February 2013 videos

6 years + 4 months

Emily has become quite the party planner.  She has already been planning Lincoln's "Thomas" themed birthday party.  She has lists of gift ideas.  She even made him a birthday card three months early.

I mentioned the class Valentine's party in the Valentine's post.  After that she moved on to Tyler and Chelsea's wedding (she was concerned that we needed to decide what kind of flowers she was going to carry as the flower girl).  Now she's working on an Easter play to be performed with the Lorenzen cousins.

Emily has her first loose tooth!  She has a sudden interest in foods that might make it fall out faster.  I think she's excited for it to fall out, but doesn't want to have to pull it out.  She wants it to happen naturally.  She honestly tried apple slices again, but ended up spitting it out.  After months of turning up her nose at baby carrots, she has eaten them on several occasions.  They aren't really helping, though.

Emily has given up on most of the bedtime excuses.  The other night, however, she asked for a Band-aid.  She was genuinely bleeding with a pretty decent-sized scrape on the back of her leg.  I asked her how that happened when she was supposed to be sleeping.  She admitted to trying to hide under her bed so she could read by closet light without me being able to see her on the video monitor that is currently set up in her room.  She doesn't know that I haven't been watching the monitor for weeks.  But now I am!

Emily has had some trouble with the boys at recess this month.  From what I gather, she helped them build a snow fort by rolling snowballs.  She is "in" with them, but the boys won't let any of the other girls come near the fort.  The boys just growl at them, and Emily didn't know what to do because she just wants the boys and girls to get along.  Austin & I suggested that she lead the girls in building their own fort.  A few days later I found this note in the bottom of her backpack.

After a week I asked about the progress.  Emily was discouraged.  She said that after the first day of the girls' revolution, none of the girls wanted to help anymore, so she was left on her own.  She lamented that the boys had such a cool fort with a [pretend] TV and everything.  She wondered when the boys were going to play in the fort instead of just building it.  (Difference between girls & boys)  I also found this note in the bottom of her backpack.

Emily's class studied the five senses in February, and each student narrated a little slide show of pictures they each chose.  Below is the link to Emily's video.

• Click to view my tale.
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Emily's teacher also asked her to narrate a classroom video she had to make after getting to use a bundle of mini iPads for a week.  Emily did a super job in just one take and especially did a good job with her /s/ sounds!



Below is Emily's February artwork from school.

Go-Hawk Girls Basketball

The kids & I have enjoyed following the Waverly Shell-Rock varsity girls basketball team the last couple months.  The head coach was in our small group at church.  I took the kids to their first basketball game on a whim one night when Austin was out of town.  We went to three other games, including the two tournament games to make it to the state tournament.  The Go-Hawk girls had an outstanding, record-breaking season.  They won their 3rd straight conference championship, won the most games in a season and lost in the semi-finals at the state tournament.  It was so much fun to watch a really good girls team and to introduce the kids to an activity I grew up on (attending high school basketball games).  The kids did pretty well, and even though they seemed more interested in the candy they purchased at half time, I know they picked up on things.  Going to games was also a good learning opportunity for making spending decisions with their treat money.  The $.50 Ring Pops were definitely a hit!  Congratulations to Coach Bodensteiner and the whole team on an outstanding season!

Snow fort

It snowed another 5" and we had another snow day.  The kids & I went out to shovel and play.  We have been adding on to this snow fort each time it snows. 

Bridal shower

Austin's younger brother is getting married in April to a super fun girl.  Emily has been asked to be the flower girl and is beyond excited.  This afternoon, Emily & I traveled to Hampton to attend a Tupperware bridal shower for Chelsea.  Emily kept asking what we were going to give as a gift.  I tried to explain that we would pick something from a wish list when we got there, but Emily wanted to bring a gift.  Since it was a Tupperware party, and I said it was mostly things for their kitchen, Emily looked up kitchen gift ideas in her Make & Do  ChildCraft book and decided to make some homemade Tupperware.  She raided the recycling bin and created silverware holders.  She also made a really sweet card for Chelsea.

 

 

 

Snow Fun

The kids eventually gave up on their pretend TV, got dressed, and we all went outside for some family fun in the snow.  We went sledding in the water retention basin at the hospital across the street and climbed the snow mountain in the parking lot.  The kids had a lot of fun creating "avalanches" and seeing if they could get across the water culvert at the bottom of the hill.  There are some videos in the February play list.

Thomas TV

After watching enough videos in the morning, I told Emily & Lincoln they would have to find something else to do.  So, Emily made them their own TV out of a Diet Coke box, complete with giant paper remote--which they then proceeded to fight over.  Emily eventually made another one so they had dueling remotes.  They pretended to watch TV for almost as long as they had watched real TV.  You can't really see it in the picture, but there is a price tag of $39 if you're interested in purchasing Emily's homemade TV. :o)

Recycled house

Emily has been all about raiding the recycling bin lately for building materials.  She even calls it her "mailbox" sometimes.  Today, she put together quite the masterpiece "Kleenex box house" for the Featherlock family, which consisted of a yogurt container Mom & Dad, TP tube kids Jack & Annie, and a paper baby.  They had a car and a tree house.  She later made an intricate paper crib for the baby.  It was loosely based on Magic Treehouse, and she pretend-played with it for a long time.

After the initial day of fun, the whole thing got shoved under her art table and was left untouched for several days.  I made the mistake of asking Emily to pick up her art table and put the recycling back in the bin right before bed one night.  She was overly tired and had a meltdown about me destroying her stuff.  I had already threatened to pick it up for her if she didn't pick it up herself.  She's usually not that attached to her projects, and rarely remembers or says anything if you quietly dispose of something when she's not around.  I should have done that this time.  After she went huffing off to bed, I proceeded to pick it up for her.  I came away with a laundry basket full of recycling and half a trash bag of trash.  Unfortunately for Emily, I didn't see the note she had left until I was almost done. ;o)

I also took down the list of "rules" she put up the weekend before when Lincoln started messing with her piles.

"Shunting" cars

Lincoln likes coming along to Emily's piano lesson.  Most of the time we hang out in the lobby of the music building at Wartburg College.  He is usually busy entertaining the college students milling around.  This evening he had a lot of fun "shunting" all the footrests.

3 years + 9 months

Lincoln did great while we were gone on vacation, but ever since we returned, he has stuck to me like wallpaper.  He has to hold my hand to go anywhere and always needs to know where I am.  We have been working on bathroom privacy (i.e. letting me go by myself).  This is a bit trickier since our master bathroom door doesn't latch all the way shut, let alone lock.  We've had lots of conversations through the door!

One conversation we seem to have about 20 times/day goes something like this...
Lincoln:  Mommy, Mommy, I have to tell you something
Me: What?
Lincoln:  About...proceeds with long, rambling monologue about a Thomas character or something completely inconsequential.
Oftentimes, Emily will pipe in with "What?"  Without out skipping a beat, Lincoln will say, "No, you're Emily.  Mommy, I have to tell you something."  He does the same thing with Austin.  Sigh.

On a positive note, Lincoln has learned how to button buttons this month!  He often practices on his "coats" (i.e. button-up pajama shirts).  You never know how dressed (or undressed) he'll be when you check on him in bed.  It can also take excruciatingly long to get dressed after a bath.  Luckily, he usually allows me to help with the last couple if we need to keep moving.

The other thing Lincoln is learning about right now is money.   As mentioned in his post last month, he talks a lot about all the trains and videos he is going to buy.  So, using my new Cricut machine, I made him a set of money jars from the Tootsie Roll banks the kids received in their stocking & V-day gifts.  Since he can't read yet, I also added pictures to help him know what each jar was for.  I made a few adjustments to the plan for both him and Emily.  When they receive their dollar from Grandpa Lorenzen in the mail each week, they trade it in for four quarters.  One goes into the Give jar for church offering.  One goes into the Spend jar for treats like candy or amusement rides.  Two go into Save for bigger items--like trains or Legos.  Lincoln is beyond excited when he gets his coins and is beginning to understand the concept.  It's never too early to start!

One last funny note, my mom is the one who noticed that whenever Lincoln refers to the next day, he says, "Tomorrow-day."  Which only makes sense when the other days are Yesterday and Today. :o)  Below is a picture of his artwork from preschool.

Basketball court

Emily & Lincoln received basketball hoop valentines from Cousin Cohen.  Emily wasn't satisfied with just folding up the little hoop and ball, so she made an entire basketball arena complete with seating for Wisconsin vs. Alabama, a practice court and a ball cart with extra balls.

Valentine's Day

The kids were pretty excited for Valentine's Day.  They each got a little personalized mailbox full of Tootsie Rolls from us.  In addition to the class valentines, Emily decided the night before to make valentines for teachers as well.  She even set an alarm and got up early to finish them.  Here are some pictures of my favorites to her P.E. and music teacher:

I was able to volunteer at Lincoln's preschool Valentine's party.  My station was a letter game.  It was a little overwhelming to go from the silence of home to the controlled chaos of a preschool classroom, but it was fun to meet the kids in Lincoln's class.  I also really love his teacher, Miss Melissa (in the red pants).

When I picked up Emily from school, I was met by a teary-eyed girl who handed me the following valentine: 

She explained that she had had a bit of a bad day.  Two boys pushed her off the balance beam during P.E.  She also had an assignment that was "just too hard."  The class read "Goodnight Moon" and each student had to illustrate their own page with a maximum of two things that were in their bedroom.  Emily couldn't decide what to draw because she had so many things (which is true since 35 stuffed animals/figurines were currently lined up for the second grade Valentine's party on her rug).  "The only thing I could think of was two matching shoes."  Then she bumped her leg and spilled her juice during the Valentine's party.  Finally, she had to cancel the big Valentine's party. 

This would be referring to the the class party she had planned while we were in Kaua'i.  She had made invitations for everyone, a checklist of supplies needed and decided that we should rent the Droste building at the fairgrounds to host a party for her entire class on the Saturday after Valentine's Day.  I thought I had let her down easy earlier in the week, but apparently she hadn't given up on the idea.  However, she then started jumping up and down saying, "But all my dreams came true from last night!  I was listening to Go Fish! and thought it would be a great idea to dance to those Jesus songs for Easter.  So I asked Mrs. Nuss, and she said I could teach the class a dance for Easter."  Oh boy.  Mrs. Nuss was standing there throughout this whole explanation.  I was hiding behind the heart because I was laughing so hard I was almost crying.  I guess we have more work to do on adjusting expectations.

But even after all that, as soon as Emily got home and opened up her Valentine's bag with all the goodies, everything was forgotten.  We made frosted Valentine cookies the next day.  While decorating, Emily declared that Valentine's Day was her favorite holiday! <3 p="">

Lincoln may or may not have eaten more frosting than he spread. :)