Every week my mom and I set aside a night to talk on the phone together. We typically talk for at least 2 hours, sometimes more. We’ve been doing this for several years now, and I always look forward to it.
This week, she asked me about the boys singing along to the CD that I mentioned here. I said that I had gotten a little video of it on my ipod and she begged to see them.
So by request, here are 3 little videos of the boys singing!
This one is the first video I took. I am amazed that they knew the words. We sing this often at their school. Please excuse the goldfish eating.
This next video is of a song they heard for the first time. It was SO cute how they were laughing at the animal sounds.
This last video the school always ends with. I amazed that they knew the words!
What fun, cute kids we have.
Safire
PS- I guess it pays to mention that we were parked listening to the music and I was not driving at the time. ‘Cause that would be dangerous.
Everyone, It’s E week here at our house. Today in our little school, we had a good time. I figured Butterfly needed some help with her scissor skills so we read Chick a Chick a Boom Boom and cut out coconut trees. My original plan for having them write their own E’s up a coconut tree did not happen because of 2 very naughty boys who are almost 2.I also boiled about 20 eggs for them to dye. 2 of them cracked (hello lunch for the boys!) so Butterfly and her friend AJ had about 18 left to dye how they wanted. Boy was this exciting. More exciting to Pirate than anyone. He laughed and clapped so big whenever we pulled a colored egg out of a cup.
He sure looks like he had surgery less than a week ago, huh?
Professor was more interested in dismantling any egg he could get his hands on. The puppy got at least 2 eggs that way. Both Butterfly and AJ loved deciding which color to put the eggs in and got very creative with 2 colors. In the end, we had quite the rainbow of colors. They were beautiful to look at. And pretty fun to eat too! We had eggs for lunch too. Yummy! This blue made the most vibrant color!
Last night I don’t think I fell asleep until around 1 am. I just had too many things to think about. And my eyes were too tired to read. And I was too distracted to watch tv. I just wanted to sit and think. So I did. My new blog is done in my head. It is super cute. Now to only get someone to put my ideas onto the web. I can’t wait to show you guys at the big unveiling, when I have some free time to put this together.
I took Butterfly to preschool at Lolli’s house today. I stayed and played with the boys in the basement (new toys! balls! cars!) while she made kites with the kids. It’s K week for preschool. The kites were really cute. But I sat and wrote everything down on a random pad of paper she had. I drew pictures (big for me), colored it and everything. I wish I had some website design skills because I would love to do it myself. I talked to a few guys today about designing it and they cost a whole lot more than I want to spend. So I’ll take the few free moments I have in the day and keep searching. I’d love to have this up and running by May.
Other things occupying my brain space: things I need to do on the Internet. Because I’ve been doing some research for my brother, I have had zero free time on the Internet. But there is so much I want to search and do there. It’s pathetic that I have an online agenda.
There also the every day stuff. You know, meal planning, schedule keeping, etc. I have a few big phone calls to make that are looming and I’ve been putting them off. My poor house has taken the brunt of the thinking and I haven’t cleaned it in awhile. How long is awhile? Let’s just say that Juice cleaned the toilets last night right before bed around 11pm. He couldn’t take it anymore. We’ve all run out of clean clothes. Maybe I can at least catch up tomorrow morning.
Speaking of mornings, I woke up wide awake at 6am this morning. Just thinking. I will probably be doing a lot of that in the near future.
Butterfly and Lolli’s little boy, AJ, really enjoyed eating pancakes out for preschool. We have such a fun time with these kids and school. I can’t believe that summer will be here in a few short weeks and then these kids will go to school. Not only will I loose Butterfly to school all day, I’ll loose my excuse to hang out with Lolli every single week. Oh we’ll still get together…never fear! Just we won’t have school to do together. I’ve enjoyed it. I think Butterfly and AJ have too.
Butterfly’s chant today: “I will do what I’m told because Princesses always obey orders.” I have NO idea where that came from but I’m totally going to milk it for all it’s worth!
Read on a coupon: “Coupon must be presented before odering.” Hehe…
“Big beautiful butterfly bouncing a bumpy blue ball to a big brown bear in bloomers.” It’s B week at our house! We had school here today with AJ and I made the kids balloon animals. I also made the boys balloon swords and they had the best time in school today. We also thought up that phrase and named 101 things that start with B.
This week for preschool we decided we should do C for Christmas of course! We are only 2 days into it but we’ve talked about hard Cs and soft Cs and Butterfly is going around pointing at all the Cs and spelling things like Cat. Today for school we decided to join some of our ward (congregation) at the Washington DC Temple visitor’s center and see a short movie.
We got there early and we were basically the only ones there. We walked around and saw the trees and the collection of nativity sets they have on display. I loved being the only ones there for that because you could take as long as you wanted. I took several cool pictures.
We were able to watch the movie, Joy to the World.
They asked us not to have food there but the boys were cross by this time so they ate prezels and I felt sort of guilty with every one they had. Oh well.
Once we got out of the movie (where Butterfly looked for Uncle MusicMan during the choir singing) the kids were done. We let them run around by the reflection pool for awhile and got them modeling the letter of the week with the reflection of the temple and the Christus in the background.
What a fun outing! We can’t wait to go back to see all the lights lit this weekend.
Today started off as a good day. We had school with AJ and Lolli, I made gingerbread cookies (it’s G week around here) and we read a bunch of stories. We had lunch and naps for everyone and then…it hit. A cold. For me. Ugh. I hate being sick. I also hate knowing that soon everyone will be sporting this cold and I will have to deal with it.
I hate runny noses.
I hate how bad my kids feel.
I hate knowing that only time will make them feel better.
I hate the lack of sleep for them and me.
I hate not being able to breathe.
I hate colds. Period.
And since I have one, I’m going to go up to bed early in hopes that I might get some sleep tonight. I’m not feeling that hopeful.
Well, obviously I am being a bad blogger. I have no excuses but three small ones that I have to keep safe. And clean. And fed. Especially fed. They do not like having empty stomachs.
So, let’s play catch up! Here is my calender that I write everything down on and here are some quick highlights of the past few weeks.
Saturday Sept 19th we went to Mt. Vernon to their fall festival. It was a lot of fun until they shot off the cannon and scared the boys. Also, they were hungry. They had some awesome people dressed in period costumes selling stuff and the regiment patrolling the ground. This is why we were talking about artillery during A week. Professor spilled hot chocolate all down his shirt here and I still can’t get it out. Any ideas?
We had D week which was loads of fun! We talked about Dalmatians, dragons, dinosaurs, did a lot of dot to dots, had a date with Daddy to go visit the dogs (they went to the local pet shop and pet the puppies), and Lolli, AJ and me and Butterfly (no boys, they stayed home with Daddy) went to get doughnuts and feed the ducks.
We went apple picking. We brought home 6 huge bags full of apples. Much thanks to my friend Lala (not Lolli) who was kid less that day and climbed up in the trees to get the apples. I would say this day was kind of a bust because I had zero fun. Maybe I’ll do it again when the boys are 4 which is in about 3 years. Still, it was an experience and I’m glad I went!
We had another letter week, T this time in honor of the Christmas Train that came through town. It was promoting the new Christmas Carol movie and it was really fun. And free! We had a great time riding the train down there, and back and lunch at the train station. Such fun! We also watched Tarzan, read books on toys and trains and turkeys, and even made our own turkey out of a toilet paper roll. I had a bunch of word find stuff I got at the Christmas Train and asked her to find all the T’s instead of all the words. It’s now her favorite thing and begs me to print off more from the computer.
We’ve been going to the PRC a lot lately, at least once a week. It’s a lot more stressful than when I just had Butterfly going there. She is great and can do whatever she pleases while she is there. But the boys want to dump the gravel on the ground or touch some one’s newly painted picture with their hands or eat play dough… I go because I think it will be good for them one day but man am I tired after. The teachers even take pity on me and shut the gravel play area while we are there. Otherwise I spend the entire time sweeping.
I got together with my friend Lala and we did a marathon bake with all those apples we picked. We made pizza pockets, small apple pies, and more. It was yummy and fun and my feet and calves ached for days after. But now I have some easy stuff in my freezer. I also spent most of the day yesterday while listening to conference making apple sauce. I really need to learn how to can the stuff because right now, it is filling up my fridge!
This up coming week is going to be hectic. Not only do I have something written down for every single day (even Saturday and Sunday!), but I am preparing for my parents visit next week. I am still trying to organize all my pictures so I don’t have any today. I’ve got to come up with a better system but I just can’t seem to keep on top of it.
Life is full and rich. I’m loving it and it makes me sleep well at night. I have so many projects swirling though. I’ve taken to making lists before I go to bed, only to add to them in the morning. I’m trying to focus on the pictures right now, which means I have neglected my email/blog/computer related stuff lately. So sorry if you haven’t heard from me!
Hopefully I’ll make some time for the blog at least.
Week two in learning the letters with Butterfly brought us to A. Why A? Because I thought we were supposed to go pick apples this week. Sadly, I wrote the date down wrong and it’s NEXT week. Oops! But we had a lot of fun learning about things that start with A!
We read Aladdin and watch the movie. We took out our magnifying glass outside and looked at ants. We then broke out the picture books and looked at pictures of Butterfly’s aunts (all 5 of them!) and talked a little about families. I printed off some color sheets of apples for her and she carried them around all week, matching big A‘s and little a‘s. We played I spy with a words (apples, airplanes, armor, arsenal [yes really this one...more info later], ashes, ants, aunts, alley, etc.). We went around the house singing the “short A song” from starfall.com.
We were able to go to the resource center this week, with our friend AJ. Butterfly painted, stamped, played dress up and house. We played at the park outside where AJ and Butterfly pretended to be astronauts, attacked by alligators, and on an airplane.
We had alphabet soup for lunch one week. We read all of our animal specific books (tiger, chimp, elephant, dogs, tails, etc.) and we talked about the difference between animals and birds and lizards. (“Animals have hair and birds have feathers and lizards have little skin things.”) We talked about addition and had some “visual apples”. Mostly that was 2 + 1 = 3, etc. Little stuff.
And finally, we walked to the farmer’s market to buy all these apples since I had planned on having a ton with the apple picking. And I’ll admit, we did most of these things on Friday morning. But we did do them!
Much to the amazement of several people, I decided again this year not to send Butterfly to preschool. I couldn’t find one I liked or one that fit our budget. Seriously, no one around here just does a little preschool in their basement for a few hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That’s all I wanted for her…just something low key and small! Everything around here (for 4 year olds) is every day or every other day full time. There were some schools in the area that did MWF things but from 9am-1pm or cost around $400 a month. I couldn’t do it.
So, we’re not. Instead, I had talked to a few friends about doing something small with some of the 4 year olds in Butterfly’s church class. That seemed like a viable option for me. But then, it hit me. I would actually have to teach. And you know, entertain six 4 year olds at my house. On a regular basis. All with trying to juggle the boys along with it.
I decided to just rework our day and make time for teaching Butterfly myself. There are thousands of home schooled kids and they seem to be doing just fine. I started to research out some ideas. I asked my friend Lolli about some ideas. We ended up deciding to do this school thing together. Once a week we will get together and do some activities, along with a trip to the resource center once a week. Add to this a dance class for Butterfly (to get her some teacher time) and I think we’ve found a perfect fit.
I totally stole another friend’s idea and we are doing one week dedicated to one letter. This week was S week. S for school and September. Here’s what we’ve been doing so far:
We had to get out daddy’s big foam swords and sword fight one night. We also played sword fighting on the Wii and Pirate is really good at it. Go fig.
We bought some new S books at the used book store and read them several times this week. “Bernstein Bears Talk About Strangers” and “Blueberries for Sal“. We talked about having a family password and how to be safe.
We’ve discussed how S at the end of a word makes that word more than one. We counted things in seven. She played Starfall on the computer and pointed out S’s on signs as we drove around doing errands.
Today we got together with Lolli and AJ and enjoyed a school type day. They were so excited and ran around quite a bit but we had some good activities. Check out Lolli’s blog for pictures about today.
Once we got home today, EVERYONE took really long naps. Me included. I think tomorrow we’ll talk about snot and sneezing. I have a cold. And watch a S movie. And sleep some more.
