Thursday 25 August 2011

I am the Senate

It's funny how literal kids are, especially when they don't understand the context of the words. In Star Wars Episode 3, Mace Windu tells Palpatine that he will be tried by the Senate. He jumps and yells, "I am the Senate!" Even though Mace replies "Not yet.", Jack insist that his Palpatine character is named Senate. It makes me laugh every time he tells someone that.

Loving Preschool




Octopus Hat made in Motor Group

Jack had a great first two week.s
He is learning the pledge and already has some of the words down. I was worried he would start to resist going when he realized how frequently it was, but he is loving it! I'm thankful to the people who convinced me to check into this program.  Today, he got to wear his swimsuit to school so that they could have fun in the water, including an inflatable water side and big ball sprinkler that splashed him in the face.  I have become very involved in the PTO.  I located prizes for his fall fundraiser, am going to assess first grader's on their site words, and am now the yearbook layout creator!

A Proud Moment

I am so proud of Jack's giving nature! We had a Spiderman hat that he no longer wore and I had sat it in the freecycle pile. This morning he realized it was there and he remembered that one of his new preschool friends loved Spiderman and he wanted to take it to him. I saw the mom and asked her to wait after school so Jack could give it to him. It was such a sweet moment! He put it on little boy's head and they both had huge smiles! I was impressed because his friend even replied with a Thank You unprompted. I hope that I can continue to raise my son with a giving spirit in this give-me society.

Tuesday 16 August 2011

Jack's First Day of Preschool






This is my boy on his first day of school.He was sleeping so hard he had zipper lines marked on his face.  Normally my entering the room is enough to wake him, but not today. It took a lot of gentle shaking to get him to wake up. Oh and if you notice he is sleeping on the floor that is also quite normal for him. He prefers the floor to the bed. I've tried to convince him otherwise, but the floor wins!

Jack's teacher's name is Ms. Anita's.
 He was never really excited about going, but he never complained either. He was, of course, decked out in his new Star Wars shirt and a pair of Jedi shorts. We got seated in the gym and met another Jayhawk fan and his family. We introduced the boys, but they didn't seem to excited as I think they were both just absorbing their surroundings.

When it was time to go, they all had to grab a magic mitten to help them get down to their room. Not a single kid cried at drop off! 
When I picked him up, Ms. Anita reported that he had had a great day and he was so cute. Jack was glad to report that Ms. Anita said she liked Star Wars and so everything was grand.
 I am so glad that I had years of teaching preschool so I felt better prepared to ask him the questions that got me answers about his day. In many conversations, he told me that they read a book that was also a song which was about Oceans. (You wouldn't know it Mom, he told me) He also got to paint with CeCe. He painted lightsabers and Darth Vader's lightsaber holder. CeCe drew a race car driver. He was a little upset because he didn't get to use his own paintsmock though. I'll have to ask the teacher about that. He also had milk for snack, but he couldn't remember what he had to go with it. He told me he didn't drink any of the milk, but Ms. Anita had encouraged him to try it so he did. He also said he got to play outside where one girl cried. It was because two kids were playing race car and ran their eyes into each other. The girl cried, but the boy didn't. He also packed up his backpack with Ms. Kim, one of the paras in the class, and he was proud to show me his communication folder.
We celebrated his great first day by eating Chickfila and stopping by Sweet Perfection for a cupcake. :D

Cooking with Kara--Day 3




Story Photo
Friday's theme was Fiesta. We made air popped popcorn, which the boys thought was fun. However, it went so fast that I failed to get a photo. No fiesta is complete without cake so the boys each helped me make a cake. Then they got to make two frosting colors. J made a Target themed cake and Jack made a PB & J themed one. I had barely time to clean up before we were ready for lunch.





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Lunch was Mexican themed including homemade refried beans (which is what J is whipping up in this picture). We also made quesadillas and had an avocado. It was good for both of the boys because J claimed to hate avocado and Jack doesn't like beans. It is funny because they each loved the others despised product. They gobbled down lunch because they knew we were headed somewhere fun!




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We headed out to Worlds of Fun to enjoy our Fiesta! Our first stop was the Grand Carousel at the enterance. It was hand carved in the 1920's and has over 60 horses on it. They had a good time overall. They were frustrated that a few rides were off limits due to height requirements, but they had enough other rides that they kept themselves busy until we had to leave! I had to give Jack a piggy back ride because his tired legs couldn't carry them as fast as we needed to walk.


Cooking with Kara--Day 2

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Today's theme was fish. The boys loved going fishing using pretzels, spray cheese bait, and goldfish crackers.




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The final product of J's tuna fish. He added celery, egg, tomato, and as little miracle whip as possible. Doesn't it look yummy?




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The boys also got to peel their own carrots. J may have a future as an expert in the peeling department. They weren't really into eating them, but they did make excellent spy glasses.



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Craft went a little better today. They really enjoyed coloring the salt. It is really simple, yet quite amazing them. Place a small amount of a salt (1/8" covering the bottom) and place it into a plastic tub. Small margarine, chip dip, etc containers work well. Simply run your chalk around the sides of the container and you will color the chalk. Keep stirring until it is the color you want. It doesn't ever get too dark.
We made our sea stars by cutting apart a cereal box so that we had something stiffer for the pattern.


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The last was a science experiment. We made jello with fish fruit snacks. The goal was to see what happened when put the snacks in at different timed. The answer: They all ended the same. We had to enjoy our snack later as we spent the remainder of the afternoon at Monkey Buziness.

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Cooking with Kara--Day 1



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Today was the first day of Cooking with Kara that I am hosting for my little friend Jarett. Here are some fun pics and snippets about our day. Today's theme was picnic so we talked about how ants often ruin picnics and so we had to give them a proper place--on a log! Here the boys are sawing their celery.
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Celery mustache anyone?










Next we made lemonade. The perfect picnic drink! I as you can see I cheated and we just used lemon juice. I doubt the boys or I would have had the patience to juice the lemons.
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Next, we moved onto the craft. J had all sorts of big ideas for his picnic blanket, including gluing toilet paper over the top of his construction paper and the water coloring it so that it would show the color underneath. As you can see, we had all the supplies ready to go. However, a house full of new toys and a new friend over did not make two boys real interested in crafting. Maybe tomorrow will be more successful.

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For lunch, we made fruit salad. The boys got to take turns picking which fruit we were going to cut up. We started with a banana, then moved onto kiwi. Next, they did strawberries. Then, a peach. We ended with apples. The whole time were working, J was singing the chorus to "Fruit Salad" by the Wiggles.



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Our finished product. Yummy!! Both the boys loved it!







I love his face in this picture. These are our ham and cheese roll ups. Two pieces of meat wrapped around a cheese stick. Secure with toothpicks (note the awesome sword ones we used) and then cut into bit size pieces and enjoy.
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Afternoon snack was pumpkin muffins. Our neighbor friend came over and was able to help us too. My can opener broke while opening the pumpkin, but luckily I was able to pry the lid back with a knife and shake the pumpkin in. It was pretty funny hearing the boys describe the batter. It was baby food, slime, goo, and of course poop (they are boys after all!)

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Here the boys work hard to get the batter into the muffin tins. This was a pretty messy process and I was thankful that I had the nine year old over to help. I think it would have been a quite a bit messier without him!


Sunday 7 August 2011

Dusting off my blogging shoes....

Thanks for my good friend Andrea for introducing me to Cozi. It is a website and iPhone app that both rock. My favorite thing is the journal tab which allows me to jot moments down wherever I am at. They get to be quick little snippets that I might otherwise forget to share with you. So maybe this blog will get some more frequent use again. It'd been almost 2 years since I posted!!! So here is what I've written this week
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I started feeling horrible again today. I knew I wanted to take back the nativity pieces to the church so I could get the horrible squeaky noise to stop! We met Trish and Kendall up there and I scheduled my appointment with Dr Lindsay on the way to meet them. Trish was kind enough to offer to take Jack to Chickfila so that I could go alone. It was great because I was just able to focus on getting my head to quit throbbing. What a blessing she was. We stopped for gas on the way home, even though there is an Ozone alert. Good thing as I put 14.7 gallons into my 15 gallon tank! Apparently playing with Kendall exhausted him as he fell asleep on the way home and would not wake up for anything. Hope he goes down at a decent time because we have a 9am playdate tomorrow.

Monday, August 1st



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I can't say that I've ever seen my car read that hot before. It's been a hot, hot summer!

Tuesday, August 2nd




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Jack and I created our own bowling alley for something fun to do in the heat. Luckily, I was always the score keeper in the days before automatic scoring. We had a ton of good number practice talking about his score and such. When I made him pose for the picture he made me tape the score sheet to him because it was his "record".

Tuesday, August 2nd



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Is it possible to have killer gold fish? Do you see that small portion of skin floating in the bottom right of tank? Jack and I believe his goldfish killed one of his snails. We will be waiting for me evidence to surface. If I remember, I will let you know.

Friday, August 5th




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It's all a teachable moment. While Jack was using his bathroom products (yes, those include chapstick and cologne) he started talking about which was bigger. So we decided to line up his products from littlest to biggest. He did a great job and really enjoyed the activity. Too funny!

Friday, August 5th




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"It's a stomper!"--Jack
That's right, my boy sees Star Wars everywhere! He proceeded to tell us how we escaped them with Daddy's piloting skills while he was using the force.


Saturday, August 6th




Listening to Jack play at bath time was hilarious. It's the one place that he is perfectly content to play by himself. For a while he was having Batman fight Star Wars characters. Then he started reciting movie lines. Finally, he started using words that he does when he plays with his friends.

Sunday, August 7th


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All three of us were in the water, quite a ways from the boat, when the wind started. Luckily Nick was holding on to the float that we had tied to a rope on the boat, so we could pull ourselves in we got tired. All of a sudden he shouted that the boat was taking him skiing. Before we knew what was happening there were white caps on the water and there was no way Jack and I were making it on the boat. So we sat there and I tried to keep calm, so we pretend we were Jedi's slicing through the waves. Nick made it in the boat and drove to get us in. The waves kept crashing over our boat and it felt like the scene in Forrest Gump. We smacked a tree that was hidden in the waves and broke a piece of the engine. Luckily, it didn't effect the boat or steering. The dock was crazy full of people trying to get off the lake and so I dropped the boys off at the marina, so they could go get the truck and save us a spot in line. Luckily Jack got out of the boat because the lightening began to crack and it was one of the loudest things I have ever heard! Then the rain started coming down and it kind of hurt with the wind. It was finally our turn and it felt like people kept cutting me off. I was surprised I was able to make it back to the dock (I am not the best boat driver in ideal conditions). The wind made it next to impossible to trailer the boat so I had to hop in water and help Nick drag it on. As we were pulling it out, he hit a slick spot and I had to help push him up in the ramp. Nothing else to exciting happened after that. Just just two drenched people trying how to figure out to dry ourselves off with wet towels.

Sunday, August 7th