Sisters

I love the girls so much! I cannot begin to even describe the joy I get from watching Miss M read to Baby D or watch them interact. Now tonight, I wanted to separate them as Miss M sat on baby D for the third time or tried to cover her with the towel for the second time. But about 99% of the time, they have the sweetest interactions.

Yesterday I sat and watched them for probably about 15 minutes. Baby D was in the bouncer just bouncing away and Miss M pulled her music chair up to the bouncer and was “reading” from a book like she was a teacher. The funny thing was she was “reading” a klutz magnet and science book and showing Baby D all the pictures like she would totally be interested. It was super cute, though.

I put Baby D in the shopping cart with Miss M for the first time yesterday and Miss M could not have been any happier. She hugged her, patted her, talked to her, and smothered her. By the end of the trip, Baby D had enough, but I loved watching them play and laugh and smile and coo.

Here is Miss M “reading” to baby D, who just wanted to eat the book:

Here they are in the cart:

Incorporating Learning

I have been trying to get better about incorporating learning in daily conversations with C. It usually goes pretty well, but yesterday morning he threw me for a loop. I was lazy and just made oatmeal for breakfast, but he was excited because I add food coloring to his oatmeal to make it a color. Yesterday I made it green. He liked it! I said, "C what other things are green?" He went on to say grass, turtles, oatmeal (haha) , I added leaves so he said trees, and a few more. I said, "what else is green?". He responded, "why do we always have to talk about what is a color like green, why can't we just sit and eat and talk like adults?" I almost fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard. It was just too funny! Where has he heard that or what made him think that?!?! No clue how their big minds work.

I checked out a book at the library called Before Five in a Row, it is a book that gives ideas to parents of preschoolers on having fun teaching their children about the world around them. So we checked out some books on the list and have probably 15 books out from the library for now. He has pretty much memorized Going on a Bear Hunt after three readings. His favorite though that we checked out was Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel. We also are doing some activity sheets with the Mike Mulligan one, where C will have to draw what he would discover in his hole if he was Mike and he was digging. I am looking forward to getting some more ideas on how to bring the books alive and teach him a little more at home. Some more examples are we are reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear and I made some activity cards where he will match the words to the characters in the story (like white and white dog). Also, for snowy day I made some picture cards and since we pretty much know that story by heart, I am going to have him color and glue his own snowy day picture book.

We started cooking classes tonight and it was a lot of fun. For March he is signed up for Cooking and Hockey and April I think we will do cooking and t-ball.

For his class tonight they made boats (deviled eggs with pepper sails), sandwich kabobs, and chocolate peanut butter rice krispie treats.

For the deviled eggs they were cut in half and the kids scooped out the yolks and then each had a plate that they mixed the yolks with a little mayo, mustard, and pickle juice.

The sandwich kabobs they got to choose from turkey, ham, cheese, pickles, olives, bread, peppers, and more and make their own sandwich kabobs.

For the rice krispie treats each one got to measure one thing and took turns stirring the bowl in between microwaving it to make it melt, then each spread their own into the pan. The kids had a good time.

Here are the finished products: