Tuesday, March 24, 2009
I had to let the pictures do the talking...perfect day in paradise!
On the paddle board with Aunty Susan at Kahala Mandarin.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Cute Freebie!! @ From Son Up to Son Down
Ok, I think I can officially say that blogging was swept over me. Combine that with my love for contests and giveaways....
Visit this super cute blog just to reconnect with the "cool side" of being mommy, then get swept away by the fun little give-aways!
From Son Up to Son Down
I love these fun mom sites! How can we get this mod chic mommy frenzi to the young audience so teens can know that being a mom is cool. It's awesome!! Actually, there's a lot of others that need to realize this!!
I love being a mom!
Visit this super cute blog just to reconnect with the "cool side" of being mommy, then get swept away by the fun little give-aways!
From Son Up to Son Down
I love these fun mom sites! How can we get this mod chic mommy frenzi to the young audience so teens can know that being a mom is cool. It's awesome!! Actually, there's a lot of others that need to realize this!!
I love being a mom!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Dressin' Up!
Willie trying on mom's shoes.
Lucy still has that keen princess eye, always looking for pretty dresses and shoes and likes to feel 'so beautiful mom!' Here are a few of her latest runway fashions. The first outfit, she's sporting mom's brown sweater in a wrap fashion including a tres chic neck piece. The second picture, I'll warn you is somewhat scandalous, but it just cracked me up so much because she was wearing this dress, wasn't pretty enough I guess, and she was trying to 'fix it'. Apparently, floor length gowns are in for princesses. Later she did go and get my high heels and was fully ready to walk out the door feeling good! Man, this girl is going to need a talking to when she's 16... if not earlier!!! :)
Lucy still has that keen princess eye, always looking for pretty dresses and shoes and likes to feel 'so beautiful mom!' Here are a few of her latest runway fashions. The first outfit, she's sporting mom's brown sweater in a wrap fashion including a tres chic neck piece. The second picture, I'll warn you is somewhat scandalous, but it just cracked me up so much because she was wearing this dress, wasn't pretty enough I guess, and she was trying to 'fix it'. Apparently, floor length gowns are in for princesses. Later she did go and get my high heels and was fully ready to walk out the door feeling good! Man, this girl is going to need a talking to when she's 16... if not earlier!!! :)
My "Bb" Day
The letter Bb. So much you can do.... I'm a little late posting this; I taught a few weeks ago, but I wasn't as excited about the way preschool went so I guess that's why the delay. One child was sick, so we had three for preschool today for the letter Bb, two boys and my Lucy. Here's a quick recap with random details of what we did for the letter Bb.
-Backpack (our sound bag for the day) was empty! So we went on a 'B Hunt' to fill it up. What helped us fill our backpack, but binoculars of course! The boys were super cute running around the house looking in their binoculars. They were having so much fun, it was a lesser priority to find the B's, but with a little help we found a bunch. After class, I found two more B's we never found, lol.
-Bb Hidden Puzzle. I had cut up newspaper in different shapes and arranged it on poster board, then the kids had to pull off all the pieces that had the little letter 'b' on it, leaving behind all the big B's; which revealed a hidden puzzle of a butterfly, balloon, and big and little Bb. I thought this might be over their head- and it was a little bit for Lucy, but they actually did it all quite well.
-The Big Ball Challenge. I had a bag of balls of varying sizes and had two kids each pick one ball and had a kind of face off where I held up the balls at the same height and they had to see which ball bounced highest. Then the winner got to stay up. The next child picked a new ball and tried to get the highest bounce against the winner. I was a little surprised how organized the kids were and made sure every ball was tested- the little pink superball won out overall.
-Walked on a 'balance beam'. It actually was just a piece of board that I had borrowed from someone off of Freecycle. It kind of was a lot of work because I sanded it down for the kids to walk on, but it was worth it I think.
-Bounced on the trampoline. Ok, we don't really have a trampoline, just an old mattress that we call the 'trampoline' (to distinguish from jumping on beds which is a no-no). We bounced to the beat and syncopated nursery rhymes to the beat.
-Snack: Banana Bread, and we made banana milkshakes in the blender. I froze cut up pieces of banana, which made it nice in that all that was in the milkshake was milk, bananas, and a little sugar and vanilla.
-Down by the Bay. I had made up verses of this song using a bunch of b words, for example, Did you ever see a barracuda take a ship to Bermuda? or Did you ever see a bee carry a bucket of broccoli?
-Made books. I talked about binding books, pages and the cover. I had made up pictures for the Down by the Bay song and printed little books for each to put together. The stapler (our binding) broke before we finished making the books though, so it was kind of a half done project. I had the kids draw their cover picture. Their homework was to cut out pictures of B things from magazines/newspaper and glue them also on the backs of the pages.
-Three Billy Goats Gruff. We read the book and then acted it out. The book introduces little, bigger, and biggest. I had paper plate goat masks for the kids, and then dress up clothes for the troll, which I ended up being. It turns out I was way too ugly and mean, because I scared one little boy half to death! Yep, made him cry! How bad was that?! But it was fun using our 'balance beam' and turning it into a bridge that we set up on to the couch and the kids went trip trap over the 'bridge'.
-We also read the book, Bubble Gum Bubble Gum, very fun book. Lucy won't stop reading it!
-Read Brown Bear, Brown Bear. I tried to play a game that goes along with the song. We have a flashlight in the shape of a brown bear that makes a little "growl" when you turn it on. We used the flashlight to point to different things that started with the letter B, while singing the song. One boy said he was scared of the growling flashlight. Man, I was really torturing these kids! They were ready to move onto the next activity quick.
-Blew bubbles outside.
I don't know if I was rushing the beginning but I found myself slowing way down the second half because we were moving so quickly. The fact that the kids were ready to move on from each activity so fast says something I guess. Anyway, I could have planned a little bit more, but after over planning last time I didn't think I'd need to. Goes to show you that you can never be fully prepared for teaching- it just never really goes exactly as predicted. Anyway, that's kind of how it went. I accidentally erased half the pictures too! It just wasn't the best of days that day!
-Backpack (our sound bag for the day) was empty! So we went on a 'B Hunt' to fill it up. What helped us fill our backpack, but binoculars of course! The boys were super cute running around the house looking in their binoculars. They were having so much fun, it was a lesser priority to find the B's, but with a little help we found a bunch. After class, I found two more B's we never found, lol.
-Bb Hidden Puzzle. I had cut up newspaper in different shapes and arranged it on poster board, then the kids had to pull off all the pieces that had the little letter 'b' on it, leaving behind all the big B's; which revealed a hidden puzzle of a butterfly, balloon, and big and little Bb. I thought this might be over their head- and it was a little bit for Lucy, but they actually did it all quite well.
-The Big Ball Challenge. I had a bag of balls of varying sizes and had two kids each pick one ball and had a kind of face off where I held up the balls at the same height and they had to see which ball bounced highest. Then the winner got to stay up. The next child picked a new ball and tried to get the highest bounce against the winner. I was a little surprised how organized the kids were and made sure every ball was tested- the little pink superball won out overall.
-Walked on a 'balance beam'. It actually was just a piece of board that I had borrowed from someone off of Freecycle. It kind of was a lot of work because I sanded it down for the kids to walk on, but it was worth it I think.
-Bounced on the trampoline. Ok, we don't really have a trampoline, just an old mattress that we call the 'trampoline' (to distinguish from jumping on beds which is a no-no). We bounced to the beat and syncopated nursery rhymes to the beat.
-Snack: Banana Bread, and we made banana milkshakes in the blender. I froze cut up pieces of banana, which made it nice in that all that was in the milkshake was milk, bananas, and a little sugar and vanilla.
-Down by the Bay. I had made up verses of this song using a bunch of b words, for example, Did you ever see a barracuda take a ship to Bermuda? or Did you ever see a bee carry a bucket of broccoli?
-Made books. I talked about binding books, pages and the cover. I had made up pictures for the Down by the Bay song and printed little books for each to put together. The stapler (our binding) broke before we finished making the books though, so it was kind of a half done project. I had the kids draw their cover picture. Their homework was to cut out pictures of B things from magazines/newspaper and glue them also on the backs of the pages.
-Three Billy Goats Gruff. We read the book and then acted it out. The book introduces little, bigger, and biggest. I had paper plate goat masks for the kids, and then dress up clothes for the troll, which I ended up being. It turns out I was way too ugly and mean, because I scared one little boy half to death! Yep, made him cry! How bad was that?! But it was fun using our 'balance beam' and turning it into a bridge that we set up on to the couch and the kids went trip trap over the 'bridge'.
-We also read the book, Bubble Gum Bubble Gum, very fun book. Lucy won't stop reading it!
-Read Brown Bear, Brown Bear. I tried to play a game that goes along with the song. We have a flashlight in the shape of a brown bear that makes a little "growl" when you turn it on. We used the flashlight to point to different things that started with the letter B, while singing the song. One boy said he was scared of the growling flashlight. Man, I was really torturing these kids! They were ready to move onto the next activity quick.
-Blew bubbles outside.
I don't know if I was rushing the beginning but I found myself slowing way down the second half because we were moving so quickly. The fact that the kids were ready to move on from each activity so fast says something I guess. Anyway, I could have planned a little bit more, but after over planning last time I didn't think I'd need to. Goes to show you that you can never be fully prepared for teaching- it just never really goes exactly as predicted. Anyway, that's kind of how it went. I accidentally erased half the pictures too! It just wasn't the best of days that day!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Words, words, words
The last month has had way too many doctor's appointments and getting shots...yuck. I hate this stuff. I've been sooo unhappy with the clinic and doctors we'v been going to right now, long story... glad we're moving away from them...anyway. We're at Willie's 15 month check up and so they ask this whole long list of questions, How's he doing with that, How's his development with this. They're really awkward questions, do you know what I'm talking about? You can't even think how to answer them, yeah? And so you stand there thinking, Ok, I know my child is super smart, but I can't tell you every single thing he can do. Like the question, how many words can he say? I was like, A lot, ummm, don't know how to even begin to count up a number. The doctor just stared at me in silence like, that's not an answer I can write on my chart, I have to put a number down- that's what will validate my paycheck. (sigh, I hate big kine hospitals can you tell?) But the lady has a valid question, and plus Grandma asked the same kind of question. And so I decided throughout the next week I would write down everything that Willie says and take note how many words he's using. Well, don't get prepared to be bedazzled by some big number, although I'm sure it is a big number. But as the week went on, I honestly could not keep up!! Everyday I noticed all these new words that he was using and thinking, wait, those aren't on the list yet...! I thought Lucy was quite verbal, but Willie might have passed her up (he does have the advantage of a "tutor" so he should be I guess). The kid can have full on little conversations though- it's so cute! He uses two and three word sentences: open it, what's that?, no want it, get down please, i want some. (These aren't written in baby talk; his diction is not this clear, but the words are there.) Some of the cute things I noticed he was saying was, "Up, Up and Way!" He says really cute prayers that are quite audible. Some of his favorite songs are, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Old McDonald, and he'll try and join in on other songs like Ring Around the Roses, and Pop goes the Weasel, and with his sister in the Sleeping Beauty song Once Upon a Dream (I know you...). He's turning into quite the little toddler! Today he went to all of Nursery, for the first time, and the teachers said he did great. Even just since I've been taking note of his words, it feels like he's totally grown up so much. I'm really happy that he's started to pay more attention to books as well. For awhile there I thought, darn he's really not attaching on to reading like Lucy did and I thought maybe I haven't been spending enough one-on-one time with him. And I probably haven't, but he is coming around. It's hard to find middle road books they can read together sometimes. Reading has helped Lucy so much with her vocabulary and pronunication I feel, so I'm glad Willie is starting to get into it more too.
Well, I think this is turning into a little bit of rambling, so I better stop before I get too far into it!
What's in YOUR sippy cup?
I think I've hit an all-time low. Low meaning of course, the lowest level of brain control my mommy brain has become. I'm snapping the lid on the Diego sippy cup of orange juice, I turn around, and who's this for again...? Oh yeah, me. Oops. I did not drink from the sippy cup! I poured myself a new glass. I don't know what happened to that cup of OJ, I think I gave it to the boy to drink, or maybe the girl got it, probably both and it's probably laying under the couch by now or something. sigh, yes I think my mommy brain has finally gone to pot!
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