Just as I was starting to think about raking, Lex announced his own leaf clean-up solution: pick them up and store them in an old cream cheese container! He got started today :)
Lex cleans up the leaves
Leaf clean-up
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Ready for college?
Little Miss Eve in Hello Kitty PJs
This is what Eve wore to drop Lex off at preschool this morning. Heads were turning! (in a good way, of course!) All of the grownups were gushing over how adorable she is and even some kids came over to chat with her. At one point she put the phone to her ear and called Mema. “Hi Mema. We’re at Lex’s school. He’s in preschool. We are dropping him off. Goodbye Mema.” Later in the car she called Popcube. “Hi Popcube. We dropped Lex off at preschool. Yes. Goodbye Popcube.” :)
The whole ensamble and behavior made me think of college. Wearing PJs and flip flops, coordinating cell phone. Yeah, it’s going to come way to fast!!!
Eve, after she got dressed... in Lex's clothes (current and hand-me-down). The shoes are hers anyway.
Muffins
I wanted to share a muffin recipe that we’ve been making a lot lately. I think it’s fairly healthy with carrots, pineapple, and sunflower seeds. The muffins come out kind of cakey and delicious. Just the right amount of sweet, but not too much. I double the recipe because the pineapple cans I find in the store are 20oz, so I double the recipe and use the whole can. We all eat them… A LOT! I say I make them for the kids but I’m sure I eat a lot more than they do, mostly because I regulate their eating better than my own! Anyway, give them a shot if you want a tasty, healthy treat.
Pineapple Sunshine Muffins
From Best of Country Breads (a great book!)
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 can (8oz) crushed pineapple, undrained
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup sunflower kernels
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger. In another bowl, mix the eggs, butter, and vanilla; stir in pineapple. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in carrot and sunflower kernels. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups (or Pampered Chef stoneware muffin pan, awesome!) until 3/4 full. Bake at 375° for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack. Serve warm. Yield: 1 dozen.
Monsters and bathtub drawings
What do you do with monsters? Eve has taken an interest in monsters and talks about them a lot. She’s not really scared, but will often ask if there are monsters in her room. I say no, of course. It’s a funny thing and not something we’ve had to deal with so far. It started shortly after they watched Monsters, Inc. When she started talking about monsters in her closet (or in the office, or any other dark area) decided to not let the fear get to far. I found a book at the library about a monster boy having a birthday party. It was about sharing, really, and the monsters acted just like people, not scary monsters. Now she wavers between asking me about monsters in dark room and pretending to be a monster herself. I’m trying hard to keep it silly and not scary because I really don’t want a kid who is afraid of monsters or the dark. She has such an awesome imagination.
On another subject, I love how Eve draws. She holds the crayons/markers/pens the right way and makes somewhat recognizable pictures and puts eyes on people and other fun things. I bought the kids bathtub crayons recently and they have been loving them. In the tub tonight Eve drew me (a big circle) and her (a little circle) inside my belly. She gave us both eyes and I got a mouth and a “pagina” :) She is facinated with babies in bellies lately and talks a lot about when she was a tiny baby in my belly. It’s so cool to see her developing the ability to put those thoughts into pictures.
Final “first”
Today I think was our final “first” in the preschool transition. Lex went from school to daycare. Sucessfully!! By that I mean no fighting and only minimal tears. We got to daycare around 11:20 and his group was playing outside until 11:30 while the younger group (Eve’s group) was inside eating lunch. Lex’s teacher told him to head outside and he just stood there crying, saying “I’m too tired, I’m just too tired.” She asked if he wanted to each lunch instead and he did. So he sat down with Eve’s group and ate some lunch then went and laid down for an early nap. I was very happy that the teacher was able to be flexible like that for him. I know it would have been a much uglier scene if she had tried to force him outside for those final 10 minutes. Yay for good teachers!! :)
At school today he went to his first assembly with the whole school. It was about wolves, because that’s the school mascot. He said it was fun and he also learned about Red-Tailed Hawks, which are very big. :) He also decided today, his 5th day of preschool, to participate in the drawing project. The past few days he has brought home empty pieces of paper with just his name printed on them, but today he was super proud to show me the two drawings he did and I was super proud that he did them!! See how nicely he’s writing his name these days too. Yay for Lex :)
A maze (left) and an empty ice cream cone (right)
I have to start posting about Eve again soon. She has been driving me crazy with her silliness and monsters and early rising. On that note, I need to go to bed soon. 5am comes early! I’ll post more on her soon.
Routine
It’s starting to feel like we’re back in routine again. The kids get up, have breakfast, brush teeth, get dressed and play. We got out the door this morning on time and tear-free. Can’t beat that! Lex says he will be happy going to daycare today after preschool and I’m hoping he maintains that position when we get to daycare! I’m even showered and wearing new jeans that actually fit! A good morning all around. Our new fall routine :)
A bad case of the Monday’s?
So the downside to an action-packed weekend is a tired preschooler. I did not give him enough down-time this weekend and that became painfully apparent when I tried to get him into the car this morning. He was happy, ate breakfast, got dressed (that’s been remarkably easy lately), brushed his teeth, and then hid in the living room. I had to physically put him in the car while he hit and kicked me and screamed that he did not want to go to school. He settled down on the drive, but started up again when we got there. Eve helpfully wore his backpack and walked into the school (I’m SOO lucky that they don’t usually act up together!) and I carried Lex in, hitting me the whole way. It was horrible. He screamed when we got to his classroom. He was overtired, I was up half the night with Eve (on top of my few weeks of 5hr nights) and very overtired myself and we were not a pretty scene! Eve made herself at home while I tried, unsuccessfully, to get Lex settled down. I cried, he cried, it was awful. I asked the teacher if I should just take him home, but she said that would just reinforce the bad behavior (of course) and she said they are perfectly ok taking a screaming kid. Ugh!!! Eve and I heard him screaming all the way out of the school. I felt like a horrible, horrible person and Eve hugged me and tickled me and did everything she could to make me happy. She’s so sweet!! I kept reminding myself that he did have fun the first few days and that he will settle down and have fun today too. I headed to my friends house for some powerwalking! Half way there I got a call from the school and immediately started looking for somewhere to turn around to go pick him up. Instead it was his teacher calling to let me know that he screamed for about 2 minutes and then decided he wanted to read some books. She said he settled himself in front of the bookshelf and stayed there until he was ready to play. I was super relieved!! Obviously. I also had a good parenting thought as I remembered how we had told the teacher that he uses books to settle himself. I think had we not told her that, she wouldn’t have known to guide him that way and wouldn’t have known to leave him be with the books until he was ready to participate. At pickup time he was smiling and gave me a pretty fierce bear hug. He said he loved me very much and missed me. He also said he wanted to go back tomorrow. Whewh!
Picasa upgrade
I upgraded Picasa (to a beta version for Linux) and there are sooo many cool new features. I’m PSYCHED!!!
Eve's new bed
Then and now
Lex at 7 months old
A sleeping 4yr old.
A weekend trip
Yesterday we went to visit Alan’s family to celebrate Mandy’s birthday (Happy Birthday!!). A good time was had by all. Then we stopped to visit Jim and Julie for some play time.
Playing (and sleeping) at Molly's house
Question: Which photo presentation do you prefer? Collage (like this one), gallery (like the bed post below), or just a bunch of pictures like how I normally do it?