"A dinosaur on a ladybug"

This is a work of art that Simon is very proud of. He said it is a dinosaur on a ladybug.  He also cut some of the paper and glued it together. He's really into the arts and crafts these days.

Alice's work

Here is some of Alice's work from earlier this month. I can't even imagine trying to read 1st graders' writing on a daily basis.

Alice behaved well at school this month, at least.

A drawing

Fishing

The kids had been whining to go fishing, so after naps on Sunday Zac took them out to try out their new fishing rods they got for Christmas from Don.  Seems like they worked pretty well!

Stream

On Sunday morning, the weather was a bit rainy, but it was warm so I took the kids to Ritter Park.  It's not far from our house, and beyond the playground there is a greenway that goes by a stream.  That's all it takes for the kids to be quite content and happy for a long time.

Simon is up on top of that ledge building a nest. He played up there for a long time, and somehow he never did fall off and plop into the water.

Hammer Time

Zac lets Simon hammer stuff in the garage. Simon loves it.

Playground morning

I wanted to check out a possible summer camp location for Alice, so we went to the Carolina Pines community center playground this morning.  Simon even made a friend!

Backwards

Since Simon now picks out his own clothes and gets himself dressed nearly every morning, his outfits are getting interesting. Here he is completely mismatched and with both his shirt and pants on backwards. He wouldn't stay still for a picture.

I suppose we should teach him how to look for tags.

Clip Charts

Simon continues to work hard at his clip-chart making.  One notable thing about Simon is that because nothing comes easily to him, he will work hard at something for a long time. He will also repeat a task over and over again to achieve mastery. I made a better version of the clip chart for him to copy, since my handwriting on the first one was so bad, he couldn't copy it clearly.

Bounce party

We've been having a lot of rainy and/or cold weekends, so of course on our first truly gorgeous weekend day in a long time, we all had indoor plans.  Zac was scheduled to take Alice and Simon to Julia's birthday party at an indoor bounce-house place, and I was to attend a "Ladies Brunch" to celebrate my friend and colleague's 60th birthday. I can't tell you how happy I was to avoid the bounce place and go to a grownup birthday party for a change!

But, we had a bit of time go enjoy the outdoors before we all had to head to the birthday parties.

Simon apparantly was not terrified of bounce houses for the first time ever, and actually went in them and played. It looks like the kids, at least, had a good time.

Projects

Alice loves to do her "science experiments" involving the test tubes and colored water. We should probably be doing more real science experiments with her...

The kids were happy to recieve their Valentine's cards from Grandma Cam and Grandpa Don. Alice was able to read most of her card herself.

Simon, who picked out his own clothes and got himself completely dressed all by himself this morning for the first time ever, was also happy to receive his card and stickers.

He used his stickers to decorate his box house that he has built out in the garage.

Alice at the Roller Rink

We finally took Alice to Jelly Beans, our local roller skating rink, to use her new roller skates.  They have a "kids and parents" session on Saturday mornings from 10am-12pm.

She took a while to get going, but was doing pretty well by the end. She preferred to skate on the carpet around the rink, but would do a lap on the wood floor when prompted. Zac and I took turns with her, holding her hand so she wouldn't fall.

We put skates on Simon too, but that did not go well and did not last long. The skates were too heavy and he was terrified of falling, and just ended up crying. So we took his skates off, and eventually Zac just left with him to go stock up on haw candy roll-ups from the nearby Grand Asia Market.

Batman boy?

Simon came home from daycare with his face painted today. It had sparkles on his nose, which was pretty cute!

The Meow Book

Simon loves cats. Simon also loves making books.  I got him a cat book out at the library, which he loves to read (because he knows all the words!). Then one night with Zac, he decided he needed to make his own version of the book. The next night he read the book he made to me.

Simon's tape machine

Simon has been loving the new tape dispenser, which he calls "the tape machine."

He even snuck down last night when he was supposed to be in bed to steal it off the art table and take it to bed with him.

Happy Valentine's Day!

For Valentine's day, Zac went to Target and got the kids a few things.  Both kids got a little pack of post-it notes, a canister of silly putty, and some Hershey's kisses. Simon also got a tape dispenser and some colored pencils. Alice got a paper machete unicorn and some markers. Zac is so good at buying presents--the gifts were perfect.

"Happy valentine's day. Dear mom, I love you because you cook such good dinners."

Simon draws the continents

Simon loves coloring these maps at daycare.

Today he came home with one that he drew.

Valentine's Cupcakes

On Sunday I made Valentines Day cupcakes with the kids. I put minimal effort into this--just using up leftover frosting from Zac's birthday cake. Simon was really into the process.  He loves helping cook things.

The best part was helping to clean out the frosting nozzles!

Glasses for the cool kids

How to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremonies

Alice with the flu

 Alice got hit with the flu this week. It started on Saturday with her saying her legs hurt and she didn't want to go to Durham. We let her lay around and watch lots of videos.  She was pretty droopy on Sunday too, so we let her watch more videos.  

On Monday morning, she said she didn't sleep at all and didn't feel well, but we were so distracted by the sad and shocking news of Bevin's passing that we didn't pay any attention to Alice and sent her off to school.  

When I picked her up from after-school care, the counselor told me that Alice was pretty sick and was sleeping on the floor in the cafeteria.  When Alice got on the car, her nose was bright red and she just looked sick.  I couldn't believe they hadn't called me to pick her up early. I felt horrible for sending her.  

On Tuesday, Zac stayed home with Alice and let her watch videos all day, and she seemed to recover, so we sent her to school on Wednesday.  When I picked her up again on Wednesday, so looked terrible.  

That's when it finally dawned on me that she had the flu rather than a normal cold.  I decided to take Thursday and Friday off to give her a proper recovery.  This child was really sick, but thank goodness she can watch videos for days on end!  

She finally seemed to have some energy again by Sunday, so we cut her off from the videos so she could acclimate to life, and she had a rough day--very irritable.  But Monday at school went fine, thank goodness.

Simon's tents

Simon's sleep problems continue. He takes forever to fall asleep at night, sometimes staying up as late as 11 pm or in extreme cases, midnight. When he does fall asleep, it is usually in some sort of nest or bed that he creates for himself on the floor. His latest thing is that he makes tents in his room to sleep in. They are usually more elaborate than this, but it's hard to take pictures at night in the dark and they're usually destroyed in the morning.

Aunt Bevin

On Monday morning we got the very sad news that Bevin had passed away.  It was so shocking. We are grateful we got to see Bevin so much during our visits to Ohio, especially our most recent one at Christmas. She was always so kind and patient with our kids, and Alice always looked forward to seeing her.  We will miss her greatly.