4 years, 10 months/2 years, 8 months.

After an unexplained but very sweet sojourn in our bed (Connor tucked himself in and hung out by himself for awhile, then came out), we all went to the Wensley's house to ring in the (GMT) New Year with friends.  Happy New Year!

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 8 months.

Will is spending his time off work (not sure this really qualifies as a vacation) potty-training Connor.  They went to the store to select potty-treats, then headed home for intensive basic training.  Connor did a great job: just one accident at the very beginning of the day.  Graham is an enthusiastic cheerleader (surely related at least in part to the fact that he shares in the potty-treats, but he also seems genuinely excited and proud of Connor).  

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 8 months.

Merry Cousin Christmas!  We celebrated a day late with the Millers, the Ottos and Nana.  Thank you Nana for your hospitality, thank you all for the beautiful presents, and thank you Molly for sharing your new Christmas toys with the boys!

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 8 months.

Merry Christmas!  Santa came!  The boys were a delight this Christmas--excited but not grabby, wanting to play with each gift as it was unwrapped, too young to know about waking up the whole family at 5 am out of excitement.  We spent the morning unwrapping & playing and then started preparing to have the Josts over for playtime/dinner in the afternoon.  Will brought his turkey-roasting skills out of retirement and cooked a delicious bird + stuffing, and the Josts brought cranberry sauce, brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes.  This Christmas feast did not go over particularly well with the kids, who even rejected the sparkling cider.  Oh well, more for us!

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 8 months.

Christmas Eve!  This was our first no-coats Christmas Eve, with a high of 72 degrees.  The boys, who have been yelling "Christmas is coming!!!" every morning for weeks are finally almost ready to sing a new tune.  They enthusiastically put gifts under the tree, selected cookies for Santa and treats for his reindeer, and wrote Santa a note.  With fingers crossed, everyone headed to bed.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled, "Run run as fast as you can":

Dear parents,

We began our week with more apples. What else could we possibly make
with apples, you ask? Apple butter, of course. We peeled, sliced, and
cored more apples with the dimming blades of the Amazing Apple Peeler.
We mixed in a few ingredients and placed it all in the slow cooker,
a.k.a. Crock Pot.

While the apples simmered all day and into the night of the shortest
day of the year, Lauren read a book and told us of magical lights. She
presented the children with lights to hold and to gaze at upon the
ceiling while telling of the winter solstice. We sang Twinkle Twinkle
Little Star and ate snacks.

Tuesday lasted about three days. We mixed our gingerbread cookie
dough, and while it rested in the fridge for an hour, we used some
serious hand eye coordination to spoon our apple butter into tiny
little jars for our families. The children also cut out green circles
to place atop their jars. Some loved that part so much that they cut
many circles, perfecting fine motor skills. And they wrote their names
on their little circles! We talked about the joy of giving gifts and
the children spoke of giving their apple butter to family members. One
person said they would share theirs with their mama but wanted to eat
some too. That was after we all got a little tasty taste.

We read two versions of The Gingerbread Man. We compared them, looking
for similarities and differences. We ran, ran, as fast as we can,
around the big room, while we took turns stopping to cut cookie cutter
gingerbread men. We put them in the oven with hopes that they wouldn't
jump out when we opened the door. We talked about who would chase who
if they did. Everyone was convinced we could catch them if necessary.
When they were ready, we decorated them with eyes, smiles and buttons.
Everyone chose one gingerbread man to represent each family member and
carefully placed them in a bag.

Wednesday we ate the gingerbread men with milk and our families. The
children made placemats to show their families where to sit and we
planned for the children to serve parents. One person asked, "But then
who will serve us?"

When we return in the new year we will begin a unit combining folk and
fairy tales with sculpture.

Thank you muchly for the yummy gifts and cards and all! It is greatly
appreciated.

Have a peaceful holiday,
Therese

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 8 months.

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 8 months.

Will took Connor to his Christmas party at school this morning, where the kids sang Christmas songs and ate cookies at 10 am.  Apparently Connor seemed pretty confused by the whole thing.

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 8 months.

More cookies!  This was the first year both kids were really interested in decorating.  In the afternoon, we went to a live version of "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Connor and Graham both loved Snoopy and were starstruck when they met the actress.  Speaking of starstruck, after the show, we took the kids to a 5 pm dinner at Frankies 457, where we nearly didn't get a table because (a) it's insanely popular and (b) John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, and family were also eating there!

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 7 months.

Christmas prep is reaching a fever pitch.  Graham and Connor enlisted their play date friends, Amelia and Wade, to help make peanut butter blossoms.  Graham "rule enforcer" Miller kept us on track with candy unwrapping.  Everyone helped sample the cookies.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled, "Home wasn't built in a day":

Hi All,

This warm winter week everyone began by choosing a box to paint for
their houses. The second day we added carpeting, wall paper, and
little pieces of furniture. We read This Is The House That Jack Built.
We reread The Wonderful House and one person decided to put wings on
his house like the house in the book. Someone suggested we add
windows. We said it may be too hard to cut real windows in everyone's
houses, so he said we could just add pieces of plastic for the
windows. We did. Some children visualized and counted the windows in
their real houses to figure out how many windows to add to their shoe
box houses.

We made a list of things in our house and reread Our House. We
compared our list to the items mentioned in the book and added some to
our list.

We have been able to have plenty of time playing in the yard. Running,
swinging, climbing, restaurant, killer kitty, and sisters, have been
some favorite activities.
Our trip to the bagel shop was delightful. We saw a bubbling pot of
water, a cold pot of water, hundreds of pounds of flour, and a 450
degree oven. We ate 20 bagels after the visit! Twenty. True story.

More shoe boxes please if you have them. And and and coffee cans.

Next week we will make cookies and invite parents for a brief cookies
and milk visit before we begin our break. That will be on Wednesday at
11:20am.

Dear whoever does the tree sale this weekend, could you please save us
the cut circles from the bottom of the trees?

Have a merry weekend,
Therese

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 7 months.

Thank you Grammy for the finger tattoos!  Connor and Graham are both getting a whole lot of monster fun out of these!

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 7 months.

Graham's first real Nutcracker!  Well, pretty much real.  The version we went to didn't have live music, did have a narrator (?), and the quality of dance was pretty low even to my untrained eye, but it was a good introduction for Graham and his friends.  Graham watched intently the entire time.  His favorite part was the battle between the Nutcracker and the Mouse King.

Leaving the Nutcracker, Graham and I had a spirited debate over whether it was a movie or a show.  Graham has strong feelings about lexical semantics, though the basis for his arguments is generally flawed.

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 7 months.

The kids have mastered the arm slide!

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 7 months.

I'm not sure where Connor is going in this flyer saucer, but he wanted to make sure that all his most important things were in it with him.

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 7 months.

While Lily and Jacob were over today, Jacob told Graham that our Elf on the Shelf isn't real.  Graham corrected him.

4 years, 10 months/2 years, 7 months.

Will is teaching Graham the appropriate sound effects to go with the Star Wars legos as Graham builds each one.

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled, "The apples of your eye":

Dear parents,

The apples of your eyes made apple stamps this week. We used red and
purple paint. We made an apple mural similar to our lemon mural. We
also mixed with spoons and hands; glue, borax, and water to create a
new and improved sensory play dough called gloop. It feels cold, and
moves slowly all on its own when left alone. We used it almost every
day this week. Except when we squeezed and squished the new red berry
scented play dough Kim made for us.

Pastor Meeter took us on a grand tour of Old First Church. We went up
stairs and down stairs, into the organ balcony, sat in the sanctuary,
looked at stained glass of a shepherd, some angels, and a grape vine.
We got to see his office and he dressed up in his robes and cassock.
Afterwards we ran in the yard for a few minutes without our jackets
on. Yes, without jackets however it was only for a few minutes, maybe
four.

Sadly, our trip to La Bagel Delight was cancelled due to the bagel
baker calling in sick. Hopefully we can reschedule. Instead, we spent
extra time with our new play dough and in the yard where some people
played restaurant. We had coats on and ate bunches of pretend food.

Our final yoga with Denise was as peaceful as the rest. The children
made her a thank you card with many kind words and hand tracings.
Hopefully she will be back in the fall.

We have been discussing the rough play with the boys. It is not always
so gender specific but at this time it has been mostly boys to man
handling. We are asking them to speak up to each other and say it is
too rough, or asking friends to stop. We are also asking everyone to
stop and listen to friends' words, encouraging them to talk to one
another and not always yell. It begins innocently enough with a super
fun energetic running game, and sometimes ends with a crash and a
bang. Everyone is a bit ramped up because of the holidays and it can
add to the classroom excitement. Maybe give some reminders before
school to be aware of our own bodies and those around us, keeping our
hands on our own bodies. In addition, when wrestling at home, remind
them that while we can wrestle at home, we cannot at school because
there are too many people.

Friday we made delicious apple muffins. The children all helped do
different parts: cutting the apples, pouring ingredients, mixing dry
and wet ingredients, turning the oven on and putting in the muffins to
bake. Everyone ate most every bite.

Next week we will work on transforming small boxes into little homes.
If you have shoe boxes or other small similar sized boxes, please
bring them in. The more, the merrier because we will need some for
another project as well.

Thank you,
Therese

4 years, 9 months/2 years, 7 months.

St. Nicholas came by overnight with new ornaments for everyone, just in time for our tree-trimming.  No ornaments were sent to the ornament hospital in connection with decorating the tree, but there were several near misses.  

In the afternoon, Graham went to Bear's birthday party, where he made his own pizza (which he did not like...at least there was cake!).  After a juice box at the bar with his friends, we headed home to cheer on the Eagles with Daddy and Connor.

4 years, 9 months/2 years, 7 months.

We had a very busy day today.  First, Graham worked on the lego advent calendar while Connor looked on longingly.  Next, Graham and I headed to a Carmelo the Science Fellow birthday party for Phin while Daddy and Connor checked out a new play area.  After naps, we paid a visit to Santa and picked out our Christmas tree.

Graham and Connor were both happy to get on Santa's lap and receive their candy canes.  Graham asked for a race car.  Connor asked for "underpants like Graham's."  

4 years, 9 months/2 years, 7 months.

Haircut day!  Chasing the carrot of a lollipop, Connor was a perfect client at the barber shop.

Connor has suddenly hit the "why" stage.  

Therese's e-mail of the week, entitled "Home Sweet Home":

Hi families,

This cool sunny week we began by reading In Our House, The Wonderful
House, and Animal Homes. We searched for shapes in the houses in the
books and found circles, triangles, rectangles, squares, and arches.
Everyone then used some of those shapes, and glue, to create their own
homes. We asked the children,  "Who lives in your home?"  They
answered by adding paper doll cutout shapes of everyone that lives in
their homes. Some children added eyes, smiles, and clothes, while some
outlined or filled in entire bodies. There were a few minimalists too.

We played in the big room which is always a big hit. People are loving
the jungle gym, some block building, balls and tricycling.  We added
dress ups, and two containers of kitchen toys. We talked about taking
things out and putting them away. It is a regrouping and sorting
activity for the children returning things to their proper baskets or
places on shelves. It also allows them to take responsibility for
their classroom environment and to feel ownership. And they know where
to get the toys from next time because they returned them to the same
location after each use.

Yoga continues to be a calm posing joy for the children. They were
thrilled to see Denise again. While half were in yoga, the other half
read Heather Has Two Mommies. Afterwards we filled in a chart about
who is in our families. We counted and added up how many big brothers,
how many little brothers, how many pets, and so on and so forth.

Friday we made apple pie. We cut the apples using The Amazing Apple
Peeler. We added cinnamon, sugar, flour, nutmeg, and butter. We tossed
the apples, put them in a pie shell, tossed it in the oven, and then
ate it up. Yes, we ate the entire pie. Two children said they didn't
like apple pie during preparations but when they saw the pie and
smelled the pie, they had a change of heart. A few people said they
had never had apple pie before. True or false? The children said we
did not eat our eye pie but we can eat our apple pie. That we know is
true.

Next week more apples, our church tour with Pastor Meeter, and a trip
to La Bagel Delight.

Have an apple a day,
Therese

4 years, 9 months/2 years, 7 months.

4 years, 9 months/2 years, 7 months.

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Connor and Luda went to Chuck E. Cheese's this morning with Connor's friend Zoey.  He reports that he ate hot fries and good dip (aka ketchup).