our favorite kindergarten soccer player

dance and swim

first day of dance class yesterday

last day of swim lessons today

I love these crazy kids.

four dollars and forty-two cents

I hadn't heard from Danny in a while.

I asked Cate to go spy on him (that's my way of finding out what someone's doing without having to get up and see for myself and the "spy on him" part means be really quiet so he won't hear you because if he's doing something that's acceptable then I don't want him to be interrupted and come bug me...how's that for horrible mom?).

She came back from her secret mission to report that he was counting the money from her bear bank.

Totally acceptable and I'm glad she didn't interrupt him. It kept him busy for what seemed like a very long time.

Finally he emerged from her bedroom to tell me that Cate has $4.42 in her bear bank. "Four dollars and forty-two cents!" She's rich.

Curious, I thought I'd have a recount and see if he was right.

He was.

Exactly.

And there were only a few quarters. All the rest was a mixture of dimes, nickels and pennies.

* * *

The kindergarten countdown chain had 8 links left. I reminded him that when we started the chain there were 150 links. He smiled and said, "So we've gone through a hundred and forty-two!"

* * *

Dan dealt out four hands of cards on the front room floor to attempt to teach me how to play Rook. All the cards were face up so he could kind of run through a fake game and show me what to do. Danny sat and watched (he was probably listening better than I was too).

He leaned over and whispered to me that Dan's black cards equaled 50. He was right.

* * *

We were at Aunt Judy's house. It was 6:39 when I told him we were leaving at 7:00. I asked him how much longer until we'd leave. "21 minutes."

Yep.

* * *

I bought the kids ice cream cones at McDonald's. Danny asked me how much they cost. I told him they're 99 cents each. "You mean our ice cream costed (because that's how he says it and I think it's adorable) one dollar and ninety-eight cents?!"

I'm not sure if he thought that was a little or a lot but he was sure enthusiastic about it.

* * *

I told Danny that he gets to start watching football with Daddy next week. "Remember how they get a touchdown and an extra kick and then they earn 7 points? What happens if they get another touchdown?" 14. And another? 21. 28. 35. 42. 49. 56 (that's him telling me, no the other way around). We stopped there because I'm not sure BYU is going to get any higher than that this season (but what do I know?).

* * *

I'm partly proud and a whole lot amazed at the stuff this kid knows and can figure out. No finger counting. No calculator (duh). I'm a little bit bragging. Sure. But can you blame me? If bragging about my kid on my blog is wrong then I don't wanna be right.

I also just want to remember this stuff so I don't let it just float away and be forgotten. I want to show him this when he's taking care of me in my old age because he's a successful something-or-other-that-uses-math and let him know he knew it way back when.

But mostly I'm just bragging.

mini swimmers

Last day of swim lessons notes from the teacher:

Danny is absolutely ready for level 3. He is a great swimmer.

Catherine has done very well.
She always says, "That's easy!" which is a great attitude to have.
She could be better with floating on her back. That's my only concern.
But she can do it well enough and it will be strengthened in level 3.
I would recommend level 3.

*   *   *

There was a boy in their class named Jackson.
Danny and Cate would not believe me that he's a boy.
His hair is really really curly and sort of longish (not down his back, just sticks out).
Even though he wears swim trunks, my kids are convinced that he's a girl because of his hair.
I told Danny that girls do not show their boobies when they go swimming.
That means he's a boy.
He didn't buy it. I think I convinced Cate with that argument but Danny's not budging.

We'll wait until fall for level 3.
That pool is a mad house with summer swim lessons.
I'll miss my uninterrupted 30 minutes of dink around on my phone time though.

And Cate in that picture? She totally cracks me up.
Could she be any cuter?
She almost makes me wish I had a brother to love and torment.

self portrait in the buff

Danny couldn't care less about writing his name for a long time. Didn't care. Didn't want to do it. Nothing. I had to write every other letter just to get him to participate and practice a little. The thought of my kid being the only one in his kindergarten class not writing his name made me sad. It seemed like it might happen though. He can be quite stubborn.

He didn't care about coloring or drawing either. He'd scribble in a coloring book but not for more than a few minutes. And drawing? Almost never. 

And now. He'll get paper and sit at the table and just draw. Mostly these little guys. Always five fingers on each hand. Always smiling. Always a long neck.

And then he writes his name. Without me saying anything about it. I love it. It makes me smile.

He said this is him. I don't know what the neck stripes are for. Maybe they're wrinkles. And the bellybutton just about kills me.

hopscotch by sevens

No biggie.

Just learning how to count by sevens.

I drew the squares.

Danny told me the numbers to fill in.

He knew the first three.
I helped with the middle ones.

When we got to 77 he said,
"Oh, I know this. Daddy taught me."
Then he rattled off 84, 91, 98 and 105 faster than I could have.
He's got a good memory.

We did a little counting by threes too since we have a nice long sidewalk in the shade.

And this is what I feel like after sitting outside watching my kids hop around for 30 minutes.
Lucky for me, someone brought out a pillow from my bed
(even though that's breaking the rules) so I had something soft to sit on.

I love summer. I love summer. I love summer. I love summer.

(if I say it enough I might believe it some day)

you lose

I've been working on helping Cate not be a poor sport. 

If she wins a game (which she does quite often, but probably because most of the games we play with her have to do with luck, not skill), she's super excited.

If she loses, well, she most often stomps off to her room yelling something like, fine! then you're not invited to my tea party ever again! And then she slams her door which isn't very nice but she's right where I want her so I guess it all works out. (Sheesh. Is she almost 4 or almost 14? Heaven help me.)

So we play games and I remind her of the good things to say. Even if she loses. Good game! Thanks for playing with me. Awesome. Good try! Stuff like that.

We played Candy Land on Saturday. She set up the board. Before we started I talked to her about what it means to be a poor sport (the stomping away mad and slamming the door stuff) and what she can say if she loses. And what she should say if she wins.

And then I asked her, "So what happens if you don't win?" (hoping she'd remember that we say Good game or Awesome or Good try)

She thought for about 2 seconds and said, "You lose."

Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

friday night videos: count by fours

Just listen how fast he goes from 28 to 32.

Amazing.

I'm so proud.

bragging

The kids were playing in the sprinkler yesterday. Danny walked over to me and said, "So, Mommy, now I know why 15 plus 15 makes 30."

Random. So that's what his little brain is doing while he's out having fun in the yard.

I asked him why 15 plus 15 make 30.

"10 plus 10 makes 20 and 5 plus 5 makes 10."

Yep. He's a genius.

*   *   *

He climbed up on the counter while I was prepping dinner (these individual pizzas that are really yummy and super easy and after making them I'm pretty sure I'll never make a big homemade pizza ever again).

I had already smooshed the dough into twelve circles, six on each baking sheet.

"So, Mommy, looks like we're having pizza for dinner."

He starts a lot of his conversations with "So, Mommy..." nowadays.

I told him to count the pizzas and tell me how many we would each be able to eat for dinner.

"So six plus six makes twelve. So hmmmmm...that means Daddy gets three and Cate gets three and you get three and I get three."

Just like that. Maybe the hmmmmmm lasted for about 3 seconds. He was quick.

Know why?

He's a genius.

*   *   *

He can count by twos up to one hundred. He can count by fives and tens and on Sunday he counted by twenties up to two hundred. I think we'll start working on counting by threes and fours. Just while we're driving around though since I don't think he cares much about me trying to teach him stuff when it feels like I'm actually trying to teach him stuff.

*   *   *

Now, lest you feel badly that your kid (who hasn't even started kindergarten yet) isn't as mathletic as mine, don't. He hates to write anything. Sometimes he'll write his name but that's usually with a lot of moaning and groaning. He can recognize all the letters and numbers but getting him to write anything is a chore. And he holds his pencil wrong. And his crayon and his marker. He prefers to clench his fist so he can color really hard. We're working on that one but he is very resistant. 

He doesn't read very well yet either. I'm especially horrified by that one, seeing as how I'm an elementary school teacher (well, in my heart I am and on paper I used to be). He can recognize lots of words but I don't count it as full on reading. But like I've said before, I'm pretty sure that kindergarten teacher of his is going to need something to do all day so she might as well spend some of her time teaching my kid how to read.

*   *   *

And also, those pizzas really were delicious. You can make it super yummy by whatever toppings you use right? But the crust was really good.

We have leftovers because two kids didn't eat their fair share.

I'm thinking pizza for breakfast is in order.

mama bird

I made this necklace today.

It's my nest.

All the lovely little birdies I get to take care of every day.

The big green egg is Dan. The emerald signifies wisdom, growth and patience. I'd say that's him.

The little orange one is Danny. Topaz symbolizes love and affection. Danny was happy to know the orange one is him since that's his current favorite color. Did you know that topaz is the state gem of Utah? Pretty cool.

And the little white egg is my Catie Bug. The pearl is a symbol of purity. I like that since my birthstone is a pearl too.

The young women in my ward will be making a mama bird nest necklace this week for their moms for Mother's Day. I think it's pretty safe to say none of their moms read this blog so I haven't ruined any surprises. At least that's what I'm hoping.

I followed this tutorial to make my mama bird nest. It was super easy. I think there might be some other ladies in my life who will be receiving one of these sometime in the nearish future.

I really like my little nest.


Speaking of Mother's Day...

Look what my mom sent to me this week.

It's my early Mother's Day gift from her and my dad.

I love it.

Thanks to my own mama bird.

practicing his words

I took Danny to the elementary school yesterday morning for his speech evaluation. He was very excited to finally go inside. We drive past his school almost every day but he's never been in. I've been doing my best to get him excited to start kindergarten (although he's been ready since fall of 2010 when Kris started kindergarten so it's not too hard). Looks like my hard work and enthusiastic pointing to the school on the drive-by's has paid off because he was thrilled to be there. Yea for small victories.

I was worried he'd pull out his grumpy and I don't want to do anything you tell me to do card for this appointment. He can be like that sometimes (ahem, a lot of the time). He was wonderful. I've been prepping him for today for a week though so I'll go ahead and take all the credit.

I'd tell him he was going to practice his words with a teacher INSIDE the school. He'd get to show her all the cool words he can say while he is INSIDE the school. Show her how smart he is INSIDE the school. See how I did that? Focus on the prize.

We were early. The lady in the office escorted us to the speech lady's room. She wasn't quite ready for us so she asked us to just wait in the hall for a minute. Danny looked down the long hall and told me he was just going to walk down and then come back...for exercise. Ha!

I told him that was ok but he had to walk and be very quiet because kids were learning and they have to be able to listen to their teachers. Oh, I just wish I'd made a little video of his exercise walk. He strutted down that hallway, pausing to look into each open classroom door. When he got to the end, he turned around, waved at me and then began the walk back, with all the same pausing and peering into classrooms. It was too cute.

The speech lady came out of her room. She called him Daniel and I told her we just call him Danny. We went into another room for the testing. She was nice but he acted shy at first. He kept whispering his answers to her questions (stuff like what do you want santa to bring you? how many brothers and sisters do you have? do you like legos?) into my ear. I told him he'd have to talk out loud to her so she could hear all the words he knows.

He warmed up to her pretty quickly. She did the testing (which was a bunch of pointing to pictures and asking him to tell her what he saw). He got to pick a treat when it was over (he chose bubble gum). I go back in a week to review the results with her and see if he qualifies for services. I'm ok if he does. I'm also ok if he doesn't. I just wanted to feel like I made an effort to get him help if he can have it. If it's stuff he'll just grow out of, I'll take that too.

I did get a pretty cool souvenir though.



As a former special ed teacher I've given out hundreds (maybe? who knows? it sure felt like hundreds) of these to parents. Now I have one. It feels weird to be on the other side.

Before we left, we wandered around the halls (with permission from the office ladies of course) and checked out the school. He was so excited to see what was down each hallway. We even stopped by to see my friend who teaches there. I'm not going to lie. It made me miss having a classroom of my own. Like, a lot. Seeing all those bulletin boards and kids and desks and whiteboards brought tears to my eyes (they didn't spill over or anything...no crying at school). I miss it.

After all that morning fun stuff we picked up Cate from Aunt Judy's house, met up with a friend at Chick-fil-A (where Cate was freaked out by the person walking around in a cow costume giving high 5's to little kids), went to Walmart for a few things (including chocolate donut holes with sprinkles), came home and tidied up because the young women from church were coming over to work on party prep stuff.

I think we're prepped. Look what we did.



Cate was quite distraught that she couldn't have a tea party.

I think that's a nice looking stack of fake presents.

I'm just wondering what I'm going to do with all of those fake presents on Friday night when the church party is over and done with.

Suggestions?

sweetened condensed milk paint

Here's my little disclaimer right from the start.

I read your little mommy blog. I even sometimes read your little crafty blog. I try not to but I get sucked in. I see how you do fun stuff with your little kids. They're smiling and creating and you're snapping pictures in the perfect lighting. You're probably happy while you're doing it too. Oh, you crafty little mommy blogger you.

Then I'm left sitting there wondering a few things.

Am I a crappy mom because I don't do artsy fartsy stuff with my kids more often?

Is there a pile of dirty dishes in your sink because you're helping your kids do fun stuff instead of washing them? (the dishes and the kids too I guess)

Is it ok that I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown while I watch my kids paint with sticky sticky milky stuff?

Is it ok that I'm hoping they'll just paint fast so I can hurry up and clean? (their mess and them and those dirty dishes)

Do your kids think you're so awesome because you do artsy fartsy stuff with them?

How often do you really do this artsy fartsy stuff? (because if it's every day then I'm going to have to hate you now)

Will my kids think I'm cool if I do lots of artsy fartsy stuff or are they ok with how infrequently I do it nowadays?

Will they remember this sticky sticky milky paint stuff tomorrow and want to do it again? (because I seriously almost had to go put myself in time out to keep myself from having a serious panic attack...or heart attack, one of those)

* * * * *

Another little disclaimer, I don't know where this idea came from. Certainly not my own little brain. I'm not clever enough to create my own paint from sweetened condensed milk. I have no link or credit. Sorry. I searched my Pinterest "For the Kids" board and it's not from there. I thought it was but I was wrong.

On to the reason we're all here today.

Part Two of How We're Going to Survive Being Cooped up Inside All Winter (part one was the super cool geoboard I made! still feeling proud of that one.)


Sweetened Condensed Milk Paint

Here's what you need:




Best part of this one, I already had all the supplies in my house. No buying anything special. Hooray.

Notice that my little bottles of food color expired back in February. I know. I was taking a risk but I used them anyway.

Just plop the goopy stuff in the muffin tin, mix in your drops of color, stir and then let the kids at it. My kids sit on the counter and paint on the other counter. That's how we roll. We also do artsy fartsy stuff in our pajamas because morning is when they're happiest and most likely to do stuff like this without fighting with each other.



I will never get tired of seeing that protruding bottom lip of concentration.



See that gloopy drippy stuff coming off the paintbrush? That's what darn near made me go crazy. I am just not good at the messy stuff. I'm trying my darnedest to let them have fun anyway.



Oh, be still my heart. I tried to teach them how to wipe their brushes a little bit on the edge of the muffin tin but they weren't having any of that nonsense. Drip drip drip away!



Smiling like his picture.









And then we were done. I think they each painted on two pieces of card stock. I recommend a heavy paper because that sticky paint stuff gets heavy on there. Cate was very generous in her application too.

They thought we were running out of paint at one point (we weren't) so I added more. That's why there's some white swirling around. They didn't do a very good job of stirring it in. Kids.



When the fun was done I stuck the muffin tin in a baggie. It fit perfectly. Then I stuck the baggie in the cupboard where the pots and pans go. I haven't looked at it since. I probably should have stuck it in the fridge. I don't know. I'm afraid to see what it looks like now.



I think we'll try this one again soon. The paintings turn out pretty cool once they've dried.

Nice and shiny.

they're happy, really they are

Such a happy kid on his first day of preschool.

Not really first day ever, he's been before. First day of his last year of preschool we'll call it.



First day ever for the happy little sister. I'm very tempted to dress them all matchy and cute every time. I'll try to resist.

Yes, I do know that pink and purple fake Crocs do not really coordinate well with navy blue. Try telling her that. All of her other shoes HURT! Not those, they hurt! Not those ones, they hurt! Oh, it's a rough life when you're so incredibly picky about your footwear.



I dropped them off and guess what, I didn't cry. Didn't even think about crying. I might have done a little happy dance on my walk back to the car.

They went in happily and came out the same way. I love happy preschoolers.

Today I was so distracted with happiness as we walked out the door to leave that I forgot to close it. I drove them to preschool and came home to a wide open door.

Ooops.

messy me

The little artists went to their first Messy Me class this afternoon.

We took a little drive to find the teacher's house last week. Dan was with us. I tried to pay attention because I knew I'd have to find it all by myself today. I am pleased to report that I didn't get lost and only got a little nervous right before the last turn because I'd forgotten about that last turn and things were not looking like I remembered them. We found it though. Who needs GPS? Not me.

We walked down the stairs of Miss Kristi's house and into her basement. She has a room all set up for preschool and Messy Me stuff (complete with a toy kitchen that Cate reported Miss Kristi wouldn't let her play with).

Cate went right in. Danny, not so much. He tried to go back up the stairs but I picked him up and let him sit on my lap for a bit. He said it was boring. Everything is boring to him.

He watched the kids painting with various items (cookie cutters, spongy paint brushes, regular paint brushes, paint brushes with a bunch of rubber bands on the top). What got him to put on an apron and join the kids was the potato masher. Painting with a potato masher is not boring.

After a few minutes I went upstairs and sat on the couch to wait. When the hour was up I went back downstairs. While I was gone they had painted wooden snakes, decorated the front of a book with blank pages and stuck foam stickers all over a foam door hanger thingee. It was quite a stash to get out to the car since most of the painted stuff was still wet.

As soon as we got outside Danny had to go to the bathroom so we snuck back inside to take care of business. As we walked out the door Danny proclaimed, "That was amazing!" Not sure if he was talking about the potty break or the art class though.

I loaded up the car with two cranky kids and headed home.

A nice way to use up some of our afternoon.

And I didn't have to be the one supervising the mess.

Hooray!

his name in crayon

As I tucked my little boy into bed last night, he asked me if I would teach him to write his name.

I told him I would and asked him why he wanted to learn now.

He said that the kids that write their names don't have to trace them (in preschool, of course).

So there you have it.

Does that count as peer pressure?

We've got some work to do on that lowercase a.

Other than that, I think it's perfect.