Mother's Day, Superheroes, and A Bit More

Mother's Day was particularly fun this year, because it's the first year that Jack really understood that it was a holiday.  They had been talking about it at school and preparing for a Mother's Tea singing program for several weeks.  Also, Jonathan marked it on the calendar for him.  To say that Jack loves holidays/birthdays is an understatement.  He looks for any reason to celebrate.  Jonathan woke up at 5:45 A.M. on Mother's Day to find Jack sleeping on the floor next to our bed.  He woke Jack up, and Jack said that he had come down to start Mother's Day.  He had Jack get into bed, and he just slept with us until his normal 7:30 A.M. wake up time.

Jack made me the top card the morning of Mother's Day, and he made the bottom card at school.

Here's the survey that he did at school.  I love that he views my best skill as cleaning :).

 

This morning his school had Mother's Tea where they served little desserts and drinks, and each of the classes sang three songs.  The shadow portrait was the gift to moms from the kids in Jack's class.

Owen and Mary were so patient with the program that lasted an hour.  Owen was occupied by eating way too many mini brownies, mini muffins, and lemonade.  Mary stayed happy until the very end even though she was so tired since it was during her usual morning nap time.  Jack did so great singing and doing all the hand motions.  I've watched the video a few times since we came home, and he makes me laugh so hard.  He was definitely the most "enthusiastic" of his class, and I thought he was going to dance his way out of the line a few times.  

Overall, it's been a fantastic Mother's Day celebration.  I didn't make any meals or clean a single dish on Mother's Day, and Jack camped out next to our bed from excitement to celebrate me…it doesn't get much better than that.

Last Tuesday was Superhero/Princess Day in Jack's class to celebrate all of the kids in his class being able to write their names independently.  Owen wanted to get in on the action too, so I dressed him up as well.  It was super cute seeing all the kids in their costumes.

Owen/Superman washed his motorcycle when we got home.  This is one of his favorite activities, and he was drenched when he was done (he spent about an hour washing it).  He didn't want to change clothes, so I dried his outfit and put it back on to pick Jack up from school.

With a bribe of gummies I was able to get Owen to pose for me.  When we picked Jack up from school, each child got a superhero cookie.  Jack picked the cookie that matched his costume.

We've had a series of rainy days here, and I was itching to get out of the house.  I took them to paint pottery.  The boys had a great time picking out their colors and painting star plates.  Besides the stress of keeping them from touching things due to the "you break it, you buy it" policy, it was a lot of fun.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that Jack has shown an increased interest in helping in the kitchen now.  Friday night we made a homemade pizza together since it's a kid-friendly meal for him to help with.

Next week is Jack's preschool graduation ceremony.  He will still be in pre-k next year since he's a November birthday, but he'll be going full days, five days a week through the public school system.  So he is graduating from his current part-time community preschool program.  I'm so excited to see him in his little cap and gown!

Mary's 8-Month Update

Mary turned 8-months old yesterday, and I can't even believe how fast this first year is going!  Here is her monthly photo:

She's really become a more active member of the family instead of just sitting on the sidelines watching.  The boys love her so much, and she thinks they are extremely interesting to watch.    

They both love showering her with kisses and doing raspberries on her belly.

As you can see below she has her two bottom front teeth.  You can see the edge of another one poking through on the bottom.  She's constantly chewing on her hands and just about anything she can get a hold of.

Mary finally enjoys bath time and actually relaxes.  She went through a phase where she spent the entire bath screaming.  She also hated having lotion applied, and she laughs now when you do it…improvement!

She isn't a huge fan of her car seat, but she does pretty well as long as she has some toys to play with and chew on.  

I've strayed from the baby led weaning strategy and have gone to purees.  Mary was getting angry that she couldn't hold onto food well.  She would get upset when she couldn't get a piece of food in her mouth.  I tried purees and she was a total happy camper being able to actually swallow something.  She is a food lover for sure.  If you're too slow getting food into her mouth she starts crying, and she doesn't like to watch others eat while she's not eating.  I eat pretty much all my meals cold when she is present.

I would say her favorite food is egg yolk.  This girl can eat two 4-oz fruit packs and an egg yolk before I end the meal for her.  She would keep going if I let her, but I don't want her to get over-full and not nurse well.

Her most recent milestone is that she started waving on May 4th, so the day before she turned 8-months.  I was holding her watching the boys eat breakfast, and she started waving at them.  She then did it four more times before her morning nap.  I was able to get a short video of it.  She's a waving-machine now :).  She waves at people, the refrigerator, the window…she loves it.  She looks at her hand sometimes like 'what is happening? This is amazing.'

Springtime Fun and Relaxation

We've been enjoying the spring weather before it gets super hot here in Oklahoma.  The boys love to spend time outside, especially Owen.  Some days they just like to relax on the patio.

Owen loves doing 'jobs' around the house.  He used the baby walker to mow the lawn just like Jonathan does.  He just went back and forth over and over again doing his pretend lawn work.  

We made Rice Krispy treats for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  Both boys loved helping and licking the spoon.

They decorated them with sprinkles.  Jack generally does not like anything sticky, but he got over it for a treat.  

I always feel a little bit sad for Owen when Jack is at school, because he misses having a buddy in the house.  I don't think playing with me is quite the same for him.  Here is Owen among the chaos and destruction that he creates during his time playing by himself.  

It was community helper day at school last week, and they had a firefighter and police officer come speak to their class.  They also got to take a tour of a firetruck.  Jack came home with his stickers from the speakers.  

We had to get food for Izzy last week at the pet store, so it turned into a bit of a field trip for the boys.  They loved seeing all of the animals.  I also discovered a possible cat allergy in Jack.  As soon as we got into the cat section his nose was bothering him and he was complaining that his eyes itched.  He sneezed this huge sneeze that emptied his sinuses.  As soon as we left the cat section he was fine.

Owen has been waking up earlier than he normally does recently, so he gets tired earlier in the day.  He'll say "I need nap now"  when he gets really tired.  He couldn't take a nap until after we picked Jack up from school last week, so he laid down before we left to rest.

Jack has had a recent interest in taking silly pictures.  He wanted an impromptu photo shoot the other day.  There's not much I can really say about these besides he's a bit of a weirdo ;).  

Per usual, Jackson has been drawing a lot of pictures.  He drew this bike, and he wrote the word "GO" all by himself without any help!  He wanted to write bike under the picture so I helped him sound it out, and he was able to figure it out besides the silent 'E' on the end.  It's fun to watch the whole process of learning how to read and write.

I have been trying to figure out a way to incorporate Bible stories into our day-to-day routine, and I wanted to find something that would be easy to do and interesting to both boys.  I found this "My first Hands-on Bible," and it is great.  You read the stories, and it has little hands that stop you to do an activity or talk about something relevant to the story.  At the end it has different activities and talking points as well as a little prayer to help with explaining and retaining the story.  It's for ages 4-6, so Jack really gets into it.  Owen will listen and do some activities also.  I always wonder if Jack understands and how much he remembers.  One of the activities from the 10 Commandments story was to find the number 10 when you're out driving.  A week after we read the story he found a number 10 on a sign and referenced the story, so it was fun to see that he does remember what we read.  

Grandma Nichols came for a visit last weekend, and we had a lot of fun.  We made a trip to the Philbrook Museum where you can walk around in the gardens and look at different flowers and statues.  The boys love the statues and being able to run around freely.  

We're approaching Jack's pre-k graduation at the end of May, so there are going to be some fun end of year activities at school that we are looking forward to.