Pledge for your day

I've put this pledge in a blog before, but I wanted to repost it again.  Amanda was put on bed rest yesterday, so I've been thinking about her a lot (and some other things too).  We recited this pledge every morning, along with the Pledge of Allegiance.  Our scholars loved both.  I am sending warm wishes to Amanda and her baby girl, and hope that everything goes smoothly.

I can't wait to teach the pledge to Oliver.  It is such a positive way to start your day.  I think I am going to print it out and hang it up Oliver's room.

A Jar of Worms

This morning Oliver and Mommy rested and then worked on transferring our worms to a jar.  We put layers of soil and dry oatmeal in the jar.  We placed the worms on top and some leaves.  The worms have a nice safe home, and we can’t wait to feed them and observe them.   We made holes in the lid with a hammer and nail, so they can breathe.  Oliver really liked that part!  He loves to use tools!

Oliver is off with his Daddy now for a few days.  Oliver was excited to spend some extra time with him before he leaves for school up in Northern California for a while.  Mommy misses Oliver already.

 Walking on the path.

 A crow in the tree with beautiful blue sky.

 Transferring our worms.

 We are excited to observe them.

 Putting the lid on the jar.

 Cutie.

 Using the hammer on the bricks.

 We read Toil in the Soil a few times this morning.

This was Oliver's favorite part, he wanted to know about

all the fires and why the people had to leave their home.  We

had a nice discussion about what was happening.  

This was Mommy's favorite page.  It shows how life is so beautiful and it

is nice when the children work together to make things grow. 

  (It is so positive, it is a good thing to be optimistic.)  Oliver wanted to know why

 the little girls pants were dirty.  He is so funny sometimes.

Learning

Last night we had a slumber party at Grammie and Grandpa’s house.  Oliver woke up and watched Sesame Street with Grammie while Mommy was running a race.  They had a nice time together. 

Mommy picked up Oliver and we went for a little hike at the Batiquitos Lagoon.  Oliver had fun crossing over the little pools of mud, hiking up the few steep hills, and learning about the Eucalyptus trees where the Egrets gather together every evening.  It is one of Mommy’s favorite spots on the trail—she used to see the egrets gather a lot there when she would run the trail.  Oliver learned a lot and had fun.

After we went to the library to read and play—then we came home.  We rested for a bit then worked in the backyard.  We decided to collect some worms and make a worm farm in a jar.  We want to watch the worms and see how they live for a while.   Mommy has never tried this before so it seems really fun!  (Sometimes it is nice to try new things and see what you can learn!)  It will be interesting.

Oliver took an awesome bath and is peacefully sleeping now.

 Batiquitos Lagoon

 Running on the trail

The Eucalyptus trees where the Egrets come 

together every evening.

 Saying cheese for the camera.

 Rock climbing to check if there was water in the little hole

at the Dove library.  There was, he was so excited!

 Books we got about soil and worms.

 Finding worms in our backyard.

 Collecting worms for our worm farm.

 Our temporary worm farm, we will transfer them to

a jar in the morning.

Working on the leaves, he likes to cut them.

Outside

Today we spent a little time outside because the weather was really nice.  Oliver had fun running around the garden beds, while Mommy worked on picking up leaves.  Oliver had a really nice day with Mommy and took an awesome bath tonight with his scuba diving man. 

He is sleeping peacefully now.

 A cool tree Mommy found on a walk today with the babies.

 There are actually two trees that have their branches connecting.  So cool.

 Can you spot the blue bird?  Kind of a blurry picture, but Mommy 

didn't want to scare the bird away.  

 Looking up at the blue sky.  (So much blue today,

hopefully more tomorrow.)

 Playing outside.  

Racing around the garden beds.  

Donut Wednesday

This morning we made our way to the Donut shop and preschool.  Oliver was so excited to pick a donut and order.  He stopped to talk to the donut lady before he went around the corner to make his selection.  He is so cute and social! 

Oliver is off with his Daddy now for the next couple of days.

Oliver playing with his Pirate Elmo that he received yesterday in the mail, 

from Amanda!  (The Lego "instructions" were well written.)  It wasn't

hard for Mommy to help Oliver figure out how to put Elmo together.

Stopping to share his racoon with the donut lady.

 He chose a white donut with colored sprinkles today.

(Kind of like snow again...)

 Ordering and paying for his donut.

Our donut Wednesdays remind Mommy of Amy’s Butterfly Wednesdays that she wrote about for a while in her blog.   (This made Mommy think about some good butterfly songs…some of them make her laugh…maybe she will write a blog about it someday.)  Mommy loves this butterfly poster and she is going to frame it and hang it in our guest bathroom, once she paints it purple. 

Sleeping

Mommy loves when Oliver sleeps.  He is such a busy little guy, so when he is sleeping Mommy knows that he is finally getting the rest his body needs—and it gives Mommy a rest too!  Falling asleep has always been kind of a struggle with Oliver.   He has always fought sleep; he must think he is going to miss something if he closes his eyes.  This morning Oliver was really cute when Mommy went in his room to wake him up.  He was pretending to still be sleeping, but his little smile didn’t fool Mommy.  Good thing the camera wasn’t too far away.

Mommy was inspired to find some poems about sleep, share her favorite sleep book, and her favorite song for putting Oliver to sleep when he was a baby. 

Mommy was searching for a good sleep poem to put in tonight’s blog and she found a cool haiku poem.

Rise the harvest moon

Whispering to the dreamer

So soundly sleeping

Mommy also found information on how to write a haiku poem.  There was a lot of information about haikus and sleep.  (Mommy liked reading all the information that came up in her search--there are some interesting ideas out there...)  Oliver is finally sleeping. 

 He has a little smirk on his face.

 Mommy loves this munchkin.  

 Mommy's favorite sleep book, it is fun to read in a quiet whisper.

Just looking at this book is making Mommy sleepy.

One of Mommy's favorite pages.  There is a Great Blue

Heron in the tree and a cool treehouse.  Love the moose too!

Shapes, Lemons, and Crows

Mommy has always liked idioms.  Idioms are phrases that have a meaning that is commonly understood, but whose meaning is often different from the normal meaning of the words in the dictionary.  One example is “to pave the way” which actually means to make progress or make things easier for others.  Idioms are interesting sayings and kind of weird.  (Mommy likes weird things.)  One of Mommy’s favorite books she used to teach idioms was an idiom kids dictionary.  So today, Mommy decided to incorporate idioms into our blog to describe our day. 

On some Mondays, Mommy has to “whip Oliver into shape.”   Not really whip, we use words…idioms are so much fun!   Oliver was getting adjusted to being back with Mommy after a long stretch, so we have to talk about making good choices and being respectful.  Sometimes Mommy has to put Oliver in time-outs, but usually Oliver gets it and is respectful and helpful.

 Uncle Matthew and Haley came over for a little bit to play with Oliver.  Mommy collected a bunch of lemons from our tree in the backyard and Uncle Matthew made lemonade for Oliver.  Oliver loved it.  It reminded Mommy of the idiom, “if life gives you lemons make lemonade.”  We made the most of our day, even though we couldn’t go outside because of the rain.  It was nice to have Uncle Matthew here to play with busy Oliver.

This last one actually didn’t happen today.  Mommy took a bunch of neat pictures of crows in our “parrot trees” and in the yard this weekend.   There are a bunch of really neat idioms using crows (Mommy came across a few of them in some things she read this weekend.)  Mommy likes “hoarse as a crow.”  That must be how baby Korey feels today, he was testing out his lungs in a fun way! 

Mommy would love to hear what your favorite idiom is…if you can’t post it in the comment section, e-mail it to Mommy!