A glimpse of the past month

Oh, so much has been going on. Before Christmas I wanted to bop in and highlight some of our previous fun...

The love of my life turned 30. He just keeps getting better and better, and I am so thankful for him. A great father and my special match.

We had a wonderful day celebrating and honoring the transition at his mom's house.

On his actual birthday we had a celebration at our local coffeeshop/restaurant. Many of our friends were able to join us. It was one of those evenings of merriment that had a special glow.

We also had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Wesley enjoyed playing peek-a-boo in the laundry basket.

And there was plenty of cuteness. Sabien lifted his head during tummy time...

The weather turned to winter. Wes got to splash in some puddles with his sword.

And there was everyday cuteness...

Godfather (& Liz)

Our dear friend Joel is Sabien's Godfather. He and his partner, Liz, recently came to visit. It was an awesome visit. They slept in our living room on our super deluxe air mattress. Wes would run out there every morning and chat them up. Sabien adored them. We had hours of fun adult talk time after the kids went to bed (back when Sabien was sleeping reliably after being put down). It was such a rejuvenating few days.

Liz was a skilled playmate and entertained Sabien while playing trains and puzzle atlas with Wes at the same time. Well done.

Wesley had his first round of putt putt golf during their visit. We needed four adults to comfortably manage both the kids while we all played. It went totally smoothly, though. Wesley LOVED all eighteen holes and couldn't get enough of it. Sabien was generally happy being passed around as we each took our shots.

We also went to Lagunitas Taproom. Here is Wesley asking Joel if he's ready for more beer. He enjoyed handing Joel the glasses from his sampler. He's such a little host. Or, a beer pusher some may say. It used to be impossible for guests to drink beer in our house without Wes coming by and tipping the bottom of their beer up into their mouth, or ordering them to drink. What a funny little guy.

It was a great visit. Every time Joel leaves we miss him a lot. He usually visits us when he's in California on work business. This time Liz flew down, too, and it was such a treat.

Did somebody say air mattress?

Tot School (28 months)

Here's a photo-heavy, word-poor glance at Wesley's work this week...

We cut and glued #16-20 to match our previous numbers...

We played with cards, sorting by suit and number...

Spelling words...

Began and did not finish (due to total melting when he accidentally cut into the "i"...giving up the nap is sometimes hard) our cutting and gluing ABCs in order...

geography puzzle with Liz

more thankfulness leaves

Wes had the playdough out constantly this week. I got out a spatula for him and he loved playing with it and the playdough.

Practical Life...

washing windows

dusting

prepping kale for soup

sweeping

Here's a look at how trucks come into most games, and a peek at melon scooper fun (this was the first day he played with it. what a hit it was!). I was unsure where the baby dump truck was, thus the alternate suggestion...

Check out the other posts at 1+1=1 Tot School.

28 months

Some Wesley quotes from this month...

When told not to throw pumpkin seeds off the balcony when carving pumpkins...
"I'll throw them down there and the birds can eat them"

When playing with his lion figurine...
"this is a nice lion. he doesn't roar. he won't eat you. he eats lion tofu".

When reading a book featuring a swamp thing...
"What do swamp things eat...Swamp nuts"

 "Hamsters sad in cage"

When told we'd read The Princess Bride before bed...
"No. I want to read Hemmingway"

Randomly and frequently...
"The Giants won the whole series!"

One night while playing and eating...
"The baby turned into broth and lentils! and I ate him...yum yum yum" (while pretending to eat Sabien).

One day when we were out walking, we saw a big tree that had been cut down. We were talking about how it would be chopped up for firewood, or maybe put in a chipper.
Then Wes got upset and said, "Put it back together!" 
I said that I couldn't to which he replied,
"big trees cut down makes me sad"

Some Sweetness

Tot School (27.5 months)

This week we had a lot of fun. Our Thankfulness Tree (especially painting the leaves!) and spelling words out were the central activities.

Kevin (little guy in car) delivered beads to make a bead necklace for Daddy. I was surprised to see that Wes struggled some in stringing the beads on the lace, because he can string them on a pipe cleaner so easily. It was the motion of reaching around and grabbing the other end of the lace after the bead was on the end which presented a challenge. The lace would sometimes slip out of the bead.

Spelling out words was big this week...

We drove trains over our ABC puzzle while singing the ABCs. We've focused on phonics sounds, and not so much on letter names so when Wes drives over the letters he says some of their names and some of the sounds.

He has always said "ABCDFGY" for his ABC song, which he says often in play. After this play session I would hear him saying it to himself and now he has a few groupings of letters "ABCDFGY (as before) and LMNOP and WXYZ" in random order. So, that was neat.

Dusting the letters

We did some tracing...

Wes found this puzzle on the shelf and spent an afternoon mastering it and really enjoying himself.

In anticipation for Thanksgiving, we made a Thankfulness Tree. We drew a big tree. Then cut out leaves (I did that part while Wes cut around on the paper). Then we painted! We had so much fun painting. He got really into it and enjoyed layering many colors onto the leaves.

Then we wrote something we were thankful for on each leaf. We will continue to add thankfulness leaves to our tree until Thanksgiving. Wesley is (so far) primarily thankful for any toy his eye falls upon, and for the many wonderful people in his life.

We did some of  his "reading program". We haven't been doing it as much lately, but he really loves it.

We played some more Van Gogh matching/memory. We had success using eight cards or so.

We played Hi Ho! Cherrio. I could hear him counting 1-6 as he placed each cherry into the bucket, but there is still a connection missing. He will keep counting after he stops putting the objects in, even if he's starting to time the counting correctly with each object (which he used to do only for 1-3). He's starting to get the hang of it...I really love hearing him count. It sounds so sweet in his little kid voice.

We drove around some continents...

We cut out some letters. My idea was to cut out these letters and then glue them in ABC order, similar to the  counting activities we've been doing. We haven't gotten around to gluing them yet as we started the activity late at night. He really enjoyed the cutting, though.

We jumped around on some planets...

We glued the leaves we've been pressing! It was so fun to put them on paper. Now we just have to laminate them or something. Wesley gets so excited when we're out and about and he sees leaves, especially different leaves. He says, "Let's take it home and press it! that's a good idea!".

And practical life skills...we sorted laundry by light and dark color. He was a big help.

Check out other fun activities at 1+1=1 Tot School