This morning Lex asked me to draw him a hidden pictures. I absentmindedly said ok, I’d think about it. He immediately grabbed some paper and a crayon, drew a box, and said it was time for me to draw! Umm… ok. I did my best and he was thrilled! Then they argued because Eve wanted to help Lex and he didn’t want help, so I drew her one as well. Nothing fancy, but I love being able to make my kids happy! :)
We celebrated the start of fall with a trip to a new apple orchard. New to us anyway. They had a petting zoo and delicious homemade donuts (YUM!!) and tons of apples. We went with the neighbors, brought a picnic lunch, and had a great time. Now we are thinking of ways to use two giants bags of apples. Today we made apple pie and caramel apples, tomorrow will be applesauce and apple butter… hopefully some apple spice cake in there too!
Eve was nervous about petting the sheep, but she happily followed Parrish over.
This smart cow knows that the food comes from that little machine. She was right there whenever a kid went over and she stayed afterwards and licked the machine! Even inside the door. Smartie cow.
Lex took a few minutes to work up the courage, but eventually pet the goat.
This farm had lots of peacocks. None spread their feathers for us though :(
We rode the wagon up to the orchards. The kids were excited :)
Boys in a tree
Eve picking apples
Lex in a tree. He climbed every tree he could!
Smiling Eve
I tried to get a picture of them together, but this is the best I got. Some day maybe they will both smile and pose at the same time for me!
The kids ate lots of apples. Well, we all ate lots of apples! When I was packing the picnic in the morning, Lex said, "Why are you packing lunch? Can't we just eat apples for lunch?" :)
Robina was helping Eve pick apples (while I took pictures!) A few minutes prior to this picture we saw a snake slithering around. Moments before this picture Eve dropped an apple on the ground and said, "We'll just let the snake eat the apple." Robina is laughing at the inadvertent biblical reference.
"It's like a pocket" said Eve, when she realized she could carry apples in her skirt. Like the fancy outfit she chose for apple picking?
Two bushels of deliciousness!
I commented on the delicious smell of donuts when we first got there and the rest of the time Eve kept asking, "Where's my donut?" After lunch she finally got her donut and they were gooooood!
Three little apples
Nice view! (and I love the lone apple on the floor of the wagon)
I don't even know how to caption this one.
Eve doing stunts on her bike.
Waiting for daddy to go for a bike ride.
We have slowly been working on our front garden. This weekend we bought rocks and compost, then layed down the leaf mulch I've been cultivating the past few years. I need a few more rocks and new edging and then I think this tiny garden will be done :)
The kids were reading so sweetly together yesterday. I snuck in to take a picture and got this evil look, followed by Lex's polite "Mom, please don't take a picture of us."
Lex came home with homework Friday afternoon. I said “Homework?! In kindergarten?!” He said, “No mom, it’s a game! Let’s play!” Good job teacher. He was super excited to play a game of “shape bingo” and eagerly cut up the pieces and set it all up. So we played, and played, and played, and I tried not to laugh at the fact that both Lex and Eve are very familiar with shapes so it was a quick, easy game. I signed the form saying that yes, in fact, we did do the homework and Lex was thrilled. He’s such a fun boy!
Eve is getting rave reviews from her preschool teacher. She came home the first day calling her teacher Jeff, which surprised me, so the next morning I asked him if that’s what he told the kids to call him. I think she heard me saying it to Alan one day because I couldn’t remember his last name. Anyway, he said he introduced himself as Mr. and that’s what the rest of the kids call him, but Eve calling him by his first name seems to amuse him. He told me a story (and apparently found it so amusing he told his wife about it as well :) ) that when he was helping one of the teaching students cut up strawberries for snack Eve came over and said “Oh Jeff, I don’t like strawberries.” The student looked at him with big eyes and said “She just called you Jeff!” :) That cracked him up. When he told me the story I laughed because she loves strawberries! She’s so funny. In that conversation he kept telling me what a smart girl she is, and so verbal, and funny, and just a pleasure to have in class. Nothing new there, right? :) But I do like hearing it from others!
She loves school and was sad on Friday that she didn’t get to go again. We call it “three year old preschool” (to differentiate from the PreK Lex went to last year), so I told her three year old preschool is just three days a week. Every day she asks if it’s Tuesday yet :)
Lex brought home homework on Friday (HA!) that was a game to help the kids learn shapes (HA!) and we all had fun playing (HA!). Seriously though, Lex and Eve had fun even though they both are very good with shapes already. I could probably leave her in kindergarten and she’d be fine :)
We had some really nice reading time this afternoon. The kids ate snack (more on the below) and I read books to them, in an effort not to eat their snack! Eve picked out a big pile of books and we read. I was feeling really good about this reading time because we normally just read before nap and bedtime, but I like reading throughout the day as well. Halfway through her book pile I realized that I was reading a pile of really dumb books. Dora books, and DC comic books (both aimed at early readers, but they feel like they are aimed at babies!), and other silly things. This got me thinking… the kids have lots of high quality, award winning books, but just as often as not they choose really stupid books at story times. I wonder if it’s still beneficial to read to them, even the dumb ones that are below their reading and comprehension levels, or should I start getting rid of these dumb ones? I’ve put away the baby books, and I throw away books I don’t like at all, but these are kind of in-between. What do you think?
As for snack, I’m loving it these past few days. What I’m loving most is hearing Lex say, “Mom, I really like the afternoon snacks you make for us!” Like music to my ears. I got fed up with the make-your-own snack we’ve been doing for years. It started back when they were toddlers and needed easy finger foods and it’s evolved through the years into a mix of crackers, dried fruits, and nuts. Now they like to stand at the counter and make their own “cracker snack” but it drives me crazy. They play at the counter, they eat at the counter, they bounce around, they make a huge mess… it has literally taken them an hour to make a snack. Then, when they finally get down with a full bowl of snack, they barely touch it because they were eating so much at the counter. Drives me crazy! So this week I started putting out a nice snack on the table before meeting Lex at the bus. One day it was peanut butter and crackers. My friend calls them Peanut Butter Smilers. :) I put out little bowls of dried cherries, banana chips, celery smiles, etc. They made faces and loved it! Today it was “yellow snack” which consisted of crackers with cheese cut into heart shapes, dried pineapple, and fresh pineapple. They loved it! Lex even ate the cheese, which has been on his personal do-not-eat list for awhile now. I was thrilled!! Not only did he eat the whole snack and ask for more, but he complimented me again on it and told me how much he loves the snacks I make. Ahh… simple things can make a momma swoon!
Eve started preschool today. I had serious empty nest syndrome. Is that possible when your kids are three and five? Anyway, she seems to be very happy. Alan and I brought her in together this morning. She greeted the teachers (a real teacher and four high school seniors), hung up her backpack and hat, and said hello to two kids we already know. When the time came for us to leave she gave us hugs and took off to play. Easy peasy. When I picked her up she said she had fun, but didn’t really convey much of her day (and by day I mean hour and 45 minutes!) She said she likes the teacher and she had graham crackers and juice for snack. That was it. But she was happy and says she wants to go back tomorrow, so I guess that’s a good thing. Lex wanted to be late for school this morning so he could go check out her classroom. Not sure if it was curiosity or protectiveness or what. He insisted I take pictures (um, sure, no problem!) and bring the camera to the bus stop so I could show him the pictures as soon as he got off the bus. I did just that and he was happy. Eve is always happy when the bus comes and drops off Lex. Tomorrow we do it all again, this time adding in an hour (at lunch/nap time) at the gym for me. Hope that goes well!
Eve on her first day of preschool
Her classroom
Eve knew exactly what to do when she saw a cubby with her name on it. Hat and backpack on the hook, kitty on the shelf.
Eve was excited to see the sand table full of beans! The girl next to her is a sibling of one of Lex's prek classmates, and Eve considers her a friend.
I don't know why, but this struck me as so sweet.
Did I give her salmonella or a fun childhood experience? Only time will tell…
And yes, we were baking again. Oops! Oatmeal raisin cookies with cinnamon bits and walnuts. YUM!
While I was making dinner tonight Lex decided to do some drawing. He got out his paper and new twistable colored pencils (which he LOVES!) and said, “I’m going to draw a picture of something I see.” He looked around for a minute, came over to me and told me that a map of your house is called a plan (knowledge gleaned from the book “There’s a map on my lap,” which they both love!), then said he was going to draw a plan of the kitchen. After a bit Alan came in and said “He’s doing perspective drawing!” and I replied, “Yep, and just because he wants to.” Amazing.
The artist at work. He even let me take his picture!
Plan of the kitchen, with "stove," "frige," and "cabanets" written out. The gray box is the sink.
He asked if we could hang it right there and I couldn't say no. Interestingly, if you look close you'll see he has the plan laid out correctly, except it's reversed from the actual kitchen.
This morning we decided to go apple picking. Unfortunately when we got to our orchard of choice we found out that they aren’t doing PYO yet, and possibly not at all this season because of a late frost this past spring. Bummer! We headed to another orchard, but along the way we saw a low flying emergency helicopter and signs for a Fire Safety day put on by the local fire department. The kids unanimously chose fire trucks over apple picking, so we stopped there instead. We explored the fire trucks (my town has an awesome one!) and the rescue helicopter. We watched them burn a small building, but that was scary so we watched from a distance. On the way out we had a nice chat with a fireman who squatted down and spoke gently to the kids and they had a long talk about what to do in case of a fire. He did a great job holding their attention and listening to them and not being too scary. The whole subject is so scary! We came home with a few pamphlets and continued the conversation through lunch. I sure hope we never need that information though!
My kids are getting so big! I took Eve to a thrift store the other day and we had to pass through half the kid section before we got to their sizes. Eek!
But put her in a massive fire truck and she looks pretty small :)
These moments melt my heart.
"Eve," I ask, "Are you flying the helicopter?" "No mom, I'm just pretending!"