2/27/2015

Mia ate brown rice and raisins for breakfast.  For lunch she ate meatloaf, whole wheat pita bread, two servings of carrots, and three servings of apricots.  At the breakfast table Mia was talking about "Emma Lou!"  I think maybe it is a dog!?!  :)  I said, "Sorry, I don't know Emma Lou!"  Mia said, "Yes you do!!"  :)  Oh, ok!

Well today's highlight was the Return of Sophie Boyle!  (She was gone for almost two weeks!)  I posted a picture in each blog of Sophie focused on that child.  They were all so excited to see her.  (Elliott was standing in front of her seat doing a jig - bouncing up and down with excitement.)  Notice that Sophie has some hair in her right hand.

I finally had to slow down the steady flow of toys for Sophie.  She was soon buried under about a foot of them.  I don't think she quit grinning for the first 30 minutes after everyone was here.

Cooper and Mia say the funniest things.  She took off one of Cooper's socks and he told me about it and said, "That sneaky little critter!"  Ha ha!  Then Cooper was singing and Mia said, "I didn't know you were a song bird!"  LOL  :)  Then they were playing with the blocks again and had built some tall towers.  One tower fell on their "baby" (a little stuffed bear) and Cooper yelled, "Our baby in the trouble, our baby in the trouble!"

Cooper did something "impressive" (sorry, but I missed what it actually was!) and he said, "I'm a strong boy, I'm a strong boy!!"  Unfortunately at that same moment he happened to be standing on Mia's blanket and she gave it a mighty yank and he just about did a backward somersault!   His moment of glory was immediately reduced to yelling and tears.  :)

2/26/2015

Mia ate three servings of cinnamon toast and two servings of grapes for breakfast.  For lunch she ate a couple bites of baked chicken, couple bites of dinner roll, most of hash browns, and ate cherries.

I was sitting in the chair holding Elliott and talking to Mia and Cooper.  Cooper was prying on my arm trying to pull it (or something like that - I'm not exactly sure what he was trying to accomplish) and wasn't having much success so he recruited Mia.  Apparently she was pretty optimistic about her ability as she told Cooper; "Stand back!!"  Ha ha!

I took a couple pictures of Mia looking at posters and identifying letters.  I was asking questions and changing the questions around and Mia was doing great.  For example I asked her this; "What picture is with Momma Darcy's letter?"  (That is NOT an easy question for this age group!)  It only took a couple tries for her to figure out what I was asking and she answered; "Duck!"  Nice job Mia!

I was also impressed with what she did with this poster.  She found a couple of "small d's" and asked me if this was "Momma Darcy's letter too?"  That was very impressive because a "small d" really looks nothing like a "Big D."  We also practiced some sign language and did the shapes.  We've only done the shapes maybe three or four times and she's never shown much interest.  Today she got three or four correct (including parallelogram) and that was pretty cool.  We colored some more shapes today so now we have a total of ten to practice with!

Mia had three little dinosaurs sitting nose-to-nose and she was introducing them to each other.  :)  It went like this; "Meet your friends!  This is your family!  Spike, Roo, Me!!"  :)

2/25/2015

Mia ate whole wheat bagel and peaches for breakfast.  For lunch she ate ham, mac-n-cheese, large serving of corn, and a large serving of apple bites.

Well here's another picture of the kids building block towers.  This has been a favorite activity recently!  I love watching them work together on their projects and thinking about all the things they are learning while doing this activity!

I took this picture because I wanted to show you that Mia and Cooper will occasionally switch roles! He is reading the "Shoo Fly" book to her.  Of course, if you look at Mia's mouth you can see that she is assisting him!  (He was doing quite fine by himself - although the duet was very cute!)   :)  He got to the page where the mouse is in the honey and he said, "That's Winnie the Pooh's honey!!"  :)

During Art Time we played with Magna-Doodles and with the other magnetic toy you see in the picture.  Cooper worked very hard at his and moved every single button to a spot!  Mia lasted about 15 seconds with hers and was done.  However, after she watched Cooper do his and saw how much fun he was having she wanted to give it another try.  And the second time she worked hard at it and moved every button just like Cooper did.

During Story Time today the next book was "On Top of Spaghetti."  I asked the kids "What is this book about?" and Cooper said, "Meatball!"  Another book we read is an Alphabet book and it has very "catchy" verses!  We always identify people's name for each letter in the Alphabet book.  (Or some of the letters!)  When we came to "C" we mentioned "Cooper, Casey (Cooper's Dad), and Cline."  (Cooper's last name.)  Mia said, "Christina!"  (My daughter who was here last week.)  Love her memory!

2/24/2015

Mia ate waffle and most of pears for breakfast.  For lunch she ate two servings of tuna, and crackers, two servings of sweet potatoes, and ate mandarin oranges.  I had mashed up the sweet potatoes for lunch and Mia said, "Want more mashed motatoes!!"  :)

There are several dinosaur books in this book exchange and Cooper was asking the name of some of them (most of them have the dinosaur name printed beside the picture) and Mia was giving goofy answers.  She was just saying silly "non-words."  Cooper was not impressed!  He yelled "NO!"  He takes his study of dinosaurs very seriously!   :)

These first two pictures were taken yesterday after nap time, but I thought I'd post them anyhow because I think they're cute!  Cooper and Mia had built this tall barricade and were hunkered down behind it.  I asked them to peek around the corner at me and then I took the picture.  :)

We got the tunnel out yesterday afternoon and they had a blast crawling through it and rolling in it.  We don't get it down too often and they love it when we do.

This picture is from this morning when Cooper and Mia were working together to build their tower.  Not long after I took the picture Cooper started saying, "Be careful up there, be careful up there."

2/23/2015

Mia ate chex cereal and a couple bites of mixed fruit for breakfast.  For lunch she ate most of roast beef sandwich, sips of tomato soup, and a bite of lettuce salad.  Lettuce salad (no matter how I've dressed it up so far) is about the only thing I ever hear Mia say, "I don't like that."

Mia built the sidewalk you see in the picture and Cooper laid out all the bears.  He made sure they were all laying exactly the same - on their backs.  Then they moved the animals into the igloo and played with them there.  They also built tall towers to block the igloo entrance.  When they were in the igloo Mia started calling Cooper "Mommy."  And she wanted protection from that scary Elliott!  "Get that monster away!  Protect me Mommy, protect me!"  Cooper asked, "Like this?"  Mia said, "No, like this!"  (I couldn't see what they were doing.)  Mia said, "I'm scared Mommy!"  Elliott just sat there looking at them with an amused grin on his face.  :)

We did a toy, book, and puzzle exchange this weekend and the kids played a lot with these viewfinders or "cameras" as Mia calls them.  There are several different kinds of animals and birds in there and you push a button to move it along.  That was the first toy Mia played with this morning.  She said, "I've been looking for these!"

I sneezed pretty hard today - twice - and Mia said, "You don't feel very good today!"  Well it might seem that way, but actually I feel great, thank you!  :)

Friday after snack time Mia was helping put stuffed animals into the washer with me (preparing for toy exchange) and she was telling them all goodbye.  "Good bye babies, good bye babies" as she was slinging them into the washer.  :)

2/20/2015

Mia ate a large serving of oatmeal and ate half of her prunes for breakfast.  For lunch she ate most of hash brown casserole, bites of biscuit, and ate mandarin oranges.  At breakfast Mia reached across the table and said, "Shake hands Coop, shake hands!"  So they were shaking hands.  I asked why and she said, "Shake hands for breakfast!"  :)  Then at lunch she was saying (and I have no idea why), "More like it, more like it!"  It was kind of in the context of; "That's more like it!"

I took this picture yesterday afternoon and the kids were having so much fun in the wagon.  Cooper was just starting to pick up the wagon handle and Mia was yelling, "Faster Cooper, faster!!"  Geez, at least let him get started!!  :)  They switched and Mia took off flying down the sidewalk and Cooper had a huge grin on his face.  I noticed that he DIDN'T ask her to go faster!

I went to the Uptown Optical (a little plug for Mary; a friend from Plains) this morning to pick up my new lenses and Lauralea covered for me and took this picture and a couple of notes while I was gone. This was a block house that the kids built with Lauralea.

Lauralea also did some animal sounds (about 20) on her iPad from iTunes.  She said Cooper did awesome with all the sounds and nailed most of them.  Mia wasn't nearly as interested.  Then they were watching a video of babies laughing and Cooper loved it.  Lauralea said he was roaring!  Mia kept saying, "I wanna watch a movie, I wanna watch a movie!"  :)

As soon as I got back we did some stamps at Art Time.  Mia was asking (as she frequently does), "What time is it?"  So I told her to look at the clock.  She said, "I can't see the clock!"  (Which I interpreted as "I can't tell time!)  Then she said, "It's 36!"  And I said, "Perfect!"  :)  Cooper left the Art table and stubbed his toe and was trying to coax Mia into kissing it.  She said, "No" a couple times and then emphatically said, "I said NO THANKS!!"  :)

2/19/2015

Mia ate half of cinnamon toast and ate melon mix for breakfast.  For lunch she ate turkey slices, half of dinner roll, ate green beans, and mangoes.

I took this picture yesterday afternoon after Mia had put all these blocks away by herself!  I'd told her we were going outside after snack and after we'd picked up the toys.  She then went to the other side of the room and picked all of it up as well!  Speaking of outside time, she was running around the yard yesterday and "hurdling" every ball we had out.  Looked like a "natural" to me!!  :)

Mia built up this area with the blocks and it was a house for their horses.  The vacuums you see in picture are their horses.  She called them "Sparky" and "Clementine."  I have no idea where she got those names from.  Ideas?

Cooper and Mia did lots of spinning.  They were chanting "Christina" and Mia said, "I'm going faster, I'm going faster!"  She also did stickers at Art Time and played with Christina on the mattress.  Christna sat there while Cooper and Mia jumped over her legs and also had a tickling session.

After breakfast Mia and I were singing silly words and dancing; "Chica boom boom, chica boom boom...."  (Something like that!)  Cooper said, "I don't like that song, I don't like that song."  And continued to implore us to be quiet.  :)  We also read lots of stories, sang songs, and showed off their knowledge of sign language for Christina.