a special picnic

Special picnics with little J...

he decided to make me a special "salad pie".

There's a special way to smash it down, just in case you ever need to have this recipe. It requires alot of love.

Once you're done smashing it just right, you add the salad (grass).

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!
~Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!<>

leg godt

wondering what that blog title is?? It's Danish! Lego®, a name constructed out of the Danish expression leg godt, meaning "play well."

Every day when little J wakes, one of his first thoughts is "mommy, I need to play with my Lego's", and we do - A LOT of the day! Both boys love manipulating these little bricks and people and creating with their own hands what their very minds imagine. You can build almost anything out of Lego's.

We are lucky enough to have a Lego® Store at the nearby mall, and today we ventured out to add to their 'guy' collection. Each of the boys made 3 custom Lego people.

Little J's birthday is literally around the corner, and I picked up a silicone cake mold in the shape of a Lego® man. We're just Lego® crazy around here...

Gives life to the age old saying, "if you can imagine it, you can create it"...

and BAM!!

just like Emeril Lagasse... BAM!! yeah, he put ketchup, mustard, and mayo on my pizza... but it was the most amazing plastic pizza ever!! He was really enjoying telling me the fruits/veggies he was adding!!

wacky week wrap-up

There's been alot of fluff postin lately... so here's my cliff notes version of the week at our house:

• Big J threw his back out... makes him sound old. Funny thing is he doesn't even know what he did for it to happen. Just stepped a certain way then off to the doctor he went because he could barely move.



• Big E found himself suspended from school for one day, and out of our good graces. I'm not posting all about my kids being perfect angels on here - so there, my kid made SAD choices and as a result, suspended. The deed was dirty, and he's been in serious denial about it. I'm not going to disrespect his privacy totally - so the deed will not be blogged. However, instead of letting him have his suspension day at home - we chose to have him go to an alternative school where part of the day was spent with a life skills/anger management course that was/is intended to discourage this type of deed. We hope it helped. It was an experience for sure! Live and learn, right?

• I went to the doc for a follow up visit, found out more about my "abnormal labwork" and got referred to a rheumatologist because my ANA titer rate was 1:640 and should be 1:40 or less. I'll post more about that too... later. This isn't all brand new to me, but the reality of it is settling in because my problems are internal right now. They've scheduled a hyda scan to determine if I have a diseased gall bladder, ultrasound shows no stones, but thats only one test they do, and after that they'll know what direction to go in - I hope.

• Little J has been chilling out at home alot, homeschool has been really play and learn all week this week and last week - and I've not been camera savvy to take photos, and I've had no real lesson plans this past week because of all these doctors appointments. Next week I hope to be back on track. We have been using Lego's in all sorts of ways to teach and play. Sorting, shapes, counting, building, creating etc. We have created a Lego lovin kid for sure!!

• We went to the pet store with little J one day this week and bought a Crowntail Betta fish that looks just like THIS ONE. I have named him poopface.... well, because that fish poops alot - AND because I have a sick and immature sense of humor I suppose. Not sure what he'll name that fish. At the petstore we had fun looking and learning names of all of the different kinds of fish, and other pets they had! Snakes, lizards, hamsters, cats, etc.

• The highlight of the week for little J was the Day out with Thomas. I'll post all about that in a separate entry...

• One of my neice's is having a birthday Sunday, as is our 7 year wedding anniversary - and next week big E turns ELEVEN and on that same day that he turns ELEVEN, my step-mom turns another year older (ladies never tell - right)!! Then the hubs has a birthday ON Halloween! Lots of celebrations in October...

building stuff

Little J is really into building stuff.... with Lego's. This is what our coffee table looks like most of the day. His creativity is growing, and he's building things that LOOK like things. Did that make sense? He builds submarines, rocket ships, airplanes, towers, bridges, etc. He just loves to build!

This past week we just took it easy, and enjoyed discovering shapes, counting blocks, reviewing colors, sizes, and building different objects.

If we removed all toys from our house, and left Lego's, wooden blocks, and his Thomas the Train set - he wouldn't care one bit.....

all about things that fly

This week was our first "official" week of pre-school homeschool learning that includes some guidelines for reference. Little J has had so much fun with this week's theme of Aviation & Astronomy!

Each activity we've done has incorporated a good bit of learning for our little sponge, and he doesn't even realize it because of all the fun playing involved.

Crafts we completed this week were two airplanes and a rocket (above) both crafts were very simple and they included several areas of learning while we were making them and playing with them. Big & Small concept, long and short concept, alphabet reinforcement, learning about things that fly, counting and grouping, shapes, and colors.

When we made the rocket above, we used a papertowel roll and two toilet paper rolls and covered them with white paper then used tape to attach them together and added a cone for the tip. Little J opted to put his fun puffy stickers on the rocket instead of color it, and since it's his creation - that's just fine :-) it's his fish rocket! We also have a space helment to make this weekend since we started our school week on Tuesday with big E's schedule.

We also read That's not my Plane several times this week and this is a touchy-feely board book that focuses on sense & sensation and aviation. Can't wait until next week to see how things go, this is a fun adventure for us all! Still working on our 'school resource room' and really hoping to join in with a local preschool homeschool co-op for a weekly activity in the next few weeks.

skool daze for little J

We're going with a play and learn pre-school approach for little J this school year. He's 3.5 and is really eager to learn! I love the Montessori style of teaching, and hope to adapt alot of that in his learning activities this school year. In general, we do alot of learn by play with everyday activities. The general plan for this pre-school homeschool year is to incorporate some sit down time several times through the day for specific activities. Nothing rigid or scheduled - just fun and learning!! Lots of reading, music, art, outdoor activities, and library visits are in our future this school year.

We have a project in my dining room and hope to have it finished by next weekend - it will include removing half of the furniture in there, leaving only the dining table and chairs and adding a new book case system to house the supplies we'll be using for arts and crafts along with the books and music we'll incorporate with some of the creative play activities we hope to include with play and learn time.

I have found a couple of toddler groups locally for homeschoolers, and hope to connect with one close by for scheduled and routine play and learn gatherings either weekly or bi-weekly. We're talking about Romp n Roll for a gym class again, and we've also discussed The Little Gym which is close to big E's school. That all depends on pricing (some of those places are just crazy expensive!!), given our current economic situation at home...

We started today with A is for Airplane, and he had fun helping me fold and tape together handmade airplanes then decorate them with stickers. We made two, one big airplane and one little airplane. On the big airplane I wrote an "A" and on the small airplane I wrote an "a" and we just played and talked about the big airplane and the big A, v/s the small one and the tiny "a". Then we had some fun throwing them in the house!

I have to get better organized with activities, since I'm totally green at this... Below are a couple of pictures from today's activity.