Dress-Up Station

Our playroom at the new place is slowly shaping up.  It has all the stuff from the old place in it, just reconfigured a bit.  This little space is something new, though.  I was inspired to make a small dress-up station for the kids, and since I already had all the parts, it didn't cost me a thing!  I used an IKEA Bygel rail as a little clothing bar.  I used IKEA Riktig hooks to attach the hanging dress-up clothes, play-kitchen aprons, etc.  I already had the "PLAY" hooks and the old mirror, which I spray-painted to match.  The extra dress-up accessories are in the window seats which you can see here. The playroom is far from finished, but I've been promising to post some pictures of our house for awhile now, so I'll at least show playroom pictures...in a post to come very soon.

Teeth

The third child doesn't necessarily do things the way his brother and sister have done them.  He likes to keep us on his toes.  When I told him to get started brushing his teeth, he took it upon himself to do that up on the bathroom counter.  Apparently this location is important when brushing teeth...for a two-year-old!

Lucy the Mouse

Or, "Looceey" the mouse.  I love how Grace spells when she does it on her own.

Another Benjamin Quote

"I'm a good put-on-shoer man."

Vacation

Benjamin, carrying a Ziploc bag:  Mama, can you zip zis bag?  It's full of kitchen suff.
(I zip the bag.)
Benjamin:  Sank you, I'm gonna take it on a vacation.

Harmonicas

Now all I need to do is insert my earplugs!

Little Voices

Benjamin and Grace have conversations almost all the time now.  He has his "c" and "g" sounds, which makes him sound so much more grown up.  When I think of where he was a year ago, it's astonishing how far he's come.  They drive each other crazy sometimes, but most of the time, they enjoy playing together, or at least near each other.  I keep thinking about what will be going on a year from now:  Grace will be in kindergarten.  He is going to miss her so much!  It's going to be a new experience for him to have to learn to play without a sibling.  He's never had to do it.  Even though she is very trying at times and creates a lot of drama out of nothing, I'm going to miss having her at home, too.  So, I'm just trying to soak in the sound of their little voices together, even when they're disagreeing...like they are as I type my thoughts here.  (So please forgive my wandering thoughts, since you know I have two talking little people here with me.) She is ready to go to kindergarten, though.  The kids' grandpa sent them cards in the mail for Halloween yesterday, and she read card to herself.  She's ready for bigger things...even if those bigger things are only at kindergarten.

Halloween...

Here's what they looked like first thing in the morning...before the boys were even wearing shoes.  Jonathan is Laval from Lego Chima.  (He's just wearing a character sweatshirt and we'll add a cape to it tonight.  Easy...thanks to my friend, Sarah, for the idea.)  Grace is a kitterina, which, for those of you not familiar with the imagination of the four-year-old, is a kitty ballerina.  This was Grace's idea.  Benjamin is, in his words, a train driver.  Maybe the easiest costume of the three.  (He'll tell you, "I'm a tain diver wif my bandana!")

Happy Halloween!

The "Biggerest" Banana

B:  Can I have zat banana?

Me:  Yes, you want this one?

B:  Zat big one is the biggerest zan you!

Pumpkin Book Report

Jonathan's teacher let us all know at the beginning of the year that she has the kids do a lot of projects.  The load hasn't been bad at all so far.  This is Jonathan's first project for her.  The kids had to do a book report on a book they'd never read before.  That narrowed it down a lot for him.  He wanted to report on a Redwall book that he had already read, but that's not what the instructions requested...anyway, after much discussion and gnashing of teeth, he chose to read the seventh Hardy Boys book.  There was a lot of written work in the book report, but the fun part was making a foam pumpkin into the book's main character.  Here's Jonathan's pumpkin character, Frank Hardy.  He wanted me to take the picture so that you couldn't see his hand holding up the pumpkin.

This project was a good exercise in planning ahead for us.  We worked on it a little bit each night so that we wouldn't be overwhelmed and have tears on the final night before the due date.  I'm learning the best way to walk Jonathan through the writing process that seems to work with his personality.  And, as always, I made sure that he did the hands-on work, not me.  (He cut the zillion felt strips for Frank's hair and placed them on the pumpkin...he wrote "Bayport High" on the old cap and I painted over his letters...he glued on the googly eyes and drew the mouth and nose with a Sharpie.  I'm sure you know that if it were my project, I would have made the nose and mouth out of something.  But Jonathan liked it this way, and I'm so happy he did it himself.)  You can see that Jonathan is proud of his own work.