The Easter Bunny's work...

So funny story...

A's mom asked me yesterday if it was her daughter who was telling ET about the Easter Bunny. I confirmed and she was shocked. She had no idea that A ever knew this and had no clue where she would have learned it from. After hearing this, I became a little curious to know who would have started this bit of information other than A.

So I was putting ET to bed last night and asked him...

Me: Where did you hear that mommies and daddies do the Easter Bunny's work?

ET looked at me confused and said: "I never said that."

I clarified and said: "You said that A--- said that mommies and daddies do the work of the Easter Bunny and you were telling her that they don't."

ET: "No, we were playing and Anya wanted to be the mommy and hide the Easter eggs. I told her mommy's can't hide the Easter eggs because the Easter Bunny hides them and she wanted to do both, but I wanted to be the Easter bunny and hide them."

Ahhh! Now I understand. Me and A's mom got a good laugh (and a good scare) out of this little misunderstanding. :) Too funny!

So to conclude...everyone here still believes in the Easter Bunny. Whew!

Agree to Disagree...

ET: Mommy, do mommies and daddies sometimes do the Easter Bunny's work for him?

Me: What? No, the Easter Bunny does it himself. Who told you that?

ET: A--- (a friend at daycare).


Without ET seeing me, I watched as he confronted A---...

ET: Mommies and daddies do not do the Easter's Bunny's work for him.

A---: Well, ET...(pausing to try and think of a better way to let ET down easy).

Interrupting ET replies with: You can think what you want to think, and I will think what I want to think.


I have taught ET time and time again to just "agree to disagree" when someone does not see things the way he does. I was so happy to see him finally reiterate my own words, and be confident in his own thinking, and also do it with a respectful tone.

I really just hope we are many years from him discovering the truth regarding this subject!

Children's Museum

We met with some new friends from church last Sunday (March 21st) at the Children's Museum. This was Nate's first time going. I was a little nervous, because on this particular day (the third Sunday of the month) the admission was free (saving us $36.00). I wanted to save the money, but I was worried about how busy it would be. Luckily we arrived early enough (15 minutes before it opened), that we were second in line when entering. We got a good hour of play in before the rooms really started getting busy, and even then it wasn't too bad. We also arrived early enough, that we didn't have to pay for parking! I would definitely go on a free day again.

They change one of the rooms of the museum every once and a while, and this time the room was decked out with LEGOS!!! ET and Jay were thrilled, of course.




This was ET's favorite part of the whole museum. The Lego room was decorated in a castle theme. This was the dungeon where the "bad guy" was put in jail. If you moved the large key on the wall, the monster would make scary noises while the lights would flicker. Most kids would be frightened, but ET thought it was "cool."



This was the earth world room where ET could dress up like an ant and crawl through imaginary dirt tunnels. He was one of the first to arrive so the volunteer staff talked to him a bit about the life cycle of an ant and the food it eats. The volunteer crawled through the tunnels with him, and helped him to find and collect the hidden ant food. I was happy ET was able to learn a few things while playing and having fun.


This was Nate's favorite spot...the bubble and water tubs! He loved playing with the bubble water, and placing the balls in the flowing water tubes. He was soaking wet by the time he was through, but I was happy he enjoyed himself so much.


We had a great exploring with the boys and getting to know new friends.

Peeking...

ET: Mommy, how does God peek?

Me: What do you mean by peek?

ET: God, Jesus and Santa can are peeking on me. How can they see me?

Me: They can just do it magically. God looks down from heaven on us.

ET: There must be a hole in this house.

Family update...

Well it is official...our family is complete. Yes, we know that for certain now. Can you tell Jay wasn't too happy that I took a picture of him to blog about this?

We are both so certain that we do not want any more kids. However, regardless of that certainty, I still had a rush of emotions when I knew it was completely final for us. I guess one thing I have learned for sure in life is that: what you think today, may not be what you will think tomorrow. I am just praying that we will never think differently about our decision.

Jay is doing great and isn't at all emotional like me. He finds it "comforting" to know that a third child is not in our future.

True...it is comforting knowing that I will never potentially have 3 boys playing hockey down my hallway! :)


We are so thankful for the blessing's God has given us, and we are ready to move on to another chapter in our lives.

Nate's work...

Although Nate isn't up to much lately (regarding preschool work), I still felt it was necessary to give a small update on where he is. Nate absolutely L-O-V-E-S markers! Up until recently he would just play with markers with the caps on, and think he was coloring like the big kids. Well now he has figured out that the caps come off, and he can color with markers. When the big kids are brought into the table room for a project, there is never a time where Nate doesn't follow suit. He loves to sit at the table in a big kid chair and color.

Check out his serious face...

Here is that bright smile...

and here is the masterpiece.

ET's work...

Honestly, I think I could be labeled a pretty terrible mother if you knew how little I saved of ET's preschool work. I guess I just feel privileged enough to be a part of the process, that I haven't felt the need to save a lot of his work. If I had, I would have too many tubs filled to count by now.

In the past ET has shown little or no interest in crafts or coloring. There has been many battles to get him to complete his work. He has always proven to be very capable drawing, writing, cutting and pasting, but he often will play the "I can't do it" card just to get out of doing the work. Lately, that has changed drastically. He is now one of the first to finish projects, and is proud to show off his work. He also chooses to color pictures during his spare time, and loves just drawing with a pen in an empty notebook. I am not sure what has changed in him - just age I suppose, but I welcome it happily. Being that ET has really taken a turn lately, I have made a new promise to myself. I want to make a habit out of taking pictures of his work regularly so that I have a way of saving the memories, but without have to rent a storage unit. :)

Here is just a teeny tiny sample of all that he has completed...

This is one he did a long time ago (January, 2009 - 20 months old). I saved this one because it shows the outline of his hands. For this project he needed to decorate his paper with items from the collage box. This is one type of project he has always loved! He just likes digging through the collage boxes, and finding all sorts of treasures to glue onto his work.


I believe he completed this one last summer (2010). I was proud of him because he placed the right number of circle stickers next to each number all on his own!

In August we learned about different famous artists. This was a remake of Vincent Van Gogh's painting tiled, "Vase with Twelve Sunflowers."

In September our theme was "Family Tree, Pets & Me!" This is our cat, Eddie!

September = Apple Time! We learned about Johnny Appleseed!

In November we learned about farms and barns, hence the green tractor...

November - Gobble, gobble...

In December our theme was "Winter in the Woods."

In February we learned about different nursery rhymes. This was a project about the rhyme titled, "There Was An Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe..." ET had to cut apart the pages to the mini-book and place them in sequential order. Then he had to lace up the shoe and color it. He drew a pig...he must have been thinking of the "Three Little Pigs." :)



This month we are learning about birds. ET was so happy that he saw a crow outside the other day. He was excited to tell his friends about it. Here is an owl, a bird's beak, and a bird puppet...

Every month the kids get a "Practice Pal" where they practice tracing lines, and then practice writing letters or words on the opposite side. Here ET was supposed to trace the lines that resembled the feathers of the flamingo. He was creative and thought he would add a line across each feather and make them look like the letter A.

Here is the opposite side of the "Practice Pal." B is for bird!

Each month the kids are given an "I Can Read" book. They typically learn three new sight words, and then have to search for those words and circle them in the book. This month the book was tilted, "Fly Away." His sight words were: see, play, and away. I included this picture because I was impressed with how well he colored the fox within the lines.



Here are some samples of his drawings that he has been doing during his free-time...

A person...

Another person...

He LOVES tracing his hand...

Then turning his hand into a dinosaur! Clever - huh? He thought of this all on his own, and he actually called the spikes he drew the "spine!" What a little genius!

He drew this for me (mommy) the other day...it's hearts! He is such a sweetie!

He drew this one for daddy. Check out the sun, sky, grass, trees with leaves...well okay everything! It's just beautiful! I'm his mom, so I can be boastful! :)

ET has also taken an interest in spelling words lately. He will tell me what words start with and then try to sound them out on his own. Here he had fun playing with tape and paper. He wrote the word "paper" on it...I helped him with this one, but he has been trying to spell on his own. This weekend he spelled park, "P-R-C!" That's pretty good if you ask me!


Okay, so clearly I had some catching up to do. Like I wrote before, I promise to take pictures of his work more often.

Where's your underwear?

I hope you all know the answer to this question. Surprising enough, my three-year-old didn't know the answer to this yesterday. We all know that having a three-year-old can be interesting to say the least, but every once and a while it can be laugh out loud funny. Here is how last night's dinner conversation went...

Jay was in the bathroom helping ET go potty and wash up before dinner. I heard him say with a confused tone, "ET, where's your underwear?" ET didn't have an answer for him. We all sat down to eat, and I asked again. Having some time to think about it, ET clearly came up with a story...

"Welllllll, I went potty and then they just...exploded!"

I sat there silent thinking of what to say next, and it wasn't until Jay replied with, "What happened after your underwear exploded?" when I nearly lost the food in my mouth from laughing so hard.

Maybe you had to be there, but I really got a much needed laugh out of it. A daycare mom told me not too long ago that she found a shirt that had "I make stuff up" written on the front of it. This truly would be the perfect T-shirt for a three-year-old or any preschooler for that matter. :)