Opposites and Line Leaders

So, today was "opposite day" in William's classroom. They were encouraged to wear their clothes inside out and/or backwards. William got SOOO excited about the whole process. He's doing really well with opposites & we've been having fun "challenging" each other at home. Here are a few pictures of him with his clothes on backwards (note the shoes on the wrong feet!), and of course, little brother had to jump on the bandwagon, too. The last picture is William's friend, Hayden. He & William love to play together at school.

From school pics

From school pics

From school pics

And, in Daniel's class, they've started introducing concepts like a "line leader". Each of the children gets to be line leader for a day, which basically means that wherever the class goes, this child gets to be head of the line & everyone else gets to follow behind him. Sounds simple, but it's a VERY hard concept for 2 year olds to grasp!! This is a picture of Daniel the other day. He'd lined up all of his cars & was instructing them on who the line leader was & saying, "Now, Guys, you all have to stay behind Guido (the teeny-weeny blue car in the front of the line he's playing with)!" It was too cute. He didn't know I was watching him until I took the picture. Should have gotten a video instead!

From school pics

Speaking of fifty-six....

So, it actually did get up to the mid-fifties today. While Daniel & I napped (thank you, Aunt Sarah!), Aunt Sarah took William out to play in the backyard. Ironically, he had to wear his snow boots since not all of the snow has melted. He put several large snowballs in his wagon & pulled them around the yard. When Daniel & I woke up, we headed out to one of our favorite parks. Here are a few snaps of them enjoying the spring-like weather:

From outside pics

From outside pics

From outside pics

From outside pics

From outside pics

From outside pics

My Little Monkeys

The high today was FIFTY-SIX degrees, so we originally thought we'd head out to the zoo. But, unfortunately, it was very slow to warm up, so when it was still in the 30's by 10 AM, we changed our plans & went to the new Monkey Joe's out in Fairview Heights. It's a huge place with several bouncy houses & my boys LOVE it. Mommy loves it, too, because I get to sit down & rest while they run wild. What more could you ask for on a Friday morning?

Here they are climbing up one of the walls in the big obstacle course. There are several of them climbing up the ladder to do the huge slides, and some of them in the actually jumpy bouncy houses with their friends. What a blast!


**Be sure to click the pic to see them all**

Monkey Joe's

Daddy's chain

So, one of the projects William has been looking forward to is making a paper chain to count down the days until Daddy comes home. I figured it was a good project for us to do with Aunt Sarah on one of our down days. So, we got out the construction paper, the scissors, and the glue. William was so excited to cut out the strips for the chain. And, you should see him cut a straight line. Aunt Sarah & I were very impressed! Here he is cutting them out with a little help:

From Daddy's chain

From Daddy's chain

And, helping Aunt Sarah putting glue on the strips:

From Daddy's chain

From Daddy's chain

And, the big helpers with the finished product:

From Daddy's chain

We counted out to April 10th from today & the grand total was sixty-four! Daddy should be home sometime between the 1st & the 7th (we hope!), so once we get a firm date, the game plan is for me to remove a few. Keep your fingers crossed that I get to take a few of these down!!

A Day of Fun

We took off for the Children's Museum, The Magic House, in St. Louis on Wednesday. They've just added a HUGE addition & it's been about 9 months since we've been there. The main part didn't open until noon, but one of the areas was open at 10:30, so we were able to do Fairy Land for about an hour before the rest opened. Here are the boys making some music on one of the large exhibits in the main area:

From Children's Museum

And playing with the alphabet wall. If you look closely, you can see that the letters are little doors & when you open the door, you find an object that starts with that letter. They had so much fun guessing what the item would be!

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

And here are the pics from Fairy Land. They got to climb up the beanstalk ladder & slide down the slide on the other side:

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

William got to count the gold coins Jack gave to the Giant:

From Children's Museum

They took a ride in Cinderella's coach:

From Children's Museum

And, Daniel was King for a day:

From Children's Museum

And, then the main museum opened. Aunt Sarah taught Daniel a little about pulleys:

From Children's Museum

They boys got to play with water & William learned how water can be used to make wheels turn. He had so much fun directing the hose!

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

And their favorite part--FISHING!! First, you grab a fishing pole & catch a fish at the "pond":

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

Then, you have to go "upstream" and release the fish so it can swim back down the stream to the pond & you can catch it again. If you look closely, you can see the fish in the water:

From Children's Museum

We finished by playing in the big LEGO block room & playing with the cars--driving & giving the cars gas:

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

From Children's Museum

Aunt Sarah's visit!!

My Aunt Sarah, my mom's sister, came in today to visit & help out while Daddy's gone. We got to pick her up at "the big airport" & the boys were so excited to meet her in the airport & take her back to our house. She's been FABULOUS at helping out & playing with the boys. We'll miss her so much when she leaves. Here are a couple of video clips of the "alligators" that keep coming out of the swamp to "chomp, chomp" the boys up. If you can't understand what they're saying, they keep telling the alligator, "Go back to the swamp, Alligator!". Then, they call it back for more chomping.

Little Smarty Pants

So, lately William has been into pretending to read & how things are spelled. When we do bedtime books, he has to "read" the book to me & Daniel before I get to read it. A little time-consuming, but pretty darn cute. He's been pretty good at telling me what words start with for a while now, but the letter that comes next has eluded him, mainly due to his penchant for not listening to whatever it is I'm trying to explain to him (home-schooling would never work for us!). So, when I ask him what "Palen" starts with, he says "P!", but when I stress the "A" sound & ask what comes after the P, he doesn't usually come up with it. Some of it must have been sticking, however, (he always listens to WAY more than I think he does!) because today, he was having pizza for lunch & when I told him that, he said, "Mommy, Pizza is spelled p-e-s-e." Now, I know that's not quite right, but phonetically, it's not too bad a job. E makes both a long "e" sound and the "eh" sound of short e sounds kind of like the end of pizza.

Now, if I could just get him to pick his toys up on a regular basis........