Preschool Week 4 day one

I glanced at the weeks lesson plan for week 4 on Sunday night (or it may have even been Monday morning) and I clearly remembering thinking "phew, thank you Lord," as it was listed as a "review" week. I was still pretty wiped out after our busy week the previous week (to Charleston). A review week was actually ideal since we didn't finish a full week last week, but also I am tired, and not very motivated to create new projects (admittedly lazy over here).
So off we went to start school on week 4.
We were still finishing up our flag that we started on last week, painting the final white stripes.
{Also his shiner is looking much better this week!}
Oliver then worked on making the letter's Aa with felt. He is getting better at this. Good thing we have a review week for this, especially since we had a short week last week. It's so encouraging to see him learn things!

I pulled out my Aa printout (in a page protector) and used this as a play-doh template. I had seen this idea on a lot of preschool sites and thought Oliver could try it. It wasn't really a success. Oliver has a tough time rolling out pieces on his own still, and putting them on the template wasn't fun to him, especially once play-doh is out! He'd much rather just play with it, and that's what we ended up doing. But before I brought out more play-doh, I had him try writing the number 2 as well as Aa with a dry erase marker. He is getting better and better at tracing/writing.

Aleksandr was up from nap, so there was that going on :) At his age the things we are covering with Oliver are not things he can do quite yet. Soon enough little one, soon enough.

Also, with the play-doh, Oliver made an H and said "Wook mommy, it's dancin', the H is dancin'!" Hee hee. He's so silly. And that was also a cue to me that the play-doh on letter thing wasn't working, I just needed to let him create something on his own :) 

Finally the day ended with this. Little brother was desperate to get up and see what all the fuss was on the table, and why in the world wasn't he involved in it? Yup, lots of tears (from baby boy) usually means schools over! 

Preschool Week 3, Day 2 (our final day for the week)

Day two, also the last day of our school for the week. It was a short week due to the fact that we headed out of town the rest of the week for a family trip!
We started the day with our routine things, then I introduced Oliver to the Pledge of Allegiance. I thought I would like to start including this into our routine things so that Oliver can start to memorize it. I am thinking we may include the Christian pledge too, but one thing at a time.
We actually don't have a flag in our house. Can you believe it? Not that we aren't patriotic, we've just never bought one. When I get a chance I'll pick one up we can hang in our school area. But to make do with what we had, I used a small flag that is used on our calendar. I showed Oliver the colors, read through the pledge and explained how we respectfully say it.
The next thing was to create a flag for Oliver. I had him paint some popsicle sticks in flag colors, and we'd later glue them together. He likes to paint and does pretty good painting small pieces like that.

We then moved onto the number 2. I had Oliver write over the 2 with his dry erase marker. He did pretty good with it. I then helped him create a 2 with chalk on the chalkboard. His attention isn't very long with writing yet so we didn't spend a lot of time there.

I kept the marker out and tried something new with the letter Aa. I had him search for all the "a's" in the words on this printout. I need to get a smaller tipped marker for him to do this kind of detail or just print out some larger words. (mentally planning for future)

He did some writing exercises with the letter Aa, followed by shape drawing (lines and circles). Then we moved to the felt board to practice creating Aa. He's getting it, but it's still tough for him to remember how Aa is formed. I'm so proud of how well he does with sitting still and working hard on these!

Finally we wrapped up our day reading through Psalm 34:13 and listening to the song that went along with it on Steve Green's album Hide 'Em in Your Heart. You can listen to both volumes for free on Spotify! I'd like to purchase them eventually, but it sure helps to get them free! Oliver really loves music and he will sit and listen to it play for quite a while. Not sure how long if I let him :) I've let him sit there a good 30 minutes before and he was content doing just that! But he sat and listened along to the song and it's great how quickly you can learn a verse just by hearing it in song!

Summer time

Summer time is about making memories, hanging out with family, eating seasonal summer food, watching fireworks, home made ice cream, and pictures. lots and lots of pictures.
We spent this past week at our in-laws, and while it's been a busy week, it's been full of good memories. I'm thankful for our camera during days like this. Being able to stop time through photos lets me re-live memories. I love that we have these photos of Oliver at this moment in his life as I know these days are shorter and shorter before we welcome baby boy #2 and start an entirely new journey in our lives.
Favorites from the week....

oliver turns 2

This year I decided to be crazy and throw a birthday party for Oliver. For his 1 year, we were about to leave the country, leave him overnight for the first time (for 9 days), and basically had a million things going on the weekend of his birthday. To make it less stressful all around we had a simple celebration with family and at home. I'm glad we did that especially once his party this year was over with.
It takes a lot of work to have a party! But it was worth it, I can't say it wasn't. Oliver had a blast playing with friends and family and we enjoyed seeing our friends and family too!
Funny thing is on the actual day of his party (we had it a few days before his actual birthday, since the date worked out better) I ended up being sick. I did not feel well all day, but thankfully my husband kicked it all into high gear and saved the day, many times over. He worked so hard helping with cleaning, decorating and whatever else needed to be done, while I rested in between doing tasks. I wish I could have been feeling better to just enjoy each moment, like his big cake ceremony and such, but what are you going to do? Overall, I know Oliver and Jonah had a great time :) I am so glad we have some photos from the day too. We also set up a smilebooth in our garage for our guests to take photos in between things. So glad we did that (thanks honey for setting it up!) because the photos are hilarious.
Then on Oliver's actual birthday we were heading back in town from being away so we were very low key and let him open presents from his family that were mailed to us, as well as a gift from us. We also took him to Cracker Barrel where he enjoyed 'cakes' or pancakes for dinner.
I know it took a lot of work to pull off a party, but it was so much fun, and I'm glad we did. Next year will be so different with a baby brother toddling around, it was nice to just have this celebration for him. Who knows I may do another party one day :)
Here are a few photos from the party, love the last one with Oliver alone on the couch. At the end of the day when everyone had gone he just sat there sucking his thumb looking at his balloons. His favorite thing right now is balloons, and he just sat there in awe of them.