Wordless Wednesday

This one was a bit blurry but I love the look on Carter's face!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready for Carter's open house.

 

Playing at his preschool open house.

 

 

 

Playing at the park with friends.

She climbed the whole way up with me just spotting her, no help!

 

 

Looking at his preschool calendar for the month.

Playing with a special castle from a friend.

Drawing a picture of Elise on the chalkboard.

Both kids fell asleep on a run.

Elise got new shoes from Oma and Opa.

 

 

 

Carter figured out a way to keep the dogs from trying to eat his food.

 

 

Ty preparing the meat to smoke for the Fantasy Football draft.

 

Feeding animals at the petting zoo.

Oma paid so Carter could hold the kangaroo.

 

 

Opa holding Elise up so she could peek at Carter.

 

 

Ty met us at the street fair and this is what we saw when we found him.

 

Elise fell so Carter was holding an ice pack on her head for her.

Look who I came across on my run!

Playing with peanut butter play dough.

Oma and Opa made Carter homemade finger paint to play with.

Elise was really upset I took the marker away from her.

Lunch at Sam's after grocery shopping.

They were both happy, Elise because she had food and Carter because he had a book.

She smuggled her blankie to the car.

Carter made a row in front of Harper so she wouldn't get out of bed.

First trip without Carter, the aquarium.

Elise climbed up on the couch by herself and Carter moved his blanket to share with her and cover her up.

Carter put cicada exoskeletons on his shirt.

Elise thought it was hilarious to run around with a basket on her head.

I love that she takes play breaks to snuggle me.

Storytime at the library.

Elise dumping out toys during storytime at the library.

 

All 3 kids enjoying the sensory bin.

 

Carter's First Day of School

Carter's First Day of School Interview 

3 Year Old Preschool

• My School Is: Jenks First Baptist Community Preschool
• My Teachers Are: Ms. Joan and Ms. Miranda
• My Class Is: Dolphins, I go half day from 9:30-12
• My 1st Day of School Is: September 6, 2016
• Height: 40 inches
• Shoe Size: 10
• Weight: 34.8 pounds
• I Hope I Get to Learn About: school, how to do school, and play with all those toys. 
• When I Grow Up I Want to Be: a little kid all day long or a daddy.
• I'm Really Good At: holding Harper's leash. 
• I Want to Get Better At: doing muscles.
• This Year I Want to Learn: about toys.
• I'm Excited About Preschool Because: I want to play with the toys.
• My Favorite Thing About Myself Is: I'm good at reading.   

 

We had to get a group shot. I wish we had a whole family one, but Ty left for work before Carter woke up.

I talked him into take his thumb out of his mouth for the next picture.

Opening a special first day of school present from us, a Daniel Tiger book about school.

 

I loved this one, just wish the lighting was better!

 

Summer Reading

Carter starts preschool tomorrow so I guess it's time to call our summer book list a wrap. We read some really good books this summer and enjoyed completing the summer reading program. Carter completed it for the 4th time and Elise completed it for the 2nd time! I love that the library encourages children of all ages to participate in the summer reading program. Carter was so proud to tell everyone he got another medal when he received his medal this year. Check out our summer reading list from last year here, 2014 here, and our list from 2013 here. I looked back at the pictures from each year's post and I almost cried seeing chubby baby Carter with his roly poly thighs reading board books while sitting on the floor. I sure do love babies!

 

 

 

Our Top Reading Choices From This Summer:

• Where Is the Cake? by T. T. Khing, This was a wordless picture book and Carter adored it. He read it for the first time with Ty and just giggled over all the words Ty added to the story. Wordless books are so wonderful for children. They help them read the pictures when they are not yet reading words. It is also great for them to start inferring and working through plots. I definitely get the purpose of wordless picture books and think they are absolutely necessary and incredibly wonderful, but they just aren't my thing as a reader. I would much rather read a book with words and rhyme. So Carter's love for wordless books challenges me as a reader, especially reading aloud and I love that. Ty on the other hand loves wordless books and is a natural for telling the story and getting Carter excited about the book. What we enjoyed the most about this book was that each time we read it, we noticed new things in the pictures and new parts to the storyline as well as new characters. We read it every night before bed until it was turned in at the library.
• Goldilocks and Just One Bear by Leigh Hodgkinson, This book was so cute. I'd love to read it to the kids again during a fairy tale learning theme. We could read all the different versions of Goldilocks. It also made me think back to the first few weeks of school. We usually read a version of Goldilocks when we were talking about picking the perfect book nook spot for read to self. Then I would read another version when we started talking about text-to-text connections and the kids would make the connections between the different books. I think it would be a great activity with Carter to talk about how the books were the same, how they were different, and then introduce the term text-to-text connections. Weeks after we returned this book to the library, Carter was talking about it again.
• Poem in Your Pocket by Margaret McNamara and G. Brian Karas, This book is on here for me. I loved it and kept thinking of all the lessons and ways to link into a poetry writing unit. I want to remember it for class and also for learning themes with Carter. It said April is national poetry month so I would love to do a learning theme on poetry with Carter during that month or even just bring in poetry to our learning themes more during that month.
• The Treasure by Uri Shulevitz, Carter loved this book and wanted me to read it to him "over and over until bedtime." I think he mostly liked it because the main character's name is Isaac and his best friend right now is named Isaac. It was a neat story with a good reminder that sometimes we think what we want or need is far away, but often times it's right where we are!
• The Stray Dog by Marc Simont, This was another one that Carter requested to read over and over. It was so cute! I think he liked that the family found a dog and got to keep it. I also liked the illustrations and that there were words, but not very many. There was so much of the story to be read in the illustrations.
• Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins, My mom found this book at a book store and purchased it for Carter. There was so much about it that was just darn adorable! We read it over and over and over and even took it in the car multiple times so Carter could read it again as I drove. His favorite part was that the goslings saw Bruce and thought he was their mom and then a turtle hatched and saw one of the geese and thought the goose was it's mommy. He remembered so many little aspects of this book and continues to talk about it and want to read it.
• Oh So Brave Dragon by David Kirk, Carter loved this book. I think part of it was that the dragon and his friends worked together to overcome their fear and part of it was that the dragon didn't realize he was scared of his own roar. Carter is easy to scare so he tends to like books where the main character is scared of something. I think he likes it because he can relate to it and because it makes him feel better about himself. This was a cute book and I enjoyed the picture of all the animals roaring together. 

Funny Stuff Carter Says

On the drive home from a birthday party where Carter had snuck some candy after cake while I was cleaning Elise up:

"Why did you let me eat so much junk? Now my tummy hurts!"

One of our friends gave us a tent for Elise. Carter pulled out some pieces and put them together.

"Mom, look what I made. I made some homemade muscle jivs!"

Elise showing off a muscle jiv.

"I've figured something out. When you have an itch, just rub it. If you scratch it, it will hurt."

"I can't drink water anymore. It makes me sick. I can only drink milk or lemonade, okay."

"My tummy says I need to eat quickly. This is not quick!"

"Smell my hands mom. They smell like cheese hands."

Opa to me: Your mom worries about something bad happening to her kids or grandkids.

Carter overhearing: Oma, you don't have to worry about me and Elise. Mommy and daddy keep us safe.

Carter wanted me to tell him jokes in the car and then started making up jokes of his own.

Carter: Why was the tiger swimming in the potty chair?

Me: Why?

Carter: Because it roars!

"I need to work on my email for a little bit in bed before I go to sleep." Then he walked off toward his room with the toy computer we were given by a friend.

Carter: Knock knock.

Me: Who's there?

Carter: It's me, Carter. There's a talking finger. While pointing his index finger at me.

One afternoon the kids woke up from naps still tired and bit grumpy. Carter asked to lay in our bed and eat fruit snacks as a snack. That night Ty found fruit snacks Elise had spilled on his side of the bed and ate them. The next night Ty said, "I'm disappointed there are no fruit snacks in the bed tonight."

Carter: We sure have a lot of American flags around here.

Me: That's because we live in America.

Carter: I like living in America!

Elise comes into the room eating a Hershey's kiss.

Me to Elise: Where did you get that?!

Carter takes off to the other room and yells to me as he walks back in.

Carter: I figured out where Elise got the candy. I followed the candy trail and found this (holding up a candy) in a laundry basket behind the chair.

I had totally forgotten about the last basket of stuff Ty had loaded up in the kitchen and moved out so we could paint. Carter saying he followed the candy trail cracked me up. I went in the living room and there was a little trail of ripped up wrapper.

Elise going for more candy after we discovered where she found it.

Carter getting in on the action with her.

Me: Since you already watched some tv in the car, you won't be watching any tonight. Would you like to take Harper on a walk with me instead?

Carter: Oh, yes, that would be fun! And you need to get steps. Daddy only needs to get 7 steps so he doesn't need to go.

I guess he's picked up on me talking about getting steps with my Fitbit.

Talking to our neighbor as we walked by and she was mowing her lawn.

Carter: You are chewing gum! What flavor is it?

Neighbor: Oh, yes, I am. It is cinnamon.

Carter: My grandma has gum at her house but it is old!

We walked back by and our neighbor was still mowing.

"She's still mowing and it's getting dark outside! She's getting good exercise!"

Carter: What is our boy neighbor's name?

Me: Gary

Carter: Gary! And her name is Gary! Them have the same name!

Me: No her name is Carol. Her husband's name is Gary.

"What are we going to do with you, Elise?" Said to Elise at dinner as he rubbed food on her head.

"Thank you for letting me butter my bread. When Elise is 2, she'll be able to do this like me. When's she's big and 2, she can do this too."

I was laying down with a migraine and Carter was laying on me.

"I know your head hurts and you aren't feeling good but one day you will wake up and feel better. I promise."

Cute ways he says some words:

Frisbee- risbee

Each other- eachagether

Caterpillar- catapiggar

Every night before bed he asks me to sing No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. So I turned the rhyme into a song. Sometimes if he's really tired he'll request boing boing and I know what he means. Ty stresses out a bit about singing it since it's not a song and he doesn't know the tune. When Carter asks him to sing it, it usually doesn't go very well.

Carter's Preschool Open House

This morning was Carter's open house for preschool. His first day of school is on Tuesday. I found myself feeling oddly nervous, I think because I so badly wanted him to be excited and like his teachers and class. Of course, I didn't show Carter I was nervous and spent the morning talking up how excited I was and reminding him of what he'd seen when we toured the preschool before registering him. Ty was able to leave work for a little bit so he could meet us to see the classroom and meet Carter's teachers which was really nice. Upon arrival I found a sign on the door with class lists. Carter is in the dolphin class with two teachers. While waiting in line there was a boy in front of us crying which caught me off guard and made me feel teary myself. I think it made Carter nervous as he switched to standing on my foot. We got checked in and then headed back to Carter's classroom. When we walked in the room I immediately recognized one of his teachers. It took me a moment to figure out where I knew her from, but I eventually realized she had subbed for my co-teacher a couple times back when I was teaching. It made me feel good that I already knew one of his teachers and found her to be very sweet and natural with kids.

Carter posing with the welcome chalkboard at the entrance.

We tried to get a family shot, but it didn't really work.

Carter with his teachers.

Carter immediately took off to play when we walked in the room. His teachers had centers set up for the kids to explore. There was a block center, a pizza making pretend play center, a kitchen along with baby dolls and a bed, and a craft. Carter got to pick a cubby to use for his backpack which was hard to get him to do as we had to pull him away from the centers. Elise made a game of running from the room and looking back to make sure daddy was chasing her. On the sheet they had us fill out, I listed that Carter has been working on using his words to solve problems rather than hitting. I'm hopeful that since they are aware they can watch him carefully and nip any physical behavior in the bud. Before we headed out, we had to stop to play in the big indoor play area with a giant slide. After meeting Carter's teachers and seeing his classroom I'm feeling so much more at ease with what is to come on Tuesday. I can tell Carter is too. Talking about school after the open house was totally different than before. He was no longer worried about "being alone" without me, Elise, or daddy there. Instead he talked excitedly about his new friends. I am bracing myself for tears on Tuesday. If other kids are crying, I'm afraid he will follow suit. I just need to hold mine in until I get to the car. Then I can go home and snuggle Elise until she wriggles out of my arms while clawing my face and acting as though I have greatly offended her in some way by loving her too much. In situations like that I wonder why my snuggly one had to be my first born. Woe is me, but I will survive! Carter picked out which of his backpacks he wants to use for school and was so proud putting it on and wearing it. My heart melted when I saw his big boy smile as I showed him what we will be putting in his backpack. And so it begins, my boy starts school!

Playing in the kitchen area.

Making a pretend pizza.

Playing in the indoor play area with the giant slide.

Posing with his special backpack.