I caved....

And took this scruffy boy to Cookie Cutters! We could easily buzz Robby's hair at home but I prefer Rob to do it and he was so busy and it was cold so we'd have to do it inside and make a mess and anyways it's just a fun activity for Robby so we just went and got it cut!

I love that they can pick a cool thing to sit in - this time he chose the plane. Then they also pick out a show to watch and he picked Dora, surprise surprise! He is so scared of the clippers and it took three of us at one point trying to distract him with toys and bubbles so I was happy to have a crew of more experienced people there! :)

You can see how he's tensing up here as she's buzzing the bottom...

Once we got to the top with the scissors he was doing much better!

And he looked so handsome when he was all done!!!

I love that little smile!!!!

The truth about preschool

So a lot of people have been so nice and complimented me on my "creativity" and I need to come clean - I am NOT creative. Not really....

What I am good at doing is looking up lots of books and finding resources to get ideas from.... so I'm a good copycat?? I don't know...

My point is it's not hard to do what I do cause I don't make it up myself and you can do it too!!

So... for preschool.... here are some books I read/bought/am using:

This isn't like a checklist of all the things you need to teach your child - it's a collection of poems, stories, works of art, songs, history lessons.... so it's a great resource! This is a great series and I will be buying them as Robby continues to grow. I also would like to purchase this activity book that goes along with this book but I'll wait till he's a little older - only so many books I can buy at one time!

One book that helped me learn more about what other preschools are like is Preschool for Parents. A good read if you are thinking of sending your child to preschool because it shows you what to look for in a good one - as well as give you ideas for how to do one at home. :)

This is a good one to get ideas from...

but ultimately I purchased and we are using this one:

I really love this one! Obviously since our kids are on the younger side of "preschool" we just look at the activities and suggestions and adapt it to what our kids can do and some things they get into and some don't so we keep moving on.

And I will do another plug for Tot School. So many great ideas and you can start when your child is super young - it's all just about playing with your kid but I just would never have thought up some of the games or activities that I found on the site! So check it out and get some fun ideas to PLAY with your kid!

Another thing I'm reading... about educating your child in general... is The Well Trained Mind.

And what book I'm reading right now to try to be a better mommy/family is this one.

And I'm still trying to finish this.

Apple pickin'

Today Liv and I took the kids to Farnsworth Farms where you can pick your own apples and pumpkins. We did this 2 years ago when Robby was just a little guy. This is also a great place to take pictures!

This is the position his head is in whenever he says things like, "is a hiddle baby apple... it wants its mommy..." Or if he's talking to baby Luke or something smaller... like a white cat we saw there... "I wuv you hiddle kiddy..." all with the same little cocked head and shoulders slightly raised.

Of course we had to get a handful of these "hiddle baby" pumpkins!

And in case you don't know, I love this girl. She is awesome. :) I'm so lucky I get to spend time with her almost every day!!!!

Preschool

Another fun day of preschool.... Liv was in charge and we did more learning about ME (as in them) and talked about thinking and feeling... and the letter C.

We picked up paperclips with magnets and then little dustpans to think about which was easier...

Um, this may be my favorite picture of Olivia ever. Ha! She acted like a cat to introduce the letter C. It was awesome.

Do you see her little cat whiskers? So fun!

Fingerpainting and dressing up....

I died when I saw these masks Liv made, aren't they so fun!? We tried to get the kids to try using each other's masks and pretend what it was like to be that person but they only wanted to be themselves. A good thing ultimately I guess! :)

It was a great day! Thanks Liv!

Half-birthday boy

Today Robby is 2 1/2!

He seems like such a BIG boy lately!!!

Something he's been doing a lot of is making phone calls. Pretend ones. On old phones. Or rocks. Like this one:


Or whatever really... and here's my transcription of one of his conversations yesterday....

"oh hi. oh what are you doing? oh you're at the store? ok. " hang up.

"uh oh. somebody is calling me. my friend is calling me. beep beep. beep.... is my friend duioj da ??? 5 - 1 - 0 - 1 - five teen - fourteen.... hi, what is your name? ducky the squirrel. my mom ....... ducky the squirrell oh what are you doing ducky the squirrel? oh you're at the store? oh you have a baby? oh bye!" hang up.

beep beep beep. oh hi. that was me steve, and me blue, and me baby jaguar. hi what is your name? ducky the squirrel again.... ducky the squirrell oh what are you doing ducky the squirrel? you're at the store? oh you have a baby? oh bye!"

He is such a cute boy. "Personality plus!" as his Aunts and grandma say! :)

We celebrated today by going out with friends to Wee Witches at Gardner Village. It was a great day!

It may be silly to celebrate half birthdays but for those who remember I should have had another baby to celebrate this month and since I don't I'm just going to go a little overboard on the one I have. I just can't believe now is when I would be having that baby and I'm still not even pregnant.... whew.... lots of deep breathing today!!! And just being grateful for the one amazing child I do have.

"preschool"

We had a great time today playing "preschool" with Syd & Rob! We learned all about ME (as in, them, not me...). Oh and we're doing a letter of the week too and we did B today.

Made faces on a piece of bread with peanut butter, chocolate chips, and strawberries...

Letter B - we wrote words that start with B on the board and they came up and put smiley stickers on the letter B's - they did a pretty good job! And then we did the A's too since we talked about that last week.

Measured our heads, height, and weight...

Made "puppets" of our faces... they had so much fun weaving the yarn in and out of the holes!


Read I Like Me by Nancy Carlson and other books about our bodies! They didn't like the sitting still part much - Berto and Robby kept trying to just run around on the couch... but they liked looking at the books on their own later which was cute...


And then we let the kiddos run around outside!