Class Picture

Whoever decided it was a good idea to force small children to stand clustered together for any length of time, and look HAPPY about it, should be FIRED. LOL!!! I can barely get my own three kids to pose for a nice group picture, let alone 16 three-year-olds. My daughter's preschool class, BOTH years, were overall rather easy to photograph. I have two nice class pictures and several group photos from different events (Halloween, Chinese New Year, last day of school...). I thought somehow our teacher was just some sort of magician in her ability to get everyone lined up and holding still (overall). However, it's become rather apparent with Jared's preschool class, that it takes more than being an amazing teacher with secret magician abilities to get kids to stand relatively still and relatively happy. It takes one firefighter dad standing on his head off to the side... (follow their line of vision and you know exactly where he's at!)


Not to take any credit away from the kids. We have a GREAT group of kids in our class, and although they're FAR BUSIER than the kids in Em's two years of preschool classes, it's not a bad thing. It's just different. And I'm there with a different child this time around (Jared, instead of Emily), so it SHOULD be different. And Jared's a far busier kid than Emily ever was, so he fits right in with his class. I love seeing all the energy. If only it was contagious...

SO, if you ever want to take a somewhat decent photo of a bunch of little kids, make sure to have someone on hand with the ability to stand on their head! You can't go wrong!

She Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

Emily: Mommy, I love you up to an alien spaceship, then to China, and then to Italy, and then back home again. (a play on the book "I love you as much" btw)
Jared: Yeah, well I don't love you, mom. I'm frustrated at you that you're making me go to bed.

Children's Museum

Dan and I took the kids to the Children's Museum yesterday. It was the first time we'd been there where Connor was old enough to even WALK, let alone run around and explore everything (last time we went he was only abut 8 months old). It was fun to watch all three kids enjoy everything, but I especially enjoyed the baby's enthusiasm for it all. Here are some pictures!

Jared spent a TON of time on this "crane" loading and unloading "containers" into the "ships"


And he spent a chunk of his time "sailing" as well!


Emily showed off her abilities on the climbing wall (across the wall ONLY, per the sign)




Ta-Da!


Connor was obsessed with turning over all the fake rocks to see the things underneath. He screamed pretty good when it was time to move him on to a new area


He liked the little slides, too!


Look at him heading up these little stairs for about the 43rd time (NO JOKE!) in a row to do another little slide


And coming down for about the 43rd time...


Peek-a-boo! He must have opened and closed the little mirror 20 times before losing interest and moving on. It was hard not to just stand there and laugh at him!


Connor playing at the water table




He spent about ten minutes "driving" this car and I finally got bored and moved him along (mean mom!) and he hollered pretty good about that, too


Jared and Connor both were rather fascinated by this floating ball, but Connor wouldn't stand still long enough to get him in the picture as well


Here's Emily and Jared posing in the "house" we created in the building area!

Emily's Artwork

Artwork from week #2 of the art class:
(It's a bald eagle for those of you NON Picasso artists...LOL You can see the neck and head and eye just fine, but then I'm not sure what happened with the beak)


Artwork from week #3 of the art class:
(pears on a table)


Artwork from week #4 of the art class:
(moonlit night, with fog and a tree)


Emily is having a blast with these classes. She has a huge smile on her face anytime she talks about the classes, and she gives a very exuberant "yes!" (with lots of dancing and jumping around) when asked if she's having fun. And since I think kid artwork is about the cutest thing EVER, I'm thoroughly enjoying this as well!!

I wish I'd thought to take a picture of her with soft pastel smears all over her face and hands last week!!

NaBloPoMo

I've seen this term on several blogs over the last few days and just had to use it as a blog post. Well, my main reason is that I'm sitting her completely STUMPED for an entry today. I was GOING to take pictures of the last three weeks worth of projects from Emily's art class, but then I'd have to get up, take pictures of them, resize, crop, etc, and I'm just NOT IN THE MOOD this morning. SO, we'll talk about NaBloPoMo.

National Blog Posting Month

The idea is that you post EVERYDAY for the month of November. Which is EASY, because I post everyday already anyway. EASY. I didn't say they'd all be worth reading, though. SO, no comments about how boring my post for that day was.

Speaking of comments, NOT MANY OF YOU ARE LEAVING ME ANY! It's hard to know if I'm doing a good job with my blog without any feedback. (hint hint!) You don't even have to sign up for a google account to leave a comment. You can sign in under "other" or even under "anonymous" (and just leave your name as part of your actual comment). To my regular commenters, THANK YOU, you make life worth living. LOL! Well, you make blogging worth blogging. How's that?

SO, Happy NaBloPoMo to all of you fellow bloggers and expect a daily blog entry from me this month (er...as usual....LOL)

According to Jared

"I don't need to go to preschool anymore, because I know everything."
(me: "Teacher Terrie has LOTS of other things to teach you, Jared.")
"No she doesn't. I know everything she knows."
(so there you have it!)

(said in that very high-and-mighty tone) "Um, mom, I was expecting some yogurt and a drink with my lunch..."

"MOM! Do you hear that sound?"
(me: "what sound?")
"The sound of that mommy and daddy show on the TV; can you turn it to a kid show, please?"(he'd been watching kid shows on channel 9 but at noon, it turns to a cooking show...)

"Actually, I think I need to have some treats after my lunch, okay? Is that a good idea?"

"Mom, I'm being a good boy, so that means I get to chew gum now" (first thing this morning)

"MOM! Heidi (our dog) is trying to eat me!" (she was sniffing him)

"I think our house is a little dirty today." (Yeah, I have 101 reasons WHY it's dirty, too)

"I think my dad wants to be all day home with me today."
(me: "I think so, too")
"Yeah, but his truck drives him to work instead."
(I'm sure his dad WISHES it was the truck driving him to work every day, instead of him having to navigating traffic for two hours one way each and every day HIMSELF)

101 Ways to Avoid REAL Cleaning

And by REAL cleaning, I mean having your entire house clean at once. Having everything organized and tidy. Having NICE things displayed around your house. REAL cleaning.

1-10. start a blog. This counts for the first ten of the 101 reasons because you then need to: think of a topic each day, take pictures, sort the pictures, resize the pictures, edit the pictures, load the pictures, copy/paste code for the pictures, add captions to the pictures, edit typing, preview/post)

11-30. Have three kids. This has to count for at least 20 of the 101 reasons because there's the laundry, laundry, laundry, LAUNDRY, cleaning up toys, toys, toys, and MORE TOYS, milk spills, yogurt smears, PB&J disasters, cereal crumbs, broken items, poopy diapers, runny noses, lost shoes, knotted shoes, unsnapped pants, bedtime routines, and play-doh.

31-40. Enroll your children in activities. Between driving to the bus stop for Emily, preschool for Jared, and ballet for Emily (and soon to be Storytime for Connor), most of our morning is totally shot. Driving BACK to get Jared from preschool, BACK to the bus stop for Emily, and home from ballet (and soon to be home from storytime for Connor), most of our afternoon is shot as well. Oh, and get for get the drive to pick Emily up from art class and bring her back home. And Jared will be starting SOMETHING soon (gymnastics?).

41-45. Take up knitting. Between browsing the internet for free patterns and ideas, shopping for yarn, purchasing the appropriate style and size of needles, doing a swatch, then actually working on a project (which can take several hours of several days/weeks depending on what you work on!), you can really "waste" a lot of time. Knitted items are great gifts (can't tell you how many baby hats I've done over the last 11 months since I learned to knit!)

45-50. Have three kids. They get to count for some more, because it never fails that I've nicely cleaned up the floors, and someone comes along and spills something, tracks in dirt, etc. And it never fails that I've neatly organized all the toys and suddenly everything is stuffed up on the shelves and into random bins. And I'm forever soothing sad children about the missing truck, hair clip, sippy cup, etc that was RIGHT THERE the last time they looked. LOL

51-60. Get married (I didn't say these were in any actual particular order)... It never fails that I find whiskers in the sink after he shaves, shoes, wallet, and hats and socks wherever he chooses to leave them, dirty dishes on the coffee table, dining table, counter, or sink (when the dishwasher is full of dirty dishes), and he never makes his side of the bed.

61-75. Have an INHERITED clutter problem. I'm blaming this entirely on my mother. LOL Give me a flat surface and I will figure out a way to cover it. Craft desk? Too covered in card stock, ribbon, fancy scissors, glue dots, etc to actually SIT AND DO CRAFTS. Computer desk? littered with scraps of paper containing important notes, reminders, "to do" lists, drawings from the kids, CD's of digital pictures, preschool STUFF (since I'm in charge of the monthly working schedule). Kitchen counter? School projects, school reminders, pictures waiting to be mailed out, bills, coupons, etc.

75-80. Learn to sew. Buying patterns, material, embellishments, cutting/pinning, and actually sewing can take YEARS of your life (I should know, I just spent a total of about 30 hours working on Em's Little Bo Peep costume for Halloween once all was said and done). This almost NEVER saves you money, but it's something fun to do.

81-90. Make your own cards. You might save yourself a lot of money over time, but the time spent choosing card stock colors, cutting out several different things on the Cricut machine to test out on the card, coordinating ribbon, flowers, accent colors, getting it all laid out, reorganized, glued down, delivered, you can easily have spent a full hour (or more!) creating just the perfect card. And very often you have a grand idea and after an hour of going crazy trying to make that idea work out, you give up and move onto idea #2. (that's part of the fun for me, is having an idea and making it work, or seeing it morph into something entirely different than what I'd sat down to do). This is a worth-while way to spend your time because everyone appreciates the effort that goes into a home-made card, plus it's very satisfying to creat SOMETHING from NOTHING.

91-95. Own a computer. The possibilites are endless, but I can easily find time to check my email, update my blog, read several other blogs I've bookmarked, check in with my mommy websites/support groups, and look-up just about ANYTHING (I'm currently scoping out Halloween costume ideas ON CLEARANCE on several websites to get a jump start CHEAPLY for next year!)

96-100. Own a phone. By the time you coordinate playdates, schedule doctor appointments, call preschool families with reminders, talk with out of town friends and family, and call around for this and that, you've lost valuable time of your cleaning day that way as well.

101. Be good at making excuses. I'm totally NOT one of those people! LOL