2-27-12 4-D Experience

Today was a fun first. Conrad, Max, and I saw a 4-D movie with our friends. it was our first trip to the theater and it wasn't just any movie, it was Dora and Diego in 4-D. We wore the 4-D glasses and I spent as much time squinting to see the boys' reactions as I did watching the movie! At different points in the show, I saw the boys reach out their hands to touch the robot butterfly and the hanging vines. I wanted to do it myself, it seemed like these things were really right in front of us. We felt the breeze as we were moving through the rain forest and the mist of water as we neared the waterfall.

Conrad and Max were all smiles as we left the theater. So was I.

2-14-12 Valentine's Day

The boys and I did a photo shoot to prep for this year's valentines and they turned out super cute!

Joe and I celebrated Valentine's Day on Monday night. Let's be honest. It's pretty hard to find a sitter on the actual holiday; it's the same thing that happens on New Year's Eve. On Tuesday, it was all kid fun and cupid's arrows. I made each of the boys "cupid's arrows" with pretzel sticks and gummy hearts and set them with their valentine's cards at the breakfast table. The boys snuck downstairs and put their valentines for Joe on his desk. When Conrad noticed that I had one for him, he was really touched. He thought it was the sweetest thing. Then I had to explain what a cupid was. We spent the day talking about love and hearts. Conrad cut out some hearts with scripture verses on them and we talked about how much God loves us.

For lunch, we made heart shaped pizzas. The boys used to love pepperoni pizza, but Conrad recently started insisted on only cheese pizza. Max says he only likes cheese pizza, but he's excited when I give him pepperoni. We always add black olives to our pizza. It was fun to make pizzas together; we should do it more often. I like that we have a day in the year where we just celebrate love and eat heart shaped candies with two word messages on them.

2-12-12 4 Boys and 1 Girl

Today was one of the very few times that I've been strangely aware that I am the only girl at our house. Max and Conrad have been working in the garage with Joe a lot lately. They love to be out there with him and their creativity just flows! It breaks Caden's heart when they start to leave without him. He frantically begs for his shoes and gets his coat. But he doesn't get to go. Today, I figured I'd make his dream come true and take him out to "help dad". Family Day was underway and the five of us were hanging out in the garage. I was the only one that wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. The guys were quickly working on projects. Max was running the shop vac, Con was nailing together toys and Caden had an instant project in trying to get his safety glasses on. Joe and Conrad recently finished a birdhouse made out of wood from an old palette. This was a school project that had Conrad and Joe doing on-line research about birdhouses for over a week. They found a guy in Canada who makes bird hotel and one of them was 12 ft. by 12 ft!

Conrad pointed out that he made a "W" on one of the toys he was making for Max. That was the letter sound we focused on last week.

I picked up my camera and found my niche in the garage. . . as the photographer.

2-11-12 34 List #9

These are my top 10 pics from January. I tried not to make them pictures of my kids. I'm not sure I'll do that every month.

The Aquarium on 1-27-12

We have two favorite books that go along with a trip to the aquarium: "Curious George goes at the Aquarium" and "Starfish: Stars of the Sea" by Connie and Peter Roop. The second book has a cute stuffed starfish that came with it. I thought it was a finger puppet, but after I read the book, I learned that the hole is to represent the mouth that is on the bottom side of the starfish.

We are still looking for the octopus at the aquarium. . .

2-8-12 That First Week Back

On the 23rd we made our first family trip to the DMV because on the 22nd my license expired. This would have been a good trip to make before my license expired, but I'm just not that kind of person. We turned the outing into a play date and met our cousins at the indoor park close by the DMV. This is a cute little area for the boys to exert their energy and there aren't any french fries for sale. It's a win-win. It felt good to get right back into the swing of motherhood after our trip. There was something about having a birthday, or renewing my driver's license, or my driver's license picture that made me want to set some goals. I started a list of 34 things I want to do before my 35th birthday. How hard can it be, I have a whole year! I didn't expect there to be any wait for the DMV. I've been there a couple of times before and have just been in and out. Of course, when I had all three boys with me. There was a line. A long line. Caden was patient for a while, but he really wanted out of his stroller. Max was a little bit curious and did things like knock over a chair. They ate their snacks at an alarmingly fast rate. I'm going to have to start bringing bigger snack packs. The boys never seem as loud as they are in a quiet room with no other children. . . A nice man commented on how well-behaved the boys were and he offered me his number that was before mine (hehe). There are still kind people out there!


On Tuesday, it was back to school for Conrad. He got right back into the swing of things. It was his day to return Michael Recycle. His teacher created a very cool classroom project using the books by Ellie Bethel Michael Recycle, Michael Recycle meets Litterbug Doug and a traveling Michael doll. Michael goes home with each child and reports about his adventures in a class book. On Conrad's page, he showed our tin can magnetic robots and our compost bucket. I keep hanging on to half of our recyclables just waiting for a craft project! The tin cans make great robots and the slinky connects become arms, bridges and tunnels. Conrad also included a picture of himself washing a ziplock bag. This is something I just started doing. I feel like my parents. This is something that I thought was ridiculous when I first saw them doing it. Now, I figure it's a good way to cut down on landfill waste and I'm saving some money. It's not a hard thing to do.

2-7-12 Eez Tiks

Caden's favorite food right now is a cheese stick. Sometimes I have to move them to the top shelf of the refrigerator because Max is happy to get one for Caden every time he asks for a "eez tik". This also should have been a valuable clue when I was looking for our kitchen cabinet magnet. Today Conrad found it in the meat and cheese drawer.

I can't believe I'm still talking about this magnet. . .

2-5-12 A Follow Up to Yesterdays Post

The rock magnet from our magnetic bins opens my cabinets!!!! I can put off going to Babies R Us for a while :-)

2-4-12 If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

And now, I can't find our kitchen cabinet magnet. Our child safety latches are magnetic; the magnet is the key. I can't finish putting away my dishes without it. I can't get to some of my cleaning supplies without it. In the bigger scheme of life, this problem is easily fixed by a trip to Babies R Us. This will be the first time in five years that I have had to make the emergency magnet run. That's not too bad.

Not to throw anybody under the bus, but this has Caden's name written all over it!

1-25-12 Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. . .

. . . and trolleys too. Don't forget the submarine. What a fun day at the museum!! We are officially into the U-505 and wartime spies. Our most recent vocabulary word is double agent. This was a wonderful outing for Conrad and Max. I loved the submarine tour and visualized a whole new reality of military life. We got some submarine and spy books from the library and all of this inspired a game of "Spy". Conrad got some spy gear for his birthday and we spied throughout the whole house. I was never quite sure who we were spying on. We were also looking for clues. It was fun to see all three boys following each other and making every day things seem like clues to something mysterious.

We didn't spend much time in the human body exhibit, but happened to be standing next to the male specimen showing the human body without skin. Little boys have no problem exclaiming exactly what they see with the vocabulary they have. . .

Conrad's Lion

1-30-12 A Lion Hunt

Lately Max has requested that we read the book, We're Going on a Lion Hunt by Margery Cuyler on a daily basis. It's a fun read and we like it as much as we like We're Going on a Bear Hunt. Max has a very active imagination and just today he told us about the time he ate a WHOLE lion. His little voice was animated and he used a convincing tone.

I visit teachpreschool.com on a regular basis and find new activities to do with the boys. When I saw this art project, I knew it was perfect for us. href="http://www.teachpreschool.org/2012/01/how-to-make-lions-in-preschool/">

These are our lions. After reading Deborah's post, I attempted to demonstrate the process. I'm so glad that she pointed this out because sometimes I give instructions for this type of thing and end up sucking the creativity out of the project. So, Caden and I shared a lion and I demonstrated drawing the parts of the lion's face. When Conrad and Max were making their lions they verbalized what they were doing the same way I had. Hehe.

Max's lion is at the top and mine and Caden's lion made it into this post twice. Hmmmm. I'm going to make an entire separate post for Conrad's lion.

Afterwards, the boys went and got Daddy and gave him our rug-sized lion so we could actually go on a lion hunt. It got wild! There was no slowing them down for a lion picture.