Minecraft Creepers & Minion Pudding for Valentine's Day (or "Friendship" Day)

Somehow, we're more than halfway through the school year. Oliver celebrated his 100th day at school last week, and now we're planning for Valentine's Day parties at school today & tomorrow.

Last year, I got to craft the valentines I liked best since the kids had no opinion on the matter (remember these?). This year, Oliver asked for Minecraft valentines. That sounds like a simple request, but, alas, stores don't seem to sell them. I appreciate a challenge, so I took to Pinterest to find an idea. This is what we came up with:

Andrew found some Creeper images online and adapted them so they could be printed and folded over a fun-sized Kit-Kat bar.

These are the tags I made (with a little help from Andrew). They aren't the greatest, but I don't pretend to be an expert at photoshop:

Then it was time for Jo's valentines. She loves Minions, and I'd seen some creative Minion ideas on Pinterest that involved making minions out of pudding cups. They looked cool, but I'm pretty busy these days and was spending enough time making those Minecraft valentines.

So, I decided just to get some simple store-bought valentines. Jo loves so many different cartoons and candies that it would be easy. Right? Seriously, that's easier said than done. The small grocery store by my house doesn't even sell children's valentines. I planned a trip to the bigger grocery store, but whatever they had was mostly gone when I finally got there last night (That's what I get for waiting until the last minute). I was looking for anything Jo would love: Frozen, Minions, Doc McStuffins, Peppa Pig, even Peg+Cat. Nope. The only things they had left were superheroes and My Little Pony.

What happened next is either serendipitous or just a flat-out lie for dramatic effect. I then stumbled into a sign from the mighty Valentine's Day gods (Cupid, I guess?). A big Price Chopper display of pudding snack packs: 99 cents for a 4-pack. So, I bought the stupid pudding to make minions. 

Now, my husband and I don't fight. We just don't. But after juggling the kids and going to ballet, finding time for school work, and prepping for the "Friendship Day" craft that I'd signed up to host at Jo's preschool, I now needed to run out to the craft store to buy supplies to make minions. Let's just say I was a little testy, and my children are going to grow up with issues related to Valentine's Day. But I got to Michael's, and I bought a package of googly eyes, a 70 cent sheet of silver paper, and some thin black tape to make some minions. (If you're reading this to actually do this craft yourself, make sure you also have a hot glue gun!)

I found something round in my house to trace 12 silver circles (one for each pudding) and cut those out. 

I stuck a piece of black tape around each, and then I hot-glued a googly eye onto a silver circle and glued that to the black band. Note that I accidentally bought glitter tape, and these minions are actually shedding glitter all over the table. I imagine they probably shed into the pudding as well, making these some sort of bio-hazard, I'm sure.

But they're cute, right? Maybe that was worth all the driving around. I kind of thought so. Andrew and I hugged and made-up, and I swore I'd buy store-bought valentines next year.

Then, this morning, I got to Jo's party. I swear to you, there was a table display of pudding robots set up by a parent of one of the students.

I called my husband and told him that these robots put my minions to shame. They have juice box bodies, lollipop arms, pudding heads, two googly eyes, and chocolate shoes & hair.

Bonus photo of Jo wearing the necklace she'd made at her friendship party. At least that went over well!

One kid gave the other kids a tub of Play-Doh. That was Jo's favorite (better than the Minion pudding, for sure). She made a robot out of it because the robot Valentine made such an impression on her.

Happy Friendship Day!

We have a kindergartner!

Oliver started kindergarten last week! I had a lot of anxiety built up about him going. I worried how he'd do being away from the house all day, I worried how he'd do eating lunch at school and if he'd get hungry, and I worried how he'd do not knowing any of the kids in his class. I didn't know any of the teachers at his school, and hoped he'd get an understanding teacher but one who wouldn't mind telling him exactly what to do and how to behave if he wasn't doing it. Of course, I also worried about the change at home, how Jo and I would do with Oliver out of the house all day.

Here are some photos of his first day:

I'm probably going to jinx everything by saying this, but it's gone really well so far. I'm absolutely thrilled with his teacher and his school, and Oliver has amazed me with how well he's made the transition to going to school all day. I was picturing him coming home in tears from exhaustion and not wanting to go to school in the morning, but he seems to really like it! He's tired when school gets out, but he's able to handle it. He tells me school is fun, and that's really the most important thing to me. I don't worry about his academics, at least not this year. I want him to learn to like school, understand how school works, and learn to listen to his teacher. I feel like, if we can get those things figured out, the academics will come.

Here's my little Star Wars fan on his second day of school:

And day 3, walking in the rain like such a trooper!

At home, the transition has gone OK. It took a few days for me to get over most of the anxiety of him going to school. I cleaned a lot! Jo and I have kept busy with mom meet-ups and story time at the library. On the first day that Oliver was at school, Jo declared she was going downstairs to play with Oliver's LEGOs.

I think we're all going to do just fine. Here's to a good 2015-2016 school year!

Kindergarten Registration

Well, we did it. Oliver is registered for kindergarten!

I have been more emotional about this than I would have expected. It's weird! When the kids were infants, it was hard for me. I wasn't good at the middle-of-the-night wake-ups, I stressed over them not napping and not getting enough sleep, and I yearned for more physical space in between all their nursings. I wanted them to get bigger and run around and play. And they did. The toddler years have been my favorite. I love these times with the kids. Jo has been building things out of LEGOs with Oliver. Here are Jo's LEGO creations (a school and a house). Pretty amazing creations for a 3 year old!

I also love how they play little games and sing songs to their stuffed animals. They help me in the kitchen and with anything else I need. They get so excited over everything. Just going outside is something to get happy about! They constantly make me laugh, and I think I drive them crazy with telling them how adorable they are and all the hugs I give them as they do hilariously cute things.

But they keep getting bigger. I am so sad about the idea of Oliver being in school full time this fall. I mean, I don't want my kids to not grow up and be independent and happy and have their own lives. I absolutely want them to. It just seems like it's happened so fast. That's such a cliche, but it's also true. I've been so lucky to have these years at home with my kids, and it feels like a punch to the gut that it's coming to an end. For a (very) brief moment, I even considered homeschooling, but I realized I'd be doing that for purely selfish reasons. I know Oliver is ready for this next challenge. I just can't believe that time is almost here.

I hope I love this next stage, too. The next decade is going to be so busy with sports and after-school activities and friends and play dates. In the mean time, I just have to say, "Poor Joanna." I have a feeling she's going to be babied a lot over the next couple years.

Valentines from the Kids

As the kids have gotten older, I've found it hard that we're starting to live our own little lives apart from each other. Oliver's gone to school 4 days a week, and Jo is in class a couple mornings a week while I do school practicum. It's not all negative, though. I absolutely love that we get to do fun things like plan valentines for them to give to their friends! This one is a simple idea that I saw on Facebook and Pinterest.

                         

It was easy enough to do, especially since their class size is so small. I bought a bag of cheap lollipops, and then I took pictures of the kids making a fist.

I printed out a sheet of twelve (after adding a side border), and then I used scissors to poke a hole (a hole puncher probably would have made the job a lot easier).

Photos with Santa at Bass Pro Shops

I love how Oliver gets happier over the years, but little Jo is still pretty upset about seeing the jolly man in red. 

Last year, Jo requested her fox, which we hadn't brought with to the mall. The little fox puppet was in the car, so I handed her that. I'm still kind of disappointed the picture isn't of her with her beloved fox. Oh well! This year, they each brought their favorite stuffed friend with them. We went to Bass Pro Shops up in Northfield (Denver). They had free photos with Santa and free carousel rides. The kids had an excellent time. I think so many people had built up how great Bass Pro Shops is for the kiddos at Christmas that I expected something grand. It wasn't. It was simple and fun and free. 

Beggar's Night 2014

So, in Des Moines, kids don't trick-or-treat on Halloween. They trick-or-treat on Beggar's Night, which is usually the night before Halloween! Plus, kids don't get candy simply for saying trick-or-treat. They are expected to tell a joke to get candy. Kids go door-to-door, and when they say, "Trick or treat!" the neighbors ask, "Do you have a joke for me?"

Oliver and I went through some possible jokes online. He liked two. One is "What do witches put in their hair? SCARE spray!" The other was, "What do ghosts eat for dessert? I SCREAM!" I also read a few others to him, one of which he remembered and retold to some neighbors but a bit incorrectly. The joked asked, "What do ghosts drink at breakfast? Coffee with sugar and SCREAM." Oliver would ask some neighbors, "What do ghosts drink at breakfast? Ice cream with sugar." Hehe. It was really cute! At our house, he heard a kid tell a joke about a spider liking to use the computer because he could browse the web, and Oliver told that joke to a lot of neighbors, too. He kept rotating his four jokes, which I thought was super cute!

Joanna had the time of her life trick-or-treating. Her happiest moment came when we walked up to a house, and a lady answered the door with a bowl full of packages of crackers. One of them were Angry Birds graham crackers. Jo was so excited, but she's also very shy. She closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands. I wasn't sure what was wrong, so I bent down to her level. She whispered to me, "Angry Birds crackers." It was adorable. She held them proudly in her hand until we got home, and then she gobbled them up.

Here are some pictures of the kids on their big night out. Oliver was Lord Business, and Jo got to be a warm monster, thanks to a neighbor who gave us a really cool hand-me-down costume!

Happy 5th Birthday, Oliver!

I'm pretty sure I say the same thing every year, but, this year, I am just so amazed and proud of how much our little guy is growing up. What most important is that he's turning out to be a really good kid.

Oliver started preschool at the end of August. It was a little rough on him at first. He's spent his entire life being with his mom, having a clear routine, and knowing exactly what each day would bring. He was a pretty difficult baby, and I think routine was the best thing for him for a long time. I'm glad he's an older kid when it comes to school cut-offs because I don't think he would have been ready to start preschool until after he was about 4-and-a-half. Even so, it wasn't easy. When things didn't go his way, he just crumbled to the ground and basically pouted. He was mad! The teachers had to give him a special quiet corner that he could go to and just be angry. He verbalizes his feelings well, and he'd tell them exactly what he was feeling and why. They'd ask him if he was ready to go back and join the class, and he'd say, "Not yet." It's going smoothly now, and he no longer needs his corner. Preschool is becoming his routine, and he loves to go! He loves the opening question of the day, he enjoys all of the learning centers, and he has made a number of friends. One of our neighbor's sons is in Oliver's class, and Oliver just adores him.

Over the past few months, Oliver has gotten really into art. He draws so many things--really anything that's made an impression on him. He often comes home from school and draws a picture about his day. One day, they dropped Mentos into a bottle of pop and watched it foam up and shoot out of the bottle! His drawing of that was pretty spectacular. His teacher tells me he will go to the easel after the question of the day and create his own graph and color in what everyone's answers were. Personally, as a biased mother, I think his artwork is just so amazing and detailed, especially considering this is something he really just started to do a few months ago. There's one thing that he hasn't developed, though, probably due to lack of experience before now: he holds his pen like a toddler would, by grabbing it with his whole hand.

He takes after me in that he loves numbers. He's always asking about numbers, can count over 100, and likes to add by the hundreds. He asks, "Mom, why is 100 plus 100, 200?" He draws number lines, and he likes addition problems with multiple numbers, like 2 + 2 + 2 = __. He draws out little items to represent each number and then adds them up to get to the correct answer. Seriously, it sounds like I must be a crazy parent who drills my child on this stuff, but I swear it's just something he's picked up on his own. Like clocks, he also likes clocks! He loves it when I tell him what time something is going to happen, and then he'll watch the clock and tell me how many times the hands have to go around for it to be the right time.

As for reading, he loves books but isn't reading on his own yet. He enjoys trying to write. He draws pictures and labels them. He sounds out words and often gets them right or at least gets the consonants right. He can sound out some word when he's reading, too, but he doesn't sit down and read a whole sentence.

He's taking an interest in some pop culture stuff. He loves The Lego Movie. It's not like he's seen a lot of movies in his lifetime. In fact, I think he's only seen The Lego Movie and Toy Story. But he's totally obsessed with Emmett, Lord Business, and Good Cop/Bad Cop from the movie. He's also taken an interest in playing video games with Andrew. He loves Zelda, but his new favorite is a 2-player Lego Movie computer game.

Oliver builds Legos on his own, too. Like his drawings, his Lego creations get really creative. He builds characters from the movie using regular pieces, but they get elaborate. His focus on detail just astounds us sometimes. He'll give characters their "overpriced coffee" like in the movie. He uses little mugs for Lord Business's hat and makes sure they're turned the correct way. He won't use the wrong color pants. He likes everything just so!

We didn't get him in sports this year. I tried to sign him up for soccer, but registration closed before we closed on our house. I'm going to try this spring! Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, he did take an evening swim class with Andrew in the summer.

He's really a sweet kid. He loves to cuddle. He's asking hundreds of questions every day. He loves attention and being taught new things. He talks about other people's feelings and what makes them sad or happy. I'm just so proud of him! But I can't believe he's 5. Happy Birthday to my sweet boy!

Oliver & Jo's Birthday Party, 2014!

This year, I asked Oliver what kind of a birthday party he'd like. "Thomas!" he said. I later asked him if we could have a "Spooky Thomas" birthday party because I love having all of the kids come together in their costumes. Here are the kids in their costumes. Oliver is Lord Business, but his hat is falling off in the picture. It was so warm out (72 degrees!) that he ended up taking off the hat in no time, followed by the chest piece, and then he changed from his sweatshirt to a T-shirt. Joanna was going to be a monster for the party, but the costume is fleece, so we put her in a back-up costume: her Minnie Mouse dress! (She refused to wear the ears, though). So much for kids being in costume ;-)

I combined Thomas the Train AND Halloween! Not an easy feat ;-)

We turned the kids' play house into a "not-so haunted house." A sign by the front door read, "Joanna's not-so haunted house," and I hung pumpkin garland and a smiling bat inside. In the garden, where I pulled out all of the old cucumber vines, Andrew posted a sign that read, "Oliver's pumpkin patch." We filled it with 12 small pumpkins to be part of the party favors.

I found a Thomas train that pulls a "Happy Halloween!" train, and so the Halloween train is being pulled around the Halloween cake. Oliver liked the ghost! I'd also made ghost cake balls and deviled eggs (some with black olive "spiders" on top), and Andrew made mummy dogs (pigs in a blanket).

The birthday kids are ready to blow out candles!

Birthday gift time! The kids received lots of wonderful gifts from friends & family.

Happy Birthday, kids!

Costco Vacuum

We got a great deal on a membership to Costco from LivingSocial. Today, we took the kids there to redeem our voucher and do a little browsing. We walked by the appliances, and Oliver got really excited. Recently, he's gotten into vacuuming. Seriously, he's thrilled if I take out the vacuum and plug it in and let him use it. Anyway, a man was doing a Dyson demonstration and let Oliver vacuum up some confetti! It was such a fun experience for him, but now he's asking for a $480 vacuum cleaner for his birthday. Oops.

We Have a Preschooler!

Oliver started preschool this week! He goes as part of the Des Moines' schools "universal preschool" program which pays for all preschoolers in the city to attend part-time school at age 4. I know this is a big deal. Even part-time preschools offered in public schools in the Denver area cost at least $300/month, so we are very happy to take advantage of the universal preschool program here! The drive to his school is short, his neighbor & friend is in his class, and the class only has about ten kids and two teachers!

Here's our Ollie Bear on his very first day:

Here's his preschool! It's one of the few private schools that are part of the public universal preschool option. We chose it because the classes offered at the elementary schools looked much larger.

So far, Oliver seems to like preschool. His first day started out well, but when a teacher told him that he wasn't listening, he started to cry. From what I gather, a teacher asked him what was wrong, and when he tried to articulate it, he said, "Someone told me to do something naughty," instead of, "Someone told me I did something naughty." I think the teachers were a little freaked out and pulled me into the class later to talk about it. Once I figured out what the matter was, I told them and said he was probably just embarrassed about being told he was doing something wrong. He's not used to hearing feedback from anyone but me, so it's going to take some time for him to get used to listening to teachers.

The last two days have gone much smoother, and Oliver tells us all about the songs they sing and the question of the day and the games they play at school (including playing grocery store!). He seems to like it, but then he also seems reluctant to have to go back. It'll just take some time to adjust. I need time to adjust, too! Every day, I ask the teachers how Oliver did that day. Every day, they tell me a problem and never give positive feedback. Yesterday, it was that he got hungry and cranky and the end of the day. Today, they told me, "He got hungry at 11:10." I feed him breakfast, and they give him a snack when the kids arrive, so I think it'll just take time for his stomach to get used to a more rigid meal schedule. I feel like I'm the one reassuring the teachers of that, though, instead of the other way around.

Next week, I'm determined to work up the courage to ask for positive feedback from them. If they insist on telling me something minor that went wrong, I think I'll just say, "And did he model any good behaviors?" It's frustrating because I'd promised him he could have a book today if he did a good job in school, and I explained that a "good job" meant listening to his teachers. When he came out of class, I asked him if he did well, and he said, "Yeah!" Then he started telling me about a gumball machine. Then I asked the teacher how he did, and she just said, "He got hungry at 11:10." I don't really know what to make of that, so I later told Oliver he earned his book.

I know the road will be a little bumpy for a few weeks as we all adjust to his schedule, but I think Oliver's really going to like preschool. And that's the most important thing to me!

Oliver's Drawings

Oliver wasn't very interested in coloring until very recently. Suddenly, he's happy to sit and draw and color. It amazes me that I can actually tell what he drew sometimes!

Here, he drew a crane with a magnet at the end.:

This next picture looks like a yellow submarine. I wish! I think it's really a helicopter.

This next drawing is of a firetruck, and it's being driven by Miss Rabbit from Peppa Pig.

Speaking of Peppa Pig, here are Oliver's drawings of some of the pig characters from Peppa Pig. I think these might be Peppa and George, but I'm not sure.

I think this is another Peppa Pig character:

This is a car or bus or something. I can't remember.

This is one of my favorites. He told me today, "I drew me and Jo!"

And this is a happy dinosaur: