Valentine's Day Party!!

Today Nicholas had a Valentine's Day party at his preschool. Everyone exchanged Valentine's Day cards and gifts. He came home with a big bag of stuff. What happened to just the little cards with Snoopy on them and a simple To: and From: like they had when I was little? These days the bar has been raised and everyone gives candy, pencils, toys, etc.



One of the presents Nicholas got was a cool pirate that grows when you put him in water. It isn't an instant sort of thing. The directions say he will grow 600% but it may take up to 10 days for him to soak up enough water to expand that much. So here is the before picture.



Check back in 10 days for the after picture - if my son can keep him in the water that long. All day he kept picking up the wet sticky pirate wanting to play with him (as he dripped water all over the place).

Nicholas made a wonderful card for Stuart and me with his hand print on it. I don't care what it is but if it has a hand or foot print of one of my children on it then it could quite possibly bring me to tears (Stuart, that's a hint for Mother's Day!)



His teacher helped him fill out the inside of the card but it is super cute too! I didn't know he even liked my chicken and dumplings. All the credit goes to my mom since I make them just like she taught me.



And on the back of the card, Nicholas drew a picture of himself. Love those funny little hands!



The other sweet things he made for us is a heart decorated with crinkled tissue paper and a cute heart charm. He made the heart with a gingerbread applesauce dough that he rolled out and used a cookie cutter to make the heart. It smells wonderful but he told me it wasn't for eating.

More Weeds, More Wishes

We were at the park today enjoying this beautiful weather. I let Rachel lie on a blanket and look up at the trees. She just loves feeling the breeze on her face and watching the leaves move.



Nicholas was collecting pine needles and pine cones to build a wolf house. How thoughtful of him :)



I was supposed to be helping him collect his building materials. As I was taking these pictures, he said, "Mom, this is pine needle collecting time, not picture taking time!"

Then Nicholas started blowing on dandelions and making wishes. He said, "We need more weeds in our yard. If we had more dandelions then I could have more wishes. So we need more weeds!" I don't think so!



We had lots of fun playing at the park. We thought it was sad though that we couldn't find other kids to play with. We actually drove to three different parks hoping to find some other children playing there but the parks were empty. It was about 3:30 or 4:00 so kids should be out of school and it was an absolutely beautiful day. Where was everyone?

I was happy to play with my little guy. Nicholas decided that we were good guys on a space ship and we were being attacked by aliens. We sprayed them with anti-alien goo and they ran away. Sometimes an alien disguised himself as Nicholas and I could only determine if it was an alien or Nicholas by spraying him with the anti-alien goo and watching to see if he ran away. What a fun and creative little boy he is! I just love playing with him.

Dance Fever

Nicholas still loves a pen that Grandad sent him a while back. It is purple and gold and plays the LSU fight song. I caught him dancing to the music today. How cute!

Recycled Art

Recently our Early Childhood PTA group was priviledged to participate in a demonstration and class by Kayli at Art House on creating art with recycled materials. She gave us some great ideas and encouraged us to create some masterpieces of our own before our next monthly meeting. Today at the meeting, Kayli was there to see how we had done. Nicholas and I worked on several projects. Nicholas came up with the ideas and did much of the painting. Stuart or I helped with some construction. Here is a picture of our creations...



Nicholas is most proud of Gears, his recycled robot. His head is made from sandwich meat packaging, arms and legs from Aquafina water bottles, and his feet are soap boxes. We also made two treasure boxes from old cigar boxes that a store was going to just throw away. We also had some fun creating a astronaut bookmark out of chipboard from a cereal box and decorated with a foam stamp of a rocket ship that we made ourselves from an egg carton.

Kayli left the following comments for Nicholas....

Nicholas, I am so happy to see all your amazing recycled art projects. The robot really stands out. I also love your cool treasure boxes and rocket ship print. You have a great sense of composition. - Kayli House

She and the PTA also gave Nicholas some cool prizes - A set of 20 nice paint brushes in a canvas carrying case, a small green canvas tote, bookmark, notepad, pencil, and a lollipop.

Rachel is Reaching for Toys

Rachel has held a toy that we put up to her hand and she will play with something dangling right in front of her hand. However, this week she started reaching out to touch things intentionally (what an exciting week this has been!). It's so neat to see the little steps of growth and discovery that soon get forgotten and taken for granted. I just happened to catch on video the first time she reached out for something and it was her little Taggies stacking rings.



We had given this same stacking ring toy to our niece last summer while I was still pregnant with Rachel. It is soft and easy to grip and each ring has a cute animal on it and each ring makes a unique sound. I went back to the store later to get one for Rachel and they weren't carrying them anymore. I'm so glad that Grandmother Chance gave this to her for Christmas because Rachel is really enjoying it.