V is for...

VEGETABLE!

The letter of the week at Peyton's preschool is "V". I always try to do a craft at home during the week that goes with the letter. So, here's this week's creation.

You can guess which one is Peyton's and which one is Layla's

As usual, I borrowed this idea from Allie at No Time for Flash Cards (one of my absolute favorite places to get kids craft ideas). As you'll soon learn, I'm not very creative. I'm great at taking other people's ideas and creating from them or maybe tweaking them a little to fit us, but hardly any of my crafts are original, but I'll always try to give credit where credit is due. Thanks, Allie, for all the fun ideas you've given our family!

Here are some pictures of Peyton actually creating his vegetables. He named the vegetables from my "creative" drawing all on his own and even the first time which impressed me given the quality of the drawings, told me which color they should be, colored them and cut them out all by himself. Just in case you can't tell, there's a carrot, potato, mushroom, broccoli and tomato. I was pretty impressed by his concentration on this project...one of the many benefits of Montessori preschool!

Carrots are orange and have green stems

Peyton works very hard cutting out each of his vegetables

Layla has a very different idea of coloring vegetables, but she loves to color

random pictures

Let me first say...pay no attention to any dates you may or may not see on pictures on this blog for awhile. We do not live in the future, we are not clairvoyant, we do not have a time machine nor does time pass at the speed of light just for us (although sometimes it does feel that way). Unbeknownst to me, the date on my camera was horribly off...many years into the future. When I sat down last night to retrieve all the pictures taken in the last two months and found this horrible situation it caused me much angst as I tried to correct it. I finally gave up on some parts and here are the results. Lots of fun pictures with no real order.

Enjoying a snow day

Creating something in the kitchen with Mommy

Golf Ball Painting

Layla was definitely more into using
her hands than making the ball roll by
shaking the box

Layla gets her first chance to bowl

Librarian Layla wears Mr. Potato Head glasses

And Peyton tries to be a Princess

Peyton wrote his name all by himself

So proud of himself, he hung it on the door to his "house"

Making a Valentine's Day caterpillar.
I just love the concentration on his face.

Layla paints her caterpillar without her shirt...easier cleanup

Peyton gets a Valentine's Day counting lesson...
if he wouldn't have eaten so many, he would've had enough to finish

I got a quiet moment with both of them home,
but I'm sad because The Wiggles are back as an
oft request

Surprise, Mommy! I want out of this shirt.

Did you know a broom makes a great train connector?

I was planning to begin this blog much earlier, hence the picture taken began but not the writing. Hopefully, I'll do better at keeping up with the writing.

Last, but not least, a little contest...

You tell me how I took this picture. Special prize for the closest guess.

Introducing...Peyton

So, here's the idea behind these posts...I "interviewed" each family member with these same questions and I want to do this each year on our birthdays (or at least the kids) from now on just to see how things change.

These are the answers given directly by Peyton. Daddy and I's thoughts are at the end. To be fair, I made Peyton pause a Clifford show on TV to give these answers so I believe some of them are a bit skewed, but let's face it, this will never be scientific, but fun none-the-less.

Color? Red
Food? Pancakes
Show? Clifford
Character? Clifford
Song? Mommy's Good Night Song (This Pretty Planet)
Book? A Clifford
Sport to play? football
Sport to watch? football
Holiday? Halloween
Snack? "trails" (marshmallows, raisins and peanuts)
Animal? giraffe
Favorite thing to do with Mommy? play with play-doh
Favorite thing to do with Daddy? play wrestling
Favorite thing to do with Layla? play with a ball

He's holding a football

Peyton is 3 soon to turn 4. He is going to preschool 5 mornings a week and mostly likes it. It's still a challenge to get him out the door on time, but it's much easier on library days (Tuesday), gym days (Thursday) and popcorn days (Friday). He is definitely not a fan of Spanish (Mondays) and isn't excited about going to art (Wednesday) but always come home with an exciting story about what he did in art. He is becoming much more independent because of preschool and I mostly like that. It is helpful that he is starting to do things for himself and I've used it to my advantage many times.

This was after the first day of school. It is much better now!

He definitely loves the color red. If he's not wearing it somewhere each day then rest assured he had nothing to do with picking out his outfit and he's probably not happy that not even his red underwear are clean.

Not sure where the pancake answer came from, other than that probably is his favorite breakfast. He also really likes hot dogs, mac and cheese and peanut butter and jelly. He can make his own sandwich now and won't let it me any other way.

As I said, all the Clifford references are mostly true, but he also really likes Curious George and Dora the Explorer. He has recently latched onto a book called Rattlebang which is the longest children's book one can find, but a fairly good take on the Good Samaritan Bible story retold with cars. We don't even have many Clifford books and they are definitely not favorites of ours as they are hard to read. But, he does ask for George a lot and often brings Dora or Bob home from library day at school.

Sports! Sports? Sports! Peyton is our sports guy! I don't think there's one he won't attempt to play or watch. Football is definitely a favorite, but if you ask what Saturday is....it's bowling day. He bowls every Saturday morning with his friend Tyler and loves it! He has also tried to play baseball and golf in the snow this winter. The cold weather is not going to stop him; he was begging to go out almost every day.



News to us...Halloween must be has favorite holiday. When I asked him that question, he first reply was, "What's a holiday"?" So I mentioned everyone I could think of except Halloween and that was his reponse. I have no idea where it came from, especially since I didn't think he really had that much fun at Halloween last year. He was scared of most of the other costumes, wouldn't say "trick or treat" to anybody nor did he say Thank You. It was a long evening, but apparently he did like it.

Peyton does snack a lot. I feel like he could eat us out of the house if I let him. But, he'll usually eat fruit or vegetables first. "Trails" is definitely his favorite and he has it everyday when he watches a movie for his quiet time during Layla's nap.

Even though the zoo isn't open for the summer yet, we are ready and very excited for this year because we will be able to feed giraffes here in the Fort! We'll see how much he really likes them then. So far, things that are bigger than Peyton do not make him happy, but maybe that'll change and he'll find that experience as neat as I am hoping.

We do a lot of play-doh playing in this house, as well as, other crafty things. Peyton loves to do this, but only after Layla and I have started. If I ask him, he usually says no, until we're doing it and then he wants his seat and his material and he'll sit and do it for a long time. He could wrestle with Daddy for a very long time...Daddy always tires out first. And playing ball with anyone is fun, but I think it's all he could think of with Layla.

That was fun...we'll see what he says next year. Or maybe on his birthday, if it's a lot different.

No More Church Days

As we were driving to school last Friday morning and talking about what the next day's activities would be, as is the usual topic of conversation on these trips, Peyton informs me "there are no more church days for a while."

Me: Oh yeah, why do you say that?

P: Because there are no more football games.

Oh the backwards ways we've been teaching him. We'll start working on these priorities, IMMEDIATELY! Along with the normal Sunday request for pizza lunch in the living room watching football.