JTOK Chatter > Page 230

Star of the Week

Posted on by

At Back To School night, we had to sign the kids up to be Star of the Week—basically an “about me” board to share with the class—and I was able to grab the week of his birthday. So this weekend we worked on it. I had asked him to think about what pictures he wanted to use, but that was too broad. So I started asking him about specific pictures, but of course he wanted every picture I suggested. So I just picked a bunch of good pics and then once I saw the actual instructions (the theme turned out to be more “show why your child is a star” vs. a general About Me page) we concentrated on four areas:

  1. Owen is a master builder (Legos).
  2. Owen loves his friends and family.
  3. Owen is a great big brother.
  4. Owens loves to play in the water.

I printed out all the pictures and text and had Owen cut them out (which he did pretty good at, but we need practice on cutting evenly around things). Then I arranged most of the pictures—but let him do all of the gluing (which was an exercise in frustration—plus I see now how kindergardeners go through a zillion glue sticks).

Star of the week Prep

Then he wrote a few sentences about things he liked. He did really well with the Star Wars and Family sentences (even using his pinky to allow for spacing between words) but then kind of lost it when it came to the Lego sentence… But overall, still an awesome job!

Star of the Week final

I have a feeling it will end up with more stickers on it by the time it goes to school Tuesday… 🙂

Owen’s first real play date

Posted on by

A tiny bit of background… Owen decided maybe two months or so ago that he wanted a pool party at our community pool for his birthday. We were totally on board with this idea since it would be inexpensive (no cost for the pool and we just have to buy food and drinks) and he could invite his whole class. Well, loooooong story short, we are still going to have a summer birthday party, but we will only be inviting a select number of friends…and in honor of his actual birthday, we are letting him have his very first sleepover!

So in preparation for the sleepover, one of the invitees came over for an extended play date today—it would also be his first away-from-home sleepover and we thought it best for him to be comfortable with us, the animals, the house, etc. His mom and I chatted for about a half hour (they were the ones we sat with during Bingo Night) and then she left.

The kids had a great time! There were light saber fights, beanbag jumping (with only a few warnings to be careful), and then finally…Legos!

(null)

(null)

When the visit got extended and I needed time to prep dinner without wondering what they were up to about the house, I finally let them watch a half hour of TV. 🙂

(null)

Catching up on school work

Posted on by

I’ve been very bad about scanning and posting Owen’s schoolwork/homework and art projects as they come home…so these are not really in any particular order, except I guessed on the dates and they’re all from about Thanksgiving to the end of the year. 🙂

The robot-like creatures are from a video game he plays with daddy and the numbers above them are their “health” in the game.
2014-10-01

At the time he told me what this was, but we’ve both since forgotten.
2014-10-02

This was from months ago, but I just took a picture of him with it this morning. It’s a playground he designed.
2014-10-12 owen playground 1

2014-10-12 owen playground 2

I love this monster!
2014-10-15 green monster

Better pictures of the satchel he made for the Thanksgiving Feast.
2014-11-19 indian bag 1

2014-11-19 indian bag 2

He came home with this turkey and honestly, the vegetable- and God-feathers threw me. One, he dislikes vegetables and two, we are not religious (and there has been no discussion of religion of any kind—not on purpose…it just hasn’t come up) so we were confused as to how he’d come up with being thankful for both those things. We asked him and he did the shrug-his-shoulders answer. I was thinking maybe he brought home the wrong turkey or took someone else’s feathers (because they didn’t really look like his handwriting) so I actually emailed his teacher! Turns out, after more subtle questioning, he just borrowed ideas from his classmates and copied some of the things they wrote!
2014-11-24

2014-11-27 07.35.14

2014-11-28

2014-11-29

Owen was VERY excited about the Hour of Code and everyone got a certificate! (The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics.)
2014-12 hour of code

2014-12-03_10_32_35

2014-12-05

Mom, notice the bubble light? 🙂
2014-12-11 winter family events

2014-12-15

They learned about all different holiday traditions…
2014-12-18 menorah

2014-12-19 hanukkah

2014-12-19 kwanzaa

2014-12-19 09.49.47

2014-12-19

2014-12-19 12.08.58

2014-12-21

2014-12-31 2015 calendar

Kidisms 2

Posted on by

Me: Katie, we have to change your diaper. You’re stinky.
Katie: No, I’m doing stickers.

This is what I hear from Katie’s room as I’m putting clothes away in Owen’s room.
Owen: Mama, come look at your daughter.

IMG_4406.JPG

Owen: Mom, I’m going to play this game by myself, okay?
Me: Great!
Owen, every six seconds: Mom! Look at this! Hey mom, red and green won. Mom! Mom! Mom!
Me: :/

Owen wanted to start a new Star Wars Lego project. I told him that it was the biggest and most expensive project we had bought yet…AND that it would be the hardest, too.
Owen: But hard is easy for me!

Owen likes to say “Mom, come look at your daughter!” when Katie does funny things. Tonight, we got this:
Katie: Mom, come look at my daughter!

Katie tripped in the kitchen.
Katie: Awww. I hurt the kitchen with my leg.

Katie: I’m a superhero!

IMG_4765.JPG

Local road trip!

Posted on by

We went to Manassas today to see one of Tom’s coworkers at a Farmers Market (he’s part owner of a BBQ place) and then we went to the fish/coral store. Of course I couldn’t get a good pic of the cool colors under the lights…but the pic still turned out cool.

IMG_4741.JPG

Drawing!

IMG_4743.JPG

On the way home, we stopped at the park:

IMG_4745.JPG

IMG_4746.JPG

IMG_4749.JPG

Katie LOVED this part. She had daddy help her the first time and then she had no fear.

Exploding volcanos!

Posted on by

This was a Christmas present from Aunt Beth and Uncle Jim and today we finally decided to do it. Owen was SUPER excited: “This is going to be AMAZING!”

2015-01-24kids032

Reading the instructions. We should have done this part before getting Owen involved. 🙂

2015-01-24kids035

2015-01-24kids036

As you can see, the “test” explosion wasn’t very crazy and the goggles really aren’t warranted. 🙂

IMG_4714.JPG

2015-01-24kids039

2015-01-24kids040

2015-01-24kids041

The compilation video:

BINGO!

Posted on by

The PTO had a pizza dinner/Bingo event tonight and we all went! Unfortunately we didn’t win any bingo games, door prizes, or raffle items…but we all had fun! After almost every game when someone else won, Owen would say “OHHHH! I ALMOST WON!” Even if he was five numbers away. 🙂

IMG_4694.JPG

Two out of four looking…that’s about right. 😉

IMG_4695.JPG

With Aden, one of his classmates (and the one he went to the martial arts event with and broke the board):

IMG_4699.JPG

The picture taken by the school principal (she’s at every event and walks around taking pictures with her iPad!)—again, two out of four looking:

IMG_4736.JPG

Aden’s family (our table mates):

IMG_4737.JPG

Afterwards, since the kids had been so good, we stopped and got froyo on the way home. 🙂

We have bunk beds!

Posted on by

We’ve casually thought about getting bunkbeds for Owen’s room (one with steps instead of a more dangerous ladder) but didn’t want to spend a lot of money on them because we didn’t need them. So one night I happened to see on a Facebook yard sale group that someone was selling a set for a decent price. The bonus was that they were shorter overall so the top bunk was not super high. Long story short, we ended up getting them. It was mostly a spur of the moment decision, but Tom and I both agreed on it so there you go.

Well, have I mentioned that I hate bunkbeds because they’re a total PITA to make? But I thought maybe I was misremembering or blowing it out of proportion and even if it was awful, I’d suck it up for my kid…but holy crap it’s just as awful as I thought.

And.

I thought I’d like that they weren’t full height beds…but holy crap are they low. There’s no way Owen can sleep in there (under there) long term because he can’t even sit up—he can barely roll over. And there’s no way adult guests could fit comfortably in there (when we need an extra bed, we’ve put someone there and move Owen to Katie’s room). And of course that makes making the bed even harder.

So at this point I was thinking we’d made a huge mistake.

But.

Thankfully Tom is handy and he can lower the base of the bed so there’s more room.

Worst case, we take it apart after a few weeks of testing and sell it (hopefully getting what we paid). :/ Best case Owen loves it and we get a lot of use out of it. (Mommy guilt sucks. I’m tempted into things I’d otherwise not be.) And for now, the kids loved playing on it while we were assembling it…

IMG_4661.JPG

“I can touch the ceiling!”

IMG_4663.JPG

IMG_4667.JPG

Bed time!

IMG_4673.JPG