PeeWees: I Knew You Could/Trainstop (week 2)

 [From PeeWee mom Lisa...]

We were one peewee down today and the peewee’s definitely missed Henry.

 

Summary - We again focused on trains, today with a lot more emphasis on the two types of trains – passenger trains and freight trains. We also focused on the parts of a train – the engine, the caboose, the whistle – the driver of a train, the conductor, and a train map.

 

 

The primary book for the day was Trainstop by Barbara Lehman, though I also used the simple board book, Freight Trains, and the Thomas book, Crack in the Track at other points in the day – Yes, we overloaded on trains today. Trainstop is a wordless book. I picked it because the train looks like a metro and some of the illustrations include a metro-looking map. And without words, we all got to make up the story. The general idea is that a girl gets on the train, watches out the window as the train goes along (seeing buildings, trees, apartments, etc). The train stops and she gets off to help some little, fairy-like people, and returns to the train for the next stop. We downplayed the fairy-people and focused on the train and how it went through a tunnel, past buildings, etc.

 

Open play – Train track and trains downstairs.

 

Circle time – Sang welcome song, everyone got a train whistle and we blew them as we counted to 20, sang the alphabet song while moving like a train, then read the book.

 

Snack – We had a carrot and blueberry train and a apple with peanut butter cracker train (I was impressed that everyone ate every item of their snack.)

 

Art – We colored and made conductor hats (the peewees made one for Henry too.)

 

Song break – We went back to the carpet squares and learned “I’ve been working on the railroad,” blowing our train whistles throughout.

 

Activity 1 – Coloring freight train picture and passenger train pictures while I read the books Freight Trains and Crack in the Track. I wanted them to see the difference as they colored. By the end of the two books and the coloring, they all seemed to get the difference between freight train (carries “stuff”) and passenger train (carries people.)

 

Activity 2 - I made a metro map with colored straws. I wanted them to get an idea of how a train knows where to go by following a train route on a map. So they each got a train and would tell everyone which track their train wanted to go on, then follow that track. Because the “map” was made of straws, the trains stayed on the track.

 

Closing – back to the circle, re-cap of what we did, re-read the book

 

Outdoor activity – Human train. Poppy picked to be the conductor, Jackson wanted to be the whistle, and Bodie wanted to be the Caboose. We hooked together with a jump rope and the train moved around the “tracks” in the yard.

Great day. (LOTS of potty breaks – five, to be exact. The peewees are definitely getting the hang of that!)

[Except Poppy, of course...]

PeeWees: I Knew You Could (week 1)

[From PeeWee mom Lisa...]

 

Synopsis - I chose my book this week based on a field trip I thought the pee wees would enjoy – riding a “train” (in our case, the Metro). The book is I Knew You Could: A Book for All the Stops in Your Life by Craig Dorfman. It has a similar feel to Dr. Seuss’s, Oh the Places You’ll Go, but is done via train and the lines are based on things like, “which track you choose.”

 

Open play - Train track building and playing with trains while Rod Stewart’s “Downtown Train” played in the background. We talked about the colors of the trains, the sounds trains make, going over/under, etc.

 

Circle time – Stand up song, counting 20 train tracks (they’re definitely getting better at this), ABC song, and the book. Each pee wee got a piece of track and whenever the book had the word track they would yell it out and hold up their piece of track.

 

We washed our hands and headed to the little table for snack.

 

Snack/activity – We made trains and railroad crossing kabobs. The pee wees each got a cardboard plate and their train kit. I showed them a snack train and told them to build it however they wanted – each did it their own way and then gobbled up the crackers and treats. Next I showed them the railroad crossing kabobs and we talked about what railroad crossing were and how they keep us safe. I was SHOCKED that all four of them had no problem making their own kabobs – no one needed any help! Once we made them they ate those up too.

 

Craft/activity time – We painted egg carton trains. Tons of interest in the painting. Then we glued on the smoke and wheels – again, no one likes to get glue on their fingers – it’s pretty funny.

  (The “activity” today was merged into the snack and craft b/c we were stuck indoors.)

 

We took a song break and learned “Engine, engine number 9.” They did a pretty good job with this – though some of them wanted to call it engine, engine number 5.

 

We reviewed the day’s activities, re-read the book, and had five minutes left to head back down for a little more play time with the train set – a request by all four of them. So we played trains one more time and listened to “I’ve been working on the railroad.”

 

A very fun day. They are all improving their skills so much and it’s impressive to see how much they “grow” from time to time.

 

The 38-Year-Old

 Last Saturday was my birthday, and my birthday is always awesome.  This year Ed was in class all day (he's in an executive MBA program which meets every other weekend), so I had to make my own awesome, which is actually really easy with my girls.

I decided to take them on a day trip.  So at 7:30 a.m. last Saturday morning we packed some snacks and movies, and loaded into the van for an adventure.  We drove 2 hours and 10 minutes north to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to go to a science museum there, the Whitaker Center. 

We'd never been there, but a friend had told us about it, and since DC doesn't have a science museum (lame!), I thought this was the perfect chance to go check it out.  It was just the right size for us, with three small levels, a super 0-5 area, and an IMAX theater showing Flight of the Butterflies in 3D.

 Hickmans running the marketplace.

 Poppy splashing in the baby seats at the water table. 

 Hazel and Ginger could have spent all day just hauling bricks. 

 After an hour of playing, and the 45-minute movie, during which Poppy refused to wear the 3D glasses, asking instead for a Backyardigans show on the iPod, which I had fortuitously thought to bring, we walked across an enclosed bridge to the nearby mall and had lunch at the food court.  There was this cool two-story gadgety clock at the food court.

 Playing with sciencey stuff.

 I built these arches myself, ahem, thank you.  They held under Poppy's jumping and climbing.  Thank you.

 Making, and then racing, soapbox cars.

 Climbing wall.

I'm not going to pretend the day wasn't without snafus.  Hazel lost our very favorite headband somewhere between that soapbox car picture and the next level.  She cried a lot over that.  On the way out I got myself a chocolate frappe at Starbucks - my Mommy birthday treat for the drive home, which I placed too close to the edge of the car's roof to put stuff in the back, and it fell and exploded all over me and Poppy.  More tears.

But it was mostly awesome.  Hazel and Ginger brought money from their allowance to spend at the gift shop, and that part was really fun.  Hazel bought a make-instant-worms kit and a bag of marbles; Ginger bought two stained glass coloring books.  I also got a few things for their Easter baskets and our upcoming trip to Utah.  I had to say no to the 3-foot stuffed dog Poppy wanted.

When we got home, two of my friends were waiting for me, with flowers and a new butter dish (to replace this one.)  Ed picked up the babysitter on his way home from school, and he took me out to dinner at Green Pig Bistro; everything was excellent.  We had planned to see a movie after, but when we checked the offerings on our phones, there was nothing we wanted to see that met our time frame, so we went home early, stuffed, tired, and happy, and watched MIB III from Netflix.  Awesome.

I don't know what to say about being 38.  It's surreal to be 20 years past 18.  I found my first real age spots on my face just a few weeks ago.  I know I look my age, probably even older.  I've been severely sleep deprived for about 8 years, and that takes its toll, both directly and indirectly.  I'm glad to come from hardy stock, so things aren't even worse.  But looking past my physical age, I consider my life - my kind husband and loving marriage; my children who are complex, wonderful people; my home and friends and many roles I try to fill, often falling short, and sometimes hitting the mark.  It doesn't all seem to be what I expected; in most ways it's better.  It's an amazing life, and I'm so grateful to still have so much more ahead of me.

Baby Shower Roundup

Most of my closest friends around here had babies last year between June and September.  It was crazy.  And very cute.  Since they were all pregnant and having babies - their third, fourth, or fifth - they were too frazzled and exhausted to throw showers for each other.  And while they may have said they didn't care about having a shower, I know from personal experience, Everyone. Wants. (And deserves.) A shower.  For every baby.  So I threw a few.

It hadn't occurred to me to post them.  Then I was going through last year's photo files, and I was like, those parties were fun!  So here's a little summary of the crazy good showers we had last year.

I threw showers for three different friends, one in June, one in August, one in September.  And since they are all friends with each other, they had to be as different as possible, to feel unique in the same setting.  I did my best.

#1 Pajama Party
I called my friend Juli and offered to throw her a shower for Baby Jane, her third girl, who was scheduled to arrive at the end of June.  Due to tight schedules, we chose a Friday night the week before Jane was expected; it was close, but it was the best we could do. 

So Juli knew about the shower, and provided the guest list, but I wanted the theme and details to be a surprise.  I sent out an Evite with bottles of nail polish across the screen, for a "Pajama Party Shower", asking everyone to come in PJ's.

Decorations:  One friend made big pink and orange paper stars, and another provided gorgeous hydrangea bouquets from her garden.  I got purple plastic tablecloths for the tables, and girly plates and napkins.  Also broke out my disco ball and put a pink filter on the light.

Food:  Juli's husband Brian is an accomplished home chef and foodie, so I asked him to make a couple of appetizers, which he not only did, but also brought them over early and plated them all gorgeously for me.  I don't even know what it all was, sorry to say, because I was running around like crazy at that point.  But everyone said it was amazing.

 I made some cookies n' cream popcorn (above, right), and provided bowls and plates of candy around the house.

Here's some more of Brian's concoctions, plus a strawberry w/ dip topiary another friend made, and some key lime pie cupcakes on the far right.

 To drink we had a tub of water bottles with single-serving Crystal Light packets.  My favorite is Ocean Spray white cranberry peach, yummy.  One friend there that night, also pregnant, tried it, and proclaimed I'd changed her life.  That's the kind of reaction I like to get at my parties.

Activities:  Because this was a pajama party, we had manicure stations at the counter, complete with emery boards, nail sticks, clippers, remover, cuticle cream, etc.  And of course plenty of polish colors!  One friend took it upon herself to also paint toenails for all the pregnant ladies at the party, so fun!

 One step of the manicure was this olive oil salt scrub that you rub on your hands and arms up to your elbow, then wash off.  So silky soft!

 Then over at the table was our facial station.  Headbands, cotton pads, and seven steps to a more beautiful you!

 Steamy hot washcloths in the crockpot to go with the facials.

 Favors:  Every good pajama party needs music!  So I made a mix CD of songs for mothers and children - I don't know about everyone else, but I still listen to mine all the time.

 Songs on the CD: Wonder Woman Theme, Lullabye for an Anxious Child (Sting), Lollipop (MIKA), For Baby (John Denver), Sweet Child O' Mine (Banda do Sul), A Child's Prayer (SweetHaven), The Babysitter's Here (Dar Williams), Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (Greg Laswell), Gracie (Ben Folds), She Likes Being a Girl (Judd Grossman), Family (Dar Williams), Slipping Through My Fingers (ABBA), All Will Be Well (Gabe Dixon Band), You Raise Me Up (Josh Groban), Flesh and Blood (Johnny Cash), We Are Family (Sister Sledge), Say a Little Prayer (Shawn Colvin), Baby Mine (Allison Krauss), High Over Grandmother's Pond (Alex Grant), Prayer of the Children (Kurt Bestor), Mother and Child Reunion (Paul Simon), Mama Liked the Roses (Elvis), PM's Love Theme (Craig Armstrong)

 There's Juli in the flattering black dress in the middle.  I didn't ask permission of any of these people to post pictures, so hopefully they'll never check in here, or forgive me if they do!

 (Hazel and Ginger got to sneak down in their jammies and get their nails pained before bed.)

#2 Surprise Pancake Breakfast
My friend Andrea, due with Baby Paul in August, was adamant she did NOT want a shower for this baby, her fourth.  When asked why, she said because the shower for her third baby was so perfect, it could never be better than that.  I was at that shower, and it was very lovely, and her reason might be enough to intimidate someone smarter than me, but I said, "PHOOEY!  EVERYONE wants (and deserves) a shower."  But since she was being a pill, we had to go the surprise route, with her husband in on the deal.

Decorations:  Here's what I loved so much about this shower.  The decorations were all Andrea's!  She's got this box of a gazillion paper lanterns she uses for everything, and I very sneakily asked her if I could borrow them for something I wanted to do with my girls!  All I had to do was string them up, and put them over my pendants, and voila!  Decorated!

 And if that wasn't enough, our friends Julia and Shiloh got all the pink, yellow, and green paper products and table decorations, and Julia made three of these amazing, gorgeous diaper cakes for centerpieces (and Andrea's gift)!

Food:  Obviously, if we're having a pancake breakfast, the food is the activity and the activity is the food.  We had three kinds of pancakes - double coconut, Nutella swirl, and lemon blueberry.

 I don't even know if I can remember all the toppings.  Vanilla-pear sauce, jams, butter, maple syrup, buttermilk syrup, whipped cream...

 ...and root beer syrup, just because Andrea loves root beer so much.

 Also fruit platters...

 ...and pitchers of orange juice, rounded out the breakfast. 

 I had to borrow long tables and chairs from the church to seat everyone, and rearranging the living room by myself to set it all up was quite the feat, but so fun!  Andrea was gracious about the whole thing, and conceded, at least to make me feel good, that she was indeed so glad she had a shower.

 Since the whole downstairs was taken up with breakfast, we moved upstairs to the family room/play room for gift opening.  Nabbed this quick-and-easy decoration idea from another shower I attended once - clothesline of baby clothes.

 Here's Andrea just about to pop.  I know she won't be happy to have this picture public, but she is gorgeous - wish I looked that perfect and amazing when I was that pregnant!

Favors:  Guess I don't have a picture of them, but I found these tiny jars of jam at World Market, so everyone got a bag with two jams, one strawberry, one apricot.  I thought it went well with the pancake theme.

#3 Party of Five
This was maybe the hardest shower to come up with, just because I had already recently thrown two, and I needed this one to be different from both of them.  My friend Shanna was having her FIFTH baby, and she'd been through a real doozy of a pregnancy, to put it mildly, so she needed a really great party.  I played around with different ideas, but it seemed like everything had already been done (or was dumb), so I turned to the number 5 and found my muse. 

The Evite called it "Shanna's Party of Five" and the picture was a collage of all kinds of "five" things I could think of - a hand with five fingers, the Backstreet Boys, 5th Avenue street sign, etc. 

Decorations:  I went to the library and loaded up on children's books with "five" in the title - there are lots!  My search incidentally led to a couple of books my girls and I really loved, like The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean (front, right center.)  It was fun to see all the different books.

 My same friend with the summer hydrangeas at Juli's shower now had beautiful antique-y autumn hydrangeas she arranged for Shanna's party.

 I also printed off a bunch of "Five Little..." nursery rhymes, stuck them on scrapbook paper, and hung them up for decorations.  There are quite a few, and you might not know them all!

 Food:  I kept it simple, for a mid-morning shower - five-layer trifle...

 ...Five Alive juice to drink...

 ...and Take 5 bars in bowls around the room (luckily the Halloween candy was newly in stores, or it might have been hard to find them small size.)

Activities:  Mostly, we just sat around and ate and talked, like at most showers.  But I did have one little thing for everyone to do - a jar full of candy pumpkins, and you had to guess how many sets of five little pumpkins were in there.  The winner got to take the whole jar home, much to my daughters' disappointment.

 Here's Andrea (of the last shower), with Baby Paul, all safely in arms!

Favor:  One of the books I found in my book table search, was a charming old chapter book called Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney.  I read the whole book before the shower, and was more than once touched to tears by the simple tales of poor widowed Mrs. Pepper and her five children's mishaps and triumphs.  Thank goodness Shanna is not a widow, but I still thought this was a sweet enough book to be favor at a fifth child's shower. 5th Avenue bar attached, naturally.

 Here's Shanna (far left) with two other pregnant friends at the shower.  So many babies!  So much fun!