Kidlet Hilarity #2

The kids have been so funny the last few weeks!  They are all growing and changing, and I love spending time with them - they crack me up so much! :)

Natalie is oh so very TWO now. :)  You know the phrase, "terrible twos".  Well, yes, it is a very real thing.  This week we are going back to discipline consistency BOOT CAMP with both Z & Nat to try to take them in hand. :)  You know how you just get a little lazy after a while and things get out of hand...well, that's where we are. :)  Not looking forward to this week, but the results will hopefully be seen in a few days, and I AM looking forward to that. :)

Another new thing with Natalie is that she likes to pick out her own clothes now (like Zachary does).  Her favorite shirt is her purple cupcake shirt that her aunt Anna made for her - it has her name sewn onto it & a cupcake. :)  She says, "Purple cakey!" and hunts for it every morning, but she will pick something else if it's in the wash.  Except anything I suggest.  If I suggest something, it's out. She also loves to wear "deems", which is how she says jeans. :)  And then, unless we're going somewhere in public, she usually picks out a tutu to wear over the jeans. And a necklace. And a hair bow.  Which stays in her hair approximately five minutes on a good day. :)

A few nights ago, she picked out summer jammies (thin pants & long-sleeved shirt, no footies) to wear to bed.  Well, she woke up several times during the night (not sure if it was due to being cold or not, but I wasn't going to test the theory again).  The next night I told her she had to wear fleecie jammies, and she was about to throw a tantrum, so that night she went to bed with her summer cupcake jammies OVER her fleecie jammies, which looked hilarious.  I can pick my battles. :)

She also likes to tell Z's favorite knock knock joke - you know the one - "Knock Knock" "Who's there?" "Boo." "Boo Who?"  "Why are you crying? ha ha ha."  Only, this is how Natalie tells it:  "Knock Knock."  "Who's there?"  "Boo Sad! HA HA HA HA HA!!!" :)

When she prays, it is so precious.  She likes to use prayer time to stall bedtime, so she will say, "God...tee heehee...God...teeheehee..." Then I tell her to be serious and pray because I have to leave, so she says, "God...ummm...Bubba....baby Davey...Mommy...Daddy...Amen!" :)  I love hearing her say 'Baby Davey', it is super cute. :)

She loves to look at books, and is getting better at sitting still to read a few pages in a row lately!  When she sees a boy in a book, she calls him "Bubba" (Zachary), and when she sees a girl, she says "Na-ne!" which is what she calls herself now. :)  One day we were reading a Dr. Seuss book and she was assigning names from our family to all the silly characters on one page. :)

One morning I opened up Natalie's diaper to change her, and I said, "Whew! This is a really stinky one!" Her eyes lit up and she shouted, "Surprise!"  Yes, I guess it was some kind of surprise... :)

Davey is a VERY distractible eater lately - whenever he's laying in my lap eating and the kids are doing ANYTHING, he gets distracted and looks away.  When Nat sees him looking around, she comes over and commands him to "Eat! Eat, baby! Eat!"  It always makes Z & I laugh. :)

Davey is a whole 7 months old now!  He is super smiley most of the time, and just loves rolling & getting around. :)  He is eating baby food like a champ, and really likes those Gerber banana puffs.  If I made the other kids eat puffs, they wouldn't like them, but because they're Davey's, and Z & Nat aren't supposed to eat them, they are constantly asking for them! :)  My favorite nickname for Davey lately is 'dude', I call him that a lot, and I made up a silly song that goes 'doodley, doodley, doodley, doodley' and whenever I sing it, he smiles & giggles, I think it's his favorite. :)  He really likes to hear us sing. :)  When he got his six month shots last week, Zachary and Natalie danced so that he would watch them and not get too upset - and it worked really well!  He cried some but not as much as you would expect!  He is pretty much sleeping through the night now (he usually goes down at 8 & eats between 6 or 7), so I appreciate that. :)

Z & Nat have been playing in the coat closet off of the living room a lot lately - they say it's their little house and they are delighted when I pretend to be a delivery person and deliver books or toys to them. :)  It reminds me of playing in my closet with my sister when we were little, and I think it's so fun! :)

One day when we were playing a game, I asked Z if he could do something, and he matter-of-factly responded, "Yes, I'm awesome at that."  Another day we were doing a counting game for school, and Z is always excited to play games but then he gets bored of the counting games quickly, so after doing a couple cards, I asked him to count one of them, and he said, "My lovely assistant, Mommy, will now count the hippos!"  Too bad that's not how school works...  When he plays games on the iPad, he likes to play the 2-player version - he gets all excited and exclaims, "I won!" every time. When you play 2-player games, you win every time...I didn't tell him he also lost every time... :)

Zachary has randomly been saying "Mommy?" and I say, "Yes?"  and he says, "I love you."  It is so sweet & makes my day! :)  I try to make sure to do it to him every so often, too. :)  One day Nat heard him & said, "Me too love you!" :)

One day we went to a McDonald's playplace, and some of the kids there were speaking Spanish.  From the top of the 3-story play structure, Z yells down to me, "Mom! I can't understand these kids! I think they're speaking another language! I don't think they're from America!"  I sooo hope their parents didn't speak English either.... :)  A few days later, as I was telling this story to my friend, Z was listening & said, "Yeah, they were speaking Sandwich.  I only speak a few words of Sandwich." :)

We were singing a song from the Wiggles (Mr. Knickerbocker) and putting all our own names in it, then singing what that person likes to do - for Davey we said, cry and whine, because he was whiny that day; for Z we said run and play, and something similar for Nat.  Then Z sang the song with my name, so I was curious to see what he would say I liked - he said, "Mommy likes to cook and eat." :)  Half right! :)  And actually I don't really like cooking a ton, but I do really enjoy cooking stuff with the kids- I realized the other day that one of my favorite things to do with the kids is to cook or bake something together. :) Joel usually has to work retreats on Friday nights, and the meals are usually late enough that I don't take the kids, because it is close to their bedtime, so our Friday night tradition has become making an easy, kid-friendly meal together, then eating it on a blanket on the living room floor while we watch a movie or TV show. This week the movie was Robots, which I forgot we had!  It was really cute! :)

On Sunday evenings, the kids eat in the car on the way to church - I usually pack chicken nuggets and a veggie for them on the way there, then they get crackers on the way home.  Baby carrots are so easy, that's what I usually give them, but this week I stuck in broccoli instead (Z loves fresh broccoli!).  When he saw it in his snack cup, he said, "Ooh! Broccoli!  That's great because I usually just stick my carrots in my seat instead of eating them!"  I said, "Honey, you're not supposed to tell me that!"  Like I hadn't noticed... :)

This morning, Z stepped on a sharp toy and hurt his foot.  He asked me to kiss it. "But just a hand kiss", he said.  "Because a mouth kiss on my foot might taste bad." :)

I always enjoy taking time to write these things down and remember how funny they are!  Z & Nat are out on a daddy date this morning, and Davey is sleeping off his cough (STILL coughing, ugh) so I have a few minutes to myself!

Preschool - Letters P and Q!

We're having fun with school the last couple of weeks!  We've studied the letters P and Q!  I neglected to take any pictures of our circle time or Bible time boards these last two weeks, but I'll try to reconstruct what we learned for you anyway! :)  

During letter P week, our Fruit of the Week was Joy!  We listened to the song Joy from the Sovereign Grace CD To Be Like Jesus, and our verse was Nehemiah 8:10- The joy of the Lord is your strength.  None of the kids got any treats for exhibiting joy that week (just a busy week & not always great responses when things didn't go their way), but it was a good opportunity to talk about joy.  Our Bible passage was in Nehemiah 8 when the people were instructed to be joyful when they heard God's Word!  

Our theme was Valentine's Day, and we did some fun things to get ready for Valentine's Day this week, along with making a Piano P (idea here)!  

The kids are drawing lines on their pianos, well, Z is drawing lines.  Nat is coloring. :)  

Nat pretending to play her piano while singing. :)

Z pretending to play his piano. :)  

Natalie putting glue on her P to glue down her piano!

Our finished Piano P's!

We made valentines for grandparents & great-grandparents!  The kids stamped them with a toilet paper roll that was bent into a heart shape (thanks, Pinterest!) :)  We ended up coloring on these, adding glitter & stickers, so it was a fun project. :)  

Here's Zachary stamping, too!

Here's Natalie cutting out her pieces of her cut & paste page!

Natalie is excited about the panda! :)  And Z is doing his verse puzzle.

Natalie cutting some more...

I tried to take a picture of Z's finished verse puzzle, and this is what I got - see that mischievous smile? :)

Now Natalie's gluing her page & Z is cutting his. :)  

Dot painting a P page (from here)!

Another fun thing we did this week, mostly for Nat, but we all enjoyed it, was to have a tea party together one afternoon.  We used play teacups & saucers, and had hot chocolate in a little play teapot together. :)  It was a lot of fun. :) We have also continued to keep up with the Operation World Prayer Calendar here - studying geography and praying for the people in each country of the world - Z looks forward to this and it is so sweet to hear him pray, "God, please help the people of Angola (etc.) to know about You and know You as their Savior." :)

We also studied the letter Q! Our Fruit of the Week was Peace, and our song was Peace from the Sovereign Grace CD To Be Like Jesus.  The kids did get a couple of rewards for choosing peace instead of fighting when the other one wasn't sharing, so that was encouraging. :)  Our Bible verse was John 14:27 - The peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid.  And our passage was from John 14, about how His Holy Spirit gives us peace.

This week our theme was Valentine's Day again, and we had a lot of fun celebrating on the actual day!

Natalie colored big circles around her Q this week - almost like she was tracing!  

kids coloring :)

We made these valentine mailboxes to put the kids valentines in - it was really special & Z was really excited about them! :)

We made valentine sugar cookies that evening, too! :)

We made Queen Q's with some glitter glue on a crown - idea here.

I have been trying to encourage Zachary to draw things but he always says he can't - he doesn't like to fail at things.  Well, here's his first face! I drew the purple nose, and he drew the yellow eyes & mouth. :)

We played a quarter toss game - idea here!

Z enjoyed it!  Tossing the quarter in the cup!

Yay - we made it!  Nat didn't get the point of the game but she enjoyed pouring the quarters back and forth between the bowl & the cups. :)

I made a handmade version of the quarter counting worksheet (also found here) for us to use to talk about how many quarters make a dollar.  We did crayon rubbings of the quarters!  Crayon rubbings are always harder for Z than I think they will be...

dot painting a Q page (from here)

Z decided to color his all in, and I said it looked like a lion's mane so here he is drawing the lion's face. :)

Natalie smelling her dot marker - they are scented. :)

cutie :)

We got to play out in the snow for a little while this week!  We have had hardly ANY snow this winter which is super weird for us here!  So the kids really enjoyed this. :)

The game the kids kept asking to play this week was Uno Moo - a birthday present of Zachary's!  Natalie doesn't get the color matching aspect yet, but she loves to knock the other 'figures' (as the directions call the little animals/people and now that Z has read the directions he also refuses to call them anything else) into the barn through the little door - it's so fun! :)  Z has a good time with it & gets the matching part but is terrible at strategy! Unlike the card game, you can see what you're picking when you get new people, & he always gets excited about picking all of one color...so then he keeps having to draw more colors... :)  But we all have fun with it!

Well, that was our last two weeks in Preschool & Tot School!  We're having a lot of fun with it, and looking forward to letter R next week, and just a few more weeks of school before summer! :)  As always, check out what everyone else is up to at Tot School & Preschool Corner! :)

Preschool - Letter O!

Well, here is another school post, just one week later than the last one!  What a surprise! :)  We enjoyed studying the letter O this week! 

Here is our calendar & circle time board! We enjoyed changing our calendar to February this week!

And our Bible Time board!  Our verse was John 3:16, which Zachary did an excellent job learning!  And our fruit of the week was love.  When I 'caught' the kids showing love to someone, I gave them a little M&M.  It was a fun way to apply the fruit of the Spirit!  Zachary would do something nice, and then say, "I shared with Natalie! Did you catch me?" :)  Our song for the week was "Because You First Loved Me" from the Sovereign Grace CD, To Be Like Jesus.  

We made an Octopus O!  Here's Natalie stamping a letter O stamp on her octopus legs to make the suction cups! :)  I got the idea here.

more stamping!  The octopus legs are made out of their traced & cut out fingers! :)

Here's Zachary stamping his octopus legs! (He's having a 'jammie day' in case you can't tell.) :)

Our finished Octopus O's!
We also watched an Octopus video from a great new learning website I found, PBS Learning Media!  The video we watched is here.

Zachary cut out his own pieces for his sequencing worksheet this week!  He is doing awesome with cutting things out!!

putting the pieces in order to tell the story - he's getting good at this, too!

coloring the picture to match

Natalie coloring too!

We played an octopus counting game - you put the number in the box & then count that many octopi & put them on the page.  I love how Nat's laying there watching! :)  This game is from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Zachary did a GREAT job with his verse puzzle again this week!

Here is his finished work!

We did our cut & paste page again this week (from here).  This is to show how I cut it almost apart for Nat so that she only has to make one little cut between each picture & then she feels like she has cut them out. :)  She can only cut 'fringes' on the edges of the paper so far, so I feel like this helps her feel like a big girl. :)

Here's Zachary gluing his O pieces on!  Both Z & Nat LOVE this simple activity - it is great cutting practice for him & they both love gluing!

I find it so funny how he arranges his pieces & one always sticks way off of the page - he doesn't plan it out ahead of time - I am a perfectionist when it comes to crafts so I'm trying really hard to back off lately, and let them do their own crafts & look like a kid actually did it! :)  This is something that I really struggle with, but I'm realizing that in order for them to learn, I really need to stay back & let especially Zachary do things himself! :)

Zachary picking out a sticker! :)  We've been using stickers as rewards for good work lately, and both he & Nat love to pick them out! :)

This was a craft/experiment that we did this week.  I got the idea here, and it was supposed to be a 'trained octopus' but we couldn't get the original idea to work because the eye dropper 'octopus' we made wouldn't fit into any of the necks of the bottles we had!  So we ended up using a medicine dropper instead - and then we got it to work!

You leave just a teeny air bubble in the dropper, then you can squeeze the bottle & it floats down - when you let go, it floats back up.  It was fun but pretty hard for Z to squeeze!  He made some hilarious noises while he was squeezing it! :)

 One other new thing that we're doing along with school this year is praying for all of the countries in the world!  My sister in law recommended this website: www.operationworld.org - they have a book that you can purchase (we do not own it), but on the website, you can also click on any of the countries, see a map of that country and where it is in the world, and read some facts about the populations there, and also read prayer requests and items of praise for each country!  So far, we are keeping current on the prayer calendar, and have just finished talking about each continent in the world - we move on to individual countries in just a couple of days!  Z loves looking at the maps & talking about the people in each country & then we take time to pray for them - I am very excited about this beginning to learning about geography - I'm learning a lot, too!

All 3 kids together on the couch! :)  I love this picture, it definitely captures how much Z & Nat adore little sweet Davey. :)  And the feeling is mutual, as you can see! :)  

I love the stage where they chew on their feet, I find that so hilarious. :)  

Davey is 6 months old now (really? how can that be?) and he is eating baby food, and really loving the fruit & cereal...and okay with veggies sometimes... :)  He is a happy boy, and so sweet, he is a little joy. :)  His nap schedules are kind of weird lately, but we've pretty much got him transitioned to sleeping in his bed instead of his swing, I think! :)  

Well, that's what we were up to this week!  To check out what all the other creative people did for school last week, go to Tot School and Preschool Corner!  Ooh, ALSO! Pinterest!  Are you on pinterest??? I resisted it for a Looooong time because I knew it would be SO addicting and bad for me, and it is.  Way worse than I even imagined. :)  Love it!  I even have an app on my phone! I can repin recipes and craft ideas while I wait in the parking lot for the post office to open - amazing! :)  Anyhow, I'm mrshart03 if you are also addicted & want to follow me. :)