Tot fun & Schooling

This past week was a pretty good week in school despite recovering from some fevers and coughs. We're playing a bit of catch up since we ended up taking an extra week off after little sis was born. Currently our routine has settled in at having a snack and doing some reading together at the kitchen table around 10AM. We've been reading a lot from my favorite kid's magazine God's World News. Then I try to have some tot trays/activities set up for The General, and I'll do some preschool with Agent E while Agent H does some independent work. Later in the afternoon while the other two boys nap Agent H and I work more on his studies.













Fort-building. A very important skill!


















Discovery Toy's Castle Works












Colored scarves
First we covered him and then he would burst out of them. Next we sorted them and practiced the names of the colors. Then we just tossed them in the air and watched them float downward.













Agent E asked to take some pictures. The General and I are checking out some DuckTales on the view finder.















The General has been sleeping with the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear for a few weeks now. I thought it was time that we pull out our Brown Bear, Brown Bear mini activity book that we made from 1+1+1=1. This is the animal front/back match up game that we are playing. I'll try to get a better picture of our book for another post. I think this was his favorite activity from the book.














And finally here's a shot Agent E took of Agent H working on his Indian medicine pouch. It was hard for him but he kept at it and now he's very attached to it. It fits a Lego guy perfectly! I'll have to get an up-close picture of this too. (Done, here it is)

The General and his nuks

The General seems to be a little more nuk obsessed than usual these days. Of course there have been a lot of changes going on around here. He adores his little sister but he does seem to need some extra love and comfort. We love you little fella!

The General

Big, breaking blog news: LE will now be referred to as The General. Referring to him as LE all this time has General Lee stuck in my head and as the youngest children in a family tend to have a way of making their wishes known very clearly over the hustle and bustle of the household, so does this fella. So I give you . . .
The General, at leisure.

Thanksgiving 2010

We took the week of Thanksgiving off to do some crafting. The results of our crafting are these great little file folder books. I found the idea at Musings of Me. I asked each of the boys to pick their favorite page for the group shot and then just posted a few other pages. We spread it out over the whole week because that much cutting, pasting, or group crafting would have put some of us over the edge. As we crafted we listened to these Plymouth Rock and Thanksgiving, A Time to Remember just like in years past.

First snow 2010

It is a wet, sticky snow. The best kind for snowballs, snow forts, and just plain snow fun. Agents H&E couldn't wait to get out in it. LE stood by the window in his footed red jammies and enjoyed the activity.

Potty training in progress

Notice the rain boots. Wise choice my boy.

Once again, it was too quiet

It was quiet, too quiet, and I had a vauge recollection of hearing LE close his door. There he was just sitting in the rocking chair. . . with three tubes of glitter (that super fine angel dust kind). Most of it emptied into his lap and on the chair. Good thing I was planning on vacuuming anyways.

LE at work

I've been working to switch out LE's activity trays on a weekly basis (okay I forgot this week). Here are some of his favorite activities. By the way this was all inspired by 1+1+1=1











Yes the pom-poms end up EVERYWHERE.

















Yes the lentils end up EVERYWHERE.

A Fall Moment

A Pile of Brothers

Look at this cute pile of brothers! I just love 'em.






















As if you need a reason to enjoy blue hair! It was crazy hair night for AWANA.

LE at 2 years

Things to remember about LE Babe at age 2

He used to say "no" now he says "mo" ** when something wrong happens he says "Oh mo!" **
has graduated from his high chair to a stool, his own doing ** has three cowlicks on the back of his head, his curls look like a roller coaster ride ** goes down for naps and bedtime so easily - he wants his nuk, his cars & trucks blanket, music, his stuffed elephant is a bonus ** is very neat ** he will clean up after himself when he's done with some toys ** he even happily clears his brother's dishes. ** loves his nuk, he sucks it upside down. ** calls Agent H "Hay Hay" ** double loves playing outside ** such a little monkey, copying whatever his big brothers demonstrate ** can make an entire paragraph out of the words "Momma" and "Papa".

Dear L we not only love you we enjoy you so much!

Brother-to-Brother Playtime

I finally have kids who are at the age where this works! In order to have some quiet school time with both Agent H & E we started a special playtime for LE Babe with his brothers. Every morning we meet together for circle time, then snack time, then we break up into groups. Agent H and LE head up to my room to play for about 20-30 min while Agent E and I do his preschool. Then we switch it up and Agent E and LE go to LE's room to play for about the same while Agent H and I get some time together. We are on week three of this and it's working wonderful. Admittedly the first week had a few bumps but we revised things to do snack time together before we break up and that brightened everyone's spirits. (By the way, Agent H who is in 2nd grade spends about an hour or so after lunch working-during rest time on the rest of his work)

I can't imagine why it took me so long to get on the rotating toys band wagon but now that I have, it's been awesome. I have a schedule written up so that I know who gets to play what, when during those play times. It's just a list with two activities for each group for each day of the week (I only pick one of the activities a day for each group). So . . . they should play with each activity twice a month. Then I'm thinking we switch the H&E column the following month so there is a whole new list for the big boys. Here's what it looks like.

	Agent H & LE	Agent E & LE
Monday	Bowling/Ring Toss/Air hockey game Race cars and track	Little People Duplo blocks
Tuesday	Rescue Heroes Mr. Potato Head	Play tools and benches Doctor play set
Wednesday	Plastic dinosaurs Elefun/Lucky Ducks	Wooden cars/trucks and road blanket Stickers and a large piece of paper taped to the wall
Thursday	Puzzles Bristle blocks	Balls, baskets, basket ball hoop Big trucks and fire engines

Extra activities: Puppet theater, castle marbleworks, plastic zoo animals, fort, movie, dominos, trains, play mailman, lacing/stacking toys, Leap Frog alpha and animal magnets.

I just happened to think that part of my motivation for toy rotation has come from reading the book The Well-Behaved Child. In the book the author talks about not making your kids' room into the Garden of Eden (i.e. removing most of the play factor). He thinks alone time in your room is a very good tool for getting your kids to come around. There's much more to it than that but you get the idea. So their toys have been gradually sifted from their rooms. Really, they haven't even noticed.

Who're you looking at?

Who're you looking at?
-LE Babe

Oliver H. Kelley Farm

Oh how we love visiting the Oliver H. Kelley Farm . . .

35

Somewhere in the last 3 months I turned 35. My husband brought me to the only restaurant that could sooth my belly into a few hours of peace (Noodles & Co.) so we could enjoy a concert at Orchestra Hall. It was a beautiful night.

It also happened to be my first night away from LE Babe (LE Babe and I both survived).

Our wormery

Today we took advantage of the rain and scooped up some worms and made a wormery. I followed the instructions at Hillbilly Jillies. I think I see some fishing in our future. (That is if Agent H doesn't get too attached.)

It started out as a simple "panning for gold" activity as we talk about the CA gold rush in history.

It became a goggle-wearing, head-dunking, swim suit-wearing, surf board move contest kind of morning. I think all these grey days and rain are going to their heads. :)

The boys in their glory . . . .

LE Babe

Anyone else smell that?

The Hunts 2010

This was the best we could corral the boys for a shot after their egg hunt at my parent's. After all they had eggs to break open!

Agents H & E race to find the eggs that Papa hid around the backyard at our place.

LE Babe was a little more interested in climbing and playing than in hunting eggs.

Sick

A recap of the first 3 months of 2010 to the current date:

Child one: sick for about one week (yucky cold)

Child two: sick the next week (yucky cold and croup)

Child three: sick the next week (yucky cold)

Momma: sick the next week, a trip to the Minute clinic reveals it to be strep

Child one: the next day a trip to Minute clinic reveals sick with strep

Child two: the next, next day a trip to the Minute clinic reveals sick with strep

Child one: a week later sick with stomach flu

Child three: same day child one has stomach flu he was diagnosed with strep

Breaking news

Papa: sick with strep

Child three: sick with cold

Momma: sick with cold

This is the first time child two and three have ever had an experience with modern medicine (antibiotics). Though I feel discouraged that they had to put it in their systems I am encouraged that they were able to be this old before they "had" to. You just don't mess with strep.