Other January Photos

Other random January happenings:

Caleb ADORES playing the piano and always whines and shrieks wanting to be up there playing, but I can only hold him on the piano bench for so long.  One of my friends saw me holding him and said, "Why not just put his high chair up to the piano and let him play?"  GENIUS!  So glad that he loves playing the piano. :)

Isaac wrote in his own 8th item to his morning chore chart one day.  It reads, "8.  Tell mom that you love her."  Awww.... 

Elise dressed up as a pirate.  (She plays dress-up all the time, but 99% of the time she is a princess, so the pirate was photo worthy).  Also, the other photos are of her enjoying playing with her birthday presents.  The wooden princess figurine was her birthday present from Isaac, which she proudly colored herself.

One night Jeremy told Isaac that he couldn't sleep in his sleeping bag, and this was how he found him an hour later.  Where there is a will (and this kid has got plenty of THAT!) there is a way. :)  So clever.

During quiet time one day Isaac lined up his toy cars like a rainbow.  Just made me smile. :)

Adventure

It was Thursday afternoon at 4:00 pm.

Jeremy had just called to say that he wouldn't be home until late... again.

The kids and I hadn't LEFT the house since Monday!*

With a long evening looming ahead of us... we HAD to get out of the house.  So I announced with enthusiasm that we were going on an adventure and everyone needed to get there shoes and coat on NOW.  As soon as I stepped out of the house I regretted it a little.  It was SOOOO cold.  The thermostat in our car said 15 degrees.  But I later read online that it "felt like" -6.  And I definitely believe it!  Anyway, I blindfolded the kids and off we went on our grand adventure.  They giggled and enjoyed the novelty of the blindfolds as we drove to our standard destination -- the library.  After warming up and playing and reading together at the library we ventured out again - this time to drive thru and pick up dinner at Culvers.  Then we just headed home.  But at least we ventured out of the house (a little) and had an adventure.

* We aren't necessarily home bodies, we like to get out a lot.  It just happened that it was our turn to host preschool on Tuesday/Thursday this week, and then we randomly also hosted playgroup on Wednesday.  Also it rained all day Tuesday and snowed all Wednesday, so there was really no reason to leave!

Preschool: R is for Rainbow

This year Isaac is participating in a co-op preschool.  Jeremy, Isaac, and I made the decision together  for Isaac to change from traditional preschool to co-op preschool this January,  and we have all been VERY happy with the decision.  He is loving his new preschool class with his friends, I am loving not having to drive him 15 minutes away to his preschool class, Jeremy loves that we are saving $, and this week it was finally my turn to teach and I LOVED it!

The best parts of the preschool class were sweet Isaac moments.  At one point on Tuesday the kids were having some free play time while I prepped the materials for the next activity in the kitchen.  All of a sudden I felt arms around my legs and I looked down to see Isaac smiling and hugging me.  "Hi Mom.  I love you.  Thanks for being my teacher,"  he said.  Then he ran back down to play.  Awwww.... melt my heart!

On Thursdays Elise gets to join the preschool group.  As we sat around the table working on something Isaac said "Elise, I'm glad that you are in our preschool class today."  Awww...  I love my Isaac boy.

Anyway, this week we focused on the letter R and we learned about rainbows!

Day 1:  We sang our opening songs, the kids made a rainbow craft, we did a science experiment creating rainbows in the house, they helped me make make rainbow pudding for our snack, we ate bananas with rainbow sprinkles, they played, we read books about rainbows, we practiced writing the letter R, and that was all. 

Day 2:  We sang our opening songs and learned about the months and the weather.  Then we did our rainbow science experiment again.  We did a letter R craft (filling up the inside of the letter R with tissue paper), they played, we made rainbow patterns out of fruit loops, we used colored tissue paper and a flashlight and talked about light and colors, we read more rainbow books, practiced writing our Rs, and sorted and counted skittles.  Another fun day!

Pom-Pom Toy

Caleb has been SO busy lately!  He is exhausting, always getting into everything!  Well, in a moment of desperation, as I was trying to find something that would keep his attention for at least 2 minutes, I remembered seeing this DIY pom-pom toy on pinterest.  I grabbed the supplies and within 30 seconds we had our pom-pom toy.  And he loved it!  I wasn't sure if he was ready for this sort of a toy, but within moments he had it figured out.  We "played" it together, over and over again.  He played by himself, Isaac and Elise both had to try.  Caleb threw back his head and belly laughed!  He clapped his hands and celebrated, as we all cheered for him when he got one in.  It was so fun and cute and made him seem so darn grown up!  The toy really kept his focus and it was great to see him working hard at it and figuring it out.  I have a feeling that we have another smart little cookie on our hands. :)  Love it.

Playing Together

It's always sad to me to see my kids grow up, I just tend to struggle against my inner desire to snuggle them and keep them little forever.  Anyway, in the last month or so I have noticed Caleb really "growing up".  

* sigh*  

The fun part of Caleb growing up has been watching him start to play more and more with Isaac and Elise.  Like, they are really playing together!!!  I love that!!!  It is so cute to watch him join in on their play and interact with them.  For example, when Elise wakes up from her nap in the afternoon (if she happens to nap) Caleb almost always crawls into her toddler bed beside her and they giggle.  He is SO excited to see her.  It makes my heart smile. :)  And Isaac and Caleb have had  a great time lately playing with some of the ball toys or car toys that we have.  Yay for siblings and fun time playing together!!  Caleb even joined in on a recent indoor "picnic."  Yep, he's starting to blend in and just become "one of the gang".  And he is loving it.

Please note:  Caleb is on TOP of the toy.  And he got stuck up there after these photos.  Poor guy, doesn't know quite what to pull up to a stand next to, and what to climb on, and what to sit beside and play with.  But it sure is cute watching him work on figuring it out. :)

Caleb's First Haircut

It was time... (sniff, sniff) for Caleb to get his haircut.  According to Jeremy it was time a couple of months ago!  But I resisted.  It is so hard for me to watch my little goobers grow up and I knew that a haircut would make my baby look like the little boy that he is!

But finally even I succumbed and he and I headed out to Great Clips for his first haircut.  I was just too nervous to do it myself - so we took the easy way out. :)  He sat on my lap and did a pretty great job.  No tears!  Just lots of head turning and curiosity about what in the world was going on.  But with mommy holding him and a binkie and a sucker -- he did marvelously.  Here's a couple photos.

Before.

After!

Evidence

Pictured are just a few of Caleb's recent antics, it's nothing major - and not really mischievous, just him exploring anything and everything.  Anyway, I also want to quote a recent facebook post of mine:  "Caleb was awake for 3 hours in between his morning and afternoon nap today. During that time he managed to... play in the toilet, get into the garage and get his hand run over by his big sister riding her tricycle (he's ok), destroy a roll of toilet paper, climb on top of a little tikes car toy and get stuck, climb up the first couple stairs (a couple times), get stuck hanging from the blocks bucket (and screamed for his life), put anything he could find into his mouth, and tried desperately to get to the stairs (to fall down them - innumerable times). Whew.... where was I the whole time??? Always 2 seconds behind him. Darn it. Trying to keep up! Today's new goal: Teach the big kids to shut doors (i.e. the bathroom and door into the garage)!! That kid is lucky that he is so dang cute! :)"

I have to say that I think Caleb was less than 2 months old when I first told Jeremy (and I have said it MANY times since), "I think this one is going to be adventurous.  He's the one that we will find on top of the fridge someday when he is like a year old and we'll say - how the heck did you get up there???" At the time I was thinking of the crazy kids that we all hear stories about - the kids who escape from the house, pull pictures off the walls, climb up on the roof, explore the top shelf of the pantry, etc... etc...  (But those are just tall tales, right?  Just stories people tell to scare mothers of young toddlers into hyper-vigilance, right?)

Anyway, somehow I knew from way back then.  I've just known there was a curious, wiggly, adventurous fire in that cutie magoo since day one.  Oh, and I doubt that it helps that he is named after his father - should have known better!  But in all seriousness, I love Caleb's energy, curiosity and interest in the world around us.  And I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

Elise's 3rd Birthday Party!

So I didn't mean for this to happen when I initially made the plans... but Elise's birthday became the birthday that keeps on going and going and going and going!  It happened like this - since her birthday fell on a Sunday we did our family outing on a Saturday, but then we still wanted to have the family dinner and cake on her real birthday, but we decided to have her friend birthday party during my regular turn to host her playschool group (which was, conveniently) the following Tuesday.  Luckily, it was all fun and surprisingly not stressful for me at all.  I feel like we spread out the fun of her birthday and really made the most of it, but we also kept each individual element simple, so that it wasn't stressful for me.  Yay for successfully simplifying!!!

Anyway, before her party guests (aka playschool groupies) arrived I couldn't resist snapping a few photos of my 3 year old.

And here are the party guests!

(Sara - Luke - Elise - Garrett - Tagan)

First we opened presents!  Elise loved new play jewelery, sunglasses, an electric Dora toothbrush, and a pink magic wand.  Then it was free playtime.  It was cute watching the girls play "birthday" together.  After a little bit of playtime, we headed up to the kitchen for playdough time.  After playing playdough there was more free play, while I got lunch ready.  Then there was only time for lunch and cupcakes before the party was over.  The time flew by and the kids were all happy and got along well.  I made goody bags with playdough and suckers - which were easy and turned out to be a big hit.  Best of all Elise loved having her friends over to celebrate her special day with her!