Friday, December 28, 2012

Monster Jam

 This is the start of Monster Jam....
It was LOUD! Even with ear plugs.

This is by the end of Monster Jam. 
He loved it and likes to play "Monster Jam" at home a lot now.

Opening Christmas Presents

 Here is Henry on the Saturday before Christmas, opening up the grain auger present that grandma & grandpa M. bought for his.

 The next 3 pictures are from Christmas Eve when we open family presents. Here is is opening the cape and masks that mommy made for him.

 Gotta love that he is wearing his Easter shirt on Christmas eve. LOL!

 Here he is wearing the Viking scarf and mittens that mommy made him. He was not thrilled to have to model them.
 Darn, I didn't realize this wasn't in focus. This is of Henry looking in his stocking for his presents from Santa.

And finally (but not lastly) the kids are opening the big presents from Santa. Henry got 3 pieces of speciality track to add to his train sets (A magic tunnel, a bridge, and a big curvy S piece.)

A Madeline's Christmas

We took the kids to Stages Theatre to see Madeline's Christmas (after having read the book to them many times the  weeks before.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Making Christmas Presents & Learning Style

Here Henry is painting a wooden toy he plans to give to his friend Ben for Christmas. Now that Henry is old enough to do these kinds of projects on his own, I have been encouraging the kids that it is the thought that counts and that people like homemade gifts. He has made his sister a present (in addition to buying one too) and he painting this wooden dinosaur for his friend. We plan to make some candy cane play dough next week for another one of his friends.

I was very impressed with how well he did on this project. He wanted to do a good job and was very thorough. He made sure to paint all of the wood so that there was no wood showing through. I was not expecting that from him. Whenever I ask him to color something he will scribble in something and say he is done and will only color more if I tell him he has to use a certain number of colors in his picture and then does quick scribbles of that many colors.

I am learning his "working" style and he really seems to be a kid that likes to figure things out (like puzzles - he LOVES those) and likes projects with steps. He does not care for coloring but if I give him a project where he has to glue things and follow steps he is all over that. He also loves to do worksheets. I have a variety of booklets and he seems to like them all.

He does know how to spell his name now and knows my phone #. Although, he couldn't learn it the way I taught Isabel so I had to figure out a new way to get him to learn which involved using gross motor skills.

He has down most of his letters, in fact for some reason "D" seems to be the only letter that he gets stuck on. He knows the rest when I point at them randomly. Now to get him to know them phonetically.

He also surprised me by counting to 25 from rote. I was not expecting him to do that. He does get confused about 15 and says "fiveteen" but I think he will get that figured out soon. He does seem to know most of those numbers when I point at them randomly too.

The other thing he can tell you is pretty much what any type of automobile is. He just loves anything with wheels and every time we drive anywhere he will tell me everything he sees. I never realized how many different types of vehicles we see on a 6 mile rides.

Santa & the Candy Cane

This will not be another picture of Henry sitting on Santa's lap, because that did not happen. I took him to storytime in Frbo where I knew Santa would be at and we were meeting some friends from his playgroup (The Baby Mamas & A Papa). At the end of storytime, Santa came out while the kids were singing Jingle Bells & well, jingling bells. Kids were invited to come up to Santa to sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted. Two little girls were brave enough to get within a foot of Santa  but not sit on his lap. So, Santa picked up his bag and pulled out a candy cane to show the kids and said he would give them one. I then said to Henry, "Santa is giving out candy canes. Do you want one?" To which he said "Yes" and I told him "Well then you need to go up to Santa and get a candy cane." so, he got up out of my lap and walked straight over to Santa grabbed the candy cane from his hand and turned around without saying a word to him and plopped back down in my lap and proudly showed me his candy cane. Which all of that was followed by laughter by all the parents there and I heard a couple of parents from out group say "Oh Henry" (I suppose that may be where it came from). He is such a character that no one was surprised, but he still gave everyone a chuckle. He is a silly little boy.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Santa at Harley-Davidson

 This was an impromtu Santa visit. I had read on teh Frbo HD status update that Santa was there, so we decided to go since we had been happy with their Halloween arrangements the past couple years.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Santa & His Reindeer

This was at the outlet mall on Friday. The kids were very excited to see Santa already this season PLUS reindeer! The each even got a hardcover book too!





Be sure to check out my Wordless Wednesday post on SGBG on 12/5 for some more pictures.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Mother/Son Date Night

 We have implemented monthly date nights with each of the kids individually and we ask for their input on what they want to do. Last night was my date night with Henry and we decided to stay home (daddy & sister went out for sundaes at Culver's) and play games. We played one game of Chutes & Ladders and then spent a long time making 2 fish, 1 turtle & 1 robot on the Lite Bright.

Nickelodeon Universe

 I LOVE this picture. This ride with Henry just completely made my day. The whole time on this rollar coaster he was ooohing and had his arms up and was laughing. He thought it was the best thing ever. He has been on this one before, but not for about 5 months and this is the first he was like this.

These were taken on Friday. Sister had the day off school because it was a teacher workday. So, we went to Henry's ECFE class (won't do that again because she was bored out her gourd) and then headed to the MOA where we had lunch at Noodles & Co, then went to Legoland, then on a half dozen rides (they sure are expensive, but I wanted to do something special that day), then some shopping and finally dessert at the American Girl Bistro (pics from that will be on the Green blog in a few weeks for a Wordless Wednesday post.)

 This ride remains their favorite one. They did this one twice. Then there were a couple others and the swing ride that I went on with them and we all pretty much agreed we were quite dizzy after that and done with rides (less we want to feel worse.)

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Police Station Tour

We just had our annual playgroup police station tour today. Small turnout to this one, but sometimes that is good when you have narrow hallways and stairwells to walk through.

 This was the first year they took us upstairs to see the Detective's Bureau and the Evidence Lab & storage (well, we only got to peek in the storage area. We weren't allowed in.) We also got to see the 911 Emergency Call center which we have never seen before. It was a really good tour.
 The kids were able to sit in the front and back of a couple of squad cars. Mommy even sat in the back of one (only time in my life!) There is not any legroom in there, they certainly don't want you to be comfortable if you are back there.
 The community service officer giving us the tour let Henry turn on the sirens several times. He was proud but the noise was still loud & scary to him.

 The kids were all very good listeners and there was absolutely no monkey business. I wonder how many kids were afraid they would go to jail if they misbehaved there.

Here is Henry getting his sticker badge. They gave all the kids a sticker badge, a pencil, and a frisbee.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Halloween TOTing

Henry decided he was done with Casper by time Halloween actually rolled around. That morning he wore his triceratops costume to the gym but at TOT time he wanted to wear a pirate costume we had instead.

This is a picture of them when I took them to the outlet mall to TOT.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Birthday Party with Friends

 This top collage you can see again on the John Deere Tractor Party Theme post on Sunday on Save Green Being Green but the bottom two you don't see there.

 We had his birthday party with friends out at Ag Power, which is the John Deere dealership in the area. We have done a playgroup there every year for the last few years.

Henry invited 4 friends that we see often & have frequent playdates with to his party, but since it was a daytime party that was not a drop off, siblings were included so it made for a pretty big party for a 3 year old.
I just did cupcake for this party mainly because I was doing all finger food and wanted to avoid needing silverware for everyone. He had a good time and got a lot of JD toys. You can read more stuff about this party in that post on Sunday.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Lil' Monster's Ball

 Henry had another chance to wear his Casper the Ghost costume. These pictures were taken at the Lil' Monster's Ball and so far has been my favorite Halloween event by far.

This is Henry playing in one of the sensory tables.

Here he is playing in the other sensory tables. He loved this one and I am going to have to make some moon sand for home.


Henry was not too sure of the fortune teller, although mommy knew she was. She was my pottery teacher and after she heard me talk she knew who I was (I was dressed up as a witch) and knew who my kids were.

 They had a storyteller who read several Halloween stories to them. Henry really enjoyed them.


These are their pumpkins that they carved with our (heavy) assistance.

Be sure to check out sister's blog for other pictures, as well as my Wordless Wednesday on Save Green Being Green on Halloween.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Playgroup Halloween Party

 Henry's primary costume is Casper the Ghost. I made the cape and there is a hood that goes with it too, but he didn't wear it. This was a fabric piece that you cut out all the pieces and stitched it together. It said it was for ages 3-6. I know he is big boy, but I couldn't imagine his 6 year old sister wearing this. And the hood is kinda small, but he will wear it once for pictures because doing the edging on it was a bit of a pain.
 He was trying to jump rope with Carrie and Molly.

He thought he was funny and was hiding from me under a table.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

A Hike, Lunch & Craft @ Sakatah State Park

 This was a couple weeks ago, when it was probably going to be our last 80 degree day of the day. When we started out it was still in the 60's, so they were dressed in long sleeves. I think it got to 80 after we had to return home to our 1st graders getting home.
 Running down the hill
 The boys really wanted to go IN the lake, but it just wasn't looking healthy enough unfortunately
 Since we wouldn't let them go in the water with their feet, we let them play in the water fountain. They thought that was a ton of fun!
 And throw a bunch of rocks from the shore in to the lake, that was a lot of fun too. Had to be creative with how we could allow them to enjoy the lake.
 My Lil Tree Hugger!
Here is the craft that Henry made. His friend Gavin made one too. You will be able to read more about this next week in my post on Save Green Being Green. It will be on there on Thursday.

Henry's Tractor Painting

 To continue with the tractor theme after our Ag Power tour, we did some painting using tractors & the wheel prints. Both made different kids of tracks, so that was neat to talk about.

 Just starting out with driving his tractors through the paint.

 Notice the lack of pants now in this picture. The paint is washable but I didn't want to track it all over the foam mats (which can easily be washed too, just wanted to keep down the mess.) Actually, he only kneeled it in the above picture but it would drape down in to the paint when he crawled with his knees raised. So, it became a pants-less painting activity.
 He didn't think there enough paint, plus he wanted the opportunity to squirt some paint out by himself. He is becoming quite an independent Little Mister.

His finished product!