more felt board fun

the kids are continuing to have fun with the $5 felt set and board i made during a class at the public library. and then we discovered that we could check out ready-made felt sets from the library! manning, in particular, really loves to tell stories. this has been one of his favorites (the video is SUPER long) - polar bear, polar bear, what do you hear? (although he says "see" through the whole telling.) love.

mommy time

this morning i saw all of my children off to school, stopped for an iced coffee, went to the pool to read a book and close my eyes for the first time in eight years. huge exhale. to just relax (and laugh out loud, with tears) without worrying about my greatest treasures. it has been a really, really long time.

preschool isn't going to bring me much more than two hours a week of truly free time (well time where i can check to-dos off quickly), but it will be glorious to have complete thoughts on a regular basis.

i feel like i am entering a sweet spot of parenting - no diapers and no teens. love.

another book recommendation

this book has been a (fought over) favorite since we picked it up from the library and the conversations the kids have had while looking at it together have been fantastic. keep your eyes out for you choose by nick sharratt and pippa good hart, but maybe at the library. it is pretty pricy on amazon. love.

update: so here is a picture of inside the book and a video of them discussing the options (they were all talking but you can see that madelyn dominates in the video). they have serious spent hours and hours with this book. each page has a question at the top and then a lot of images to choose as your answer.

everyone reads here

madelyn picked out a great read for her baby. she told me when i was taking the picture that it took a long time to get the doll just right to hold the book. silly girl. we do love books around here! love.

more book love

maddux likes to have books read to him and on the rare occasion i do sit down, he is quick to hop in my lap with a book.  he will also take books to bed with him (and bring them into our bed in the middle of the night) and has even taken to bringing a pile to bed with him and laying on top of them (so he knows where they are).  but i am most pleased that he has decided that he can 'read' them on his own!  he brought a few favorites to the table while i was cleaning up the kitchen and the older kids were in school to 'read'.  he asks me the names of things he doesn't know but mainly he counts and 'reads' to himself.  love.

bloodsuckers

bloodsuckers has been madelyn's favorite book for the past two weeks (until we returned it to the library).  and, yes, she asked me to read it every day.  yes, there were pictures that were graphic enough to gross me out.  yes, reading it to her gave me the hebie-gebies.  yes, it was a children's book.  yes, i will screen what gets checked out from the library a little more closely in the future (it was a rushed, rough trip to the library).  love.

another book lover

mason sneaks off to look at books when he needs some 'alone time'. he will just go off to his room and look at his books quietly (or sometimes he does go into madelyn's room to look at hers). i just love how content he is browsing.

he has strong opinions about what is read to him though. if he doesn't like a story he will close the book and start squirming. it doesn't mean that he won't ever want to hear that book read to him or even like to look at it himself; he just doesn't want to hear it at that moment. he settles into you if he likes the book.

the video shows him browsing in his room. love.

apples and oranges

matt and i looked at each other last night and discussed how this weekend flew by and wasn't restful or really that productive. madelyn had fun though.

over the past week madelyn has been requesting apples. she likes to eat apples whole (like mommy and daddy) instead of sliced. she does a really good job of eating most of an apple down to the core (skin and all). not to mention that she loves it! she has also grown so fond of oranges that we have to stop her from eating the rind. she will pull them straight out of the produce drawer and try to take a big bite and then once she is eating the wedges she has trouble moving on to the next one when the rind is still left. in the picture she is being a ham saying "cheese" for the camera with an orange rind in her mouth.

last night we had her friends avery and tess over for the super bowl (and their parents and a few of their friends). the girls only stopped to watch the 3d commercials. madelyn really liked the glasses and spent some time wearing them today too - not to watch tv though. the 'serious' football watchers (aka the guys) went downstairs to view the game child-free. they did comment that it sounded like a herd of elephants running around upstairs. at the end of the night moms and girls were all exhausted! madelyn told me she was "sleepy" for the first time - ever. she always goes to sleep willingly and will ask to "read books" when she is ready for a nap, but this was the first time she has ever admitted to being tired.

in other maddie news...

- her favorite book right now is "paddington bear". i picked it up last minute on our quick trip to the library last week when it caught my eye on the shelf. i didn't know how well she would like it since it is pretty long, but we must have read it at least 20 times the first day! every time i would finish she would say "again". i was the one who would finally bring an end to the marathon.

- when i tell her "thank you" she replies "welcoming". she used to just say "welcome", but it has become "welcoming" recently.

- she is getting really good at singing along with me. she even sings the first verse of most songs before i get started. while i love singing with her, she really favors singing during meal time which makes it more difficult for me to eat.

i will try to include some video in my next post. love.

first zoo trip of the year

even though the temperature said 9 (degrees), it was sunny and i decided that madelyn and i would try a trip to the zoo. we both needed to go somewhere to stretch our legs and i didn't really want to spend any money if i could help it. i figured the worst case was that it would be too cold and we would head out for "plan b".

madelyn was SO excited to be at the zoo! as soon as we pulled into the parking lot she started with repeating, "yea, zoo"! she practically ran to the entrance and started saying "penguin" as soon as we got inside (that is the first animal you can see). she remembered everything about the zoo and would get frustrated when the way we usually went was either closed for maintenance or was not cleared of snow. in the picture she is giving an enthusiastic "zoo" near the penguins.

surprisingly there were quite a few people there. any time madelyn would see someone outside the exhibits, no matter how far away they were, she would call out "hi" really loudly and wave. there were a few elementary school groups there that thought she was pretty funny and yelled "hi" back.

what was fun today was finding out how many new words she had for the things we saw today. and then being able to talk to her about it all later this afternoon. after we saw the birds madelyn started asking for the lions. i had not planned on seeing the lions because it is kind of a long walk outside and i was trying to limit our outside time. i decided that we would see how she was doing after the monkeys and the fish/reptiles. after we left the fish/reptiles madelyn was still asking for the lions. she was practically crying because she thought i was going to wrong way to the lions when i tried to take a shorter path instead of the longer route we normally take.

when we got to the big cats pavilion madelyn ran in calling out to the "cheetahs". she was just screaming "hi, cheetahs" over and over. i could hardly pull her away so that she could see the much requested lions. and she still had to go back and see the "cheetahs" one more time before we could leave.

another highlight of our visit to the zoo were the chimpanzees. they were particularly feisty today! normally we don't see much movement from them, but today one of them was running around pushing a crate along the floor. madelyn loved this and kept calling to the chimp to "come" and "run". this chimp was just running all over and chasing the other chimps. when she finally gave up on the chimp running any more, she enjoyed her snack on a bench in front of the orangutans. she liked watching the baby orangutan climb all over and play with a plastic swimming pool. this came up when she was telling dad about her day. he was a little confused when she told him that the monkey was in the pool, but i confirmed that it was indeed true.

we were at the zoo for about 2-1/2 hours and did the trip without a stroller. i only carried her twice during some of the longer outdoor stretches to try and keep the exposure to a minimum. towards the end she did start to get upset from being tired and hungry - like crying and saying "no" to everything i offered her. once we got in the car she was still in a "no" kind of mood. sometimes when she is fussy in the car i just have to let her hold my hand and that is good enough for peace. she fell asleep in the car, without any lunch, and slept for a little over 3 hours. i am so lucky.

it was really nice to get some fresh air. even if it was really cold fresh air. and the walking was really nice too. madelyn has been asking to go outside for a walk a lot lately.

lastly, i couldn't resist taking a picture of madelyn reading several books at the same time while wearing her "book worm" shirt. she brought them out from her room one at a time and set up on the coffee table to 'read'.

love.

counting

madelyn requests to "count" in some of her books now. she will repeat counting through about six before loosing interest in starting over at "one" each time, but "eight" is her favorite number to say. she will always say "eight" when we get to it while counting.

there is one book she likes to "count" in particular - a bug book. it is colorfully illustrated, but the text is only the number and the insects' names. after five times through or so i start to have a difficult time bringing enthusiasm to the counting.

similarly to the repetitive counting, we also have to repeat the names for the seven dwarfs (a la snow white) when we get to that page of the story. she just keeps saying "again", "again". love.