Elijah got tired of his curls and asked for a "no hair" cut...
Here's Mr Curly Locks in his PJ's last night...
Here he is after his haircut this afternoon!
I can't decide if it makes him look older or younger... But it certainly makes him look different!
Leah got her hair cut as well. I just had them cut it like mine :)
With her curls, it makes her hair look much thicker than it is! She looks really cute :)
Pete's school is in session on Labor Day and he has to teach, so we can never make any real plans for Labor Day. However, the kids and I still ended up having a pretty full day! I didn't take pictures of everything though...
First we went grocery shopping. That's always interesting with all three kids! We went to the new Walmart that's a few extra miles down the road because the kids hadn't been there, and that Walmart has fish (the kind that are still swimming!) and ours doesn't. I love the brand new BIG carts that fit 3 kids... the older ones at our store can be difficult to push. Imagine that, pushing almost 100 lbs of kids can be difficult! Elijah and Leah were LOUD, but everyone was fairly well behaved.
After I got the groceries put away and everyone had a snack we headed back out and went to PetSmart. We are toying with the idea of getting a small pet like fish or gerbils/hamsters so we went to scope out our options. The kids loved looking at the animals (there were dog and cat adoptions going on outside as well... those puppies and kittens were SOOOO cute!!) and were especially taken with the birds. I don't think we are ready for birds yet... I think we've settled on a couple of gerbils, but I don't know if we'll get them at PetSmart. Elijah's teacher rescued some from the humane society... so I'll see if there are any that need us :)
Then we got lunch at Sonic... yummy :)
Then I decided we need some sun after the nasty thunderstorm we had last night, so we headed out to the zoo. Now, I usually try to go to our zoo during the week when no one is there, so it was much more crowded that I'm used to. But it was still a nice hour plus walk and we absorbed plenty of vitamin D!!
When we got home Pete said that there was a picnic at his school (their lame attempt to make it up to everyone for having school on a holiday, I suppose), so we packed everyone up and had a free dinner along with many, MANY college students. It was moved indoors because of the mud, so we had an air conditioned picnic which was nice after a humid afternoon at the zoo.
Then to top off our night, we had our weekly FAMILY NIGHT!!!
Thanks to my friend, Barb, I had the great idea to make cupcake cones for our treat. They look kind of wonky, but they turn out fine.
A rousing game of Hungry Hungry Hippos (I believe Hannah was the champ!)
We each frosted and sprinkled our cone.
Yum!
Some people just ate the cake with no frosting...
Leah had me add more sprinkles SEVERAL times!!
It was a fabulous day, especially considering we had no plans...
Elijah is in his 2nd year of Montessori pre-primary. He REALLY wants to be in kindergarten, or even better, 1st grade with Hannah. He hates that she gets to do things before he does!
Elijah is counting spindles. He was not thrilled that he had to review all the old works from last year...
The school has a new nature trail, and Elijah's class took a nature walk.
Elijah is sewing an "M" sewing card.
Elijah practices writing his name. Not too many 2nd year students are interested in this, but Elijah is determined to get a writing journal like the kindergarteners!
Elijah snips tiny pieces of paper with scissors, and he brought home all those little pieces home to me... He really enjoys works that have a product.
Elijah is doing a 'land, water, air' activity. He's cutting the grass for his picture.
Elijah works with the ribbon calendar.
This was on a day where he told Hannah that he worked so long writing in his journal (YES! His teacher decided there was no reason a very interested 2nd year student couldn't have a journal... I'm pretty sure she's never had anyone interested in one. I'm not even sure all the kindergarteners WANT one.) Anyway, he spent "all morning" writing in his journal, and he hardly had any time to do any works... In this picture he's working on pin-punching, and on his right are the other works he's finished: weaving, one-drop, gluing w/ liquid glue, and gluing w/ glue stick. Hmm... so he brought home 5 works.
Now, we move on to Hannah's class...
The 1st graders are sitting inside the geodesic dome that the entire class constructed out of newspapers. Pretty cool!
Today was the elementary's first of many field trips. They went to a construction site to learn about shelter. The major focus of this year is the needs of man, and shelter is the first thing they are learning about.
Facebook has taken over my life, or so it seems. It has taken away much of my motivation to blog... But, I like to think of my blog as a journal, something that will be around for many years. So, I'm going to try to keep updating at least a few times a month...
We've definitely had an interesting week and a half! School started on August 12, and Hannah is now in first grade and Elijah is in his 2nd year of Montessori preschool (pre-kindergarten year).
Here are the kids on the first day of school.
Hannah has quite possibly the coolest teacher EVER! So, here are a few pictures from her class blog.
The class on the new nature trail behind the school (Hannah is at the back in the blue skirt)
Mr. R explains something to the class
Hannah and her friends build a house for their shoes using gum drops and toothpicks.
Here is Elijah working on our traditional beginning of school bag decorating project. All the kids at Montessori have identical school bags, so decorating them is an easy way to know you have the right bag at the end of the school day.
Leah will be starting preschool (though not Montessori, since she won't be 3 for another year) after Labor Day, so she needed a school bag too.
Elijah and I made a Lego tower that reached the ceiling!
Not to be outdone, Hannah had to try her hand at it as well.
Last Saturday, when there was a 0% chance of rain, we had a nice little rain storm... and the kids splashed in the puddles and generally got soaking wet.
***
On Monday, my dryer broke in the middle of laundry day... so I had to buy a new dryer. It wouldn't be delivered for 2 days, so I got a clothes line as well.
Elijah and I made an 'airplane' from a diaper box
The beautiful NEW dryer... it's pretty amazing ;)
Leah and Elijah wanted to do some preschool stuff at home, so we
played with play-doh
painted at the easels
and poured beans.
***
Today, Hannah and I discovered MORE than THIRTY cicada shells on our crabapple tree. I guess we just had one of those 17 year cycles!
Leah really is a 2 year old!
This is what 2, 3, and 4 year olds do... They crash after refusing to take their nap. This is the first time Leah has done this, so it's a real milestone for her!
Elijah is still doing it... I found him like this Friday at dinner time. Believe me, finding your pre-schooler like this at dinner time is a BAD thing. At least Leah had the decency to nap earlier in the afternoon.
Here's a few other pictures to share
A princess tea party
An angry jester
A stinky trip through Amazonia at the zoo (Elijah is holding his nose)
And the puzzles we put together for Family Night. Elijah "helped" Pete put together the 100 piece Hello Kitty, Hannah put together the 100 piece Littlest Petshop (all by herself, and she's proud for persevering), Pete put together a 60 piece John Deere, and I put together the 24 piece Little Einsteins, the 24 piece Cars, and the other 60 piece John Deere (with a little help from Leah).
I didn't even notice Heather taking these pictures! We had a mini-adventure yesterday :)
http://olivecraver.blogspot.com/2009/08/nature-preserve.html
