A lesson in listening.

On Thursday we also did some colouring. I wrote out our names for K, and we named colours. K was having fun but also had to think really hard! I had written out our names in different colours and was asking him what colour the letter was and he'd name the letter instead. So the poor guy was confused when I said "No, silly, what colour is this?". Eventually he got it, but you could almost see the wheels turning as he was trying to figure it out!

Friday we had playgroup in the morning, which went really well. K started to get out of hand, running through the one room where all the babies (all around T's age) were laying on the floor playing. So I took him out of the room and sat him down and explained he can't run through the room like that. I don't think he understood me, but whatever the reason, he did calm down after that. Well, long enough to get packed up and go home!

We had an exciting potty day on Friday too. Not in a good way. In a messy way. Let's leave it at that.

Friday we read Alphabet City. It's a collection of paintings of the city, but there's shapes in the pictures that look like letters. I picked this one up from the library, cause K often does this, points out letters in ordinary things! He loves this book, and found most of the letters right away. Some I'll let slide, like Q was hard for me to see too(I honestly still don't see it, but it's the picture where Q should be so...).

This weekend I picked up more supplies for crafts and projects. We're going to finish our Valentines and get those shipped out this week. I also bought some Bleeding Art Tissue (got the idea from Frugal Family Fun Blog). And HA! to the crazy lady at Michael's who said they don't carry it, I found it! It lives with the regular tissue paper. I want to try to use it and make our own version of pages from Color Dance, showing how colours mix to make other colours. Update - apparently we had to stop for some colouring time and I tried it out, not working the way I wanted, but I'm hoping some watercolour paper might work better to do it on. We'll see. I also need some kid free time to try it out first, so I can get the kinks out.

K and I went out yesterday and bought some Thomas undies. With his wanting to wear his Cars underwear so bad the other day I hope that maybe wearing his absolute favourite character right now would help. The only size they had left was 3X though, so right now they're rather huge, but they haven't been washed yet. Some of his other undies are almost too small now after they got washed so I'm hoping these will shrink enough. And if not, that a stitch or two in the sides will help them stay up. So far all he wants to do is wear them over his Pull-ups and carry an armload of Thomas undies around!

Also, K was getting restless here so I quickly made a "sewing" project for him. I've been wanting to do it for a while, so I had the stuff, but I just punched holes in a square of craft foam and gave him a shoelace to "sew" into the holes. I don't think he's ready for this yet, I showed him how to do it, then gave it to him and he just ripped the laces out, making big rips in the foam! Maybe when I have more time to sit with him and do it we'll try again. Or I may need to glue two sheet together to make it stronger, one thin sheet might not be sturdy enough.

Enough about K, time for a T update! He's loving sweet potatoes and is eating up a storm! He also seems to be sleeping lots the last few days, so maybe a growth spurt is happening here! He is really enjoying bath time at the moment, especially since we've started putting him in the tub with K. The two of them are having a blast together! The giggles at bath time make it hard to want it to end (though bedtime right after is nice...quiet...)! Speak of the devil, I think he's up!

Valentines

Yesterday we worked some more on the valentine hearts we made a couple of weeks ago now. I got K to "write" on the backs so we can send them off to family soon, so they will arrive before Valentine's Day. He also put stickers on them. After much coercing, he didn't want to waste them on paper, they're much better on his arms! Now just to get him to write out his Thomas valentines and put stickers on those!

We worked on naming the colours some more, and he is definitely getting better at doing that, he gets the primary right most of the time and now the secondary colours are coming along nicely. He especially loves pointing out purple and green! His absolute favourite colours are blue-red though. It comes out just like that, "Blue-wed!" as one word! Too funny!

T had more carrots for lunch and dinner last night, and so far they seem to be agreeing with him. He's also enjoying them immensely, he can't get enough! Wonder what to try next? Green beans, squash or sweet potato?

K keeps wanting to play with T all the time. He kept trying to pick him up, showing me where to sit him so they could lay together on the couch, and showing him all the toys. He was combing T's hair this morning and trying to do helicopter tickles. I really hope this continues!

Feather Game

K and I did more fingerpainting yesterday, they turned out quite well I think. He's getting over the fact that you're supposed to get your hands dirty! So that was a nice distraction after lunchtime.

I also made up some frames out of craft foam. They're for my Oma and Opa, so I put the kids' names on them. The idea is they'll be able to put them on their fridge, and it will help them remember their great-grandchildren's names. Okay, okay, so we gave them unique names, but at it'll also just be a nice addition to the Valentine's pack we're making up for them. After he woke up from his nap, I got K to help me put some foam stars on the frames. We worked on naming the colours as he picked them out and stuck them down. Today we may put some glitter on them (cause we can!), and then try to print out some pictures to put in them.







While looking through a bunch of homeschooling sites for crafting ideas, I made up a learning game for K. I came up with it while trying to figure out what to do with the multicoloured crafting feathers I bought so I'm calling it the Feather Game. I took some leftover plastic cups from his birthday and put pieces of coloured construction paper inside, making each cup one colour (I was going to glue the paper on the outside, but this seemed like too much work at 10:30pm). So there's a square of blue in one cup, then red and yellow. I counted out five feathers for each colour, and the idea is to put each feather in the matching colour cup! It honestly took me five minutes to make!



This morning we tried the Feather Game. At first, K was more interested in grabbing the cups and pulling out the paper. Then I started to show him the idea, taking a blue feather from the pile and putting it in the blue cup. He did a few, and then decided to dump them out, then knocked the cups on the floor. *sigh* Okay, so I grabbed the feathers and gave them to him one at a time. This worked much better, but he still only had an attention span long enough for two or three feathers of each colour.



I had also thought that making him run to put the feathers in the cups would be a great way to burn some energy while staying inside and playing the game. So, I put the coffee table on the far end of the living room, and the feathers on the floor at the other. I showed K that we were going to run and put the feathers in. He got all excited. "Fast!?" he says, and runs over to the feathers, grabs a handful and runs to dump them all in one cup. Okay, so it's a work in progress. Plan B. I took all the feathers and sat holding them at the other end of the living room, giving him one at a time.



This plan was working out. So well in fact, that he had taken a yellow feather and dumped it in the closest cup, which was a blue one. When he went back with the next feather (a red one), he put that one in the red, then took the yellow out of the blue cup and put it in the yellow cup! I was so proud of him! It shows me that he is learning his colours, as well as rules for games. However, he still only has a two to three feather attention span!

Dealing with Art

Some days I feel so smart that I just have to share. Actually, it was more of a "Duh! Why didn't I think of that before!?" moment!

Ever wonder what to do with all the art your kids make? I've been scanning in their art, and then we'll be putting it in a folder and when that's full, send some to family that's not close by. We'll probably save a few of the "best" pieces for ourselves as well. But, I thought it's a great way to keep the paper clutter down, as well as sharing the love with family and even friends.

Scanning stuff in is also great for keeping the extra papers and things without actually keeping them! I know K got a "certificate" from the Model Train Show here, showing he was an honorary conductor. While it was cute and would be nice to keep forever, we just don't have the space to keep everything, so scanning it in has been a great solution. Personally, it's been a great compromise between my nostalgic pack-rat mommy self and the practical "What do I do with it all?" self.

If you don't have family to give them to, a local senior's home or care home would be happy to have them, I'm sure!

Fingerpainting fun

Yesterday we did some finger painting. That was different. I mean, we'd tried the paints before but K didn't quite get the idea. Yesterday it took a little bit, I had to show him what we were doing, but then he seemed to have fun once he knew he was allowed to get dirty! He did finish rather quickly though and started asking to get out, so I gave him a paper towel to clean his hands with and he wiped the paint off his painting! So he kinda has a non painting painting on the fridge. I also helped T make some hand prints with the paint as well, so that was his first painting ever!

Day Nine - Dinosaur sandwiches

So. Glitter.



Not bad really. Although I didn't get the kind that has the sprinkle option, so I wouldn't let K control the glitter. He helped me pick out which colour hearts to use and which colour glitter to put on them. He also helped "fix" the designs I was doing with the glue by putting his fingers in it and smooshing it around. Sometimes with glitter too. I'm sure there will be some glitter in his diaper in the next day or so as I did catch him with his fingers in his mouth as well. I tried to get him to put glue on the hearts too, but he just wanted to play ninja swords with the paintbrushes we were using. We may try q-tips next time, but I think we've done that cause I remember he kept trying to put them in his ears (with glue on them).

The hearts look pretty cool too! It is really hard to let K "help" when I have an idea of how it should look when done and his help doesn't mix with my vision. But I have to remind myself that it's about letting him have fun, learn how to play with the glue or paint, etc, and not about making it perfect. I will post pictures once we get the camera working with the computer. I may go to a photo lab and see if I can get them all on CD or something and do it that way. Right now it's just not working. (Edited to Add - so I finally got some brains and scanned them in since the scanner is working. Duh! I've added pics of the rest here)

Today we went to playgroup this morning. It worked out pretty good too! We all slept in and then I decided we were going to go anyways, so I raced to get us all ready, then bundled us up, put T in the sled and we walked to the church for playgroup. K loves playgroup and went right for the trains, which was great cause he brought four of his own with him today! T loved all the other kids there and had a blast playing with the excersaucer as well. It's a lot like ours, but with different toys on the top, so that was a nice change for him I'm sure.

K, of course, did not want to leave. Cue Toddler Tantrum #1 of the day. In front of others as well. We joked that it's something to look forward to, but really it's just embarrassing as all heck. And of course we were the last ones there, struggling to get the two ready (while one is fighting it) and get out so she could lock up and go home.

But, we managed and walked through the schoolyard. And of course because we didn't put his snowpants on, K had to sit in the snow a few times. And eat it. At least it was white snow!

By the time we got home, T was fast asleep and I actually managed to get him out of the sled and his snowsuit, and into bed without waking him up! He's still sleeping! Must've really tuckered him out. It wasn't that cold out, so lunch did not require anything hot like soup, so I decided quick was what we needed. PB&J sandwiches sounded about right. And hey! We have a dinosaur sandwich cutter! Yay fun! So K had dinosaur sandwiches (which also cuts the crust off, he never eats it anyways), and I just had plain sandwiches.

It's just about snack time here and then I think naptime for K, which will probably cue Toddler Tantrum #2. Hopefully T will stay sleeping for a while longer and maybe I'll get a head start on some tidying and cleaning. Maybe.

Goals this weekend include:
Getting crafting stuff organized
Posting a recipe list and meal plan for next week
Fixing camera to computer issues
And then posting pictures

Day Six - no cooking planned

Okay, so I didn't get myself organized enough to come up with a game plan for today and I'm out of muffin mix! But, I do plan to do banana bread tomorrow, and we worked on a craft project today.

I mentioned yesterday that we did some finger painting. The masterpiece dried overnight on the fridge and today after lunch I folded it up and cut out six hearts. Then we worked on gluing the hearts onto construction paper and I'm going to cut them out again, so they have a nice border.

I have to mention here that I do feel very smart today.

Then I came up with the brilliant plan of gluing glitter on them! Now, we don't have any glitter so obviously we can't do it today, and probably not tomorrow. But, this is a great way I figure of doing a nice project a bit at a time, cause let's face it - K only has so much "sit still" time in him. I also thought it might be nice to print out some pictures of the boys, cut those into hearts and glue them on the Valentines! I think we'll use the glitter to go around the pictures. If I can find the kind that comes in a shaker, or I think I even have some old (clean) spice jars that would work, I can do the glue and K can shake the glitter on them.

So, the plan is to spend tomorrow going out and looking for glitter and probably a craft bin to store all our new paints and supplies in. And just getting out of the house.

But, back to the gluing. Which is making me wonder how well the glitter-ing will go, honestly. I had put down a plastic mat at K's spot at the table, then put a dollop of white glue on it. He then put his paintbrush in it and tried to play swords with my paintbrush as I tried to show him we were putting glue on the backs of our finger paint hearts. Then he put his fingers in it. Have I mentioned he's a nail biter? So yeah, fingers tried to go in the mouth, with me grabbing them away. Then I thought maybe the glue stick would be better for him. So, he put the stick everywhere but the paper, finally smooshing it onto the plastic mat and wasting half of it. Sigh. So I took the glue stick away and he got the job of telling me which colour paper he wanted to use next and showing me where to put the glue. I hope things will only go smoother in our future crafting experiments.

T has been such a piggy. He has eaten a ton of cereal today! I mean, I made a small bowl of it, but accidentally poured too much in. Figuring it wasn't that much after all, I mixed it up and it almost filled the bowl! Since it was too late to do anything but feed it to him, I just started feeding him. We got about halfway through and no sign of stopping, so I just let him eat. He finished the whole thing! The little Oinker!

Day Five - more muffins

So we did have chicken fingers for dinner last night, but the kids didn't help with them at all. In fact their dad made dinner last night, so that was great!

I forgot to mention that Saturday Kenton and I went out, just the two of us, to go get a few things that we needed, as well as look for a birthday present for a party we went to yesterday. It was nice to have some just me and Kenton time, and he behaved really well in the stores. We quickly found a great gift, which he helped carry around the store since it had a handle. But, he was very upset when we got home and he found out it wasn't for him! Oh, well. He did find some Thomas stuff that I couldn't find a good reason to say no to in the last store we visited. It was cheap, it made him happy, he had been a good boy and since it was a pack of valentines, I knew it would make others happy too!

Yesterday we went to a first birthday party for a special little "Beastie" girl. I apologize that K kept trying to open the presents. And stealing B's toys from her, and eating everything, and running around, and terrorizing the birds... maybe we need more practice at this birthday party attending thing. Who's next!?

Today is going good so far. I got up early so I could get my shower and breakfast in before the kids get up. I hate waking up early, but I have to remind myself that I'm less stressed during the day when I do, since I get some of this stuff out of the way right away, and am not trying to fit it in with both kids awake.

After T got up and ate a ton, played, and then ate some more, he fell back asleep so K and I made another batch of muffin mix muffins. Carrot (bran, I think) this time. Today he was much more in the mood to help out, and we counted the cups into the tins, 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 4... 6... wait... try again... And I showed him how they go into the oven, and made sure he was there when they came out. He was very good about staying away from the "Hot" oven, and was excited about his muffins. Then I made us lunch, plain old macaroni and tomatoes today, but I hope to have something more exciting planned for tomorrow.

I mopped up after our lunch, and K even helped wipe the "Mess" off the table. Then I decided we'd do some finger painting with the new paints I got him on Saturday since we were already at the table and his shirt had to come off anyways, there was tomato juice all over him! So we went through the colours, and he told me which ones he wanted and where on the paper to put them. It was pretty funny, cause he'd never finger painted before and didn't really like getting his hands dirty, so only used his fingertips! But, we did manage a nice painting (okay, I helped) which is now drying on the fridge. My plan is to let it dry, then we'll cut out hearts and make valentine cards with them for friends and family. Some days I feel so smart! No pictures though, the camera card is full and we still haven't figured out the problem so we can start uploading them onto the computer again.

Well, I think we've had a decent break from lunchtime, so it's muffin time then (at least I hope) naptime for K.

Kenton and Tiernan's "Fast" days

I'm starting this blog as a way of keeping track of and sharing with others the kids' days, cute and funny and maybe sometimes frustrating moments. The time goes by so fast, I'd like to have a way of coming back to remember those moments!

Let's see, today started out and Kenton and Jon were supposed to go swimming but since we all slept in too late, that didn't happen. Kenton didn't seem to notice as he was all too happy to play in the tub later anyways. So he spent the morning playing with his toys nicely while Tiernan practiced his rolling over on his playmat.

Tiernan's started rice cereal recently since he has been so hungry even after having just eaten. He's been doing pretty good with it, swallowing most of what goes in his mouth and seems to have no troubles with it.

Kenton then spent the afternoon chasing Morris around and has now picked up a new saying "Kitty a- bite!", which probably comes from me repeating endlessly "Kenton, Morris doesn't want to play, he will bite you!". Unfortunately Morris doesn't seem to have the brains or maybe just the will to move to a safer location where Kenton can't get to him so he has taken a few swipes at Kenton. Most of the time this results in Kenton getting scared, coming to me and crying for a bit and then going back to chasing the cat. He's gotten scratched a few times, and one close call but nothing serious... yet. I sure hope one of them smartens up soon. I think if it was warm enough for Morris to be outside at all it wouldn't be so bad, but they've both got cabin fever and are driving each other nuts.

Then while Jon was outside shovelling snow, I got Kenton dressed to go out and sent him out the backyard with Jon to get outside for a bit. About five minutes later they came in cause he wouldn't keep his mittens on and it was too cold for him to be without. Then everyone decided it was better inside and came in for some hot chocolate, cookies and video games!

Later we started to decorate a store bought gingerbread Santa Sleigh kit, but got interrupted by Tiernan waking up. Kenton's help in the decorating consisted of making sure the candies were safe to eat!