume from our pampas grass. He loves to help me dust in the house with the Swiffer dusters so it only makes sense that he would want to take care of his own little house too. How cute!

Build and Grow

Stuart took Nicholas to Lowe's this morning for their children's "Build and Grow" clinic. It's a free clinic for children with all supplies provided. They build a different project each time. Today's project was a wooden GMC Truck! First Nicholas was given a little hammer and a set of goggles. He just loved the goggles! I think we could have gone home at that point and he would have felt that the day was complete.



Then we got our truck kit. All of the pieces were already cut to size and the nail holes were pre-drilled to make it easier to drive them into the wood. Stuart would place the nails over the holes and Nicholas took care of the hammering. He really did a great job. However, there were a few times that I cringed for Stuart's thumb as Nicholas would continue to hammer while looking up to see what someone else was doing. Ouch!




Once the truck was built, Nicholas used a small piece of sandpaper to smooth out the rough edges. He got a little bored with this part but, of course, it really isn't as much fun as swinging a hammer!



Next came the stickers. We let him put them on himself so they aren't completely lined up. Sometimes it's hard to not jump in there and help him do things so the finished product is just perfect. But that would defeat the purpose of this whole experience - to let Nicholas experience building and creating something with his own two hands.



As you can see below, he is very proud of the truck that he made...and so are we :)



This was our first time at a children's clinic like this. Technically they are designed for children ages 5 and up. However, younger children can obviously complete the projects as long as a parent is there to help explain how to put it together and help with straightening bent nails from time to time. Lowe's and Home Depot both offer these children clinics. If you haven't taken your child to one yet, I would highly recommend checking them out.

This Week at MES

Montessori: This week in class, Nicholas was introduced to the Montessori geometric cabinet. The class rolled dough in butter and cinnamon sugar and baked them. They called them "Dirty Snowballs". Nicholas said they were yummy.

Language: Nicholas is working on learning the months of the year. He is also working on initial consonants.

Math: Nicholas learned about the binomal and trinomal cubes.

Good Shepherd Lesson: Flight into Egypt

The children took turns telling and acting out the story of Epiphany. Creative dramatics increase listening skills, thinking skills, and delayed gratification.

They also got to practice their speaking and listening skills through Show and Tell. Nicholas brought his kaleidoscope to show the class.

Nicholas continued to practice his fine motor skills by tracing his name.

A Full Day of Fun!

We started the day with a GLECPTA event at Peter Piper Pizza where we got to tour the kitchen and see how pizza is made. We watched the dough being rolled out by a machine. It was amazing how large one little ball of dough can get when it is rolled out. Each child was given their own little piece of the dough to touch and feel. It was a lot like Play-Doh. Next we went into the walk-in refrigerator. Ooh, it was chilly in there! We got to see the giant tub of pizza sauce. Wow, that was a lot of sauce. Then we watched the dough being punched with holes to let the air bubbles out. Next was the pizza sauce and cheese then each child got to add their own pepperoni to the pizza. What fun!

We enjoyed lunch at the salad and pizza buffet. After lunch, the kiddos were off to play games!



Nicholas seems to have finally caught on that the tickets he wins from games can be used to buy things so he was playing a lot of games that gave tickets. He's pretty serious about this one. Look at the concentration...



Nicholas kept wanting to play this "claw game" where you try to scoop up candy. Not only are these always harder than they look but this silly claw didn't even work right! It would go down into the candy but usually it wouldn't try to grab something until it had already come back up from the pile. What a waste of time and tokens. Nicholas kept trying no matter how many different ways I tried to explain that it wasn't working right. He did eventually get two pieces of candy. High Five!



We had fun and we were one of the last in our group to finally leave. I had a coupon for Barnes and Noble so of course I had to go find something to buy that I didn't know I needed. Among the things I bought was a new Brain Quest game for Nicholas. He just loves these! They are a set of cards with questions on them. Then you flip to the next card to see if you got the answer correct. He already has the three year old version but it is really too easy for him so I bought the one for 4-5 year olds. We sat on a bench outside the store, soaking up the sun, enjoying the beautiful weather, and playing with the new Brain Quest cards. Nicholas still goes through these cards easily without much hesitation but he really loves them. He was even trying to read the questions aloud himself.



Next we decided that we were both thirsty and, oh surprise, there just happens to be a Starbucks in Barnes and Noble! How convenient :) Nicholas loves their non-coffee creme drinks and he tried the vanilla one. He spilled about half of it on the sidewalk outside (sorry Starbucks!). Isn't always so sad to see a little kid spill a special treat like that? I thought he was going to cry but I showed him that only a little spilled out and everything was fine once again. Yum!



The day was just too beautiful to go back home. We went over to a nearby park and flew a kite, walked around the pond, and played on the playground.

On the way home, Nicholas pointed to a stop sign and shouted, "Look Mommy! That sign is an octagon!". Yes, I had to quickly count the sides myself to be sure he was right...and he was. I asked him how many sides an octagon has and he smiled and said, "It has eight sides!"

Proud Mama!

An Interesting Little Adventure

We were getting out of the car at home after picking Nicholas up from school. I had both of our doors open and all of our stuff loaded down in my arms. I reached over to lock the door and planned to close it but then I realized that I wanted to take a picture of Nicholas with his little giraffe which he had brought to school with him and was now clinging tightly to. I throw the pile of coats, lunch box, purse, etc down on the front seat and grab my camera. I step away from the car to fiddle with the camera before getting my shot and as I looked up Nicholas was closing the doors to the car. It was one of those slow motion moments...."Noooooooooooo!" Too late. My purse (AND KEYS!) were now safely locked away in the car. Of course, this all occurred before I had bothered to unlock the house - you gotta get those photo opportunities as soon as the moment arises, right?

So here it is 2:30 in the afternoon and I'm locked outside on a cool, windy day with a three year old, a camera, and a giraffe. Stuart is at work 45 minutes away. I should call him to come home. I dial his phone but it goes to voice mail. Oh yeah, he is in a seminar from 1:00 - 5:00 today. I could keep calling him and eventually he would realize it was important and answer the silly phone. But it isn't really an emergency. Surely I can find someway to entertain the little guy outside for a few hours. We love being outside. However, the wind is cold and Nicholas now has to go potty. After teaching him to pee by a tree (why do guys go by trees anyway?)we escaped to his fort to try to get out of the wind. That was fun for a while but it isn't as much fun when you are just staying hunkered down to stay warm. Plan B, get moving! We took a walk to a park down the street. That is always fun. And, of course, I had my camera in tow and got a few cute pics. Here's Nicholas proudly hanging from the monkey bars himself. Granted he never made it past the first two bars but still it is more than he usually does on them....




Well, we passed an hour playing at the park. But it is still cold and as I calculate the time that Stuart will actually get out of his seminar and make it through traffic to our house, I realize that it will be dark and we will be really cold by then. I've got to come up with Plan C. Mind is too cold and tired to think. Wait! I have my debit card in my pocket. Why is it in my pocket? Who cares! I now have a three year old, a camera, a giraffe, and MONEY! Ha! And Stuart grumbles that I never put things neatly back into my wallet where they belong!

I decide that we can make a hike to McDonald's and find comfort in a warm building with bathrooms and food and of course, Nicholas will be content to play endlessly in the indoor playground until Stuart can come pick us up. I'm so proud of myself for my delightful solution. We are close to three McDonald's but which one should we go to? No, not walking down 3040. No, not crossing 2499. Hmm, that just leaves the third McDonalds. It's a straight shot down a nearby street. Enough traffic to feel safe but not too much to worry about getting run over. I tell Nicholas our plan and he is ready. We start on our journey. This won't be bad. It's really not that far. We'll be there in no time....No time, that is, by my walking standards but not by the standards of a three year old. Within the first block of our hike, we stopped several times to pick up those prickly little balls that fall from trees, a stick or two, an acorn, and we had to discuss the rules that Nicholas just made up that state that it is ok to walk on the sidewalk cracks that have grass growing in them but not ones that don't. Whatever! Let's just get going, little buddy!

Whew, we made it out of the neighborhood and past the middle school. Now it's a straight walk up this street. I can even see the traffic light where the McDonald's is from here. We'll be there soon. Nope. Nicholas now has to use his stick to poke into the branches of each bush that we pass to "check the pressure". I'm sure this is some guy thing he has picked up from Stuart in the garage. Oh my goodness! Can we move a little faster? I decide to carry him a little way to try to get there faster. Boy, that didn't last long. When did he get so heavy!

Still walking. Oops, he poked an ant hill with the stick and didn't realize it. Drop the stick! Drop the stick! I have no way to dress a hundred ant bites out here in the middle of the street in this blustering wind! Oh look, we're crossing a bridge. "Pick me up so I can see. Pick me up! What is that down there? Where has all the water gone? What is that trash doing down there? Why is this rail on the bridge?" Normally I would have loved to have answered those questions with thoughtful responses and even ventured down under the bridge to explore. However, again, it is cold and windy, I need a bathroom, and it's getting late. And that McDonald's which seemed to be "just down the street" now seems to be just as far away as it was when we began. My, this is much farther than I thought.

I resort to more bursts of carrying him to rush things along although we still ended up with more sticks and a couple more rocks that he picked up when I let him walk so my arms could just get a break. We finally made it to the Golden Arches. Man, I've never been so excited to go in those doors. One kids meal please. We collapse at a table and Nicholas chows down on his food. I know I gave that little guy quite a work out. He really did great. No complaining or whining. He seemed to have fun the whole time. He is such an adventurer. After his dinner, he ran off to play with some boys on the indoor playground while I finished off those last few fries he left (which, of course, he came back looking for a few minutes later! Oopsie!).

I called Stuart again shortly after 5:00. He had not yet checked his voice mail and was upset that he didn't know what had happened. I reassured him that everything was fine and it wasn't the kind of emergency that he had needed to rush home for. Although I may not have had the best plan, the boy and I were safe and entertained the whole time. He came to pick us up at the McDonald's (because I wasn't making that walk again!). He said it was about 2 miles from the house to this McDonald's. Hmm, not quite the short little walk I had thought it was. Looking back, it really wasn't all that bad. We were cold but other than that we did stop to check things out all along our walk. It was an interesting little adventure.

Spot Light

Nicholas came into our bedroom when he woke up this morning. As usual, he was carrying an armful of stuffed animals. He plopped them on our bed and left the room. Soon he returned with another armful of "friends" and announced that he had brought us all of his friends. He then climbed up on the bed and snuggled for a few minutes. As we were lying on the bed, he picked up a little giraffe that had once belonged to me. I had been given the little giraffe at a hospital tour that we took before we were even pregnant with him. At the time, I was all dreamy about getting pregnant and I kept the sweet giraffe at my desk at work as a little reminder of what lay ahead in our future. A friend of mine named him George and another friend started calling him the "fertility giraffe".

Once Nicholas was born, the giraffe stayed in his room and he is now one of the many "friends" that sleep in bed with Nicholas at night. This morning as he held the giraffe I told him the story behind him and that his name was George. Nicholas smiled at the giraffe and said "Hi, George the giraffe". But as he continued to look at the giraffe he changed his mind. He said, "No, his name is Spot!". Well, that makes perfect sense since he does have brown spots all over him. Cute idea. Then Nicholas wowed me as he said, with a cute little grin, "And his last name is Light!". He smiled really big and said, "Like the spot lights at church." How clever he is! He went on to explain, in case I didn't get it the first time, "Daddy used to work upstairs on the spot lights but now he works downstairs on the cameras." He ran in the bathroom to tell Daddy about Spot Light. And so, my little George is now Spot Light and my little guy has brightened my day, yet again, with his sweet charm and wit.

Way to Go, LSU Tigers! National Champs!

Nicholas was up for part of the game tonight. And although he does have some purple and gold in his blood, his three year old attention span got the best of him and he got bored and just wanted to play and make noise. So he did get put to bed before the end of the game so that Daddy and I could hoot and holler uninterrupted. It was a great game but LSU made it look too easy.

Final score: LSU 38, Ohio 24!

I've got a great music file with the LSU Fight Song on it. I've searched online trying to find a way to post a music clip to a blog but I just can't figure it out. Sorry. I guess I could hum the music for you instead.

Dun...Dun.Dun..Dun
Dun...Dun.Dun..Dun

Ok, never mind. Geaux Tigers!

A fun day at the duck pond

A local radio station was giving away tickets today for a sneak peek showing of a new children's movie by Veggie Tales. Nicholas and I picked up tickets for all three of us to go tomorrow night. Nicholas loves Veggie Tales and so do we because they are a wholesome cartoon that teaches about having good values and doing what is right. We're all looking forward to going to the movie but I'm also hoping to get some good "movie theater" popcorn.

Afterwards we picked up some Chick-Fil-A for lunch and headed to the duck pond to meet up with some friends. It was a windy day but the temperature was great - almost like spring. There were lots of ducks and birds out and as always Nicholas had fun feeding bread to them. The birds were really cool because they would hover over our heads and let us throw the bread straight up to them. Nicholas loved to watch them catch the bread in mid-air. Nicholas also made some new friends as he played on the playground. I love it that he is so outgoing and bold, so unlike me!







By the way, LSU is playing in the BCS national championship tonight in the New Orleans Superdome. They play against Ohio State University and they have a good shot at winning. In honor of our Louisiana friends, we're having a cajun-style dinner tonight of jambalaya then we'll settle on the couch with some chips and dip to watch the Ohio Buckeyes turn into Tiger Bait! Geaux Tigers!

I have two LSU car flags that I fly on my car whenever there is an LSU football game. Today we were leaving Kroger and walking out to our car when Nicholas saw the car flags again and started talking to me about LSU. He told two ladies parked next to us all about the game tonight. Then he told them that Granddad Owen had given us the LSU car flags a while back. Then he proceeded to tell them all about his family in Louisiana. That boy can talk your ear off if you get him started!

Thought for the Day

"Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap." ~ Barbara Jordan

So have you had your cookies and nap today?

All Aboard! - Learning about trains

Today our educational playgroup learned all about trains at Bradley and Mrs. Macey's house. Mrs. Macey always has great ideas. She covered her kitchen table with plain butcher paper and drew a train track all around it. She talked to the children about how train tracks are made and then she talked about the different kinds of cars that make up a train. She let the children pick out printed pictures of train cars, train stations, railroad crossing signs, etc. The children colored their pictures and glued their train and station onto the track. What a cute idea!





Mrs. Macey read train stories to everyone while they enjoyed their snack. Then we listened to a train song as we all marched around the kitchen and through a tunnel as we pretended to be a train.

Next, Mrs. Macey put together a little train and let everyone have a turn riding. Nicholas enjoyed being the engineer.