I've got a new teacher

"Sean is teaching Mama!"




He loves to use the metronome to practice  :)




"Like this!"

What's the weather today?

The Chipmunk's weather fascination continues, so we're still learning about it!  This beautiful weather chart has been going around Pinterest and several other sites lately and it took some time to track down the right link, but we finally found it!  I had it printed at Costco just like they recommended and we love it.




It's warm and sunny today, Mama!


The arrows are on clothespins so that he can move them himself, so we go out several times a day to check the weather and move them around appropriately.

What??

"Mom.  Mom.  Mom.  I need my phone."

The County Fair

Ed and I love the County Fair and we've been excited about taking the Chipmunk with us since before he was born. This year he's old enough to really enjoy it and we had so much fun! We spent some time worrying about how he'd do alone on the rides and how to handle things if he got scared, but of course, he didn't need us at all! He would run right up to a car, get on, buckle himself in and beep the horn till it started :) When on earth did he turn into such a capable little person?

 Naturally, the very first thing we saw was a train!




It's a steam engine!




Waiting patiently




That zebra is following me!!




I buckled myself in!




Driving, driving, driving...




He definitely loved the driving rides :)




Somewhere along the way he picked up a very pretty passenger!




Looks like rush hour to me!




We saw some beautiful crafts




And petted some pigs and cows!




IT'S AN EXCAVATOR, MAMA!!




We even got to see how wool went from raw fleece to beautiful yarn.




We finished up our day with a ride on the Ferris Wheel.  This is the only picture I got because I ended up with a munchkin in my lap.  He spent the ride alternating between being scared and trying to open the doors for a better look.  His final conclusion was that he was scared, but he wants to ride it again next year.  I'm so proud of this boy!

Things You Never Thought You'd Have To Say

Friday edition: Do NOT hit the dog with that flamingo!!

Wild Highlander

The Highland Games is coming up soon, so I had to pull out these photos of my little wild highlander from last year!

It's a spider

No, it's not!!!

A is for Apple

We've had apples at the farmer's market the past few weeks and the Chipmunk is a BIG fan.  He eats them whole, from the top to the bottom, core and all.

One of the blogs I read has a great Letter of the Week curriculum and of course, A is for Apple!

Here he is matching upper and lowercase letters to the apples on the tree.

Water bead ocean

The Chipmunk has been talking about the ocean a lot the past couple of days, so we set up a rainy day ocean just for him using water beads and some ocean toys.





There's always a train involved when we play ocean.  He loves to read Green Eggs and Ham and there's a scene where the train falls into the ocean.

A train! A train! A Train! A Train!





I wonder what these feel like on my feet?  Ewwwwwwwwww.....



In the end we had to have sand as well...what's an ocean without a beach?  :)

Things you never thought you'd hear

#430002

Mama!! The dump truck is under my tushie!!

The Great Smoky Mountain Railway

We took the Chipmunk on a grand adventure yesterday and I think we had every bit as much fun as he did.  The Great Smoky Mountain Railway is located in Bryson City, NC.  It's an easy three hour drive for us and worth every minute in the car.  This weekend is Railfest 2012 and there were trains everywhere!

They had a nice little craft and local art market set up, railway museum, several train and local book shops, and of course, the main attraction;  the big trains.

The Chipmunk saw diesel engines, freight trains, Pullman cars, caboose (cabooses?  cabeese?), miniature trains, model trains, Thomas Trains, a real live working steam engine, and pulling the train was the best of all!

 The Little Engine That Could




He can't take his eyes off of it!




 In truth, this was pulling the train. They had the Little Engine as the last car.  This one was by far my favorite!






The scenery outside the train was really beautiful




The scenery inside the train needed a nap, but was FAR too excited to take one!




Almost.....




Nope!  Got his second wind and he's good to go for a while :)










I think he could have used some toothpicks here to help prop his eyes open.



It was a truly wonderful day and one that I'm sure we'll repeat over and over again!!

Shhhhhhh

He's reading. We love to spend the morning at the library!

Picking tomatoes

We went to pick tomatoes at GrandDad's house yesterday...at least two of them got eaten before we got back in the house.

Fireman

He says that he's taking his fire truck to help people, so it has to go everywhere with us :)

True love.

Bug Hunt!

Our little adventurer took us on a bug hunt this morning!  We found a roly poly, lots of ants, a caterpillar, and      a potential snake hole :)

There's a snake in there, Mama!

There really are no words

for how this photo makes me feel.

Boys love to knock things down...

So we took him bowling!