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Tiernan's newest trick is raspberries. It's especially funny since he will repeat them to you if you do some for him!

Kenton randomly counted to five the other day! It just surprised Jon and I since we knew he knows his numbers (well, to 10, let's be reasonable here), just not really how to count. Does that make sense? But, he just up and counted off the fingers on one hand one day when we were sitting on the couch. Just goes to show you once again how much they learn even when you aren't teaching!

Another new game we've invented is Body Parts. Apparently this is great to do while waiting for some family members to finish a meal. Kenton loves to point out body parts ("CHIM!" - chin, "Eboos" - Elbows, etc) to show off what he knows! Of course this only works with what he can show above the table, but he's getting really good at things like the difference between lips and mouth.

And I took Kenton to his first movie today! We went and saw Planet 51. I hope he appreciates in later years how much time I spent choosing his first movie at the theater! Probably not, but one can dream. The choices were: Alvin and the Chipmunks (Uh, no), Princess and the Frog (which I enjoyed, but figured Kenton might not appreciate that factoid in a few years, like at cootie age when girl stuff isn't cool), or Planet 51. It was pretty funny, for older kids and adults, but I don't think he really enjoyed himself as much as I'd hoped. Oh well. It was worth it just to watch him get folded in half trying to sit in the theater seats! And we ate popcorn, drank pop and juice and I even snuck in a small container of mini M&M's in my "purse".

Finally, some more reading we've been doing. We borrowed Dog's Colorful Day from the library, as well as Dogabet. Then there's Canada 123 and a couple others we haven't gotten to yet. I really would like to do something fun with Dog's colorful day, but I need to tape it back together first! Kenton got a hold of it when I wasn't looking and ripped a page into three pieces! I'm sure it's not the first library book to have such a fate, especially in the kids section, and it won't be the last!

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!

Reading and Potty

Yesterday we read Color Dance. It was really pretty, and showed how colours mix to make other colours in a way that K loved. The girl dancers twirled their scarves together to form different colours. Then the little boy showed how white makes them pale and grey and black make them dark. He asked me to read it again after his Thomas story at nap time! It also gave me a great idea for a craft project to work on next week! I just have to find the materials...

K was also very determined not to have a nap yesterday. He insisted that he had to go potty (which he never does) and then wanted to wear his underwear. I think he just wanted them cause they have Lightning McQueen on them cause he wet them about thirty seconds after putting them on and so they were dirty this morning and he wouldn't wear any other ones! He was having such a fuss at the time though that I put him back in Pull-ups and put him to bed. He protested loudly for a few minutes then slept for three hours! Jon said K peed on the potty last night! I do think maybe it's time to try the potty again and see how things go. I'd like to find some Thomas undies, maybe that's the incentive he needs to wear them and keep them dry!

We have pictures!

While we were out yesterday, I had all the pictures from the camera put on a DVD (and we got an extra since they were doing buy one get one!). So I can finally update the old posts with some pictures. Unfortunately, we're still not functioning for new pictures.

But, quick run-down so I can go do pictures...

Tuesday we played more of the Feather Game, first doing the secondary colours (green, purple, orange and pink. Pink, cause we had some pink feathers in the pack). The pink and orange confused him and he kept getting those mixed up, but he did pretty good I think! Then we did the primary ones again (and again). I think we'll do them all together next time and see how he does.

Yesterday I had an appointment, so we left early and went to the library for story time. K didn't want to listen to stories so much as run around playing with the foam letters, grabbing the librarian's story time tools, and try to play with the other kids. So we snuck out of the story time room halfway through and went to play with the trains instead. Which distracted the kids at a daycare that were sitting right there trying to read a story, but not my fault they sat beside the train table!

But, we did get a few books about colours and the alphabet. And a couple Thomas DVD's, for something new. I hope to go through the books with K this week and work on our colours some more while he's interested.

T has been sitting up a lot lately. And trying to stand. Oh boy. He's doing well with carrots, which reminds me, I need to make more!

Okay, I'm off to add more pictures to the blog now!