Emma has recently started to make snowflakes out of paper. Yesterday John came running down the stairs and joyfully announced they could sell snowflakes to people for money and be rich! I giggled to myself. Later that day, as I was driving up to the house, I saw Emma and John at a table at the foot of the driveway giving away snowflakes. John apparently wanted to sell them and Emma suggested that they give them away.
They gave three away to the neighbors who were playing outside. Emma was disappointed at the low turn out. I thought it was adorable!
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Friday, January 8, 2016
Space
John has been obsessed with space lately. He turned to me and said, "Are we in space?" I answered, "no, we are on the Earth." Then he returned with, "if the Earth is in space, and we are on the Earth, why are we not in space?" Well, when you put it like that, yes we are. So then we got into how you define "space."
Reading
I picked John up from preschool on Tuesday and his teacher said, "So John is learning to read, but you already knew that." I looked at her bewildered and said, "no, I didn't know that." Apparently she was reading Cat in the Hat to the kids and John saw the word p-l-o-p. He sounded it out and arrived at pop. So pretty close, anyway. That morning I had been working with him on a toy that is supposed to help kids with learning to read easy words like cat and hen. Aaron has worked with him in the past to sound out a few words but nothing terribly consistent and after a very short while, John looses interest and doesn't want to do it any more.
Today John told Aaron that he wanted to read the Book of Mormon and that Aaron would help him. I don't know that I would consider that Book of Mormon to be an easy reader type book. Aaron got out the first Bob Book. So today John read the first Bob book. He has a way to go for it to all click together but he was pretty excited at his accomplishment. He also loved that we offer gum as a reward for reading. It is what we would do for Emma when she was learning to read. She would do anything for gum. We'll see if it will work for John. He also got to help Aaron with tools in the garage as a reward. Both were intensely exciting.
Today John told Aaron that he wanted to read the Book of Mormon and that Aaron would help him. I don't know that I would consider that Book of Mormon to be an easy reader type book. Aaron got out the first Bob Book. So today John read the first Bob book. He has a way to go for it to all click together but he was pretty excited at his accomplishment. He also loved that we offer gum as a reward for reading. It is what we would do for Emma when she was learning to read. She would do anything for gum. We'll see if it will work for John. He also got to help Aaron with tools in the garage as a reward. Both were intensely exciting.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Just a Flesh Wound
John has had this little white bump on his head for quite some time now. Just before Christmas it turned into this large goose egg type thing that was red and huge. It was about an inch long and a half inch above his scalp. It was very tender.
Yesterday I finally took him in to the doctor because that was the soonest appointment I could get due to the holidays. It was an abscess. We don't know if it is strep or staph yet but the doctor had to drain it. It was not for the faint of heart. Poor John was screaming and there were three of us holding him down. The kid was a trooper though. He didn't buck at all. When the doctor asked him to stop crying so that his head wouldn't bleed as much and he actually tried and did it. There was no numbing medicine at all - just a straight cutting open. Apparently there was a lot of stuff coming out of it and blood everywhere. It didn't take John long to recover from it though and figure out that he could milk it for all of the Sesame Street and treats he wanted. Other than getting his head cut open, it was a lot like Halloween or an Aunt Mary visit as far as treats are concerned.
Yesterday I finally took him in to the doctor because that was the soonest appointment I could get due to the holidays. It was an abscess. We don't know if it is strep or staph yet but the doctor had to drain it. It was not for the faint of heart. Poor John was screaming and there were three of us holding him down. The kid was a trooper though. He didn't buck at all. When the doctor asked him to stop crying so that his head wouldn't bleed as much and he actually tried and did it. There was no numbing medicine at all - just a straight cutting open. Apparently there was a lot of stuff coming out of it and blood everywhere. It didn't take John long to recover from it though and figure out that he could milk it for all of the Sesame Street and treats he wanted. Other than getting his head cut open, it was a lot like Halloween or an Aunt Mary visit as far as treats are concerned.
Broccoli
John has decided that he likes broccoli with butter and salt and pepper. More accurately, he likes salt and butter. Broccoli is just the agreed upon vehicle for the salt and butter. Tonight he asked to just eat salt. I said no. He asked for some broccoli to go with his salt. I said yes. He also asked if he could eat butter from the knife. I said no. Again, we were back to the broccoli as the vehicle. My kids plowed through a bag of broccoli tonight. I am not yet ready to talk about the butter and salt yet. I will say that he didn't want toast and butter and jam as a method of eating butter.
Shoe Ransom
So I read a friend's blog and she mentioned that she has a shoe ransom basket where left out shoes get put. The owner has to either sing a song and do a dance or they can pick up five things and put them away. I loved this idea. Any and all shoes are fair game - parent's included. I thought that would make the kids excited to put each other's shoes in the basket and Aaron's and my shoes in the basket to witness something humiliating. Aaron was supportive of the idea. The kids were another matter. Emma has a pair of boots in the baskets as I write this. She couldn't bring herself to perform twice for John and me. She then proceeded to tell me how much she dislikes the idea. John was in concurrance.
Being in an exceptionally flexible mood, I told the kids we could have a family council and decide what we should do to help get the shoes cleaned up in our house. Emma had an idea. Her idea was to fold and put away all of the owner's laundry and then read four pages from two different books. I was sure to verify that her idea was better than singing a song and doing a dance or even putting away five things. She assured me that it was. I suspect her boots will be in that basket for a very long time.
Being in an exceptionally flexible mood, I told the kids we could have a family council and decide what we should do to help get the shoes cleaned up in our house. Emma had an idea. Her idea was to fold and put away all of the owner's laundry and then read four pages from two different books. I was sure to verify that her idea was better than singing a song and doing a dance or even putting away five things. She assured me that it was. I suspect her boots will be in that basket for a very long time.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
More Staycation
Aaron also had this last week off and we have truly enjoyed our family time and having a quieter pace of life.
On Monday we took the kids to a place called Little Beakers with some friends. It is a place where the kids can do science experiments. I still have very fond memories of 8th grade science class where we got to do science experiments. The kids loved it. They got to do the coke and mentor experiment, make snow, make a monster (gooey stuff in a balloon with mesh over it so when you squeeze it, it bubbles out the mesh), and make an alkeselser rocket. Then we went home and made pizzas.
On Tuesday we recovered the house from Christmas. It was sad to take everything down but nice to reclaim one third of our living room.
On Wednesday we met some friends for lunch at the Hobbit Cafe. They enjoy science fiction stuff and I enjoy healthy food. It is a bit of a granola place but they also have ridiculous stuff like a burger that is too tall to fit in your mouth because it is loaded with everything delicious and unhealthy. Aaron and Wes split the burger. Then we went to the zoo. We didn't see much in the way of animals because it was a cold day and the zoo here tends toward warm climate animals (no polar bears in Houston) and all the animals went inside if they could or were huddled doing nothing. We were able to feed the giraffes. Giraffes are Emma's favorite animal so she loved it. John did as well and I confess I have always wanted to feed them every time we have been to the zoo so it was a dream come true. We went to the children's portion of the zoo which has a playground and a petting zoo and stuff to climb on. The kids loved it! The adults however, were less enchanted because we kept loosing a kid down some alley. There were no enclosed spaces and the kids kept running everywhere. We decided to head for home when our nerves where shot and the kids were getting tired from running and playing. The traffic was bad so we decided to get dinner and wait for traffic to die down. We ate mediterranean food and I loved it.
On Thursday we had friends over for waffles and ice cream for dinner. The kids were in love. The dads enjoyed it as well. The moms were another story. Hopefully they will still be friends with me. The kids are on my side at least. The adults played a game and the kids kind of watched a movie and played. Overall it was a great evening and the kids in bed by 8:30. Waffles and ice cream comes from Aaron's family tradition. Technically they did chimichangas for dinner and waffles and ice cream at midnight but since we aren't midnight people, and I don't fry stuff, we had waffles for dinner. Believe it or not, I am ok with waffles and ice cream for dinner once a year. The next morning John was beyond sad that he couldn't repeat dinner for breakfast.
On Friday we played with some friends and got stuff done around the house. On Saturday we moved into preparation mode for returning to normal life. We have had a great time the past two weeks playing together and working on projects. I am definitely not quite ready for life as usual.
On Monday we took the kids to a place called Little Beakers with some friends. It is a place where the kids can do science experiments. I still have very fond memories of 8th grade science class where we got to do science experiments. The kids loved it. They got to do the coke and mentor experiment, make snow, make a monster (gooey stuff in a balloon with mesh over it so when you squeeze it, it bubbles out the mesh), and make an alkeselser rocket. Then we went home and made pizzas.
Here they made goo and put it into a ballon with mesh around it. When you squeeze the balloon then it squishes around the mesh.
Here they made blue snow
Here they did alkaselser rockets.
On Tuesday we recovered the house from Christmas. It was sad to take everything down but nice to reclaim one third of our living room.
On Wednesday we met some friends for lunch at the Hobbit Cafe. They enjoy science fiction stuff and I enjoy healthy food. It is a bit of a granola place but they also have ridiculous stuff like a burger that is too tall to fit in your mouth because it is loaded with everything delicious and unhealthy. Aaron and Wes split the burger. Then we went to the zoo. We didn't see much in the way of animals because it was a cold day and the zoo here tends toward warm climate animals (no polar bears in Houston) and all the animals went inside if they could or were huddled doing nothing. We were able to feed the giraffes. Giraffes are Emma's favorite animal so she loved it. John did as well and I confess I have always wanted to feed them every time we have been to the zoo so it was a dream come true. We went to the children's portion of the zoo which has a playground and a petting zoo and stuff to climb on. The kids loved it! The adults however, were less enchanted because we kept loosing a kid down some alley. There were no enclosed spaces and the kids kept running everywhere. We decided to head for home when our nerves where shot and the kids were getting tired from running and playing. The traffic was bad so we decided to get dinner and wait for traffic to die down. We ate mediterranean food and I loved it.
On Thursday we had friends over for waffles and ice cream for dinner. The kids were in love. The dads enjoyed it as well. The moms were another story. Hopefully they will still be friends with me. The kids are on my side at least. The adults played a game and the kids kind of watched a movie and played. Overall it was a great evening and the kids in bed by 8:30. Waffles and ice cream comes from Aaron's family tradition. Technically they did chimichangas for dinner and waffles and ice cream at midnight but since we aren't midnight people, and I don't fry stuff, we had waffles for dinner. Believe it or not, I am ok with waffles and ice cream for dinner once a year. The next morning John was beyond sad that he couldn't repeat dinner for breakfast.
On Friday we played with some friends and got stuff done around the house. On Saturday we moved into preparation mode for returning to normal life. We have had a great time the past two weeks playing together and working on projects. I am definitely not quite ready for life as usual.
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