Beany Baby

One of the things you love to do at HEB when we are there for our weekly grocery shopping is digging in the Bean Bin. :)  Now THAT's a real life in-the-marketplace, so to speak, Montessori Sensory Bin!

Jaxon Cooketh

You love to help out when I'm baking.  You helped me with the Cranberry Relish for Thanksgiving AND for Christmas.  You would carefully wash your hands, and then help me load the good ol' fashioned hand crank food grinder, making sure your fingers are far away when there is any grinding going on.  Also, finding and sorting out the squishy cranberries was quite the delightful achievement.

Also, we had been reading Tomie dePaola's "Clown of God", and there was a recipe for a cookie/biscuit of some sort in there, which I thought we would try out, but with a seasonal flair/theme.

The resulting cookies weren't very pretty,

 

but you had fun kneading the dough, rolling it out and using the cookie cutter.... not to mention the icing part, as well as decorating with sprinkles and what not. :)

 

Jaxon Speaketh, Jaxon Liketh

1.  Sometimes you are so eager to talk or sing that even while you are breathing in, you will use that intake of breath to continue talking while sucking air in. lol

2.  Overheard today in the car as we went on our excursion to the "Up-and-Down-WHEEE-Hills"
"You know, when Daddy was picking the prickly.. prickly.. prickly plums!"

The aforementioned "plums"

3. Favorite Christmas "Action" Phrase Of the Year..

"Santa Claus and Ho Ho Ho" 

The Prolific Artist

You LOVE to draw.  Not necessarily "coloring", but you LOVE drawing, be they original compositions or something you copied from something you have seen.  Of course, most of them are "Angry Bird" themed, seeing how you love them so much. Every morning when you wake up, the first thing you do is go to the table where your paper and crayons are, and start on a masterpiece.  Every day, there may be at least 3 or 4 completed works, both on the back and front of the paper.

Every Friday, after the ladies' bible class, you love to draw on the whiteboard - such a large canvas for a little boy - while we wait for Daddy to come get us.

This last Friday, the theme was Pirates and Buried Treasure.  The one guy is in a boat, approaching the island, and his boat has a steering wheel on it.  The pirates on the island have jolly roger hats and bandannas.  Of course, there are also Palm trees, sea gulls, clouds, a day-turning-into-night sky, and of course, an "X marks the spot".

And I wanted to post this before it got lost in all the backlog.

You drew these pictures on Thanksgiving day after watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.



Can you spot the balloons, umbrellas, float, sun and christmas tree, among other things? Oh, and the paved road... :) And this "Turkey Hand" thing, was all your own doing.  I wasn't even in the room when you did that. :)



I was telling Daddy the other day that so what if you don't color meticulously inside the lines.  Your spontaneity and imagination is what I love most about your art work. 

Santa

We were at Hillcrest yesterday for "Breakfast with Santa".  We had been counting down the days on your calendar, and as we were approaching the church building, you were practically yelping, "I'm sooooooo excited to have breakfast with Santa!!!"  The day before, you had asked us if ( the real )Santa was going to be there. We said something like, "Probably.. and if he can't make it, his helper would be there"

So we get there, and amazingly enough, there was not a single person in line to see Santa.  So we put down our coats and zoomed over there . ( Of course, a line formed IMMEDIATELY after that. )

You were a little in awe that er, Mrs. Claus knew your name, and at first, was a little shy at approaching Santa, but once on his lap, you were quite confident.

 

When we asked if you would like to tell Santa what you wanted for Christmas, you said, "A ball", which is kinda strange since we just got you one a couple of nights ago.  Of course, as we were leaving later, you said, "I need to tell Santa I changed my mind! I want a Pogo Stick instead, because I don't have one!".  Oh dear, how does one deal with such lamentations!

After running around a bit and going to the craft tables ( more on mummy's blog ), you noticed that Santa was walking out the door, and wondered where he was going, but waved goodbye to him anyway.  Then, you went over to the "Santa Station" and peeked behind the makeshift walls, and exclaimed, "Mummy, Santa left his sleigh behind!!"

 

We told you that we were sure he was coming back for it, and not to worry.

Then we went off to Petsmart to get a few things, AND SANTA WAS THERE TOO!

You were incredulous. We surmised that Santa had left because he needed to get some grub for his reindeer since they were his pets.

:P

Flu Shot, Check

We may be a little late, but you had the sniffles a while back and we wanted to make sure you were well before we brought you to the doctor. We didn't tell you what was up until we were at the doctor's office building.  You didn't take it very well when you found out why we were there.  There was some cajoling that needed to be done, and we all walked into the building with our fingers crossed.

Needless to say, when the time came, there were tears and wailings and hiding under a stool at the last moment, but you were a brave boy ( even thought you said you weren't because you were afraid - now THAT was a brave thing to admit ), and with some big bear hugs and a couple of tootsie roll lollies later, all was forgiven. :)

Better late than never

Aye, we still be playing catch-up with October. :)

We haven't carved a pumpkin in, oh, er, a NUMBER of years. Possibly from way before you were born. But this year, Daddy was determined that you have the opportunity to participate in the carving of a Jack O Lantern. You thought it was pretty cool :)

Some days are still pretty warm, but most night are getting much cooler, and here you are, rockin' your PJs. LOL

Can you believe we go to the mall like, twice in a year?  We pretty much go to Walmart for our every day needs. So, the other day, when Daddy needed to go to one of the stores at the mall, we went off and did the "fun" stuff! hehe. You even met another little 4year old boy at the indoor playground thingy, whose name was Jaxon! You thought that was really something.

On the school front, a few weeks ago, we read "The Glorious Flight: Across the English Channel with Louis Bleriot" and had fun learning about planes, England, France, aviation etc.  We try to get what we can from the book, even if it is just for exposure at this point.

I really should be way more diligent at trying to describe what an amazingly sweet little boy you are.  And such a silly one at that. AND who is proud to be silly :)

Being the silly billy gilly willy nilly dilly that you are, you LOVE Mo Willems' Elephant and Pig series as well as Jan Thomas' Dust Bunny ( and others ) books.  :) You are getting to be really good at reading, and usually YOU are the one reading these books to ME!

There may be an odd word or two that you may have a little trouble with, but usually, you read it with such nuance, and you catch just about all the jokes.  Plus, there's rhyming in the Jan Thomas books, which is always big with you :)

 

Sometimes you slyly move some of the books from the "read" pile over to the "to read" pile so we can read them over and over and over again :)  And usually I'm glad you do, because I love these books too! They're full of sweet and kind stories, which happen to be hilarious. 

 

I'm glad you appreciate the lighter side of life, and that you LOVE books and reading - you still love to snuggle up in my lap to read the books at bed time, but sometimes all I get is a face-full of hair, now that you are so tall! :)

I often remember back to when we would read "Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See" over and over again every night, with you in my lap, and me being able to see over your head :)

Learning Together

One of the books we read/rowed was "How to make an apple pie and see the world".  At this stage, I'm not about to make you memorize facts about different countries or anything ridiculous like that.  We're learning about the world in general and try to broaden our horizons a little, introduce certain concepts and widen our vocabulary a bit. 

Subconsciously, or inadvertently, you have picked up bits and pieces of information about the different countries mentioned in the stories we read.  I mean, I tend to learn all kinds of things each week when we go through our different books. It is quite exhilarating :)

Artistry

Every week, after Bible Class, one of the things you look forward to is coming by and drawing on the white board. Inevitably, you will always be doing something related to the Angry Birds. :)

However, there was one week when Halloween was on your mind, what with "Pirate" being the costume of choice this year and all, that this was what you drew.

 

or better known as, "Jaxon the pirate and Cindy, traveling to a desert island, searching for treasure"

Hilarity

When we go to the library, you usually "scour" the bookshelves as well, and often get a bunch of books for me to check out along with the ones that I've gotten.

Today, one of the books you got was "The Big Fat Cow that goes Kapow"

 

You were rolling around in your bed, laughing till you could make no sound, except to laugh hysterically and say, "Mummy, it almost makes me want to pee pee!!! hahhahahahha!".

Hehehhe.

Playing Shop

A couple of weeks ago, we read "Night of the Moonjellies", and continued learning about coins. 

 

One of the accompanying books we read was "Have a Good Day Cafe", and decided that we would open our own little play store at "school".

I had set the store up while you were busy watching a video, and so you were very pleasantly surprised when I called you in, and you saw the stuff all laid out.

You loved toting around the little brown grocery bag, picking out what you wanted to "purchase", and then figuring out with me how much to pay and which coins to use.  To keep it simple, we paid for the items one by one.  When we reopen the store the next time, I'm going to concentrate just on one or two denominations  at a time.

We even managed to rope Daddy in on the adventure. :)  You had a grand time showing daddy "the ropes".

Expression

We've been trying out the "writing aid" we got recently and it is really easy to use.

I try to gently nudge you to "pinching" your pencil with thumb and index finger, without being too pushy...

We also got some chalk pastel for school, and got to use them when we read "Night of the moonjellies".

You LOVED using the chalk, and when I showed you a little bit about shading/blending, you were at it like a little pro. :)

You were so enamored that you went ahead and made a bunch more drawings, every one of which, had a story :)

Poetry in Motion

You love rhyming, and this is a short song that you came up with while I was giving you a shower.

"If I had a hammer,

I would flush it away..

So I could have a new one

Every Single Day."

Classic or WHAT.

Cars 2 Revisited

The last time you were so caught up with Cars or Cars 2 was probably 1 1/2 years ago.

Here you are, enjoying your afternoon matinee, complete with drink and popcorn, while mummy takes a nap. :)

 

At time of writing, you have watched it from beginning to end about 4 times, all seen within a week.  We also borrowed "Mater's Tall Tales" from the library, and you have been watching THAT on a daily basis :)

Happiness is Playgrounds....

Even though it tugs at the heart strings to see how fast you are growing up, but it makes me proud to see your little achievements, and how you are getting stronger and more nimble and more confident...

Just a few months ago, you would not have even contemplated attempting to climb up dubious looking steps :)

You were climbing UP the slides like a little monkey, and making me run up and down to watch you did so.

We even got to get Cindy in on the action.

The Birthday Epidemic

It all started with Pooh Bear's surprise birthday party.... and then it just snowballed into a fortnightly thing or something, where someone or other of your toys would need to have  a birthday party.

Seeing how you aren't really demanding as far as birthday party itineraries go ( You're usually pretty much happy if there's cake or cupcake ), I usually oblige and try to convince you to space them out a little.

So far we have also had

Elmo's Surprise Birthday

White Bear's Surprise Birthday

( I know, this was my attempt at not using too much icing, but still have some decoration on the cake - and it worked.. lol, you loved it )

and Moose's Not-A-Surprise Birthday

 

Little Pooh Bear Jr.'s birthday has already been scheduled to be next.

Hoy.

The Gamer

It has been about a year and a half since we've been to any "arcade" type place.  I think guilt finally set in, after denying you for so long, and it's not for the lack of you asking. :) Everytime we go by the mall, you would ask to go to Chuck E Cheese's, and if we drove by the Expo Center, you would ask to go to Prime Time.

I mean, you may not remember a lot of things from when you were 3, but you sure remember them arcades! LOL

Anyway, last Friday, after mummy had had a brief stop shopping at the Ditto's sale, we finally relented and stopped by Prime Time.

We watched the go-karts whiz by, and decided that THAT particular "ride" might have to wait till you were a little older :)

When we got inside, there was a bunch of ACU students bowling and having a pizza party.  Of course you tried to grab the first bowling ball you came across, was surprised that you couldn't budge it, and wanted to go look for one that was "more your size".

 

Of course, the main attraction was the arcade area.  There was a "little peeps" area, where we played some games, enough to redeem a bunch of little "prizes" :)

Your favorite game in the place, though, was the air hockey table. You and I played it twice :P

As we were walking out to the car, we see a couple of girls resting up, with golf clubs and balls in hand.  Daddy asked them if we could borrow their gear so that you could at least hit the ball a few times, and they were so gracious and readily handed the stuff over :)

Hopefully we won't have to wait that long again till we come back :)