Fun Days

Spontaneous fun.
Daddy fun.
Puzzle fun.
Mr. Potato Head Fun.

Pretending to be Sandman, capturing Spiderman (Jared) and throwing him into the garbage (hamper) per his request, so Joker, Riddler and the rest of the villains could terrorize the city.

(yep, he's really buried under all that!)

Savoring those unexpected moments of laughter, learning and life. That's what we've been about lately.

Fun Around the House in March Part 3

We're very flexible with when the kids go to bed at our home. We definitely do not have a set bedtime. Generally, it depends on the day. If the kids have been up since 6:30 or 7:00 and have not wanted to lay down for a little bit, they tend to go to bed earlier. Alexa, almost always, will ask us to put her in her bed on her own. If she has been up early, this is usually between 8:00-9:00 p.m. We tuck her in, sing and pray together.

Jared, on the other hand, is different. He can be up just as early and will still be up at 10:00. He'll go in the room with us when we tuck in Alexa, and then he almost always drifts out to the living room. Usually, he'll watch something with us, but often he and Steve will have a special project going on. The picture above is of the two putting together a Lego robot kit. Some nights he wants more stories, or to put together a puzzle with or without someone. Other nights he'll line up his pirates, knights, and Indians. When he looks sleepy, we carry him to our bedroom, and more often than not, tell a ghost story. Sometimes he wanders back out again, and then we give him more time before trying to tuck him in our bed again. She rarely sleeps with us in our bed unless she's sick; he almost always does. You really have to go on the individual needs of each child. They'll let you know what they need.

There was a rare night where Alexa stayed up later and they put together a puzzle.

Nights almost always include book reading before bed. Alexa loves to be the one to read to all of us, lately. We have an ongoing novel or very long chapter book that we usually read together for about an hour or so while we eat our lunch, but at bedtime we read special picture books, or Alexa will read us some of her chapter books. For the past month, there has always at least one Batman book, too, per Jared's request.

A few weekends ago, Steve's parents came over in the evening, and we had dinner together - Mexican food and stuffed mushrooms. The kids had a blast blowing bubble outside before eating. I love when the seasons change and we bring out new things to do, especially outside things. It's like they're brand-new again.

We've also had quite a few Memory game sessions this month. I guess I should say Alexa and I have. Jared usually plays with his little figures next to us. He's really enjoyed playing by himself more these past few months, just moving his figures around and making up stories.

Another newly rediscovered outdoor activity has been painting the porch. Last year, while painting outside on their little table, they began to paint all over the porch, too. We just basically gave in, (it's supposedly washable paint), and let them go a little crazy. The porch still has paint on it from last year. So, they went for it, painting the porch, basketball net and asphalt. I know some people might think we're crazy for allowing this, think it looks sloppy and unkempt, but looking at that paint makes me wish time would move more slowly.  Someday the porch will be very clean, but I'm really not looking forward to that day.

Herbs, Toys, and Playing the Paino

The day after the Forest Park Summer fest we went to Steve's parents for dinner, so pineapple upside down cake and had a great time hanging out. My sister-in-law, Cheryl, has a great garden in the backyard from herbs, vegetables, to even a blueberry plant. Last year I had a few containers with herbs and Alexa became really good at identifying the plants. She loved looking at Cheryl's herbs and was especially excited when she was able to pick some to eat.

Another thing the kids really love is the big box of toys that usually makes its way out when we come over. It's just a bunch of small figures, little vehicles and odds and ends, but they get so excited whenever it gets taken out for them.

I was surprised Jared liked playing with these puzzles as much as he did. He hasn't been unto puzzles as much lately as he was a few months ago. He had been putting together 60 pieces puzzles within a few minutes, so I had thought these baby puzzles would bore him, but he seemed to get a kick out of them.



They love to play on the piano whenever we go somewhere where there is a piano. I really wish we could have one at home, but they are expensive, and our house is so tiny there really would be no where to put it. We really do need, however, to get the kids another keyboard (the old one died on us).

January 11-17 2009

Jan 11-17

Reading: Getting the Know the World’s Greatest Artists Michelangelo

DVD: Big Machines, Bill Nye the Science Guy Wind

Art – played with the glue sticks, glitter glue, stickers, fingerpaint, markers on easel

Alexa loved cutting up vegetables every chance she got

Puzzles – Jared put together his first twelve piece jigsaw puzzle by himself (By the middle of March he was doing 50 piece jigsaw puzzles by himself and would complete them within a few minutes)

January 1-10 2009

Jan 1-10
I did have two weeks where I took more detailed notes of the things we did during the week, so here goes the first week;

We took down the tree and lights

Played with the USA puzzle

Played with play dough using the new pounding tools they received for Christmas

Make some cake in Alexa’s Easy Bake Oven

Watched Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, Horton Hears a Who, some episodes of the
History of Britain, Taking Words Factory and Code Word Caper, Reading Rainbow Desert episode

Listened and danced to Peter and the Wolf

Read several Curious George books, Oliver and the Monsters, Is there a Wocket in my Pocket?,

Playing with their new fire engine, ambulance and farm equipment

Reading: An Early American Christmas, The Holy Spirit in You, Magic School Bus Makes a Rainbow, Magic School Bus and the Solar System, Sanji the Baker, Winnie the Pooh Welcomes Winter, The Day the Little Children Came, Anansi the Spider, A Pair of Socks (math bag), Getting the Know the World’s Greatest Artists Van Gogh and Leonardo di Vinci.

Playing with sticker books

Alexa playing with her new makeup

Going ice skating

Grammy coming over dressed as a snow leopard and Alexa being scared

Learning the Five Penny’s song from the movie

Singing Christmas carols

Playing with Rudolph snow globes

Playing with their new Sponge Painting Kit

Hiding in their new tent and pretending they are sailing on the ocean, spinning round and round in the office chair

Cute quotes : Alexa “I’m going to read this book from beginning to end.”
Jared as he enters a room where we had been laughing, being loud, or really making any kind of noise, “What’s going on in here?’
Alexa “Go away, Mommy (or whoever), when she is going to do something that she knows I won’t like taking an open bottle of ketchup up the new carpet or shoving toys down the vent.

Playing with the pieces from my Carcassonne game

December 2008

December 2008

Books we loved – Getting to Know the World’s Greatest artists series, Magic School Bus series,

Lets Read and Find Out Science series

Baking Cookies and having flour fight

Playing in the Snow – Daddy pulling them in the sled during a heavy snowstorm for about a half mile pulling them along the River Walk, and around the yard

Making a Snowman

Brookfield Zoo – Hamil Family Play Zoo, Tropic World, and Swamp House – We passed by the outside of the house and Alexa said “the alligator is there,” and we hadn’t been inside that house in almost a year.

Doing some Science experiments

DVD series we loved – Bill Nye the Science Guy and The Magic School Bus

Christmas Books we Liked – Christmas in the Attic, Frosty the Snowman, The Christmas Pageant

Christmas Movies they Adored – It’s a Wonderful Life, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Charlie Brown Christmas, Muppet Christmas Special

Wonderworks – playing with the Brio trains, playing dress up with the costumes

Puzzles – Jared continued his puzzle obsession

Favorite Christmas CDs – Glen Miller Orchestra, The Gift, Charlie Brown Christmas

DuPage Children’s Museum – light pegs, floating paper ships in the water, listening to the quartet play Christmas carols

Caroling at the retirement home

Watching their cousin Sabrina’s play

Picking out the Christmas tree and helping to decorate it

Singing in the Children’s Christmas Play – Alexa was an angel and Jared a Shepherd

Chicago Children’s Museum – playing with nuts, bolts and screws, dressing up a pretend Frosty, hammering pegs, climbing the rope ladder and bridge, climbing in the ambulance, painting on a glass window pane, drawing with chalk

Toddlers Who Can Read

5/3

The kids were a whirlwind of activity this morning, climbing over the edge of the couch and sliding down, hiding socks and clothes in the toy box, measuring cups under the couch, and their play food in I don’t know how many places around the house. At least they are at a stage where they play together very well.

This afternoon we drove out to my sister’s house, about an hour away from us. Her house is bigger then ours, and the twins love running around in a huge circle through the front room, the dining room, around the kitchen, through the living room and circling around the front room to where they started.

Jared was such a ham. He’d stop in front of us sitting at the dining room table, yell Bye-bye and then make his little loop til he came back to us again. Then he’d be at it again.
My sister has this huge foam alphabet puzzle. Jared especially loved fitting the letters into their correct spots. I love to see his little forehead furrowed in concentration.

As for Alexa, she impressed my sister’s husband’s brother-in-law with her reading abilities. My sister has all these cards with words on them. Alexa kept taking words off the stack, reading them and handing them to him. He came up to me at the end of the evening and, after complementing me on how beautiful the kids were (always nice to hear!) he commented on how amazed he was that Alexa could read so many words. I didn’t even tell him that she could identify and sound out all the letters of the alphabet from 18 months, and could now read simple books if you put your finger under each word. Again, I know that she does seem to love words much more than a lot of kids, but I do believe if more babies and toddlers were introduced to letter sounds and words in context , you’d see a lot more toddlers reading and it wouldn’t be such a big deal.