Noah's Homework

I thought the day when my children's homework was too hard for me was still years away. Surely, as a college-educated woman, I could make it through at the very least, junior high before I started getting in over my head. Apparently not. I made it five and half months into kindergarten. For the record, I DID eventually come up with the answer, but it took me twenty minutes. Sheesh!

One of Noah's homework questions was to draw two things that END with the "b" sound. Noah couldn't even think of one. I immediatly thought of "tub" and gave him a few hints. He caught on, drew a bathtub and then we set about trying to think of a second word. Seriously.. think about it for a minute. I didn't want to use words with a silent "b" sound like, " comb" and "thumb" because that concept is a bit difficult. I had a heck of a time coming up with a simple word ending in the "b" sound that he can draw. We walked around the house and honest-to-goodness after twenty minutes, I walked back into the kitchen feeling defeated and a little embarrassed that Noah must think I'm a complete moron when I spotted Zoe sitting at the table eating , wearing her BIB! WHEW!! Thank goodness that assignment is over with.

The other one was to go on a bug hunt and draw a few favorite bugs. This is not the time of year for that.... we walked all over the back yard, looked in the playhouse, under the slide. No bugs. So, we pretended we were in Texas where there are bugs-a-plenty. Noah came back in, sketched a butterfly and a caterpillar and we called it done.

I think I am going to have to get my Master's degree in order to get him through to the 4th grade.

Just a quick Noah-ism

Noah goes to a gym class on Tuesday evenings called " Tumble Steps". Since I have rehearsal on Tuesdays, DJ and Zoe take him. Last night, DJ said the teacher told them they were going to fly their airplanes and they put their arms out and began to run around the room. The kids were all happily "flying" and "zooming" and Noah interjected, " Are we going to get to land in the Hudson?" DJ said there was silence in the room followed by laughter and strange looks from other parents.

Altered Journal

One of the ladies in my MOPS group was diagnosed with breast cancer in January. She was pregnant at the time, so they rescheduled her c section for two or three weeks early ( February 6) and the very next week, she had a mastectomy and will now undergo treatment for the cancer.

Our MOPS group is getting together a care basket for her of items she can use during her treatment. I bought some practical items, like unscented lotion to help with the dry skin from treatment and some word find and crossword puzzle books for the hours spent waiting. I came across a fairly nice journal in the dollar bin at Target so I picked it up and spend a good part of the day today altering it. I am very pleased with the results. The paper is Basic Grey: Blush, the "K" is a chipboard letter from Close to My Heart that I painted red with Making Memories paint and then covered with ruby Stickles. The chipboard scallop is Bazzil Basics and I painted it blue with MM paint as well. The smaller scallops are cut with my Cricut using the Accent Essentials cartridge and some more of the Basic Grey Blush paper. The doilie is just a Wilton cupcake doilie from a pack I bought for Valentine's treats.

inside front cover:

Problem Solving Skills III

We had a Valentine's Party for the kids at my friend Catherine's house on Monday when everyone was out of school for President's Day. Catherine has a two story home and I was afraid to let Zoe go upstairs because I didn't think she could come back down. We don't have stairs at our house, therefore, she has never learned.

I kept chasing after Zoe while all the other kids went upstairs. At one point, I was talking and lost track of her. My friend Becca said to me, " Zoe knows how to go down the stairs. I just watched her. She goes backward." I thought she was climbing backwards like kids often do, but went to witness this for myself and found that, instead, she just gets on her belly and slides backwards all the way down! What a fun way to do it!! We finally got a video of it, but in the video, she was going slower than the other times. She was really zipping earlier.

See the video here: WOOHOO!

Two projects

Now that Valentine's Day has passed, I can post the valentine card I made to send to family from Zoe. The aforementioned picture of Zoe with the heart lollipop was taken with the intentions of making them into a sweet valentine card to send out to everyone. Based on the results of the photoshoot, I had to once again get creative.

My second project is a digital layout I completed today for my friends. This is my group of friends that met when our oldest children were in playgroup. Even with the transient nature of the military, we have managed to stay for awhile. We've lost a few of our buddies to orders elsewhere along the way, but there are four of us left. We've all had more children since we first met and even though our oldest children have started school now, we wanted to find time to get the kids all together for a Valentine's Day party mainly because we are aware of the fact this is our last Valentine's Day together. One family has orders to Italy in the fall and another does not yet have orders but it is an almost certainty that they will probably be leaving as well. Amber took the pictures and emailed them to me and I made this digital layout with photoshop today to email to them. I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Do you like those awesome "scattered rhinestones" on the layout? Well, you can buy them in a digital kit designed by my very talented friend Vicky on her website, iMotion Studios. They are in the embellishment pack, but if you are going to pay 2.99 for the embellishments, why not pay $2 more for the whole mega kit. And it is a MEGA kit!

Second Verse Same as the First

Noah came in from school yesterday and while reviewing his day, informed me that in art class, his teacher gave them a white piece of paper and told them to make a "white cat on a rug". I thought this was a brilliant exercise for getting them to think outside the box since the paper was white and they would have to figure out that they had to draw everything and color the rug around the cat. Kudos to the teacher!

I asked Noah what color he made his rug. He couldn't remember. This is odd, Noah usually remembers details well. After some digging, I found out that this is because, instead of drawing a white cat on a rug, Noah composed a song called "White Cat on the Rug". Hmmm... he then proceeded to perform it for me. I have to warn you... it isn't original, nor is it even interesting.. but, considering Noah is usually shy and NEVER performs on command, it's pretty darn funny. Watch the entire thing, believe it or not, there IS an ending!

White Cat on the Rug

**edited to add.. sorry about the orientation of the video.. I can't figure out how to rotate it. Just tilt your head.. you could use the neck stretch anyway... ;-)

Junior

Martha Stewart, Junior, that is.

Oftentimes, parents wonder how their actions will one day affect their children. Mostly, we have to wait until they are adults to find out how their early experiences manifest themselves later, but every once in awhile, we get a quick turnaround in feedback.

My last blog was about my decorating the house for Valentine's Day and a recap of my Halloween antics. I have often wondered if the kids will remember fondly the goofy things I did for their entertainment. I hope they will. I know at least one kid enjoys the shenanigans well enough to take them on himself.

On Sunday, Noah came to me and told me that he wanted me to raise his blinds. I had just opened them while leaving them down, but he found it necessary for me to completely raise them, because he was decorating his window for President's Day. Intrigued, I quickly complied.

A little while later, I snuck back there to see what he came up with. I was impressed, his work was good for a five-year old!! I requested rights to turn his display around facing his room and take pictures. The display, in its original form, is facing outward so that those outside may see it.


After showering him with praise ( and of course putting the display back as I found it.. facing outward) I left his room and on my way out, I encountered this:




He told me he was starting his decorations for Easter.

Happy Valentines Day

Noah is the age now where he can get excited about holidays and fun treats. While he was at school on Halloween, I added some decorations to the living room that were not there before and added a ghost on the living room ceiling that was activated by motion and would laugh and "woooooooo" and run back and forth across his string. Noah loved it!

So, yesterday, while he was at school and Zoe was taking a nap, I taped hearts on their bedroom doors and hung a banner in the living room that said " Happy Valentine's Day". I also made chocolate chip cookies and these adorable rice krispie treats in ice cream cones. You are supposed to make them with strawberry marshmallows, but since I could not find any at my local grocery store, I just added food coloring. I got the idea from Nichole Heady's blog Capture the Moment . She made adorable boxes for them and made them look cute, but I didn't have time for that after making all the treat bags for Zoe's friends and Noah's class, so I just put them out on the counter on lace doilies with the cookies and valentine cards. Both Noah and DJ were very surprised and excited when they came home! Zoe, of course, just smelled sweets and grunted while pointing at the counter.


As always, you can click on the image to see it larger.

The "Eyes" Have It!!

Noah came home from school a few weeks ago and the first words he said to me when he walked through the door were, " Mommy! We had a substitute today!" Those words are usually followed by complaints of how horrible his day went because it wasn't as he anticipated. He is a creature of habit and does not deal well with change. He is his mother's son.

On this particular day, I noticed a bit of a chirpiness to his proclamation, though. Before I could inquire about what atrocities were committed at the hands of this inferior human being that was not his teacher, he breathlessly continued: " She was beeeeautiful!!!"

My ears perked up. Noah never uses phrases like this to describe someone and, frankly, I didn't think he noticed the physical qualities of anyone except, of course, the M&M people and Star Wars characters. Still not letting me get in a word, the rest of the conversation went like this:

NOAH: She was wearing a very pretty shirt; AND she had brown hair and BLUE eyes! I've never seen blue eyes in REAL LIFE before!!

ME: ( summoning the long-lost theater nerd in me and feigning complete and utter outrage and insult) HEY! *I* have blue eyes!!!!

NOAH: WHAT!!??? ( then walks right up to me, gets nose-to-nose with me and looks at my eyes and says..) HUH! I thought this whole family had BROWN eyes! ( and walked away)

I guess I was right... he doesn't notice physical characteristics of anyone but M&M people, Star Wars characters and one Miss Nicole of Fort Dix Elementary. All those hours I spent staring blissfully into the eyes of my son.. bonding.... or so I thought. Now I find out, he was paying no attention and probably just wondering when the goofy brown-eyed lady was going to give him his next meal.

Valentine Treat Bags

I made Valentine Treat Bags for the playgroup Valentine's Party that we are having for the kiddos. I got the Design Studio cut file at Capadia Designs.

I put Cheerios in the ones for the babies and the older kids got M&M's. I have to remake some today, because while putting Noah on the bus this morning, Zoe, aka "Godzilla" ripped to shreds a few of them. The picture is of the remaining six. You can click on the individual photos to see them larger.

Sweet and Sour- Emphasis on "SOUR"

My quest for decent photos of my kids is really getting quite comical. I scour the internet and message boards frequented by professional and amateur photographers trying to get tips on photographing the difficult kids.



I have tried tip after tip, to no avail. There was buzz on my scrapbooking board about, what I thought, was a GREAT idea. Target has these great heart lollipops in their dollar bin. These were a huge hit for valentine pictures and based on the samples I saw on the scrapbooking board as well as the photography board, they were working well!



I was at Target a few weeks ago and picked one up, just in case I took temporary leave of my senses one day and decided to give another photo shoot a whirl. Today, was that day. To my utter amazement, I handed Zoe the lollipop and she was smiling and giggling and dancing around. I couldn't believe it... I was finally going to get my long-awaited, much-deserved picture. Was this too good to be true?? I took the lens cap off my camera and....





Apparently, it WAS too good to be true! As soon as I put the camera away, she was back to giggles and grins.