Egg-citing

I liked this activity much better when I only had one child AND when it was done at Boagie's house AND when I was the one snapping the pictures/running the video camera. Before scrolling through all the pictures, be sure to watch the video of how the event started out:










Not too promising, right? Well, Zachary did end up having fun (I've included another video as evidence) and Mikie was very well behaved through the whole thing. In the end, we ended up with a dozen eggs to hang on our Easter tree, 1/2 a dozen hard boiled ones to eat, and 3 sets of very colorful hands.

They started out using the spoons....

Zachary is learning a new technique from his brother.....

And quickly decides this is the way to do it!

I now have children with Smurf hands.

Hanging the eggs on the tree.

The egg hunt for preschoolers got rained out so we ended up hunting eggs inside of the building.

Zachary, Lily, Kaitlyn, Mikie, Leah

The kids showing their full baskets.

Meeting the Easter Bunny.

Rebecca & Leah came to spend the day with us.

(Look for a future post about our adventures at the Cherry Blossom Festival)

Circus: "Over The Top"

Having two little boys who love elephants made the circus a perfect choice for a family outing on March 21st. We were able to arrive an hour before the show to watch the clowns perform and see an elephant paint a picture. It was exactly what the title suggested: "Over The Top". At times it was almost too much stimulation and you didn't know where to look or what to watch. The ponies, dogs, horses, tigers, and clowns were all a big hit; however, the two favorite acts were the motorcycles in the round cage and of course, the elephants!

The elephant painting a picture.

Clowning around.

From the moment we walked in the door, both boys started asking for popcorn...

...and they wouldn't stop shoving it in their mouths long enough to take a picture.

Mikie says...

It's been awhile since I've posted one of these:

I'll start with a saying that he has just always said: When pushing a truck/car backwards he'll say "I have to Beep Up" (instead of back up...I guess because some trucks beep when they back up)



While playing with his leapfrog touchpad, one of the questions I heard the book ask was: "How many brothers do you have?" Mikie responded "Three" So I ask him why he said three instead of one and he promptly tells me, "You're going to 'lay' two more" (Gee...let's hope not!...although that does fit in with the prediction my mom's friend did with a wedding ring which revealed 4 boys + 1 girl)



Mikie enjoys looking out of the car window and telling everyone what type of clouds are in the sky. One day he saw the really big ones and said "God lives in the cumulonimbus clouds" I too remember thinking that God lived in the clouds when I was a kid.



Recently, I've been trying to convince him that he still needs a nap (which he really does!) but he's been fighting it hard. So, I've told him that on the days he takes a nap he can stay up until 8:00, but if he chooses not to take a nap then he has to go to bed at 7:00. Strangely he cannot seem to remember if indeed he did fall asleep or not. So, one night as we were driving home from dinning out, Mikie pipes up from his car seat in the most serious of all voices "Oh NO, it's 7:08...did I take a nap?"



2/25/09 At the intersection of Route 1 and 17 while stopped at a red light, the boys spot the car dealership to the right. Zachary is pointing at the balloons and saying 'pink'. Mikie told me that Zachary wanted a balloon and I explained that they were not giving those balloons away. That didn't stop him from saying: "Maybe we can get one of those balloons with a car attached to it." (yea, if it were only that easy....Excuse me, sir....my son would like a balloon with a car attached to it...a pink one please.....and could you make sure the car that comes with it is a Mercedes.....thanks!)



Here's a funny story that didn't need any cute sayings:

Mikie (usually) doesn't get a lot of tv time each day so when he does get to watch something he is really focused on it and hates to have to miss any of it. In the middle of a very interesting Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I see him push pause and jump off the couch. I ask him what he's doing and he tells me he has to go potty. I then watch him run for the kitchen while looking over his shoulder to make sure the show is still paused. All the while he has his thumbs poked into his pants getting ready to pull them down to take care of business. I decide to keep watching because the bathroom is in the opposite direction from where he is headed. With his eyes still focused on the plasma screen he opens the refrigerator door and starts to pull down his pants before he realizes what he is doing and then shakes his head and laughs as he runs to the bathroom. I was laughing hysterically for minutes! This immediately brought back "the fridge" incident while we were potty training him 2 1/2 years ago.

The Fridge Incident (2006/07 while potty training Mikie): When Mikie was 19 months old, he asked me what I was doing in the bathroom one day so I told him I was going pee pee on the potty. To which, he replied "Mikie go pee pee in potty" From that day on, he would go whenever I went. To speed things along, we let him go naked from the waist down while running around our house and he'd usually do a great job remembering to "hurry hurry" (as Boagie taught him to say). On one of those "naked" days I was fixing lunch with Mikie underfoot in the kitchen. I opened the fridge to get out a needed ingredient and Mikie reached in to get his milk. I didn't think much of it and even watched the door swing closed only to be stopped by his little legs and backside. After lunch and nap (a significant time had passed) I went to the fridge to begin to prepare supper and reached for some type of condiment on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator door....when I saw it....a cold, hard poop nugget! Mikie hadn't been playing in the fridge, he had been so quiet and still because he was pooping in the fridge!

Allergy FREE

After six months of being on a milk and egg free diet, Zachary went in for more allergy testing on March 4th. We were surprised to hear that he had outgrown his allergies and went back the following week for a milk challenge. He was suppose to drink small amounts of milk in slow increasing increments at the Dr. office to see if he had any reactions. It was a long 3 hours stuck in a room with Lincoln Logs and a T.V./video player when the weather outside was begging for us to come out and play. Unfortunately, Mikie was very sick with bronchitis and on the nebulizer so he just sat and watched 3 hours of Dora, Veggie Tails, and Blues Clues while Zachary screamed about being held captive against his will. How ironic is it that I was at the "Allergy and Asthma Associates of Fredericksburg" for Zach's allergy testing, but Mikie was the one sitting in a chair getting a nebulizer treatment every 4 hours. Everyone looked slightly confused as to whom they were suppose to be treating that day. The nurses truly felt sorry for me and I think they sped things along because they could see how torturous it was on all of us. Of course, just as I suspected, Zachary wouldn't cooperate and drink any of the milk; so, I had to shoot it down his throat with a syringe every 20 minutes. I was honestly suspecting a runny diaper by the time we got home, but alas, he didn't have any reactions and is truly Milk allergy free! Praise God and I am now a huge believer in "probiotics" (HMF powder). Seriously, they have turned little Zach's life around completely...no more ear infections, gaining weight (slowly), and only 1-2 stools a day verses the 6-8 a day that he averaged until he was 18 months old and got the super high dose of the HMF powder.

Immediately I began trying to get Zachary to drink milk to no avail. The 19 pound 20 month old has a will that even a drill sergeant would spend months trying to break before giving in to his inscent crying. He absolutely refuses to try anything new. I did everything I could think of to get him to like milk. Here are a few things I tried: a new sippy cup with Thomas on it, a fun cup with a straw, a cup without a lid, his juice sippy cups switched to milk, fruit smoothies, chocolate milk, 1/2 chocolate 1/2 white milk, organic strawberry milk, milk flavored with Boagie's strawberry jam, milk mixed with his juice, and banana flavored milk....I think that's it....but I could be missing something. And after each and every sip that I actually fooled him into drinking before he wised up and pushed it away, he would say "ick." I really hoped he would like drinking milk (just like his big brother...he copies everything else he does!) so that he could start gaining some weight, but it is NOT going to happen. He avoids anything dairy and even refused to eat his oatmeal that I started making with whole milk instead of rice milk. There may be a small glimmer of hope because this past Monday he had an ice cream cone for the first time in 6 months and seemed to enjoy it (after saying "ick" for the first 3 bites). I also got a tip from a friend (and mother of 4 boys) that perhaps he doesn't like the thickness of whole milk and I should start with skim milk and slowly increase it to whole milk. I plan to try that as soon as I make it to the store. Any other ideas are always welcome! Please post them as a comment.

So, since I was pushing the milk so hard this past week, I had given him 3 crackers and a strawberry for a snack along with 3 types of milk and some water. I was fascinated as I watched him exhibit OCD behavior with the things on his tray (he's his father's son!):

Notice how each snack has it's own cup scooted next to it. Great matching, Zach!

What he lacks in size, he makes up for in his fearlessness and boundless energy. In the video below you can see how he practices his "donkey kick" from gymnastics. (that's my mom's voice on the phone in the background)

He also has a great memory, but just cannot verbalize and articulate very clearly. In this video he names all of his monster trucks (ignore the crying child in the background who is sitting in time out and is ready to: "say my 'apologize', Mommy")

Zachary Says....

On a beautiful day last week, the boys and I were playing in the driveway when Zachary looked up and saw the moon in the bright blue sky. He said: "Ball, Ball" Yep...it did look like a ball was stuck in the sky. I just had to laugh.

On that same day, we were blowing bubbles and the breeze was taking them up over the house. Zachary would run after them and then say "Bubbles Back!" He was a little disappointed that I couldn't make them come back.

Zachary loves to play duck, duck, goose or any game that even closely resembles it. Mikie wanted to play sea lion, sea lion, shark (same game...different words). Zachary was all too eager to play with us and when it was his turn to be the "ducker" he patted Mikie's head and said "Sea lion" then patted my head and said "Sea Lion" then patted his own head and said "SHARK".

National Zoo in DC

Winter to Summer in just 5 days!

It's hard to believe that just five days after our big 8 inches of snow, we would be spending a beautiful Saturday at the National Zoo. When we heard that it was going to be 70+ degrees the first weekend in March, we drove to the metro, hopped on board the blue and red lines, and spent an afternoon finding the remainder of the animals from Mikie's sticker book which he saved from preschool playgroup last year. The highlight of our trip was hearing a lion roar for about 3 minutes. He was walking around his enclosure and letting us all know that he was there. We had a good time, but the boys were fighting off colds so it wasn't as fun as it could/should have been.

Can you spot the animal in the background?

The last time we were at the zoo, the elephants were inside the barn and put on a great show for Mikie by stepping on the scales. Of course, he remembers that and wanted to go directly to the elephant house to see how much they weigh this time. Unfortunately, the one and only elephant was outside for the day; so, no numbers this time.

Like I said, neither of them was feeling 100%.

This was my favorite part: The Rainforest! The animals roam free in this exhibit and we were lucky enough to see a monkey crawling across the vine above our heads in the canopy.

Zachary on the forest floor

"I'm touching the understory"

Time to take this little monkey home.

Dr. Seuss Day 1 & 2

"All that deep, deep snow...

all that snow had to go!"

-Dr. Seuss from The Cat in the Hat

It's as if Theodore Geisel himself was doing the weather report on the day of his very own birthday. As I mentioned in my previous post, we received 8 inches of snow on Sunday night which completely shut down our area the following day (March 2nd). Since there was no way the 4 other mothers from my MOPS group were going to bring their kids over for a Read Across America and Dr. Seuss Day Birthday Celebration, we rescheduled for Friday and Mikie and I spent the day in true Dr. Seuss form.....making messes:

Since we had just been to Seussical the Musical the night before, Mikie asked to read "Gertrude McFuzz". In this story, the bird only has one feather but isn't satisfied with her plain tail and wants a bigger & better one. She eats a pillberry and immediately a bright feather pops out. She continues to eat 3 dozen pillberries and now has an extravagant tail. (You'll have to read the book for the rest of the story) So, here is Mikie with his Gertrude McFuzz complete with a beautiful tail and 36 pillberries (he insisted we have 3 dozen!) which he thought of, not me. Perhaps there is some creativity in his little body after all.

Next book: Barthalomew and the Oobleck

Synopsis: The King is tired of the 4 elements that fall from the sky and summons his magicians to create something new. The result is a sticky green substance they call Oobleck. Which can be replicated using 1 1/2 cups corn starch, 1 cup water, & Green food coloring. I wasn't sure Mikie would even touch the stuff because he hates to be messy, but he played with it for about 45 minutes and loved it as you can see in the video below. It's not quite a solid and not quite a liquid. Michael described it as something similar to mercury.













Not pictured: If I Ran The Zoo with a mixed up animal flip book activity.

Dr. Seuss Day 2009

The day was a huge success and all the kids seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. We decided on 3 stories with 2 activities per story. We divided up into pairs and each planned an activity to correlate with the chosen book. It was so nice to have 8 different ideas/activities for the kids and only have to prepare for 1 of them. We had 5 moms, one grandma, and 10 children at my house to celebrate a day of rhythm and rhymes.

The Sneetches

Activity 1: Pin the Star on the Sneetch:

Activity 2: Painting Personalized Sneetch Beach Bags:

Zach loved painting/stamping the green stars on his bag.
So did Mikie, but I don't have a picture of him. This was my planned activity so I didn't have a chance to snap any pictures (not to mention my hands were continuously covered in paint).

I Wish I Had Duck Feet

Activity 1: Assembling a Which-What-Who using a picture of yourself

Zach's Which-What-Who

Mikie as a Which-What-Who

Activity 2: Turn yourself into a Which-What-Who with antlers & duck feet and then decorate and eat some duck feet cookies (Mikie's favorite part)

Zach's Antlers

Mikie eating his duck feet cookies

The Cat In The Hat

Activity 1: Make a Cat Hat Snack using cookies, frosting, and life savers

The fun was spilling over into lunch time and we still had one more book to get through so I nuked some Schwans Chicken Fries and called them Cat's tails. Here's Mikie with his life saver hat.

Activity 3: Color & Assemble a Cat In The Hat

The hat was suppose to be an AB pattern. Somehow this one became very unique. Coloring inside the lines is not of any interest to Mikie.

Lastly, it was time to sing Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss, blow out the candles, and eat some Star Shaped Sneetch Cake (which was so yummy with bananas & strawberries inside...Sabrina, please share your recipe). I happened to find red plates with white polk-a-dots that looked exactly like Horton's egg from Horton Hatches An Egg and one of the girls told me the napkins looked like beach towels from the Sneetch story. Perfect, I didn't even think of that!
It was a fun, fun day filled with many great ideas and a lot of hard work. We're already marking next year on our calendars and there is always room for more to join us.

Now, all day long I couldn't help but be reminded of my first and forever favorite Dr. Seuss Day with my mommy friends in Oak Harbor. Here you go, WA girls...enjoy:
Photoshow from Dr. Seuss Day in Whidbey Island