Recent Pictures

Rylan's class made Valentines bracelets at school on Tuesday.  His teachers made a huge deal out of the fact that Rylan did a pattern of red-white-red-white.  Apparently he was the only one that did that and they thought that was great for his age.  I think his teachers have very low expectations - they are okay but they aren't teaching the kids much (maybe Rylan will get one of Carter's former teachers next year who I've loved).

Last week was P-week for Carter so he brought his smashed pennies for show-and-tell.  We get one the first time we go to a new place that has a machine (except for Disney World - we get three from each park each time we go).  These are a great, super-inexpensive souvenir!

I took Rylan to the Adventure Science Center on Wednesday while Carter was in school.  They have a new temporary exhibit called Tinkering Garage.  In this space they have tons of real tools (hammers, saws, clamps, some power tools, and more), lots of pieces of scrap wood, and things to decorate (like duct tape, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, etc).  Rylan and I built a box with a stick bird house.

This is the drawing Carter was working on when I picked him up from school on Wednesday.

Front:

Back:

It is apparently a self portrait.  To me the front looks like the clown from the Jack in the Box restaurant commercials and the hands and arms with the happy faces disturb me a little :)

Rylan finally got 10 stickers in his "sleep alone until your clock turns green" chart.

So on Wednesday afternoon we stopped by Chuck E. Cheese's where each boy got 12 tokens to play games.

On Thursday, Carter's class had pajama day (for P-week).  He wore his pajamas that glow in the dark!  Also, he wanted to show off what he got from the treasure chest at school - Pop Rocks.  He thought they were regular candy and once I explained them to him, he did not want them.  He tried one itty-bitty crystal and that was it.

Also on Thursday the Frontier Truck from Belle Meade Plantation visited the school.  I don't really details but the kids were supposed to be exposed to daily life on the frontier.  They each got to take home this little bag filled with what looks like potpourri.

The kids told me that they were supposed to place the bag in their sheets or under their mattress or under their bed (the story kept changing) to keep bugs away.

We have some balloons still around the house left over from a playdate with Rylan's class a couple of weeks ago.  Carter was hitting the balloon up, trying to keep it from hitting the ground, when it got stuck to the ceiling.  There is way too much static electricity in this house!!!

On Saturday night we went out for sushi.  This was the first time we took the boys with us (we usually reserve sushi for when my mom is visiting and can watch the boys for us).  Most of what we order is raw so we ordered the boys a very tame crab and cream cheese roll to try.  They were both good sports and tried a little.

Carter ate some rice and what he thought was ham (but was the crab).

Rylan ate some rice and the cream cheese.

After one piece, they were both ready for the snacks we brought along for them.  They were very entertained by the rotating sushi bar though (we never eat from there though because the place is never very crowded and we don't know how long it's been on the belt).

Saturday

Brian has been super busy at work the last few weeks.  He's been working late and all weekend.  Yesterday morning the boys and I got out for a few hours so that the house was quiet for Brian.  We tried to hit up as many free activities as we could in between running a few errands.

As usual we started off the morning with some flurries.  It's been cold here like everywhere, but we still haven't gotten any more than a dusting of snow.  It seems like we are in this little vortex of no snow because not far in all directions have gotten at least one good snow.  We've still had a few days of school canceled because of the threat of snow, some ice, and super low temperatures.

As we were leaving the boys tried to catch some snowflakes on their tongues.

Our first stop was Lowe's for the Build and Grow workshop.  We still often go to these at Lowe's and Home Depot but we miss a lot in the spring and fall because they overlap with soccer.  The sessions build was a Valentine's holder.

I got both boys started but they both decided to be very independent.  I was helping Rylan and Carter went ahead and lined up and started nailing on the other heart.

I helped Carter make sure it was lined up and found Rylan trying to do his other heart on his own.

Rylan is usually the one that tries a couple of nails and then makes me do the rest.  He wouldn't even let me hold anything in place this time.  He often hits my thumb or hand that are as far away from the nail as possible so I was worried about him getting his fingers.  Luckily there were no injuries!

My next stop for the kids was Barnes and Noble storytime.  They read two Valentine's books (Pete the Cat: Valentine's Day is Cool and Love Monster), made a Valentine craft, and ate chocolate chip cookies.

After another errand, I took the kids to Toys 'R Us for a Lego Movie event.  The boys are so excited about this movie.  We went to something for the movie a couple of weekends ago at Barnes and Noble.  The boys got to do a couple of worksheet activities there and then got these movie posters that are still in our family room.

Anyway, at Toys 'R Us that boys got a mini Lego set and if we stuck around 1 1/2 hours (which we didn't), they might have won a Lego Movie Lego set.

We got there 5 minutes early but there was already a pretty long line.  After waiting about 20 minutes, the boys got to collect all the pieces they needed for their build.  They had to look at the box which told them how many of each type of piece they needed (usually one or two of each piece).

They were super patient and did a great job collecting all their pieces.

Since it was getting close to nap time and I really wanted Rylan to sleep (he ended up taking a 3-hour nap), we took the sets home to build.  The sets came with two sheets to build two separate vehicles from the movie.

Emmet's Car:

Emmet's Fly Car:

Carter had no problem building one in about 3 minutes.

Carter added Superman from one of his other sets.  Based on his movie poster, he knew Superman is in the movie :)

Rylan took a bit longer but was able to build the set on his own (it was about 40 pieces - he usually can handle about 100 pieces and only make a few mistakes).

I love all the free activities we were able to find to fill a Saturday morning!

Topless

Rylan is suddenly getting more independent with a lot of things.  Even though he's our youngest, I don't feel we baby him.  But he is stubborn and will usually only do what he wants to do.  He finally wants to sit on the potty (not that he's succeeded in using it yet), he really wants to wear underwear, he wants to write his name and letters, and more.

Lately Rylan wants to get himself dressed in the morning.  I usually change his diaper and put on his pants but he absolutely wants to put on his own shirt.  The only thing is he likes to hang out for about an hour without a shirt before putting it on.  It's not like we keep the house that warm either!  But he is cute :)

Rylan is still our "thick" child (he still has "man-boobs"), but he's really thinned out!!!

Carter Says

Carter has turned into a hilarious kid.  I'm always kicking myself for not writing down the funny things he says.  But in the last couple of months I've finally written down a few.  And I wish I had done that more because these definitely aren't the best ones.

The boys and I were talking about superheroes in the car one day.  I believe Carter thinks superheroes are like dinosaurs.  They are something we see on tv or books but don't see in real life, and I think he believes they exist somewhere.

C: "Supermen aren't around anymore.  Maybe they are in Spanish."

(We practice Spanish words all the time and I guess he thinks "Spanish" is a physical place.)

***************

Carter went to a Build-A-Bear birthday party in December.  On the way to the party he told me this ...

C: "Mommy, mine might be silly or like me. Silly or cool."

***************

Asking Carter what we should get Brian for Christmas ...

C: "Let's get him a gift card for his favorite place."
Me:  "Where is that?"
C: "We should ask him but not tell him.  Hmmm.....  How about work.  Or his favorite place is being around us."

***************

The other day I went into Ross with the boys for a few minutes.  While I was looking at the workout clothes, the boys were standing at one of the mirrors at the end of the rack.  Then I hear Carter saying this (and Rylan repeating it) ...

C: "Hey good looking!"

The people around us started chuckling and the boys continued saying it for a few minutes.

***************

Yesterday morning the boys were getting their shoes and jackets on before school.  Carter was acting silly, putting his shoes on the wrong feet, etc.  Then he says, very matter-of-factly ...

C: "Crazy stuff is my thing."

Carter's IEP

I met with a speech teacher a couple of weeks ago to discuss Carter's new IEP (Individual Education Program).  Ms. Rholanda wrote the IEP but our meeting was the day she was having her baby so another speech teacher that services other schools in the county went over it with me.

There was nothing surprising in the meeting since Ms. Rhalonda had already discussed Carter's new goals with me.  This IEP is for one year.  Carter should continue to receive services once he starts kindergarten (but it will be with that school's speech teacher).  He will be due for a new evaluation at the end of that time (they do a full evaluation every 3 years).

Here are some highlights from the IEP:

Present Level of Performance - Speech/Articulation:

Carter has mastered his previous goals and has generalized target sounds into conversational speech.  He was recently working on s vs. sh at the word, sentence, and conversational level.  He has made great progress, but needs to continue being monitored in conversational speech.  Carter's speech is characterized by substitutions for /l/.  At this time, he is stimulable with modeling.

Measurable Annual Goals and Benchmarks/Short-term Instructional Objectives for IEP and Transition Activities:

1. Carter will carryover /s/ and /z/ into conversational speech as observed in 3 3-minute speech samples with at least 90% accuracy.
2. Carter will eliminate the phonological process of gliding (produced /l/ and /l/ blends) in isolation, syllables, and words with at least 80% accuracy in 4/5 opportunities.
3. Carter will articulate /l/ and /l/ blends in phrases/sentences with 80% accuracy in 4/5 opportunities.
4. Carter will generalize /l/ and /l/ blends into structured conversational speech as observed with 80% accuracy in 3 3-minute speech samples.

Like I said, no surprises.  Carter will continue to go to therapy twice a week for 30 minutes for the remainder of the school year.

The boys have had the substitute speech teacher who is filling in for Ms. Rholanda during her maternity leave for 2 weeks now.  Ms. Jill worked at Crockett in the early childhood classroom as a speech therapist up until this year so she is familiar with the environment.  (She now normally works at a private facility like our speech teacher from last year.)  Ms. Jill seems fine but isn't as loving and open as I usually expect preschool teachers to be.  She's pretty stiff and almost shy but the boys haven't complained so I think it's going fine.  They haven't really moved on to anything new yet but Ms. Rholanda didn't move on very quickly either.  Again, this is a free program and I can't complain (private speech sessions are crazy expensive!).

Recent Pictures

Besides pushing my buttons with his stubbornness and moodiness (and rudeness) lately, Rylan decided he could draw on furniture and a wall.  What?!?!  My kids don't do things like that :)

I leave the crayons and colored pencils in pencil boxes on the easel in the dining room.  Apparently Rylan got out a green crayon and drew a small line on the wall near the garage door.  I didn't notice that one.  But I did see one black horizontal line on the cabinet where we keep diaper and games downstairs.  The crayon was still sitting on the cabinet and I asked Rylan if he did it.  He said no but had a sheepish look on his face.  After asking him nicely several more times and telling him he wasn't in trouble, he admitted to it.  I asked if he drew anywhere else and he said no a few times.  Eventually he showed me the line of the wall.  We talked about it and I was sure he knew not to do it again (obviously by lying initially he knew it was wrong).  I told him I was trusting him and left the crayons on the easel.

I hadn't had a chance to clean off the crayon marks yet and I found a vertical line on the cabinet the next day.  Oh, Rylan!

The crayons and pencils have been moved to the kitchen table for now where I can monitor them a little better.  I hate to hide them because I want the boys to see them and remember that this is one of their options for entertaining themselves.  It's been over a week and I haven't seen any more "art work".

The boys and I took Charlotte for a walk several days ago.  The ponds in our neighborhood have been frozen a lot this winter.  I had assumed the ice was pretty thin but the boys and I decided to test it by throwing rocks at it.  We couldn't get any to break through - even the huge rocks I threw as hard as I could!

The last Sunday in January was warm and we were able to steal Brian away from work for a visit to the zoo.  He's been really busy the last few weeks and it was fun to get to hang out with him for awhile!

We played Mario Kart on the Wii the other night.  I don't think I've watched Rylan play in a month or two and he is suddenly good (for a 3-year-old)!  He can finish a course in a really reasonable time.  I had never even seen him finish one before.  He usually just banged off the right wall, then the left one, and back and forth, and usually went backwards more than forwards.

We've been working on the boys' Valentines for their classmates.  Rylan decided he wanted to write his own name on his.  He's NEVER even tried to write his name for me before (he is SO STUBBORN).  I wrote it for him to copy and this is how his turned out.  I see each letter and am impressed with his very first attempt.

Last week was "O" week in Carter's class and he brought the octopus that GG and Papa Art bought for him at the aquarium on his very first trip to the beach in 2009.

On Saturday Carter went to a birthday party at Pump It Up for Molli in his class.  I think she had just as many kids at her party as Carter did at his!  Carter is in the upper left holding hands with Sarah Kate.  He loves the ladies :)

His handwriting is getting better too!

On Saturday afternoon we met up with our friends (Amy & Chad) from Knoxville who were visiting their family in Murfreesboro for the weekend.

Caitlyn is about 6 weeks older than Carter and Alek is about 6 weeks younger than Rylan.  We met up with them at Old Fort Park.  We hadn't been their in a couple of years and the playground had been replaced with a brand new awesome one.  The kids had a blast even if they didn't play with each other very much (it was warm so the place was packed).

Lil Sluggers

The boys started another session of Lil Sluggers at the beginning of January.  Usually we do Lil Sluggers at Crockett Park at the indoor arena.  But they are starting to transfer most of their classes to the Franklin Fieldhouse.  It's actually in the same building as the DC Dance Factory where Carter used to take hip hop.  On the other end of the building are several basketball courts and a turf area.  I know the program likes having a place that only they use but I like the other facility so much better.  There is twice as much space and parents and siblings are separated from the classes (we would sit on the bleachers that are separated by a glass wall from the field).  At the Fieldhouse there's no place for parents and siblings and we are on top of the kids in the classes.  And a lot of parents just let their little ones run all through the classes without even trying to control them.  It's frustrating and I don't think we'll be taking classes there again.  But it's still going okay and the boys are having fun.

Carter is doing the 5/6 year old (level 1) class.

This week the kids practiced sliding, which is always exciting for them!

Rylan is taking the 3 year old (level 2) class.

The boys have the same coach this session (Coach Scott - this is the first session either of them has had him).  Carter's class is Wednesday at 4 pm and Rylan's is at 2 pm on Fridays.

Rylan didn't take a nap before his class a couple of weeks ago.  When he got home, he fell asleep standing with his head on the couch.  I love how his legs are crossed too.  He slept like this for about an hour.