Funny Things Kids Say

Oh, I know it has been a while, and I really am trying to get back to updating this more often.....REALLY! We have made a leap into homeschooling preschool, and I admit, it is taking more of my time than I had foreseen to come up with fun ways to do school type learning activities. I've spent lots of time in the last couple months finding, downloading, and printing, and putting together file folder games, other random learning games, and lapbook activities for my girl and I to do. Then of course there is the normal amount of crafty activities like coloring and painting, as well as music, story, and pretending time we do. I love to see how much my girl is absorbing, like a little sponge! It is amazing! A couple months ago I was feeling really overwhelmed with the idea that she was ready to be learning things that I didn't have the background or know how to be able to teach her, so I did a lot of online research, and spoke with some of my more knowledgeable relatives and friends, who all assured me that I was already doing great.......but I still wanted some more CONCRETE IDEAS of things to do together that would be learning activities or a bit more challenging for my girl than I could come up with off the top of my head. (HUGE thanks to those who gave suggestions or even mailed your supplies all the way up north for us!) So, now we are in the implementing stage, where we are spending time doing the games and activities whenever we can/she wants to. It has been a lot of fun! On Friday, for example, we rolled long pieces of paper across the floor, taped them down, then painted the bottom of our feet and walked across the paper, making trackways. My girl LOVED this! Then we painted some more and played an alphabet/picture of animals matching game. We are still in the stage where I am suggesting things we might do, and she gets to pick ones she is interested in, which I feel works great since she likes to be the 'mama' and have me be the 'grown up girl Elise'. I am also feeling a lot better about her being more confident with the skills she will need for real school, so she can not be so shy when we get to that point (maybe), and can concentrate on the social aspect of them when the time comes. Overall, its been good, but we've been busy beavers, to say the least! The unforeseen challenge comes with my girl giving wrong answers on purpose and thinking it is incredibly funny. It started with her spelling her name wrong, but branched out into my asking her anything I know she knows, her giving me the wrong answer, and then giggling uncontrollably. This has also manifested itself in my asking her to do anything, like clean up her toys, or help with a job, or brush her teeth, or stop trying to jump off the back of the couch- and she thinks it is funny to NOT do it......We've had some small stories, songs, and games on obedience, and things have gotten a bit better, but it is still one of those things I didn't know to prepare for and am still not exactly sure how to handle when it is something that she is learning and would be lots easier to learn right the first time, rather than having the game of giving the wrong answers. For a while she was doing 'its funny to spell my name wrong' for so long, that she wasn't spelling it right at all. We had to go back and practice the right way several times, and now we're back to saying it right every time. One of those small things we're working on, which becomes incredibly important when it is a safety issue! Fun fun fun.....

So, there were a couple funny moments at church yesterday, which I would love to share. We were walking through the hallway on our way into the chapel, when my girl noticed a painting of some people on a ship traveling to a new place, having faith that God would keep them safe and get them to their destination (Nephi and Lehi). My sweet little one pointed out the picture, "Mama! Look at that! Look!"
I said, "Yes, who is on that boat?" Keeping in mind that we have been reading some scripture stories, and practicing telling them with flannel board stories so she can do part of our Family Home Evening, I thought she might recognize this painting and the people depicted in it. I forgot however that we've been concentrating more on the New Testament, than the Book of Mormon.....So I ask my girl who is in the picture and she replies confidently, "PIRATES!" I got a good laugh, AND we got another opportunity to learn about a scripture story she obviously isn't all that familiar with!
The other funny incidents were in nursery class later that day. I am blessed to be able to go to class with Elise as her teacher, and be on hand to witness/help her interact with the other kids. She has been doing great lately, although we still have a moment or two where the concept of sharing is in opposition to her ideas of being the one to make all the decisions. And I notice that Elise likes to pretend without the aid of toys more than the other kids. She will be the first one to start hopping around being a frog or kangaroo, or flap like a bird. Occasionally she plays a game she does at home with me quite often. She LOVES to be the mama, and have me be the daughter. She says stuff like, "I am going to my work (or class), and you are going to stay in your class with your friends. If you need me, just call me!" It is not always easy to catch on to which role she expects me to play, but yesterday she made it quite obvious. She kept calling me 'Elise' until I called her 'Mama', then she told me she was going to her class and I was going to stay in mine. The other kids got these really confused looks on their faces and asked, "Where is she going?" It got even more confusing for them when she just went over into a corner and pretended to hammer something together (which is what she usually does when she is pretending to be at work with her Daddy). The other kids don't have their parents in class with us, so they are always a little concerned the Elise is calling me Mama, but they can't have theirs. Throw into the mix that she gets to be the parent, and the kids just didn't understand. I tried to ask if they ever pretended to be the adult, and they just didn't get it. I thought the whole thing was pretty funny.
And the last thing my precious little girl did. It was toward the end of class, and she was coloring a picture of things we can be thankful for, including food, clothes, home, and our families. The family depicted included a mom, dad, sister, and brother. This family depiction isn't very accurate for most of the kids in our class, but they usually roll with it, and color away happily anyways. One little girl, while coloring next to Elise, was describing her family as she colored and announced happily that her Mom was going to have a new baby. When she announced this a while ago, I just thought it was wishful thinking, because she plays with the baby dolls all the time. Now it appears, their family ARE expecting a new baby, and this little girl tells us, often, how she is going to have a new brother, and a baby. Not to be outdone, my little one pipes up yesterday, in a loud, carrying kind of voice, "I'm going to have a brother! Yeah, I'm going to have a baby!" Well, we ARE NOT expecting, and would not really enjoy having people start asking us if we are, but it was really funny to hear her announcing this, and to see the wheels churning in the heads of the other adults in the room. Kinda funny, and I, not knowing what to say, just replied, "Oh, that would be fun, wouldn't it? Well, you have cousins!" She agreed and we started talking about her fun cousins, who she likes to pretend are visiting us and playing games with us. Once we (her and I) played Candy Land, and Elise had to have 3 playing pieces on the board. When asked, she told me that the third piece was for her cousin in Oregon. She then drew a card for herself, and moved her piece. She 'helped' me draw a card and move my piece, and then she helped Cousin A draw her card and move her piece. We played the whole game that way! So, cousins are fun pretend playmates, although the reality of them being their own people with ideas and personalities might be a bit of a shock when we actually get to visit in person!

So, things here are rocking right along. Logan is hard at work, doing lots of things, working on the house as well, and took time last week to paint the car (it looks amazing!). We have reached two milestones with our girl. A couple months ago, she successfully transitioned to not using a pacifier any more!!! We've also had our first tangible success with the 'special seat' training, which we've struggled with off and on for the last couple years. She could do it, she just didn't want to, until we took drastic measures! After trying everything I was comfortable trying to no avail, I discovered she couldn't stand to not have pants on at all, and would use her special seat, on her own, every time, if not wearing them....Which means we spend a lot of time at home, and she is doing FABULOUSLY!!! And earning beads and fun things from the earning box and exclaiming "Hooray!! I did it! I'm a grown up girl!" without any adult prompting/requesting! I NEVER would have thought I would be okay with this option, but as it is working, and she is able to be in control of this situation, we're going with it! Next is the transition to continuing to do well but WITH pants on......Fun times for everyone!!!

June already?

Well, we've just gotten caught up doing lots of things and having adventures. We're working on getting pictures organized (as well as everything else) on this new computer, as the other one officially bit the dust. We'll try to post an update of sorts soon.......hopefully! In the meantime, here's a picture of our cutest little bug, who is getting to be way too grown up way too fast!We cut her hair for the first time EVER, in April. She wasn't very excited about it.....since she'd never had her hair cut before! It took her so long to get any hair at all, and then for it to grow, that I never had the heart to cut it before. Her hair was getting so long, and she isn't really a fan of having it brushed. She says things like, "not again!" when I tell her it is time to do her hair in the morning. Some mornings she even proclaims, "Never brush my hair again! Never ever!" So....having it shorter is good in some ways, although it still wants to go forward into her eyes, so we've been working on clips or something to help with that. So here she is!
Doesn't this next picture just say it all? I love it!

And in this last one where you can see her cute hair that is still curly, she is wearing her necklace for earning beads. We decided that having a camp necklace where she could earn special beads for certain activities might help with motivation for certain activities.....So here is her "girls camp necklace" with all those beads! Hooray!

More Fun from Recent Days

Yesterday we wrote about some cute things my girl has said lately, and this morning I remembered a couple more. Lately she has taken to adding her 'title' to her name. When we play, she often will change which person/character she is being rather quickly, and it is sometimes hard to keep it straight whether she is being Clifford the big red dog, or Larry the cucumber, or Buddy the T-rex, so I will ask her who she is. When she is just being herself, she will reply, "I'm Elise, the grown up girl", just to make SURE I know who she is. She often congratulates me on being a grown up girl too, and is quick to cheer for any grown up girl activities. What fun!

The other funny happened again on Sunday. She had taken a little break with Daddy, and when she came back to the nursery room, they opened the door. My girl paused for dramatic effect, then proclaimed, "Elise is here!", as though the party and fun could now start because she had arrived! It was hilarious!

On Monday night, Elise took charge for Family Home Evening (FHE). She picked all the songs, which she has been working on all week. We were learning The Church of Jesus Christ together, and through the week I'd hear her practicing all by herself. She's getting good. And she even taught the lesson. She used her handout that we did in nursery to tell a very simplified version of the Easter story. It went something like, 'When Jesus died, his friends were sad, and put him in a cave called a tomb. There was a round rock in front. After three days the rock was moved and Jesus was Resurrected, which means he was alive again! His friends were very happy!" She had the tomb, rock, and picture of Jesus to show us how it went, and did very well. I think her Daddy was a bit surprised at the simplicity of the story, but we got the point and learned that new big word, RESURRECTED. And she even told us that this coming weekend is General Conference for the church and we will see the Prophet and the Temple in Salt Lake City on TV. SHE DID GREAT!!!! I love it when she wants to pretend sacrament meeting or nursery class time. She likes to be the one conducting the meeting and giving talks, although she gives me turns as well. She really likes the part where she gets everyone to raise their hands. And she likes to sit on our carpet squares and tell me the stories about the pictures of Jesus too. She is a great teacher!

As fun as all of those things are, her new favorite thing she rediscovered is blowing bubbles. She will blow bubbles for a long time, sometimes with my help, but sometimes all by herself. She has a spill proof container, and has figured out (finally) how to actually blow the bubbles. While she really enjoys popping the bubbles or trying to blow them around once they are formed, her favorite part is getting on her hands and knees to mop the floor after it gets all soapy from the bubbles. She LOVES to have her bowl/bucket and rag and drip water all over the floor. She tells me all about how she is like her friend Cinderella. I got a video of her doing this, and we even turned on the Cinderella music for her to sing with while she mopped. It was so cute! When she dips her finger in the water and then holds it up, she is pretending to be Cinderella from the Disney movie (she blows bubbles in her soapy water). After this first time of bubble mopping, I learned that I could mop up real quick and get most of the soapiness, and then give her just a little water for her own mopping.....there seemed to be a rather large puddle after this mopping....

So, if you want to come over to play, we'll be blowing bubbles and being Cinderella all together!

Funny Things of Late

I love my girl. She says some of the funniest things. I guess that can be said of most people's kids, but since I'm with mine all the time, I am limited to telling the stories of her rather than all the other cute kids.

So, first off, my girl is very helpful. We pray as a family before meal times, and in the evening before bed time. My girl LOVES to be the one to say the prayer. She has a couple things she says in every prayer, including being thankful for the food and for all of the blessings we enjoy. We have been encouraging her to add something. Usually she will open her little eyes, and then express thanks for the first thing she sees, like her stuffed cougar Kisa, or a balloon she earned, or a book she'd been reading. Many times she expresses gratitude for all the members of our family, including herself. She is also becoming more.....'leader-ish'. She likes to pick who should say the next prayer. The way she does this is pretty funny. We will all be sitting around her dinner table, and I will say, "Do you want to say the prayer?" My girl will either say, "Sure," or she'll say, "Ummm, no thank you." Then is the funny part. She'll point to either her Daddy or me and say, "You're it!" by which she means it is our turn to pray. A couple days ago she declared it was my turn, and then said, "Don't worry, I'll help you, cause I'm your Mama." She likes to pretend that I am her, and she is the mom, so I said, "Ok, thank you." She then proceeded to instruct me on folding my arms, bowing my head, and closing my eyes. When I was properly ready, she whispered things to me to say in the prayer. I, of course, tried to include the things she wanted me to say, and added some of my own. She wasn't too impressed with my embellishments. When she told me to say "thank you for the tv and my books", I instead said that we were very thankful that we were able to spend time together as a family doing fun things like reading or watching a movie. She looked at me disappointedly and repeated her whisper, "thank you for the tv and my books." Well, she is persistent, and knows what her expectations are, and is good at communicating what those expectations are to others.

Yesterday morning we were getting ready for the day, getting dressed, brushing teeth, and such. Elise wandered into the hallway, then ran back into my room and said, "I hear a weird noise!" She usually thinks it is Daddy coming home from work, but it was too early in the day. As she didn't offer any explanation for the noise, I teasingly said, "I hear you!" since she had been singing and dancing around and making noise like all 3 year olds. She looked at me, shocked, and said seriously, "I am NOT WEIRD!" She paused, as if thinking momentarily, and then declared, "I'm cute!" I had a good laugh, and had to agree she is pretty cute! I love that she is old enough now (or I guess age doesn't really have anything to do with it), or her hair is long enough now, for us to do some fun things with it. Growing up with so many sisters, I had lots of practice doing braids and ponytails. I have had to dust off those skills recently, and have had to re-learn how to do a french braid fast enough that the braid-ee doesn't get tired of standing in front of the mirror while her hair is pulled. My girl is a trooper, and has asked for braids a few times, and is even girly enough to request ribbons as well. We've been having fun being THE GIRLS, and Elise will frequently tell me that we're sisters, or friends, or that we're "all together, like a family".

Then this morning, I was vacuuming the rug in the front room, and decided the couches could probably use some attention as well. Elise was sitting back, watching the action, until I pulled the cushions off the couch to vacuum underneath. She moseyed nonchalantly over, and climbed up into the space the cushion usually occupies. I had to ask her to move off the couch until I was done, which she did, but she stayed really close, waiting....When I finished the one couch and moved to the next, she said, "Please, I have these?", gesturing to the cushions. I agreed and proceeded to vacuum the second couch. She commandeered those cushions as well, and declared that the cushions and their spaces on the couches were the swimming pool, and that she and her doll Suzy were going swimming. She even invited me to join in as she taught her doll how to swim. I had forgotten that she loved to do this at her grandparents house in Oregon when we stayed with them....we'll have to take some pictures for some comparison shots....What fun! She has such an imagination....

Which sometimes leads to funny situations. She likes to pretend that Clifford the big red dog is playing at our house, and either she is Emily Elizabeth, or she is just borrowing Clifford. At nursery on Sunday, Clifford, apparently came to play. Elise doesn't often play WITH the other kids, she prefers to have me play just with her. But this last Sunday as we sat in class, she informed me that she would be playing with Clifford, and went to an unoccupied space of carpet. Then she said, "Clifford, you are running so fast!" and pretended to watch him run around, and then ran around with him. The other teacher turned to me after hearing Elise address Clifford, and said, "Is she playing with her imaginary friend?" I had to laugh, because Elise pretends all kinds of friends, and frequently pretends to dress up in costumes and be different people herself. I hadn't really thought of this as having an 'imaginary friend', so it was a bit funny.

This morning I asked Elise to help me with a project. She said, "Absolutely" (so funny!) Then she said, "Well, maybe we do a different project for me. Like make a lion costume for me to wear!" She compromised and agreed we could paint a mask that looks like a lion (we got a couple masks at JoAnn's for $1) instead of making a whole costume. FUN TIMES!

Anyways, that is all the fun things from lately....that I can think of, at least. We'll try to do better at putting those fun stories and our pictures up....we have just been side tracked with getting some projects done lately. We'll try to do better! In the mean time, we're all healthy, happy, and glad that we get to spend time together!

Playhouse Extravaganza

I don't really consider myself a creative person. I am a pattern person instead. I like to do things that have complete instructions for me to follow. I am not one to visualize a crafty project and make it up as I go. With that said, this latest project has been a real stretch for me, and I think it came out ok, and is at least functional! In the last couple months, we've been working together on a new project for our girl. Logan designed and built the frame out of PVC pipe, and I sewed the house to go over the frame. We saw lots of different play houses online, and decided that most were too expensive for us, and that we could make our own. I really liked the idea of using felt for the walls, because then it is like a huge flannel board type situation. We were able to get the large bolt type felt for the big pieces, and used the little sheets for the details. I thought about putting velcro on some of the outside features, but it turns out the small felt pieces stick pretty good on the big felt structure, and big details could be sewn on pretty easily. We got one wall done, the back one. That is why the pictures are a bit sideways...it is against the wall. I haven't decided what to put on the other walls yet, but my girl is REALLY enjoying her play house. The kitchen set Elise received for Christmas, as well as her small couch and all her doll accessories fit inside the structure. One of her favorite activities is called "apple hiding". When she asks to do this she really means she wants to take all the small felt pieces off the wall, including her apples, fish, turtle, sun, rainbow, clouds, flowers, and Clifford the small red puppy, and put them in a basket. Then we take the pieces inside and lay them all out. We separate them all, then take them back out and put them on the house. Elise does this a lot. Sometimes she just picks the flowers and brings them inside to put in a vase on her kitchen counter. She is also enjoying having her own space to take care of her baby doll (that was another recent new thing...we'll talk about that later too). She loves being the mom and being in charge of her space. And she loves getting mail in her mailbox and ringing her door bell. Sometimes we pretend her house is a train we are riding on, or just her special place for us to have picnics. The windows out are another favorite feature, especially the heart shaped one on the door. I ended up reinforcing the door and heart window with a second layer to keep the felt from stretching (that's the one draw back to using felt, it stretches). All in all, it has been a lot of fun. I sometimes wonder what we'll do with this when the day comes that we move and no longer have this kind of space in our front room (it ended up being bigger than we thought it would. It measures 6 feet by 6 feet, and the roof peak is about 6 foot 10 inches high. Logan can stand up inside without hitting his head!), but for now, we're all enjoying it tremendously!
Hooray for a fun playhouse!!! Any suggestions for the other outside walls?

Tot Books

As we are now in the stage of being 3 years old (we'll post on the birthday another day), we have been looking for activities we can do together to be learning some fun new things. We aren't really looking for formal preschool, but just some activities that are more geared toward learning stuff to be ready for school. After some research on my part, and lots of help from those with more experience/ideas, we found some really cool things. My sister-in-law found a great book with ideas for doing activities to learn letters and other such fun things. My older sister had lots of ideas from things she'd done with her kids, and suggested looking on the web for some specific preschool activities. After trying lots of different things, some that worked and some that didn't, we found this website:

1+1+1=1...Tot Books & Tot Packs

There are things called tot books, which are similar to the lap books sometimes used in home schooling (although the lap books look to be more advanced and are more a unit summary of a specific topic like history or science). These incredible women have put together some really neat tools for doing preschool type activities at home. For instance, there is a Cinderella tot book that includes a coloring book, a shape booklet, a name accordion, and number cards. The pages are all free to download and print out. I printed them, cut them out, laminated them with my YOURSTORY machine (a truly wonderful thing if you don't have a store that laminates for you), and made our first couple tot books, which means putting the activities together in pockets inside a file folder. They have all different kinds of tot books, mostly with similar types of activities, like learning letters, shapes, colors, numbers, and putting things in order according to size, but are different characters or themes. We have put together the dinosaur one, which includes a 'Dinosaur Train' color matching game, and the 'Curious George' one. Elise LOVES her special books. Mostly I have laminated them so she can color on them over and over, and they just wipe off with a napkin. This is especially helpful with the name cards. We started with her putting the letters in order to spell her name, and are working on tracing the letters (which usually gets pretty interesting, but she's getting better!). She loves having some special time to sit down and work on her special books together, or even 'all by herself' if she's feeling independent. Some of the activities I left just how they suggested on the website, but some I tweaked to make it a matching game. I am working on putting together some more, and when she gets to the point where she's ready for a new activity or would be more willing to 'work' on her learning activities with a new book, we can pull one out. I have some other work book type books, but they are the kind you can only do once, and the tot books, being laminated, we can enjoy and practice doing again and again. There are so many great homeschooling websites with free downloadable/printable activities, and I am way impressed with the people who are coming up with these things. I just don't seem to have the background/experience/skills for teaching preschool stuff that can come from just me, so I'm way grateful for those who have done the work, and I can use their tools to have some fun and educational time with my kiddo. So, that said, here are some pictures of my attempts at tot books (I learned that permanent double sided sticky tape works WAY better than the temporary kind, and that the pockets for the cards should be just shorter than the cards so the kid can get them out), and of my girl enjoying them.
This is the Cinderella Tot Book:


And here is the Dinosaur Tot Book, which had puzzles too, and they are included in another book:

A Love of Nature

We are somewhat in the middle of the wilderness, living here in Alaska. I admit that I am not a very 'outdoorsy' type person, and would prefer to enjoy our time inside rather than battle the icy winter conditions outside. My girl and I do lots of fun things, and are exploring many different activities lately. Even though we have many events to update our blog about (including Christmas, and birthdays), we're going to skip most of them and move on to one that is an adventurous part of our lives lately, because we took this video today, and just had to share it. We discovered a new cartoon on PBS recently, called 'Dinosaur Train'. Elise LOVES this show. She is learning so much about dinosaurs and all their different features. The show is centered around a family of flying dinosaurs, called Pteranodons. The children, including the adopted son who is a Tyrannosaurus Rex, learn all about the other dinosaur species by visiting them on the dinosaur train. It is a great show that explores the world of dinosaurs in a fun way, and is in no way scary. My girl is learning tons of things about all the different dinosaurs, some animals today who share similar characteristics with dinosaurs, and even some family values as well. She LOVES this show, and will frequently amaze her Daddy by telling him all about these animals with multiple syllable names. Frequently during our pretending time at home, Elise will pretend that we are the Pteranodon family, doing various activites like collecting shells, examining dinosaur footprints in a track way, riding the dinosaur train, or looking for new dinosaurs. She also likes to act like all the different dinosaurs and tells me what makes each one special. We found the website for the Dinosaur Train show, which has a field guide section where they tell about each dinosaur and have a picture. We printed them out, and put them together in a ring/flip book for her to use during our playtime, and so we as parents can help her learn some more facts about these animals, and learn how to say the names correctly. We got it done yesterday, and she has really enjoyed going through it and telling us all about her dinosaur friends. And the good news is: we got a video! The first few pages are characters in the Pteranodon family from the show, and the rest are the dinosaurs they learn about and meet during their travels. I tried to get a view of the names while filming, but Elise just recognizes the pictures and tells us who is who. Someday she'll probably move up to actually reading the names, but for now, it is just recognizing the pictures. So, here she is, our little 3 year old dinosaur expert. We hope you enjoy 'exploring nature' with us!