Preschool park day

Each year the preschoolers celebrate the end of the year with a trip to the park. Last year Nick’s class was freezing cold but this year was sunny and warm. We couldn’t have asked for a better day. Zander’s teacher, Mrs. Cushing, was smart and got the class picture out of the way as soon as we got to the park.

Then it was time for snacks and playing! This is one of Zander’s best friends, Mya. Her older brother is with Nick in kindergarten and her younger brother is just days older or younger than Ben!

You like those sunglasses? They’re mine. But, my sensitive-eyed little boy had to borrow them for part of the day to protect his little peepers. I’m thinking of getting him one of those chains that people attach their reading glasses to so he is never without.

This is how just about every picture with sun and no shades turns out.

           

This is Mrs. Cushing.

She’s kind of a fun lady!

I think Zander might miss her when he goes to “real” preschool next year.

Kindergarten concert

I was so excited that Nick finally had a concert at school. And even better – it was just the kindergartners! It’s not that I don’t like listening to other children sing out-of-tune. It’s just that if I had my choice I would only listen to mine. Horrible. Maybe. Honest. Always.

So, the short spring concert was filled with cute little songs (including a poem about bird poop and being glad that cows can’t fly) and happy little kids. Like this one. That cute little (and I do mean little) girl in brown is our neighbor. She smiled through the whole program.

Then there was my kid. He looked like he’d rather be learning sight words. And he hates learning to read. This was the closest I got to a smile through the whole thing. Then again, looking at this picture maybe it’s a boy thing. Only the little guy in the Hawkeye shirt is smiling.

And here is the whole group. All three kindergarten classes, minus a few kids on the left that even my wide angle lens wasn’t wide enough to capture.

Sleepy

Apparently this kid still needs his morning nap.

Fun at the fair

It is amazing how different a large(r) school fun fair is from a small private school. Last year we went to the preschool fun fair and it was sweet, but the kids were bored after just a little bit. The up side is that everything was relatively cheap.

This year was our first experience with the neighborhood elementary school fair. There were four blow-ups, including a slide, bouncy house, jousting arena and obstacle course.

              

There were the traditional fair games, like fishing over a wooden board and throwing bean bags into a 5 gallon bucket. There was also one that looked like a nose. You stuck your hand through the nostril and on the other side a woman was holding half-melted jell-o. GROSS. But, the boys loved it (of course).

Then there were the walks. Of course, there was a traditional cake walk, which we always stay far away from because of Nick’s allergy. There was a toy walk where kids could walk away with a pretty sweet gently used toy. And the book walk, run by the beloved librarian, where kids could walk in the circle and when the music stopped about 80 percent would get to choose a new book. My kids were in love. We came home with nearly a dozen new-to-us books. Made the $30 we spent on tickets for the other carnivalesque games totally worth it.

Colorful song

The lower grades at Nick’s school put on a talent show with a “colorful” theme. There were kids singing “Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” playing songs about colored clouds on the piano and then there were the kindergartners. The school’s wonderful librarian helped them put together a super cute performance of Pete the Cat’s “I Love My White Shoes.” And while I have lots of photos like this one …

this is definitely the kind of post that is better with a video … if I can get it to work.

So, it did work, but I had to edit it down to just the part that Nick's class did.

Tunnel town

About three years ago Mike and I came across these Cranium Super Fort sets at WalMart being clearanced out for like $7 each. We bought three sets. Plus the sports center one. For our then 2- or 3-year-old. (Sadly, I can’t say we’ve learned our lesson about buying stupid/too many toys.) We took them home, opened two sets, built something for Nick and then packed them away, never to be seen again. Until this week. I was cleaning out the storage room behind our house and came across the bags/boxes of tubes and connectors. Perfect. Now, the boys would likely enjoy something that let them build and use their imaginations. Don’t mind that it was three years later.

And they did have fun. The tubes and connectors made forts and rocket ships and this …

whatever it is.

Unfortunately, the tubes quickly turned into weapons and the boys broke a couple of the orange ones (which have plastic rods inside to stabilize the structure). Their roughhousing also caused the magnet to fall off the end of at least one and sent me into a tizzy. I can’t have magnets (even very weak ones) chilling on the floor where Ben can find them. So, the tubes are back in their bags and waiting for me to take pictures of them to sell on Facebook or at the next garage sale. At least they were cheap.

Sick day

Today was supposed to be a nice and relaxing day with my middle man. It has instead turned into a sick day with all three of my children. Ben is really sick, except for the snot pouring from his nose and the drool pooling on his shirt. Nick has a nasty runny nose (blaming it on a cold and allergy combo) that has manifested into pinkeye. Either that or he was kissing his classmate with pinkeye on the playground this week. And Zander, who did so wonderful yesterday, woke up with a 103.1 temperature and the chills. I gave him some tylenol and laid with him in my bed fro about 30 minutes before calling the doctor at 5:30 a.m. Thankfully the ENT was actually on call, though he told me nothing. Basically he said it’s very unlikely that Zander has an infection from the surgery so it must be something else presenting itself at a really bad time. I gave him some ibuprofen about 6 and by 8 or so the fever had come down to about 100.5. It stayed there much of the day.

The fever meant Zander once again got babied and Nick got mad. So during naptime I tried to do a “special art project” with him so he didn’t feel so left out. We started with this fun milk, dish soap and food coloring “experiment” I found on a blog I follow.

It started with about an inch of milk in the bottom of a baking dish. Then we put three drops of food coloring in the milk.

I put one drop of dish soap in the pink/purple dot and it went crazy. I have a video, but I am already so far behind we are sticking with just pictures here today. Pretty cool, huh? 

Nick wanted to try it so I let him put some more food coloring in and try the soap again.

I don’t know if he put in too much soap or if it just didn’t want to work because we only have skim milk in the house (from what I understand it works better with a more fatty milk) but the second set of colors just kind of sat there.

So, it was on to other things. I found a roll of brown craft paper in the garage recently and figured Nick could paint on that. He was happy as a clam with new papers, old paints and new painting tools. And when Zander woke up Nick had just finished so Zander got to paint a little too.