The Little Legers: December 2009

Thursday, December 31, 2009

2009

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December

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Jack enjoyed sledding on some fresh snow today. We also went sledding yesterday as the new snow was falling outside. Grace and I showed Jack how to catch the falling snowflakes on his tongue. On his sled ride today Jack continued to stick out his tongue. Each time I looked at Jack he would immediatley stick out his tongue and then laugh and laugh. What a silly boy!

Every time it snows Grace asks me if she can make food for the birds. Grace has always loved animals and she is always concerned that the birds will have a difficult time finding food when the snow covers the ground. Just before we went outside today Grace made food for her bird friends by covering pine cones with peanut butter and rolling them in bird seed. From the looks of it I think Grace had a little taste of the peanut butter too!

Sledding

Monday, December 28, 2009

Sweet Surprises!

Grace loves her new tabletop easel that she received from Memere and Pepere for Christmas. Grace enjoyed drawing, writing, painting, and using her dry erase and chalkboard throughout the day today. I love easels because writing on a vertical surface really works a child's developing muscles in their arm and wrist that are required for writing. A child's hands and wrists naturally go into the proper position when writing vertically so easels are invaluable! Grace especially loved using her markers today to draw pictures of animals and people and to write letters. What was so very sweet was finding Grace's pictures taped up all around our home. I found a picture of a cat taped to our microwave, a picture of me taped to our kitchen cabinet, a page of letters taped on our front door, and several more pictures taped to the wall in our dining room.

In, On, Over, Under!

Our Sweet Jack-a-roo is quickly learning his prepositions! Where ever Jack is you can bet that he is either on, in, under, or climbing over or in-between something! Jack LOVES to explore. One of our favorite spots that we frequently find Jack in is inside our large book basket. Several time each day Jack climbs into the basket to sit and look at his books. Jack does an amazing job turning the books right side up, turning the pages, identifying pictures, asking questions ("at?" for "What's that?"), and using words and signs to name the pictures.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Our Merry Christmas

Click to play this Smilebox slideshow: Christmas 2009

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Thank you so very much to Memere, Pepere, Auntie Allison, Uncle Steve, Rose, and Kimberlee for a perfectly memorable Christmas!

Saturday, December 26, 2009

'Twas The Night Before Christmas...

We arrived to Memere & Pepere's house on Christmas Eve. We were all amazed and in awe of Memere & Pepere's beautiful ten foot Christmas tree. After bath time Grace enjoyed hearing Pepere read, 'Twas The Night Before Christmas and Jack enjoyed exploring all of the Christmas tree decorations with Memere.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Merry Christmas

Sorry there are no pictures to go along with this blog post this evening. We had lots of merry-making and Christmas celebrating to do today! Grace and Jack were certainly busy little elves as they finished the last of their handmade Christmas gifts. We thought that we would leave some Christmas gifts a surprise, hence no pictures today! ;)

We are leaving for Massachusetts tomorrow to spend Christmas with Memere, Pepere, Auntie Allison, Uncle Steve, and cousins Rose and Kimberlee.

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas filled with all of the beautiful joys of the season. ~Rebecca

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Glass Mosiac Sun Catchers

Grace made sun catchers today using picture frames and colored glass pieces. First, Grace removed the back out of the picture frames so that only the clear glass remained within the frames. Grace spread a generous amount of white glue on the glass and added the colored glass pieces. Once the glue dries we'll attach small hooks on the side of the frames and add string or ribbon so that the sun catchers can be hung in a window. Grace worked very, very hard today to make sun catchers for Maddy & Poppy, Memere & Pepere, Uncle Adam, and her cousins Rose & Kimberlee. Grace also made one for Daddy and one for Jack's window. Grace made her sun catchers during Jack's morning nap. When Jack woke up and saw his sun catcher he was so excited. He kept clapping his hands over and over again and Grace couldn't have been any happier by his response! I'll post pictures of Grace's beautiful sun catchers once the glue completely dries. The sun catchers turned out to be so pretty and they will provide a beautiful burst of color all winter long!

Snowball Surprise Soap

Grace, Jack, and I made snowball surprise soap yesterday as part of our first day of winter celebration. First, Grace gathered tiny treasures that she could hide in the middle of the snowball surprise soaps. Grace and I then took turns grating bars of Dove soap. The soap shavings closely resembled snow!

Jack clearly had a great time feeling and smelling the Dove bar soap shavings!

Next, Grace wet her hands in a bowl of warm water. She then pressed the Dove bar soap shavings around a chosen treasure. As Grace pressed the soap shavings around her secret treasure, she shaped the soap into a snowball shape. Grace made snowball surprise soaps for our family and friends for Christmas. Grace put lots of thought into what treasures to put inside the soaps for everyone.

Here are some of Grace and Jack's finished snowball surprise soaps. They look exactly like snowballs! Grace enjoyed making a soap for Jack and I made one for Grace for their bath time. They have been LOVING bath time with their new surprise soaps. Grace can't wait to find out what is inside her snowball and Jack will be so excited to find a rooster in the middle of his soap (one of his favorite animals)!

P.S. I think our house will forever smell like Dove soap! :)

"Let It Snow" Winter Door Painting by Jack & Grace

Monday, December 21, 2009

Painting Our Door To Welcome Winter!

Grace and Jack had such a great time painting our door for Thanksgiving so I thought it would be fun for them to paint snow on our door to celebrate the arrival of winter today. Grace and Jack mixed together white paint and glitter. They took turns standing on the learning tower to paint snow on our door. They also added white doilies to resemble snowflakes. The door turned out to be so sparkly and beautiful. I'll be sure to post a picture of Grace and Jack's winter white door painting tomorrow!

Dashing Through The Snow

We went for lots of looooooooong sled rides today along our road. Grace and Jack can't get enough of sled rides!! They love it. Jack stands by our living room window just to get a glimpse of the sleds outside in our driveway. He heads straight for the door when he hears me say, "Let's go for a sled ride." Grace loves riding in her sled and she also loves to pull Jack. We were lucky today to have fairly warm temperatures for the first day of winter. We spent most of our afternoon outside sledding.

Celebrating The First Day of Winter

We have had a full day so far filled with activities celebrating the first day of winter! We started off the morning with calendar time. Grace and Jack were SO excited to put the new winter picture symbol onto our calendar door. We also looked at lots of books about winter and discussed all of the fun activities and weather events that go along with winter ~ building snowmen, ice skating, icicles, sledding, snowshoeing, snowballs, snowflakes, frozen lakes, snow plow trucks, etc. It was a fun winter morning here! I'll post more of our winter fun activities this evening. We are going outside for sled rides as soon as Grace and Jack wake up from their afternoon naps.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Best Friends

This is often what I see when I glance back at Grace and Jack in their car seats as I'm driving. I love hearing their giggles as they reach across the backseat to hold hands together. This is one of my favorite things. It is so very sweet.

This Time Last Year...

December 21, 2008

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Pineapple!

One of Jack's favorite books is Richard Scarry's Biggest Word Book Ever!. Jack loves to open this very large book, sit in the middle of it, and point to some of his favorite things like cars, buses, tractors, bicycles, motorcycles, and digger trucks. This morning Jack surprised me by bypassing everything with wheels (oh my!). Instead, he went straight to the fruit page in his book. Jack was very persistent and kept pointing over and over again to something I have never seen him point to before. I looked closely and realized that Jack was pointing to a very tiny picture of pineapple. What amazed me about this is that Jack has been eating pineapple with his breakfast every morning this week. Jack, Grace, and I bought a pineapple last week at the grocery store. Jack loved watching me cut the pineapple and he has really been enjoying eating it too! The experience of shopping for the pineapple, feeling it with his fingers, watching me prepare it, tasting it, and talking about the entire experience each morning over breakfast the past several days must have really stayed with Jack. What an amazing little man Jack was this morning (and always!) to get his book on his own, open it and turn the very large pages until he found the teeny tiny picture of the pineapple to show me. Involving children, making them active participants, and using language to talk about experiences is such an incredibly powerful learning tool. Oh how I love watching language and communication develop in my sweet boy!

Move Over Green, Pink, & Purple....Here Comes Chartreuse, Magenta, & Lavender!

Grace loves playing with her Constructibles, which are a set of twenty-five interlocking pieces that encourage children to build 3-D structures. The Constructibles are designed to improve hand-eye coordination, reinforce principles of balance and spatial relationships, and promote creative thinking. What Grace has loved most about her Constructibles is learning about new color words. Grace has the painter's palette Constructible set. It has been so much fun for Grace to use color words like aqua, chartreuse, coral, burgundy, peach, and navy while building! How I love watching Grace work and play ~ she always makes me laugh!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Fork Print Christmas Trees

Grace and Jack made Christmas trees by using a fork as their painting tool! Their fork prints resembled pine needles. Once their trees dried Grace used marker dots to make lights on her tree and Jack chose a ladybug stamp to decorate his tree.