Friesencold

For the letter W, Bauer colored Waldo….and used White-Out to fix the letter U in his name.

He colored and cut out Weather cards and used White-Out for the snow.

We read a couple W books, and did you know The Funny Little Woman is by the same author as that fabulous book Tikki Tikki Tembo?

I also got Bauer a special W DVD from our library, which of course, he loved!

And here’s a fun Wax art project we did.

First you grate the wax crayons.

Then you trace circles onto wax paper and cut them out.

You sprinkle the wax onto the waxy side of the wax paper circles.

You smile as you go.

Then you place another wax circle waxy side down on top of the first circle and iron them together on a low heat setting. Repeat 11 times to get this.

Then tape them onto a window and let the light shine through to see how pretty they all look.

That was really a fun project. I had only planned to make a couple wax circles but Bauer wanted to keep going and going.

Bauer also enjoyed getting to weigh objects that start with the letter W. I had fun looking around the house for W objects and putting them in a brown paper bag for Bauer to reach into with his eyes closed and pick one thing at a time to weigh on the kitchen scale. He also got some practice writing numbers, and he was wearing his patch to help strengthen his eye.

Speaking of patches, check out Xavier the pirate Bauer made for the letter X.

Here’s his Xylophone…

and his X-ray (maybe White-Out wasn’t such a good idea in this case).

I wasn’t sure The Lorax was such a good idea either when I realized how long it is, but Bauer has fallen in love with the story and we’ve read it often during the course of X.

It’s official, I do believe, that Bauer has given up his afternoon naps. Now I feel like I need to be taking them instead, mainly because I’m having to get myself used to not having a protected chunk of time in the afternoon during which I knew both kids would be asleep. That makes me tired just thinking about it.

However, I’ve made a decision in the last few days to go to bed early, which for me is between 10 and 10:30, so I can get up a half hour before the kids and have some protected time then. I am spending the early morning time reading and journaling and praying for help for myself and others. What I’m reading is The Message Bible, just the New Testament right now, but I’m going from start to finish like it’s a book. I do enjoy books, so I thought that reading the Bible in a different translation like it’s a book would give me a fresh perspective. It was Frederick Buechner who inspired me to try this out by something he wrote in the June 15 reading from his book Listening to Your Life.

Buechner is giving some practical suggestions on reading the Bible and numbers 3, 4, and 5 really stood out to me.

3. If you have even as much as a nodding acquaintance with a foreign language, try reading the Bible in that. Then you stand a chance of hearing what the Bible is actually saying instead of what you assume it must be saying because it is the Bible…..

4. If you don’t know a foreign language, try some English version that you’ve never tried before – the New English Bible, Goodspeed’s translation, J. B. Phillips’s New Testament, or any other you can lay your hands on. The more far-out the better. Nothing could be farther out than the Bible itself….

5. It may sound like fortune-telling, but don’t let that worry you. Let the Bible fall open in your lap and start there. If you don’t find something that speaks to you, let it fall open to something else. Read it as though it were as exotic as the I Ching or the Tarot deck. Because it is.

Pretty cool, huh? Yeah, that’s the feeling I get almost every morning when I read what Buechner has to say in Listening to Your Life. I think getting up early and starting my day with Buechner, God, and myself is really going to help me listen to my life. And hopefully it will give me more time for writing in the afternoons. That’s my plan anyway. We’ll be launching a MealBaby blog very soon so I’m working on some posts for that as well.

Yesterday afternoon, when Bauer wasn’t napping, he helped me prepare a Peach-Blueberry-Cherry Crisp that we could have for dessert later that evening. I didn’t take a picture before we dug in, but here’s what was left last night.

While the crisp was cooking, we took a family outing to Trader Joe’s to pick up a few things we needed, including some vanilla soy ice cream to go with the crisp. I thought I could buy just the vanilla kind, but realized I would have had to buy a mango-vanilla combo to get vanilla and I wasn’t in the mood to dig around the container to try and scoop out just vanilla for everyone. So I ended up buying this instead.

It’s like what you get at Red Mango. The pleasantly tart taste of plain vanilla yogurt with live cultures, and even though our family doesn’t consume cow’s-milk based products very often at all, I’ll have to say this yogurt was a good treat for all of us. Bauer just kept saying it tasted like yogurt (and he meant the non-frozen kind that he loves but rarely gets to eat).

Unfortunately our trip to Trader Joe’s led to the discovery that they no longer have the miniature shopping carts in the stores for the kids. Now that’s a fairly large bummer, and I’m a huge fan of Trader Joe’s to begin with. When we asked at customer service, they said a lot of people had complained about getting run into by kids with carts. I can see that, I guess, but they already took away the balloons and now the tiny carts, too? The cashier did give Bauer a row of stickers that was as tall as him, probably 47, and that was fun for the car ride home at least. But he’ll sure miss the carts and helping me shop that way.

At the moment (2:34 pm) Cash isn’t napping but he isn’t upset either. He’s been back in his crib entertaining himself and making all kinds of noise for an hour and a half (with a poopy break in the middle of that). He was so rubbing his eyes just after lunch so I figured he’d go right to sleep. I think I may have missed his tired window today. At least he’s happy back there, and Bauer is happy now too, as he’s just turned on the Woody Woodpecker DVD that I got him from the library for the Letter W. He finished his Quiet Reading Time a few minutes ago and is now enjoying some TV time while I finish this blog. If Cashie isn’t up by 3pm, I guess we’ll call it a day for naps and go on to something else.

Now for the something else you’ve been waiting for: The Letter V and all the fun we had with that.

Bauer used his body to make the letter V.

Then he used some craft supplies we bought at Michael’s to decorate the blue Visor he picked out.

Here you can see his finished Visor and the Vitamin Water he chose at Meijer in honor of the Letter V.

For an art project, Bauer cut out pictures of Vegetables from some old issues of Everyday Food Magazine.

Then for dinner a couple nights ago, I cut up a ton of Vegetables (I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I tried to start stirring these around in my big Wok)…

And we had Vegetable Ratatouille for dinner.

We read some good V books and Bauer LOVED Violet the Pilot.

He also loved making this little Volcano erupt using baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring.

I got this Volcano from the inside of a cereal box when I was a little girl. I’ve saved it all these years because I thought it was so cool, and I even knew where it was when I finally had a use for it!

For another art project, I helped Bauer make a Valentine for TJ. I’m still not sure why he put an extra A on the end of Dad, but he didn’t want help with spelling that word.

Bauer decided to make a Valentine monster on the back of the card, and after writing the letters EEKK, he asked me what it spelled, and so we named his monster “Eek!”

We finished off the Letter V with the V verse that Bauer learned last year when we were doing a verse for each letter of the alphabet. Usually I just write out the verse for the letter we are working on, and leave some letters or words out and have Bauer fill in the blanks with my help. But this time I decided to have Bauer illustrate the verse since it seemed pretty easy to do. He was quite hesitant to begin drawing, even after I’d written out each phrase and drawn the four blank boxes. So then I sat with him and we talked about what was happening in each phrase of the verse and how he could draw it. I was quite impressed. And just so you know, the solitary place where Jesus went to pray was the jungle.

And also just so you know, it’s 3pm and that little booger still isn’t asleep! Two hours and no nap! Oh well….I better go get him up, so I’m out of here.

Here is what Cash got into tonight while I was fixing dinner:

Bauer has learned to swing all by himself and he makes us watch him 5 times a day at least!

On Father’s Day, we went to the zoo with some friends. Bauer had to hold on to Tucker while he looked at the bears.

Not sure what these faces are all about.

These faces, however….

For dinner, we dined at Ted’s Montana Grill per TJ’s request. Cash is really into using a fork these days and loved his bison meatloaf. Unfortunately we didn’t consider the fact that meatloaf would have eggs in it, so we unknowingly subjected Bauer to an allergic reaction. Thankfully his tongue started hurting him right away (after only about 2 bites) so it was a pretty minor reaction. He had some hives around his mouth and was coughing into the evening, but Benadryl relieved all symptoms and now we know not to order the meatloaf for him again.

After taking a week off from alphabet activities during Bauer’s week of VBS, we spent some time over the weekend on the Letter P. I had no idea about Harold and the Purple Crayon, but now I’ve checked out a bunch of the other Crockett Johnson books and we are enjoying those this week, even though we’ve moved beyond P.

Bauer had been asking for a hanging plant for our front porch ever since he discovered the hooks on the porch ceiling and wanted to know what they were for. I bought him a Purple Petunia at Meijer last week.

So many things start with P….Pinecones, Picnic Table….He’s even wearing his Pacific shirt (unplanned).

Pasta on a Preserve Plate….

Pink Play-dough….

And more Play-dough for the P verse.

We also made a Pink and Purple Pinwheel and a Panda Puppet (not Pictured).

We’re enjoying Q this week, including a Q-Tip craft this morning, Queen Anne’s Lace being dyed with food coloring overnight, and Quinoa Muffins we will make in the morning. Also on the agenda is making our very own Quicksand, after reading Tomie de Paola’s The Quicksand Book.

Off to get some ZZZ’s.

The same-old, same-old is that Bauer and Cash are eating snacks and being goofy in their carseats.

They were eating Nectarines recently as we are now on the Letter N.

Bauer also made this Noodle Necklace.

Then today we were on our way home from a picnic, and the kids said they were hungry – why don’t they eat at picnics instead of just play?? I told them they could eat the leftover veggies that I had taken, and soon after I turned around to see this.

I won’t even tell you what my hair looked like today after the picnic, during which it rained almost the entire time and it was so windy TJ got a plate of baked beans blown onto his shirt from across the table.

But before we left for the picnic, I had TJ take a few pictures of my new (different) haircut, which I got last Wednesday. I was going for something a little more edgy, which is why I also had some highlights done.

And here’s the tattoo in full force. The color has been on for almost a month now, but I’m actually going back again this week to get the green pepper and Swiss chard darkened to be more true-to-life-green-veggie-green. Nonetheless, isn’t it a great design?

This morning, I finished reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave and it ranks right up there with The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns (both by Khaled Hosseini). I loved the story of Little Bee so incredibly much. I loved it from beginning to end. My life stopped so I could read, read, read it. The book ended and I have been a bit out of sorts all day. I am really looking forward to reading Chris Cleave’s earlier book called Incendiary.

One reason I got to read so much over the last few days was that my mom came into town for a quick visit. It was a lot of fun and I always wish she could stay longer. At dinner tonight, which was after we had just taken Gigi back to the airport, Bauer and I talked about all the things we did with Gigi and I asked him what his favorite was.

Here’s what Bauer and I named that he got to do with Gigi while she was here:
-Went to Target
-Walked to downtown Naperville for dinner at Lou Malnati’s
-Went to Barnes and Noble
-Played in the backyard a lot
-Had numerous picnics in the backyard (at least 4 in 3 days)
-Played with cars
-Read books
-Played and jumped on the air mattress

Bauer said his favorite thing was going to Lou Malnati’s with Gigi (and the rest of us) to have pizza.

That picture is on TJ’s phone, but I have some others to share. We have been on the letter L for the past couple of days, which was perfect for Lou Malnati’s pizza on Friday night.

Here are the L books,

and here’s Gigi reading them to Bauer over breakfast one morning.

Another big hit for the letter L was the Lite Brite I recently bought for five bucks at a homeschool curriculum resale. I was unsure of what exactly I would be getting inside the taped-up box, but I figured for such a small price, it was worth the chance. Everything works, and there are plenty of the unused Lite Brite punch-through black pages for Bauer to do. A nice surprise!

Of course, his first pick was the train!

This is a great activity for eye-patching, too.

Before L was I, J, and K.

For I, we looked at igloos on Google Images and then made an igloo on construction paper.

Next Bauer made an igloo out of letter blocks.

Then we went to a nearby park and saw that the tiered climbing wall looked like an igloo.

If You Want to Read Some I Books….

Or you could play I Spy Bingo (fun times).

I had trouble deciding on J books. I had first gotten the Jellyfish one and a couple of books by Jan Brett to be our J books. But then I realized I really wanted to use the Jan Brett ones for N (Noah’s Ark) and T (Trouble with Trolls, which also includes a dog named Tuffi). So we went with these two shown below, and then on the last day of the letter J, Bauer was looking through the books on his bookshelf and pulled out A Big Bed for Jed and said that should have been a J book too. Oh well…

We went all around downtown Naperville looking for places starting with J to take pictures of. Our first stop was Jamba Juice, and Bauer (and Cash) got a smoothie from there for our J snack.

Ezra Jack Keats was featured for the letter K. We had checked out all of Keats’ books one time a while back from the library, so this time, I knew just which ones I wanted to get for Bauer. A Letter to Amy is the one he liked best.

We made a koala mask, which Bauer really enjoyed putting on and showing to Cash first, and then to TJ when he got home from work that day. I found the pattern on EnchantedLearning.com.

And last is our K snack: a kiwi shared by Bauer and Cash, who shared a dislike for the fruit as well (this picture was before Bauer had tasted it).

Oh, I just realized we’ll start M on Monday and Gigi bought Bauer some little packets of M&Ms for him to have on Memorial Day. That’s sweet!

This post is not all-inclusive. We do more than read books and eat snacks for each letter, but those are two of the easiest and most consistent things to take pictures of as we work on Bauer’s ABC binder. So those two things are definitely included here. The rest is just a hodge-podge of whatever I thought to take pictures of. We are spending about 3 days on each letter so far. And it continues to be a great experience for Bauer and me both.

I couldn’t think of an E snack other than eggs and eggplant. Bauer is allergic to eggs and eggplants wouldn’t go over so well for snacking. Here’s the letter E that Bauer made from Smarties.

We read several E-E-Eric Carle books and Bauer especially enjoyed the surprise at the end of The Very Lonely Firefly.

And here are the F books I picked from the library. If you want to know my secret to finding books for each letter, well, there is no secret. I even asked the librarian if there was any sort of alphabetical list by title, but there isn’t. I was browsing the Easy Reader aisle when I happened to see these two books. Both were hits with Bauer.

For an F snack, Bauer got to enjoy 1/2 of my 1/2 price Frappacino from Starbucks on Sunday. I haven’t had a Frappacino in ages, ever since they stopped making them decaf. Just recently, Starbucks introduced a big summer campaign called “Create Your Own Frappacino” (meaning you can make it decaf!) and through 5/16, all Fraps are 1/2 price from 3-5 pm each day. Not the best time to get there, but we went on a Sunday afternoon, and although I didn’t find my decaf Caramel Frappacino to be as good as I remembered, Bauer really enjoyed his F treat.

We took along a few F activities to do while we were at Starbucks that day, although we had to move inside to keep our stuff from blowing away. Here is a simple matching game I made up for Bauer to review his F verse from last year.

And here’s another matching game for the letter F. This is from the Enchanted Learning website I mentioned in a previous post. Bauer has really liked doing simple worksheets like this.

How fitting! TJ gave me Flowers for Mother’s Day!

That same day on the Easy Reader aisle in the library, I saw these books and thought they’d be perfect for the letter G. I picked three that I thought would be of particular interest to Bauer based on their titles and we’ve found them to be sweet little stories.

I don’t normally buy Goldfish and I do normally buy grapes, but this was a special splurge as the grapes were $2.49 a pound (yikes!) and the Goldfish were not on sale either. Guess the grocery stores didn’t know I’d be on G this week. Bauer made G’s and then ate them.

Finally, here is what Bauer and I worked on this morning. I showed him how to cut paper to make grass, and he did almost the whole thing by himself. Then I gave him a choice of four G words to draw: Gift, Golf, Grapes, and Guitar. See which ones he picked!

Ready or not, H-H-Here we come!

We finished up the letter D today. I think this was our third day on D and it’s been fun.

We made a dog craft, which I got from the Enchanted Learning website. You pay to join, but I already think it’s worth it for the few printouts and craft ideas I’ve gotten without having to google for things.

Then we had a D snack, Dried Fruit, and played a matching game.

Bauer chewed up and spit the apricot out, and wouldn’t even try the fig because it said it looked too crunchy. The d-d-d-dates were his favorite of course!

Cash entertained himself quite well while Bauer and I were working together.

And here are our D books! Bauer really likes Mr. Mo books right now, especially the Elephant and Piggie ones.

I finished Frederick Buechner’s Telling Secrets today and loved it. I underlined so many things and I wish I could share them all with y’all now. Here is one of my favorite quotes, in which Buechner is describing what takes place in support groups such as AA or Al Anon, and what ought to take place in the church:

“They do no give each other advice. They simply give each other stories about the good and the bad of what has happened to them over the years.”

Thank you, Miska, for recommending this book to me. Now I think I might have to read some George MacDonald. Buechner quoted him as saying, “Even if there be no hereafter, I would live my time believing in a grand thing that ought to be true if it is not.”

Silence, please, for how that line made me feel.

And now for some noise, perhaps these pictures will make you laugh (at least the first one).

Cash has discovered the markers!

Bauer was very busy working on his construction worker. This is a Perler bead project that you make by ironing the beads together once the design is complete.

This is a great activity for strengthening Bauer’s eye by patching and focusing on tiny objects.

Cash loves standing in the chair watching what Bauer does…

and grabbing for whatever he can.

For a minute, everyone is content! Thank you, Nana, for sending TJ’s old Legos so we would have a fun new way to pass the time. The little Lego helicopter is a big hit with both boys. We can’t wait for the next assortment!

Lots of pictures and lots to blog about. More to come in the next few days. I must do it in stages.

The week before Christmas, Bauer had a little Christmas sing-a-long program at his Parents Day Out. He didn’t do much singing along, but he and Cash sure did look cute in their matching sweaters. I love how they are looking in opposite directions.

Also the week before Christmas, Bauer got really into his Geo-Trax stuff again. He hadn’t played with it in months so it was very entertaining for him and even for TJ. Shown here are two amazing tracks these two amazing guys built.

The Sunday afternoon before Christmas, we went back to work on the Christmas Stocking Project. Bauer’s job was pushing the pedal.

TJ was the man with the plan, and he did a great job figuring out where to do the stitching of the white cuffs to the red stockings to make it all turn out right.

When it was my turn to do some of the sewing, I told Bauer he had to find something else to occupy him besides the pedal-pushing. I was afraid he’d go too fast for me. TJ said I did just fine.

Cash got in on the action, and was as happy as a lark with that orange Sharpie in hand.

You thought the next picture would be the finished stockings, but alas, they still didn’t have our names on them yet. That would be closer to Christmas before getting done. Stay tuned….In the meantime, TJ and I got away to downtown Chicago for the night of the 22nd to celebrate our 9th anniversary. The kids did great with our amazing babysitter, and we had a nice time taking the train, walking around the city, having dinner at Bandera, seeing the movie “Up In The Air,” and doing some shopping.

This Christmas, it’s not Here Comes Santa Claus! It’s Here Comes Ginger’s First Sewing Project.

TJ is a great teacher. And we are making something we can use in less than a week. Yay!

This was TJ’s stocking growing up. We are going for the same simple, old-timey look.

It was tough deciding between this Super Easy Snowflake Stocking pattern on the cute the purl bee website (although we wouldn’t have put the snowflake design on them) and this very basic Classic Stocking pattern on the Family Fun website. TJ liked the overall shape of the Classic pattern better, so we went with that template. I still like the Snowflake stockings a lot and maybe we’ll do those next year. Or maybe even these adorable ones!

It was my first time using a sewing machine, except for maybe my grandmother letting me push the pedal on hers years ago.

I was slow but happy.

TJ is a whiz on that machine! He learned to sew when he was in Home Ec in high school.

Stay tuned for the completed project. There is a deadline looming!