Sept Week 3

This week we really enjoyed spending time at home.  Monday we grocery shopped and then I intentionally planned for us to be home all day Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  On Friday, we went to the library and ran errands. 

 Occasionally Mollie decides that she needs Ben to hold her.  She begs and cries. Here he is complying, but not happily.

 Mollie built this block tower by herself while Ben was bathing.

 Monday afternoon Ben decided to collect things from nature and paint with them.  He saw it on Sesame Street.

 Mollie likes to finger paint.

This week we focused on the letter C and read a different Curious George book each day.  We did a few fun things from each book.  On Tuesday, we painted Cs on the kitchen windows and back doors with bathtub paint and then washed them.  Curious George washes windows and paints in Curious George Takes a Job.  That wasn't my best idea since it took a lot of work to clean the bathtub paint (essentially baby shampoo) off the windows.

On Wednesday we followed the instructions in Curious George Rides a Bike and made newspaper boats and floated them in the bathtub.  That taxed my lack of common sense.  It took multiple tries before I figured out how to do it.  (Notice Hal's head on the right side of the picture.  He was fascinated by the boats.)

 On Saturday, we went to our friend Sam's birthday party.  It was cowboy themed and there were two ponies there.  Ben and Mollie loved them and made many trips around the yard on them.

 Ben riding Princess.

If he couldn't ride, he wanted to help lead.

 Mollie and Allie.

 Margaret, Sam, and Ben.  At church recently, Sam told John that Margaret is pretty and silly. 

 Barbie is eating a slice of watermelon from our hands.

Drawings

Here are some of my favorite recent Ben drawings:

 A flying Dorito.

 A snail.

 Dinosaurs.

A motor home.  It says Mama because Ben drew it for me.

Another Week

Nearly another week has passed without me posting pics so here is a look at our week.

Since Ben does not go to preschool, John and I agreed that he needed some daily structured learning time.  This is our second week and he's still very excited about it.  This week we focused on the letter B. 

 We read "Blueberries for Sal" and practiced adding with blueberries (blue pompoms).

 Ben found an old picture of where John had built furniture for Ben's stuffed animals.  They had to do it again one night.  Kitty Cat and Weenie are hanging out in their living room.

 Red Monkey is already in bed.

 Mollie has been very into building with the wooden blocks, too.

 One morning Ben gathered all his stuffed dogs and had dog training school.  He took this picture that includes his foot.

 Ben's friend Sam rode home with us from Bible study Thursday morning.  They are both working men and had a good time playing with the diggers and cement truck.

 One of the kids took pictures with my camera on Thursday morning.  Sam's mom and sisters brought pizza for lunch when they picked him up.  I'm on the right in this picture.  Can you tell that I got a major haircut Wednesday?

 Mollie playing babies with her friend Allie.  Allie is only a few weeks older than Mollie but is inches taller.

 Ben posing with the silly B that he drew.

We played basketball in the driveway a couple of evenings.

 



Funny Creative Kids

Playing drive-thru in the "dryer" box.

 Thursday Mollie got to play with glitter for the first time.

 Wearing what she calls her "snowman hat."  She wore it outside.  (Mollie's face is super messy because she had just eaten a chocolate chip granola bar.)

 Ben and John working together to build a block tower.

Ben and Mollie wanted their picture taken with the block building.  Notice the sign Ben wrote says"FedEx Express."  

 The back of the FedEx Express building.  Mollie is adding pieces but amazingly did not knock it over.

 I stopped by Ben's room on my way to bed and found him playing "Japanese steakhouse."  The books forming a square are a mixer.  Beside the mixer are a grill and a timer.  Ben said that he was the chef and Cat was his assistant.  I watched him cook for a minute.  He picked up a book and looked at it as if he was reading a label.  He said, "This is sugar.  It's good for making anything that has sugar in it -- tea, sugar cookies, and Japanese food."  I wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget. 

 Yesterday was our monthly class at the zoo.  Mollie and I are working together to make a giraffe paper bag puppet.  It seemed so strange to see Mollie really taking part in the class.  She's been going since she was three-months old but always as the tag along little sister.

 Ben followed the instructions and made his puppet by himself while I helped Mollie.

 It was so hot at the zoo yesterday that I let each one of them make a quick run through the spray park.

 We also cooled down with some rainbow pops.

 We made sure to have lots of quarters so that we could feed the goats, ducks, and fish.  Ben is feeding this goat a piece of grass that he picked.  The last time we went to the zoo one of the goats sneezed brown snot all over Ben.  He was glad it didn't happen again.

Last night John and Ben worked together to building a Japanese steakhouse.  I'm not sure why the Japanese steakhouse needed American flags but Ben thought it did.

A Moment of Peace

As I cleaned the kitchen this morning, I could see Ben and Mollie at their table coloring.  They were both so intent on what they were working on.  It was such a rare moment of peacefulness that I took a picture.

Another Week

I'm getting in a bad habit of just dumping a week's worth of pictures on my blog at a time.  Here are some pictures from the last week.  We spent a lot of time inside last week as Tropical Storm Isaac dumped gallons of rain on us.

 Wednesday as we were headed to bed the real tropical storm winds from Isaac began to blow.  I was concerned about Ben, whose room is closest to the largest trees in our yard.  We decided to let him sleep in his sleeping bag on our floor.

 Ben took this picture of our rain soaked yard.

 Ben is very interested in space.  He saw instructions in a book for building a space ship out of a paper towel roll and tin foil.  We gave it a try. 

 More science experiments.  Ben and Mollie are writing with salt water.  We heated it in the oven on low temperature and it dried into shiny letters.

 Princess cool.

 Ben being silly with hats.