2010

December 2010

November 2010

October 2010

September 2010

August 2010

July 2010

June 2010

May 2010

April 2010

March 2010

February 2010

January 2010

Jack's Construction Site!

I made Grace and Jack their own sensory bins for Christmas. For Jack-a-roo, I put different sizes of rocks and some new construction vehicles into a bin to provide Jack with his own mini-construction site! Jack was so excited to open this gift on Christmas morning and it has provided him with many, many hours of pretend play fun.

Grace's Love of Learning...

Grace loves learning. Grace especially loves to learn all about the human body and how it works. Grace can identify all of the organs of the respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive and nervous systems and she understands their functions too! Grace can also identify many muscles and bones of the body too. In the picture above Grace is putting organs into their correct position in a body puzzle.


In the picture above, Grace was telling me about the pathway food follows through our body and she described what each organ in the digestive tract is responsible for during digestion. Grace says she can't wait to become a doctor some day and she is well on her way!

Our Blizzard Day!

We stayed warm in our pajamas all day yesterday as the blizzard of 2010 roared through outside. Luckily, we did not loose power during the storm and baby Eve decided not to arrive on the day of the big blizzard (thank goodness!!!!). Grace and Jack made these cute snowmen inside since we were unable to go out to make them because of the high winds and whiteouts.

Jack making his snowman!

Grace making her snowman!

Grace and Jack had fun together playing with their winter sensory bin. I filled the bin with rice, blue poms, glittery snowflakes, sparkly beads and a shovel. Jack added some of his trucks to the bin to plow and fill with "snow."

Christmas Morning

The Best Gift of All...

Every morning throughout the month of December I would find several envelopes under our Christmas tree. Every day Grace made gifts for all of us inside these envelopes. Grace would carefully decorate pieces of paper with stickers, stamps, markers, crayons and hole punchers, put them inside of envelopes and place them under our tree. After placing them under the tree Grace would become so excited to share her handmade gifts with her family that she just couldn't wait to give them to us until Christmas! Every day Daddy, Jack and I would be given an envelope with Grace's name on it to open. Each time this happened Grace would always say, "This is for Christmas but I'm just so excited to give it to you that I can't wait until then!" These sweet handmade gifts from Grace were the best gifts of all! They brought us all great joy in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Making Handmade Christmas Wrapping Paper

Every year Grace and Jack make their own Christmas wrapping paper. This year they poured red and green paint onto large pieces of paper, chose their favorite vehicles and drove them through the paint!!! This activity was SO MUCH FUN for Grace and Jack and they ended up with some festive and one of a kind Christmas wrapping paper!

Celebrating the First Day of Winter

We had an entire day of winter activities planned for today but sadly our little Jack-a-roo spiked a high fever last night and was not feeling well. After a trip to the pediatrician this morning we returned home so Grace and Jack could put their pajamas back on and enjoy the first day of winter from the warmth of our home. Grace started making paper and coffee filter snowflakes to decorate our windows and Jack joined in on the fun too! They both had a great time together using various hole punchers to make snowflakes. As you can see, Jack was very proud of his work and Grace worked so hard to make some beautiful snowflakes to celebrate the beginning of winter!
We hung the snowflakes on several windows around our house. Take a look out our window...yes, that is snow outside!!! We received some snow last night and just in the nick of time for the first day of winter. Grace and Jack were excited to wake up this morning to see the snow.

Let It Snow!

We had our own indoor snowstorm today to celebrate the first day of winter. We used cotton balls for snow. Fortunately, Jack had his excavator on hand to plow us out because it was a blizzard!!!

Graceful Grace

Last week at Grace's dance class families were invited into the room to watch! Jack and I were very excited to watch Grace dance since we only caught quick glimpses of her dancing from behind an observation window all semester. The class had been practicing Tchaikovsky's The Waltz of the Snowflakes from the Nutcracker for the past several weeks and they performed it beautifully for us at the end of the class. Grace was excited to wear her white tutu and dress up like a snowflake for her performance!

Grace loves her dance teacher, Miss Elizabeth. Miss Elizabeth is WONDERFUL with the children. The class is very structured and Grace has learned all of the dance and ballet terminology, which she loves! Miss Elizabeth has also taught the children about different styles of music and how to dance and move according to the tempo of the music. Miss Elizabeth has also focused on balance and posture using the help of the bears seen in the pictures above.

Another large focus of Grace's class is learning how to move together with a partner. This is to help prepare the class for their big recital in June. The recital will be in the same theater where Grace and I watched the Nutcracker ballet together at the beginning of December.

Grace has become such a beautiful dancer. Grace is so graceful as she dances, especially with her hands and arms. I was so proud watching Grace dance and I love how much she loves it.


Jack has always loved to dance too and he really enjoyed watching Grace's dance class. Jack is Grace's biggest fan and he clapped and cheered for his big sister the entire time. Jack even tried to join Grace on the dance floor several times! I think we'll be seeing Jack on that dance floor this time next year when he is old enough to join a class!!!

A New Adventure at Pineland Farms

Yesterday afternoon we explored several trails for the first time at Pineland Farms. The trails led us through the woods, across the farm fields and eventually to the dairy barns. Pineland Farms is one of our very favorite places to visit during the warmer weather months. Yesterday was our first time visiting the farm and exploring the trails when the weather was cold. We bundled up for our journey and had an amazing time together experiencing a new adventure at the farm.

We especially enjoyed exploring the trails that led us through the woods. We were very lucky to find a birds nest in the middle of one of the trails and we spotted so many deer tracks.


Here is one of the fields that we crossed that eventually led us to the dairy barns. Notice that we do not have a flake of snow on the ground! We are, however, expecting some snow tomorrow -- just in time for the first day of winter. Hopefully next time we visit the trails at Pineland we will be pulling Grace, Jack and baby Eve on sleds through snow covered fields!

Grace and Jack were SO excited to see their cow friends again! It was good to be back there.

Eve

We have chosen the name Eve for our baby girl. Bob and I love simple, classic names and know Eve will be the perfect name for our daughter. My maiden name is Deverell and the name Eve is part of my maiden name -- Deverell, which makes her name all the more special to us!

Birthday Boy!

When Jack woke up yesterday on his second birthday he was so excited to see Mommy, Daddy and Grace walk in and sing Happy Birthday! Once we went downstairs Jack couldn't believe his eyes to see an excavator waiting for him in our living room (excavators are Jack's very FAVORITE trucks!).

Here is Jack's birthday shirt made by Maddy! It is an excavator with the number 2 being held in the excavators shovel -- so perfect for our Jack-a-roo.

We spent the morning at one of Jack's favorite places yesterday - the Children's Museum. We then enjoyed a nice lunch with Daddy, some special shopping for Jack in the afternoon and finally a ride on a carousel. Here are a few pictures of the birthday boy having fun at the Children's Museum...


Jack-a-roo adds so much joy and laughter to our lives. He is such a sweet, loving and silly little boy. Jack has quite the sense of humor. He kept telling me yesterday that he was three years old and whenever I asked him how many candles we should put on his cake he would smile and say, "Twenty-one!"