Since today was possibly the last nice day we will have for a while, the kids and I headed down to Locks and Dam Park on the Ohio river. I took all these pictures on my camera phone, so they aren't great, but surprisingly, they aren't that bad!
Not too surprisingly, my little artists were very excited about decorating for Thanksgiving.
We made a paper chain... it's about 16 feet long!
Hannah hung these, so that's why they are a bit crooked. Hannah drew the one on notebook paper. It's her version of a 'trace-your-hand-turkey'. The other is Elijah's. He colored, I cut it out, and he glued it to the construction paper.
Hannah's version of the same turkey.
Hannah made this turkey out of some left over strips from the paper chain. I thought it was pretty ingenius myself, and if you look closely you can tell that she wrote all of our names on it.
Another Elijah turkey that I helped cut out (he did some, and I had to do some rescue work) and glue.
Hannah made this turkey by cutting out pieces of tissue paper and gluing them together. No pattern or anything. She did a much better job than I would have!
This was taken before the big meal. Leah woke up from a short nap, so I sat her next to sleeping Pete. She went back to sleep for over an hour!! I guess she would nap a whole lot better if she had a warm body to snuggle with...
We had a yummy meal, but I didn't take any pictures. Hannah and I made real cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, turkey (just a roast, not a whole bird), dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, candied sweet potatoes, and crecent rolls.
After dinner we watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and played Blockus and Yahtzee. It was a really good day!
On January 15 one of two things will happen. Either Hannah will receive her first school rejection letter, or she will be accepted for one of six coveted spots in Montessori 1st grade. We are really, REALLY hoping for the latter. However, since there are only SIX spots and about 25 kindergartners, the odds are not in our favor. How, pray tell, does the school decide which children are chosen for Mr. R's (the absolute coolest, most innovative teacher I've ever met) class? Here's what the school says,
" The teachers have concluded, after several meetings, that evaluation of students' personal characteristics is necessary in matching children's individual learning styles to appropriate environments. We do not imply that a child's intelligence or mastery of works in the preprimary classroom affects his or her placement in the elementary program, but rather that certain personal characteristics seem to allow a child to thrive in the elementary class. These personal characteristics are as follows:
-Self-motivated worker
-Age appropriate maturity/self-control
-Actively seeks challenging work
-Responds well to direction/redirection
-Gets along well with peers
It was also decided that volunteerism, especially from those who go "above and beyond the call of duty", cannot be overlooked...
Lastly, if all else is equal the date of your child's initial registration will be used to determine a child's enrollment into the elementary class."
Because of all this, I have started looking at other schooling options for Hannah. The public schools here are significantly better than Oklahoma, but I don't feel like that is a good fit for Hannah. There are not a lot of private school options here either. We have two good options, E'ville Day School and E'ville Christian School. Hannah and I will be touring ECS next week to see what it's like. So, wish Hannah luck so she can keep going to Montessori, then we can start this process all over again for 4th grade.
Hannah working on numbers with Ms Beth
Sorting color tablets
Working on the cubed chain. Each bar has 10 beads, each square has 10 bars (10 squared), and each cube has 10 squares (10 cubed). The kids are getting ready to put labels on all the 10's up to 1000.
Here they are labeling the 100's.
Counting pumpkins
Sorting tassles by type.
Elijah and his friends have created their own 'circle time' where they have discussions and raise their hands to talk.
Working on a craft during the Diwali celebration.
Working on a leaf shape puzzle.
This is called a geoboard. Elijah is creating designs with rubberbands.
These were taken on Hannah's 6th birthday. Wow, doesn't she look stunning!?
back row: Ms. Beth, Brody, Anika, Darby, Michelle, Madeleine, Seamus, Weston, Ms. Christa
middle row: Ryan, Zach, Connor, Jesse, Carac, Jack, Colton, Braxton, Walker
front row: Hannah, Cooper, Sloane, Daniela, Deki, Lane, Izaak
This picture captures Elijah perfectly (when he's in a good mood, of course!)
back row: Ms. Kris, Madelyn , Eva, Connor, Jenna, Naomi, Calvin, Max, Ms. Sarah
3rd row: Laith, Neha, Joey, Angela, Huda, J'masin, Ella, Gabe
2nd row: Evan, Ashton, Kesang, Elyse, Alex, Katie, Tyler
front row: Cicily, Elijah, Landon, Petra
Here's what Leah "ate" for lunch today: about 10 Cheerios, she chewed and spit out one bite of ground beef, she played with a spoonful of sweet potatoes (not sure if any were consumed), and she fingerpainted with a teaspoon of chocolate pudding. She eats a lot more if she's mooching from someone else, i.e. Hannah fed her several bites of bagel this morning. She DOES still nurse 20 times (or more) in a 24 hour period. The other two didn't get interested in really eating until they were 18 months, so I figure it will be another two months for Leah...
Translation:
Daniela and Hannah and Walker
went to the school today is someone
one birthday the teacher said it is Hannah
birthday and Daniela and Walker
Dog and girls go to the park
and play fetch dogs friends
Because of Hannah's lip swelling incident, we scheduled an appointment with the allergist to test for an allergy to bee stings, or as he called it a venom test. When I explained the situation to him, he thought it was more likely that Hannah was allergic to the pollen in the beeswax. That seemed like a reasonable suggestion, so he Hannah for five different venoms and about 24 pollens. It was fairly traumatic for her, but we did get to watch a REALLY cool salt water aquarium with coral and anemones while we waited for the results. Everything came back negative, so it seems pretty likely that her lips were swelling because of the impetiego that hadn't quite surfaced at that point. I'm thinking I spent that $145 dollars on an Epi-pen that we didn't really need. Oh well, better safe than sorry, and it doesn't expire until February 2010... I don't think I'll be sending it to school with her next year.
I read about the wonderful idea of Pie Night last week, and I decided to try to figure out a way to incorporate it into our lives. We already had a game night planned, so I informed our guests that it was now game night/PIE NIGHT. Everyone was just as excited as I was!! I wish I'd thought to take pictures of all the pies and guests, but we were just having too much fun :)
I got a call a mere three hours before pie night from Vanessa telling me "something horrible" had happened. She'd made a quiche for a new mom, and her one and only pie pan had not been returned yet. How could she make a pie without a pie pan? I had already filled my two pie pans, or I would have shared! Thankfully, Vanessa's mom is a GENIUS and suggested that she make a tart on a flat crust. It was AMAZING!!! Apples with plum sauce on the yummiest crust ever was a nice surprise.
Jean wanted to make a banana cream pie, but her husband vetoed that because he prefers chocolate. I believe she said it's the only flavor in his mind [sounds a lot like Pete's opinion about chocolate chip cookies... Any other cookie COULD have been a chocolate chip cookie.] She brought a scrumptious and very rich chocolate pie. It was very yummy!
I made my staple, a pumpkin pie, but I wanted to make a second pie as well (and even a third, but I only have two pie pans!). I decided that I would make the banana cream pie (pictured above sans cream). I let Pete choose between coconut cream and banana cream and he chose the later. After reading a few recipes, I concocted my own and it turned out quite nicely.
I know that I sampled all of the pies, and found them all to be quite delectable. I proclaim Pie Night was a success! The games were fun too. We played Apples to Apples which I'd never played before, and Taboo. The guys weren't so great at Taboo, so it wasn't nearly as fun as the first game. The seven kids ran around like hooligans and appeared to have a grand time as well.
***
On another note, I realized tonight that my kids really like country music... I've never really cared for that genre, but growing up in Oklahoma and going to college at O-State I've heard my fair share. So, I was letting the kids listen to YouTube videos and here are the songs they really liked: Dolly Parton - Wherever Forever of Love (not a song I was familiar with but it was linked to Hannah's favorite Put a Little Love in Your Heart), Lee Greenwood -I'm Proud to be an American, Tim McGraw - Live Like You Were Dying, and Joe Diffie - John Deere Green. I must be getting old because all these songs made me a little teary eyed... another reason not to listen to country music, it just takes too much out of me emotionally, lol.
***
Hannah's lips are now 100% better!! She will be getting an allergy test for bee stings on Monday, so that ought to be fun.
So, forget the fact that she'll be 16 months in less than a week... Leah had her well baby check up today. She's 19 lbs 12 oz (still hasn't hit the magic 20 lbs!) and she's 30 inches long. She's in about the 5th %tile for weight and 50th for height. The nurse and doctor both asked how she was doing with solid food, and I laughed. I told them that she's really good at throwing it on the floor, chewing it up and spitting it out, and she is fantastic at eating whatever she finds on the ground!
Leah is really walking these days. She can toddle around the house quite well now, but crawling is still so much faster that she uses that mode of transportation a lot too. She recently learned how to crawl down the stairs, and she does that fairly safely.
