Tot School Week 10-26-09

This week we had some really fun moments in our learning together. And a couple of times, he literally said, "No" and walked away. Don't you just love the wonderful three's? Here's some of our good moments:

We still worked on the letter "C" this week since we only introduced it last week....here's our memory verse and "C is for candy, cereal."
Don't you love how he only painted outside the C?


We were going to make a pumpkin shape book, but he got a little bored with lots of paper crafts this week...my mistake! We'll finish next week!

He loved this dot paint...he wanted to paint everything and for the first time, I wasn't scared to death for him to keep going!

This next craft was a lot of fun for him. We were going to make a Fall tree, which he's been calling Autumn lately...so grown up! I took one sheet of construction paper and he drew thick brown lines to make a tree trunk. I then cut out a cloud-like shape out of another piece and taped it to the base sheet. Grayson then sponge painted leaves of red, yellow, and green to make the tree.

We peeled the top sheet off, and we've got a Fall tree!

And I told you it was fun for him:

Another fun one...We made a road for his cars to go with our "C" theme. Just took some construction paper, craft sticks, glitter glue, and a paint pen to draw some lines in the lane.

A little matching fun (which mostly he hates by the way :) :

Still loves this magnetic Melissa & Doug board:

A Little Preview...

I do LOVE this time of year! There are so many fun things to do with our family and so much to experience in this world we've been Blessed with! The whole costume thing is just another perk. I've always loved it; if only I could get a scanner and add pictures of past Halloween's. One year for our social club Halloween party, I was Cruella De ville and Matt was a Dalmatian puppy! That was spectacular!! :)

This week the day came to wear Halloween costumes to Grayson's mother's day out, and he was so excited leading up to this day. To say only a little about the week we had, it was probably one of the hardest weeks I've had as a mommy. I'm realizing we skipped the terrible two's that I thought we had, and went straight into the terrible three's. He is so independent and verbal and adamant about having his way....this, of course, does not mean he will get his way, but it does make for a lot of fun battles between mommy and Grayson. Needless to say, we had more than one such battle this week.

Thursday morning, he got up in the sweetest mood. We had breakfast, played a little, and then it was time to get ready for school. I took him back to his room to get him dressed and remembered it was costume day, so I went to grab it for him. He was screaming, "Costume day! I get to be a good knight!" (One would think this meant he was excited!) I started to put on his shirt, and he lost it. Crying, a little bit of screaming...I don't want to wear my costume, I don't need to be a good knight, I just need to wear my dress shirt like daddy. After another twenty minutes of not only debate, but me trying to make him put it on, I realized even though I didn't want to "lose" the battle, I physically could not get the shirt on his body! I let it go and explained that most of the other kids would be wearing costumes and if he was okay not being dressed up, then it was okay. I was pretty hot about; you know what all the teachers and moms thought..."Oh, his mom forgot to put him in his costume." :)

Well, I sent it in his backpack just in case, and apparently accidentally left my camera in there as well. When I plugged in to remove pics from my camera, these were what I found:

Looks like it worked out just fine! :)

Hello Dr. Wood...

Ok, so I admit it, Grayson cracks me up most days (even when he's driving me nuts), but one of my favorites is how he addresses his doctor-because we do frequent her office plenty. She walks in and he looks down at his feet and up at her at the same time, and says in the most monotone voice, "Hello Dr. Wood," like any respectable 30 year old. She always laughs at him and they usually have a conversation about whatever she's wearing, because it's usually something lively like in the pictures below.

This was a real big-boy appointment; he got his blood pressure taken, had to identify shapes and count, and even jump across the room...of course, he loved it!

Here he is checking out the blood pressure machine that his nurse, Mrs. Christy, brought in. We love all the nurses there, but she is the one we see most...she's seen Grayson grow up. It's nice for them to be a part of his life in that way.

Here he is with Dr. Wood...we LOVE her! She stays super busy, but when she is in our room, she is all ours. She gives us a ton of time, and gives us all the information we could ever want. In short, I feel like God has truly blessed us with a talented and devoted doctor to help keep our little ones healthy.

In the end, Gray passed with flying colors, and stat-wise, he's doing great! Please do keep him in your prayers; if he has surgery, it will be coming up soon, and we are truly trying to make the right decision.

Any Advice??

Typically I am posting to jot down the day to day for the West family and treasure our memories in a way that includes our family and friends. This time I'm asking for a little advice.

As many of you know, Grayson has been a sick little boy (on and off since he was about a year old.) We have tried many different things, medicinal and holistic, and some things definitely help, but nothing has truly slowed him from catching viruses, and therefore constantly having infections and fevers. He's also started snoring at night, has some night sweats, and is waking up at night crying...he's been a great sleeper up until now.

All this to say our pediatrician referred us to a surgeon (I can't remember how to spell his specialty) and he is suggesting a T & A to remove Gray's tonsils and adenoids. Now, I realize this is a routine procedure for children, and it's perfectly safe, and yada yada. This is the first time it's my child that I'll be sending into an operating room. He would be put to sleep (with an IV no less!) and we are hesitant, but hopeful. We've heard how rough it is for little ones, but that most get sick drastically less than before surgery. If that could happen, it would be an incredible blessing.

I guess I just wonder if anyone who reads this either has any experience with a little one having the surgery or knows of a child and how it worked out for them. Please leave a comment if you have any helpful info or encouragement! Thanks so much!

Love for the boats...

Thought this was funny tonight...

At bedtime, we read the sweetest book, "God Made Me, So I Must Be Special." It talks about how God gave us eyes to enjoy the beauty around us, and the ears to hear "I love you" from our families, and at the end, it talks about how God also gave us each talents and gifts to share with others. After we finished reading, I asked Grayson what he thought gifts God blessed him with (and then I said, "What are you good at?" so he would understand exactly what I was asking).

He paused only for a second, before saying, "Well, I'm good at singing and dancing..." And I said, "That's great, you are good at those things..." and "playing and dancing...and playing with this boat (pirate boat at the end of his bed) and another boat and another boat and another boat and another boat.....you get the idea. We were pretty much done with the whole learning about God blessing us with talents. We only had eyes for the boats and more boats and more boats and more boats...

(Oh, and he also mentioned tonight that he "just needed a mommy that would pick up his toys." Clearly I'm appreciated!) :)

For those of you who sleep....

Be thankful. This post will remind you of what it was like when your babies were actually babies, or it will give you a glimpse into your life in a few years. So I know I've been bragging on Ava's sleeping habits, and I shared that she was getting up more due to a nasty cold....well, she went back to sleeping for two nights, and then last night happened. There's nothing like a night of both children waking up. I guess I should be happy we slept until 3:45 am, but after that it went something like this:
3:45- Ava having trouble breathing, put in passie
I stand up and watch her for a few minutes to make sure she's okay, and

3:57-Grayson begins screaming (he's done this a lot lately; we think it might be b/c he's potty trained and can feel the need to potty--we'll take ideas, though :) I go lay down with him for a while, after I convince him it's NOT time to go play in the living room and after we go potty

4:20-Go back to Ava, who is now crying and must eat (all you mommies know if they wake up pretty well, they are NOT going back to sleep without a full tummy!)

4:55-Put Ava back down; she grunts for a while to settle back off-perfectly content, mind you, but this keeps me up

5:10-Fall back to sleep for a while

5:35-Grayson wakes up screaming again, fully convinced it's time to get up. We get back in the bed, and he is so squirmy, I hold my breath and ask if he needs to go potty...alas, he does, so we're up and to the potty again. (Remind me no more liquid after 7:30 or so!) He does this thing if he's not going back to sleep....he'll toss and turn very roughly, basically punching me in the face with some appendage every time he turns and he'll pat my face so much that sleep is a distant memory, not a reality. I tell him if he can't settle down, I'm going back to my bed.

6:20-Back to my bed, where Ava begins grunting again (I mean, REALLY????)

6:40-Grayson is saying, "Mommy, come get me. Look, Mommy, it's light outside! Do you think it's light outside? I stayed until daylight." When I get to his door(limping because I'm still sore from my workout on Thursday!), with my eyelids glued to my eyeballs, my hair sticking in a thousand different directions, I explain it doesn't count if he's up for three hours before he's out of the bed.

Tot School x 2!!

This week of tot school was a lot of fun. We had our niece, Mary Ida, down (she and Grayson are a week apart) and it was great to entertain them for a couple of hours with some "art time" as she called it. She loved all the painting and coloring, which are the things Grayson is not crazy about, so it was neat to see her enjoy that part so much. Here are a few pictures this week; we definitely spent more time having fun and doing than taking pictures of the doing.

Ava even joined in the fun this week...here she is "lacing the cow." :) Here's our lacing fun this week; both kids loved it, but I have to say Grayson didn't want to stop (or do it the "right" way as you can see from the picture), but Mary kept asking, "Can we paint now, please?" I just loved that they were learning and enjoying themselves while doing it!

These lacing cards are great...they're Melissa and Doug Farm Animals Lacing Cards. I got mine at Babies R Us, but I know you can get them at Amazon, etc.

Our next project took a couple of days to complete due to weather, glue drying, etc. We were going to make Fall baskets to put leaves in. This was a spin off of a basket of something else I found from a very creative mom out there, and the kids wanted to "pick fall leaves" so this was a way to use their treasures.

gluing the construction paper to a plate...

Their "baskets" ready for their leaves...(craft sticks glued to glitter glue and some pipe cleaner stuck through the plate for the handle)

"Picking" their leaves the next day in much better weather...

The finished product:

Again, not many pictures...we did work on the letter C a little bit, but I'll save those for next week since we're really focusing on it this week. We did the same with our memory verse, continuing with "I am the Bread of life" (John 6:48) and worked a little on ours for this week, but more on that later.

Growing Up...

Ava turned 3 months old yesterday!! I love these pictures of her in her bumbo seat. She was sitting on the dining table (with close supervision, Dad :) while her big brother was doing his tot school fun...she is smiling at him! Aren't you jealous? She gives him the best squeals and grins!


*Please pray that we are allowing God to prepare our hearts for raising a sweet spirited and Godly little lady.

Around Our House this Week...

So we've got Grayson's cousin Mary down here with us--like I've mentioned before, they are one week apart, so it's been interesting to say the least. They've played great together, but they are each not above a little bit of a cat-fight, wrestle mania, or some serious verbal abuse! :) No, all joking aside, it's been a joy to have her here and I hate that we're taking her back to her mom tomorrow!

I've been meaning to write down and record some of the funny things Grayson says, and I just honestly forget to do it. Hence, the weekly or bi-monthly (or whenever I can get to it) postings of "Ramblings of A Three Year Old." This time I just wanted to record some of the funny moments of the week with two three year olds:

So this was the scene (below-don't you love how they used the bumbo seats for helmets) when I heard this:
Grayson: Roar, I'm a monster!!
Mary I:You are not a monster!!
Grayson:I AM a monster!!
Mary I: You ARE a monster!!!
Grayson: I NOT a monster, I'm Grayson!!!

While playing outside in their house, Grayson was calling Mary "mommy" and Mary was calling Gray "dad." They did the basic household chores, some cooking and cleaning, and only mildly nagged each other, "Honey, don't do that!" or "I'm not Listening to you anymore!"

Just playing dress up: Grayson was a pirate and Mary wanted to be a princess. Needless to say, I don't have all the cool girly stuff her mom has for dress up, so we kind of have a boho sparkle look rather than princess going for us:
Other current funnies:

Grayson is now referring to his hunger as "needing energy." In the morning especially, we hear, "Mommy, Daddy, I need energy!" ( I am assuming this is because we explain that eating healthy food is what gives him energy....either way, it's pretty cute!)

He also runs around the house making sure I turn out all the lights (even when we're using them), because, "We need to save power, Mommy."

Usually no matter how much tv Grayson is allowed to watch in a day, we always preface the last show with, "You may watch one more show today, and that's it for the day." Well, now when he asks to watch a show he says (while holding his hands up in front of him to emphasize how important this is), "Mommy, I can watch one more movie and that's it. That's it....okay? And that's it!"

I can't think of all of them now, but I'm sure they'll keep coming....pretty soon Ava will be chiming in. :)

More from this weekend....

Grayson loved the girls' toys so much...I hated to take him home!

Sweet Ava collapsed for a nap after some play with the kids in the living room.

This was our attempt at taking pictures of Grayson outside in the beautiful weather...again, not so much patience for the posed picture.

We took the kids on a walk at the park that took us to a little playground. Grayson almost sustained an injury involving the monkey bars, but we did make it out unharmed!

Lillian is such a good big cousin!!

Me reading to the kids when we're all together has become a bit of a tradition on the Cotey-Matt West visits....I think this killing three birds with one stone works for all the parents! And I adore reading to the children...they are all so excited about reading and so cuddly when we're reading; sign me up any day!