Archive for February, 2016

Serenity in January

Saturday, February 6th, 2016

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January was a great month for Serenity.  She finally got her turn as Student of the Week in P2.  She was thrilled, and told me when she got in the car that when her name was called she got a big group hug from her sweet classmates.  It was so much fun to find out what she chose for show-and-tell each day.  I think she chose things that were great fun to share with the class!

 

Monday she took her newest Calico Critter, baby bunny Sophie, that she bought with her gift card from Papa.  She took the little bassinet and tiny potty that came with Sophie.  She does absolutely love those little tiny animals, and actually used part of a gift card to Barnes and Noble from Ann on some baby panda Calico Critters.

 

Tuesday she wanted to take her Ladybug Land, but she couldn’t bring the actual thing since it might have hurt the bugs, so I took pictures of her adding water to the ladybug habitat and she took the instructions to tell her classmates about ladybugs.

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Wednesday she took Snowy, her longtime favorite stuffed animal that we got at the Tulsa Zoo.  She told the class how the day she got her we watched the snow leopards racing around their cage and being particularly adorable.

 

Thursday Eric got to go and read to the class!  Serenity knew she wanted one of her personalized books, so she went with The Little Girl Who Lost Her Name.  Eric did lots of crazy voices and was apparently a big hit.  She took McKenna, her American Girl doll Rae gave her, wearing her Elsa dress and walking her pet kitten on a leash.

 

Friday she took her unicorn Selena.  Lots of her animals get named Selena right now, but this one is a tiny, very soft unicorn that came with a unicorn adoption manual.  She also took the pillow she sewed for Selena to sleep on.

 

Serenity also had a fun Girl Scout event!  This semester we are doing the 3 Cheers for Animals journey, and Lillyan’s mom Amy offered to take the girls birding to learn about birds.  She put out  birdseed near Oxley nature center every day for a week, and then she and her adviser from TU, along with several wonderful field assistants, put up nets.  The birds were caught in the nets, and the girls were able to observe them closely!  It was fantastic!  They got to gently pet their heads and tail feathers, and even hold them if they wanted.  Serenity loved it, although she did get pecked by a female blackbird, but even that was educational =)  We saw juncos, a titmouse (which made a funny squeaking sound), male and female cardinals, a field sparrow (Serenity’s favorite) and the blackbirds.  A bluejay got caught but was too big for the netting they were using so he escaped.

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Serenity adores the yoga swing we put up for Maia’s birthday.  All the kids spend a lot of time in it.  And it can hold Eric or me too! And she swings outside every beautiful day we have =)

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Serenity and I got to go by ourselves to Science Saturday!  Papa kept Maia, and Eric and DZ were off at Marvel Universe Live.  Mrs. Hamby always comes up with amazing experiments!  Serenity’s favorites this year were the “yummy” ones.  The marshmallow shooters, which she didn’t want to read the instructions for, but instead wanted to make her very own design, were one of her favorites.  Her other favorite (and mine) were the Cupcake Core Samples.  Mrs. Hamby brought out cupcakes frosted in white icing, and we were to put straws in five different parts of the cupcake, and theorize what the cupcake would look like when sliced in half.  It was so much fun!  Serenity immediately wanted to do it again at home, but she said “I think we should make cupcakes ourselves instead of Mrs. Hamby having to do it.” Lol =)

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Maia in January

Thursday, February 4th, 2016
Maia adores these little board books. The day she lined them all up on her bed was too cute!

Maia adores these little board books. The day she lined them all up on her bed was too cute!

 

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Maia is saying bookee again!  Makes me happy, it is too cute!  Her favorite books this month are still Christmas books. =)  She especially loves  Click Clack Ho Ho Ho.  She even recites parts of this book when she’s playing other things.  “Uh-oh! Duck is stuck!  The sheep are stuck!”  We brought Frosty in out of the car and once again we are reading it regularly.  Last week we got Kitten’s First Full Moon and she has had me read it again and again.  I love rocking with her and reading books!

 

She loves lego duplos, and has lots of fun building them.  I made a little rainbow for her one day and encouraged her to match the colors.  She enjoyed it, although if I didn’t keep saying, where does the red go, or can you match the color, she would just build randomly.  She spent part of her kiddlestix money on a lego duplo batman set, which came with a kitten she loves.  And her brother happily helped her put together the batman, superman and wonder woman part.  She also got several alphabet puzzles for her birthday which she does nearly every day.  At kiddlestix we also got a latches wooden puzzle that I had been eyeing since Serenity was a baby.  Well, she adores that and can now open every single type of latch.  And she will if anyone dares shut it.  We sat together on the couch for a full hour with me latching them and her opening them.

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We have had beautiful weather this month, so we’ve spent plenty of time outside.  Without bug bites!  She still adores the sandbox, and often asks to swing awhile.

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She still plays with her rice box!  I sort of planned to put that away after a week, and bring it out on days it was too cold to go outside.  But she plays with it so much I just took out the forest stuff it started with, and changed up the stuff buried in it.  One week we had an alphabet theme, with all her various alphabet puzzle pieces hidden inside.  Another week we put the tea sets in there, and all three kids enjoyed that!  This week I put pirates and other treasure in there, along with some random little figures, like Strawberry Shortcake, tiana, etcetera.  Fun fun!

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She watches a lot of Super Why, and still points out every letter she sees and tells you its sound.  I’m working now on trying to get her to think of words that start with different letters, but she’s usually too busy telling me about other letters to do anything else =)

Maia and I are taking music class!  I wasn't at all sure how this would go, but she's adapting pretty fast!  The first week she tried to take the entire bucket of eggs when it came around, but she already just takes one and puts it back when it's time, ready for the next fun thing!  She still wanders off often and occasionally rolls around on the floor when something is not to her liking, but for the most part it is fun and helpful!  She loves drumming and the egg shakers the best.  Oh, and putting the bells on her toes.

Maia and I are taking music class! I wasn’t at all sure how this would go, but she’s adapting pretty fast! The first week she tried to take the entire bucket of eggs when it came around, but she already just takes one and puts it back when it’s time, ready for the next fun thing! She still wanders off often and occasionally rolls around on the floor when something is not to her liking, but for the most part it is fun and helpful! She loves drumming and the egg shakers the best. Oh, and putting the bells on her toes.

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Maia loves it when Papa comes over and makes cinnamon toast and oatmeal.

Maia loves it when Papa comes over and makes cinnamon toast and oatmeal.

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cheese!  She loves saying cheese =)

cheese! She loves saying cheese =)

Still loves strawberries.  I left some out on the counter, and she pushed a bar stool around, climbed onto the counter, and took a bite out of each one.  All hers now =)

Still loves strawberries. I left some out on the counter, and she pushed a bar stool around, climbed onto the counter, and took a bite out of each one. All hers now =)

She loves swinging with her sister =)

She loves swinging with her sister =)

 

Donovan in January

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016

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Donovan has become a perler bead expert.  I found some star wars perler bead patterns in December, and he made several light sabers and enjoyed it.  When he asked to do them again in January, I found some adorable Star Wars figures and made a pattern for him on graph paper.  He loves them and is always thinking ahead to the next one he wants to do!  He has made Darth Maul, Yoda, and Darth Vader so far.  Which means we had to buy more black perler beads, and Eric came home with some awesome glow in the dark options too.  He’s working on Boba Fett right now.  It’s interesting to watch him work, because he will sometimes be diligent and place a whole row of beads right in a row, and other times he will just sit, and look at it, and procrastinate.  It’s hard not to urge him to focus and get it done, and sometimes I do tell him that if he leaves his perler beads sitting out we will have to put them back in the box before they get spilled.  But I am mostly amazed that he can do such big patterns and enjoy it so much!

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Donovan loves his scooter that he got for Christmas.  I’m not sure we can ever take it outside though because he loves riding it around the house so much!

 

He has played a few more grown up board games with us this month, and always begs to play them again.  He tried Eric’s new magic the gathering game with minifigures, and Lords of Waterdeep and likes them both.  He also played Castle Panic, lots of Pete the Cat word game with Mama, and still enjoys Lost Puppies.

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Snap Circuits Lights

Snap Circuits Lights

He got to spend his gift card from Kiddlestix that Papa got him for Christmas. He found just the perfect things.  He knew before he went that he wanted legos, so he chose a ninjago lego set.  It was a ninjago guy flying a dragon, and the dragonrider’s name was Zane.  So perfect.  Then he found a ninja costume to wear while doing his legos!  Perfect and adorable.  He slept in his ninja costume all weekend =)

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Donovan said he really loves our new house because of the tree swing, and he is glad we are staying in it as long as we live in Oklahoma =)

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Donovan got to go to Marvel Universe Live with Barrett and Eric.  He had a blast!  And told me he wants an X-men party for his birthday =)  We will see, last month it was Batman and before that it was tigers, so he has a lot of good ideas!

Donovan did his first sewing projects!!!  He loved it and asked to do all the projects from the page I showed them.  He first made this little turtle. He chose the colors, helped guide the fabric in the sewing machine, pushed the pedals and glued on all the decorations.  He made a sun too!