More Christmas fun

We LOVE this toy! Magformers are just plastic shapes with a magnet on each side. In his set, there are pentagons, squares, triangles, and a million possibilities :) He loves to make this ball...and then crush it and start over again.

Tall, Small, Ball, Fall, Hat, Bat, Mat!

I write them out and he runs around like a mad thing finding the right items to put on the word....it's particularly fun with TALL and FALL!

Practical Life Work

My baby is an independent soul.  He wants to set the table, but only if he can get the plates out of the cupboard himself and carry ALL of them at once.  He makes his own oatmeal in the morning and has started asking if he can make my coffee.

Love is defined as smiling while drinking coffee that your three year old made for you.

An authority on the subject

Mama:  Chipmunk, you seem to be having some trouble listening this morning.  Do you think you could work a little harder at hearing me?

Chipmunk.  oh, YES.  I can do that.  I wrote the book on that!

The Firehouse

We had a FABULOUS field trip with the homeschool group this week!   The staff from fire station #9 gave us a great presentation on fire safety and then showed us every little piece of their gear.  They were almost as enthusiastic about their 'toys' as the kids were.

Rapt attention

The smallest fire chief




The flashlight with the generator was everyone's favorite!




"I have a hose at home!"




Driving the truck!!




The even pulled the truck out of the garage so that we could see the lights and hear the sirens.



It was a crazy, fun morning and we're so grateful to our local firefighters!

Playing with Light

The Chipmunk's wonderful Aunt Lynn and Uncle Will got him a light board for Christmas last year.  I can honestly say that it's the single most used thing that he's received, with the exception of his Geotrax trains.  :)

He's been changing it up lately and using it for a lot of different things.  Occasionally I make suggestions, but I usually get shot down pretty quickly.

Mazes - he LOVES them.  I can't print them fast enough.







Rolling the big dice and counting spiders :)




I actually managed to set one up that he liked!




These number stencils came from Mimi - he filled them up with beads and traced them on the board for a long while.

Conversations with the Chipmunk

background info:  Curious George has a Christmas book where he ends up in a hospital and decorates a big tree with random things that he finds around him.

Chip:  MAMA!  There's an xray in my Christmas tree!  Why did you put that there?

M:  How do you know I did it?  Is there anything else in your tree?

*runs to check*

Chip:  Curious George is there, but he didn't do it.  

M:  How do you know?  I think he might have!

Chip:  Mama. Are you pretending?  Cause Curious George is not real.  He is just pretend.  And so is that book.

M:  I still think he might have done it.

Chip:  Are you pretending again?
M:  You're going to have to decide that for yourself.

Well, alrighty then.

*YAWN*

Me:  Chipmunk, are you tired?

C:  No.

Me:  You yawned just now...that means that you're tired, doesn't it?

C:  No.  My white blood cells are chasing a germ.  They're working hard and that makes me tired.

 I really can't argue with that.

What did you say?

Mama:   Chipmunk, look!  There's a police officer over there.

Chipmunk:  What? Where?

M:  Over there-do you see him in his uniform?

C:  THERE'S A POLICEMAN RIDING A UNICORN?!?!

Hey Crab Man!

We had a blast with Halloween this year! I'm a big believer in home made costumes - they're just so much more fun! The Chipmunk has been telling us for MONTHS that he needed to be a hermit crab for Halloween. An orange one.

But first a little fun...our little one tends to be VERY literal. You have to explain to him when things are pretend - he's a serious guy sometimes so we try to throw in a little whimsy when we can. Do you know what happens on Halloween if you plant candy corn?

It grows, of course!




It turns out, that's where pipe cleaners come from too. He was excited about that!




Now for the main event...the hermit crab all ready for trick or treating!  He had a great time and has already decided that he wants to be a horse next year :)

His Fourth Highland Games

This is just not possible.

A work of fiction

The Chipmunk told me the other night that he needed to write a book. I transcribed it exactly as he told it to me.  I think that it speaks for itself...I'm just really hoping that it's a work of fiction!

It's a small world

One of our favorite things lately is small world play.  He loves to pick a place and we spend an hour or so collecting everything we need and building him a little world for hours of fun.  Usually he's so invested in it that we don't finish nearly everything we plan.

This time, we wanted a pumpkin patch!

All pumpkin patches deliver by train, right?




He was literally in the middle of this before I got the tracks put together.  There's a petting zoo on the right (we added a mud puddle for the pigs later) and the pumpkin patch is in the middle on the left of the table.




This is a terrible photo (we added this later) but it's my favorite part! This is our cinnamon stick apple orchard :)

One adventure after another!

Fort building




 and over-ripe tomato bowling!




Writing,




 Music lessons,







Steam Engines,



Caboose rides....




and *maglev trains!  It's been a full week :) How on earth is it only Thursday?



*For those of you who spend less time in a train museum than I do, a maglev train is powered by magnets and floats above it's track rather than running on wheels using a more traditional fuel source.