Happy 10th Birthday Shayna!

Today was Shayna's actual 10th birthday. her official party is Sunday (we rarely have her party on her actual birthday), but we always have a cake and small celebration on her actual birthday too. sometimes we go out to dinner, but Skyler was sick (now he has a stomach virus) so we stayed in. I brought them McDonalds as requested, and got an ice cream cake, also as requested. Here is the cake, isn't it pretty: we played the Trivial Pursuit Playstation game for the first time (its the only playstation game I ever chose) - it was a lot of fun, although we need to play again when we have more time and play the more advanced game that has audio and visual clips. The game was brought to a halt due to Skyler getting sick, poor thing, his first stomach bug in his life.

We have been busy getting ready for her party this Sunday at the Franklin Institute- it will be a lot of fun! We are expecting about 35 people, including about 20 kids with 15 adults (2 of the kids being Shayna and Skyler).

*Note: there are exactly 10 candles on the cake.

Art Project- Part 2

Shayna finished her art project Monday night. For the actual artwork portion, she chose to recreate in a shoe box a mini model of the "surreal apartment that looks like Mae West." It was not easy, at least making the lips sofa and nose fireplace out of clay was challenging and took many attempts, during which Shayna got a bit frustrated but perservered and truimphed with encouragement. I told her Dali is a professional artist who not only had the raw talent but who studied and practiced his art for many many years. I think it came out well considering she is not Dali not has she studied/practiced art for decades (LOL). Her version is a bit like the mad cousin of Mae West: she added the potato head tongue, I said it is like a Rolling Stones lips now but she didn't get it- although she knows the Stones music fairly well from listening to her dads mix CDs driving to the shore. It is not easy copying famous artists works, as we discovered when I got Shayna a Mona Lisa paint by number mini kit a few years ago.

Here is Dali's original version:
The cover of her art project paper:

Pancake procedure

here is the official pancake procedure according to Skyler:

1. Lift Skyler up to freezer
2. Skyler opens freezer and gets out Pillsbury chocolate chip pancakes
3. Skyler closes freezer
4. Skyler takes out 1-2 pancakes from box and places them in middle of plate
5. Skyler pats the pancake/s 1-3 times in the middle with his hand
6. Skyler hands plate to you and says "here" is Boston/NY-like accent similar to little Bear on Sesame Street - you must NOT take plate he must hand it TO you
7. You microwave plate 20-35 seconds depending on if 1 or 2 pancakes
8. You cut up pancake for him (this he allows)
9. Skyler eats pancake with fork

Note: #5 is the reason I wrote this post
Also, the HORROR: Shoprite was SOLD OUT of Pillsbury Chocolate Chip pancakes Sunday!

Skyler's art project

while Shayna was working on her art project, we had to set skyler up, he wanted to use the sculpey clay also. since she needed most of it we gave him a little piece and play dough to work with.

Art project by-product

Shayna and I couldn't resist making this cute bear with the left over red sculpey clay:

Art project: part 1

Shayna has been working on her art project and paper the last few weeks. She chose Salvador Dali. She has to do a written paper (1-2 pgs.) with title page and bibliography including some pictures of the artist and artwork, and then do an art project in the style of the artist- can be made to look like the artwork or in the artists "style" or they can choose to come to school dressed to look like the artist. So I have been helping/encouraging her in this endeavor by: printing out articles from the internet, getting out library books, looking through the Dali book I have, showing her the mementos and one photo I took inside the Dali museum in Spain, and renting 3 movies- one about Dali called Dali, one a movie he made called Ma Chien Andalou (20 minutes in B&W), and the 3rd happened to just be showing the artwork. Then I had her put together her "research" using index cards, organize them, and type out the paper (learning to choose what facts are important). It turns out they have this bibliography online tool for the elementary kids that I thought was SOOO uber cool and easy - type in the info and it formats it correctly for you, makes up the bibliography ready to print- presto! Last, she made her title page and put it all together so the written part was done. Now onto the fun art project. Shayna decided to do a small replica of the "surreal apartment" - a room in the museum made to look like Mae West using lips sofa, nose fireplace, eyes framed pictures, etc. That was the only photo I took in the museum and I mentioned it was my favorite art of his, then Shayna said that was her favorite (she is to say which artwork is her favorite) so i said she just said it because its MY favorite, and she said no, it IS her favorite too. This is after we looked at maybe 100s of his paintings (I personally like Van Gogh and Munch not Dali so much). She decided to use a shoebox for the mini apartment, and make the lips and nose from sculpey clay, we found picture frames in the dollhouse section at AC Moore and printed out the Mae West eyes (Manny helped with this). Shayna learned that art is not easy, it took a few tries to get the lips sofa made. The nose fireplace was very challenging! She went outside and got little twigs to make the fireplace logs inside the nose. here she is working on the lips with the sculpey clay: pondering...how will I make this into a lip shaped sofa?
You can see the actual surreal apartment in the report cover on the table above.

After helping Shayna with this, I have to say I have become quite the Dali expert (go ahead ask me a question) and even found out what he meant by the clocks, melting clocks, ants, grasshoppers and eggs featured in a lot of his art. He painted the persistence of memory one night when his wife was out and he opted to stay home.

They will be making a Dali movie this summer starring Al Pacino as Dali and filming in NY and Spain.

Reading

Shayna read to Skyler Friday after school. Skyler loves being read to. He is into counting and numbers lately, this was a counting book. He also likes to go through a book and say what the things are. This helps his talking skills and he attempts to say and repeat just about everything, and I give him kudos for that even if it comes out sounding nothing like the actual word. Shayna had pajama day - well they were to wear PJs to school for some kind of assembly, and I honestly am not sure what it was, but it involved giving away the prizes for AR (accelerated reader program). For each point earned in AR they get a ticket to put in for various prizes and duirng the whole school assembly the prizes are drawn and awarded. This time the prizes were a bit lame- not for all but for Shayna , either stuff she doesn't like or already has (ie elmo doll- we have 4; bike-she won a mountain bike years ago that is waiting for her to grow into). But they intoduced the new prizes for the next round (not sure when, maybe a few months?) and she said the best one is tickets to Sesame Place, so she plans on putting all her tickets into that one. She just finished Eragon, which is worth 25 points (most books typically are worth 1-4 points but the higher levels are more points).

I didn't have her wear the PJ bottoms because it was so cold out Friday, in the teens and they are silky and not warm.

Shayna also has advanced to a size 8 pant/jean (she used to be one size below age but now seems to be 2 sizes since she will be 10 soon).

Skyler's Schoolwork

Skyler brought home this work he did in preschool today, he's very proud of it: we hung it up and let him choose the spot.
school apparently makes skyler hungrier. He ate 4 apples around 1-2 pm-ish, then when Shayna got home around 4pm he had 2 waffles. then around 8pm he had 5 mcDonald's chicken nuggets. Not sure what I will do now that nuggets are off the dollar menu. It happens McD's is on the way home from my office and on route to other errands so its very convenient to get the kids thier nuggets.

2 word sentences

Skyler has been talking in 2 word sentences much more lately. It is usually him IDing an item and saying its color, like "blue cup."

Bingo Card

Shayna, Manny and I watched President Bush's speech Tuesday night (Skyler was in the room but mainly rolling on the floor with his feet in the air and trying to stop us from watching). Shayna used the bingo card and she watched the entire speech and marked the card every time he talked about a topic on the card or there was an action (such as VP Cheney stands up, which he did). She seemed to understand just about everything he discussed. We all especially liked the end where he honored heroes including the very well known in OUR house- founder of the Baby Einstein company. and didn't we all get chills seeing the first FEMALE speaker of the house, Nancy Pulosi. Shayna got to witness a historic event. Here is the marked bingo card:

State of the Union Bingo

I found out about the State of the Union Bingo while watching the local news a few days ago (Action News/ABC/Channel 6/Don Polec's World), and plan on having Shayna play it tonight while watching President Bush's State of the Union speech.

The "game" was devised by the National Constitution Center right here in Philadelphia (we visited it last spring), and while it is meant for middle and high school aged kids, I think it can also be a great educational tool for younger kids.

How it works:

You go onto thier website (link below) and then download and print out the "Bingo Card." In the card in the spaces where you put the chips, are topics that the President may mention and/or talk about during his speech. Topics such as: Iraq, Homeland Security, etc.

To get the lesson plan and the Bingo card, go here and then click on "lesson plan:"

http://www.constitutioncenter.org/education/ForEducators/LessonPlans//17166.shtml

Footprints in the Snow

I took Shayna and skyler to the ped tonight since both have bad colds. It happened that we had a light snow today, so enough snow to leave a light layer.

Skyler was delighted to touch the snow, he is more aware as a 2 year old. Shayna thought it was soooo cool how her shoe boots left perfect heart footprints in the snow as she walked.

Hopefully next snow they are well and I can find Skyler snow boots and snow pants or suit by then (have not had luck finding him these, although I found Shayna new snow boots and she has snow pants). Target had cute boys boots but none in size 7.

Mr. Potato Head

Some 70s nostalgia....yes, Mr. Potato head* is back. Skyler got one for Christmas. Shayna said she had one too but I hardly remember it nor do I know what happened to it. Skyler seems to like it, if you remind him to play with it:

*some trivia: the original MPH did not come with the potato. they had this as a trivia Q on the radio the other day as I was driving to the office.

Jackass: Number 2

We got the movie "Jackass- Number 2" from Blockbuster. Not that we would have let Shayna watch it, but just in case, on the front of the DVD case, it says "Not intended for children."

Skyler was still up, and he doesn't pay much attention nor does he understand much so he was still in the room (Shayna was sleeping).

As usual, I put in the DVD and let the Menu screen play while I did various tasks around the house before officially starting to watch the movie. I didn't expect Skyler to pay it any attention, because usually when any non childrens show or movie is on he doesn't watch (and sometimes gets annoyed).

It turned out Skyler thought the Jackass Menu was hysterical! I have never heard him laugh so much or so heartily, he was really cracking up. The menu repeats the same 8 or so small clips, and each time he wold laugh just as hard.

Oh No!!!

Skyler made up this game, where he would put his new shark flashlight toy on his finger, as if its attacking/biting him, and then say "oh no!!!!" over and over with drama. It just happens that he was doing this during the Eagles play off game Saturday night....
....especially during the last 10 minutes of the game, after they lost the first down and then didn't go for the 4th down and 15 play but punted instead. Don't worry NFL, in about 20 years there will be a great new running back.

Eagles Hat

Shayna made this cool Eagles hat during art class with my assistance. Friday was "special persons day" at her school which means that each student can have one adult join them on thier normal school day from 9:30-11am. This way the adult/parent can get to see what they actually do. I didn't get to spend any time in Shayna's actual 4th grade classroom, because for the first part she was with her "1st grade buddy" in the first grade pod, and the second part she had art class/special in the art room. I got to find out who her 1st grade buddy was (I had heard about him), meet and chat with 3 of her classmates who sat at her art table, and find out they can bring in thier own art to show to earn an "artbuck." I also found out that boys in 4th grade already start to act "cool." Here is Shayna modeling the Eagles Hat: Coincidentally, Skyler's class this past Monday made almost identical hats. They had Eagles Day on Monday. Skyler doesn't go on Mondays, but I saw the kids with thier Eagles gear and hats on in the photos the teacher sent.

Ghetto hat

Skyler has been rummaging through the pile of old and outgrown hats I cleaned out the other day and left on the floor. Shayna got this hat for her pollyanna in 3rd grade. Skyler has been clowning around, putting it over his head like the kid from Fat Albert and like tonight, when he wore it "ghetto style."
Skyler has a thing for hats. he loves putting on the various hats found around the house.

As a side note, I love the definition of ghetto fabulous I found in the urban dictionary: Referring to the style of nouveau riche people who have grown up in ghetto or urban areas. The combination of bad taste,an urban aesthetic and desire to wear one's wealth. Basically, high priced but tacky clothing and accessories.

Paint by Number

Shayna did her paint by number tonight, while Skyler watched:
Also observed in the above photo:

1. Top right- Skyler's 1st artwork brought home from preschool. If you click on the photo to enlarge it and can zoom in, you will see that it is an ode to Martin Luther King, Jr. and you can see where Skyler painted.

2. Bottom left of center - Eagles water bottle, which Skyler insisted on using for his milk today.

Wandering cow

This little cow has recently been seen wandering around the house. he has been spotted on the clubhouse, changing table, on the TV screen, and most recently on THIS chair:

Molecular biologist

Here is Skyler using his new Mag-Neatos toy to put together DNA, Watson & Crick would be proud: Skyler has created something new, anyone know what it is?

Blocks

Skyler has been getting more creative with his blocks lately. He recently made this all by himself, it looks like a house with a walkway: another view of the "house" with a "city" behind it:
he has 3 sets of blocks: the big foam ones, the ones in the pull cart, and another wooden set that I put into a plastic storage container. he puts them away, closes the top, and then will carry it (its a big container) and put it back on the bookcase shelf in the playroom.

1st Day of School

Skyler had his first day of preschool today at Judy Sare Preschool. I enrolled him for 2 mornings a week. He starts at 9am and Shayna needs to be at school by 9am (I drop her off around 8:50-8:58 depending on how things go that morning). So I take him with me, we drop off Shayna first, and then I take him to preschool.

Here is Skyler with his new backpack and Shayna: Skyler in his classroom- he is in the "2's" room:
This is the SAME EXACT classroom that Shayna was in when she went to preschool here. She went here for one year, from age 3-4. She also went to two full summers of camp here. The year after she went here she went into pre-K/K, the combined classroom, at Trevose Day School. Skyler can not go to Trevose Day School unless he is potty trained.
The second we walked in, he went into play mode. No seperation anxiety here- my little boy is independent and extremely social- no shy genes here! While he played, we hung up his jacket and bag in his cubby, I got the monthly schedule, and chatted with his teacher, Mrs. Greenburg. He gets a notebook where she writes in every day to say what/how he did, and I can write back, etc. There is also 2 walls of photos: one with each child's pic, one with family pics. She also takes digital photos and them e mails them to the parents about twice a month! I love that!
I went to the office to fill out and leave some paperwork. Before leaving I peeked into his room to see what he was doing and snapped this photo of him playing. he was going in and out of the little playhouse, and first ringing the doorbell. I remember Shayna's first days of preschool, when she was the same age (2.5) at Childventure Preschool. After leaving her I would peek in, only the door would be closed and there was a very small window and the way the room was angled you could not see very much. Then when I would pick her up, for that entire first year, she would not say much (really nothing) about what she did. So I would always hope to spot her teacher and desperately ask her for any information about her day and what she did. Also, in those early years, looking in her school bag at the end of the day was like finding treasure. I would always look in it right away to see what treasures she brought home. I will really enjoy doing the same with Skyler.
When I picked up Skyler at the end of the morning time, he did not want to leave. He really loved it there!

When Shayna saw his schedule later she thought it was so cute, and she said she would like to have his schedule.

I will post more about Skyler's preschool adventures as they happen. I am already considering maybe sending him for 3 days or for longer days.

Floam

Shayna got "floam" as one of her christmas presents. She has been a good and very patient big sister, letting skyler use the floam with her. They made a pencil holder together. Shayna has so many pencils that she needs 2 huge pencil holders for them all. She is set with pencils until she graduates from college.

New Years Eve Recipe

ADD:
1 smushed pumpkin goo
on shoe

1 eye hit with confetti stick

1 toddler screaming because
he wants to stay outside
after fireworks end

1 confetti stick dunked in soda
glass


YOU GET:
a New Years Eve with Skyler