Ooey Gooey Sensory Night

We participate in a program called Bright Beginnings. Part of bright Beginnings is Parents as Teachers. Parents as Teachers does various play groups. They put together an evening activity called "Ooey Gooey Sensory Night". They had various "stations" set up for the kiddos to play at.
The first one Samantha went to was a cornstarch mixture texture table. She wasn't so sure about that one so she didn't stay there long.Next she found the "clean mud" table. This was shredded toilet paper mixed with Ivory soap. She wasn't too sure about this one either, so we moved on.
Then we got to the water table and it was a different story!! ;) She had fun splashing around and finding all the water animals that were in there. She got excited when she found this shell in the table.
After some splashing time we moved onto making Froot Loop necklaces. Let me rephrase that.....Marc made a necklace, and I made a small necklace, and Samantha ate the cereal. ;)
The next station we went to involved shaving cream and food coloring. I sprayed some shaving cream into a ziploc and then added the desired color food coloring and closed the bag back up. The kids then got to squeeze and squish the bag to mix the coloring into the shaving cream......
then we too the colored cream over to another table and painted with it!Samantha did NOT like the shaving cream on her hands!!!
Then we had to go back to the water table some more. I am shocked at how dry to stayed!! ;) Maybe it's because the table was so high for her that the table blocked the water from getting all over her clothes.....who knows?!
There was a small corner set up for infants with balls, bean bags and other sensory toys. Samantha was determined to visit every area of the room, so she went and played, and threw, the balls for awhile.
Next we found a table with oats, beans, pasta, and confetti in. She really liked the feel of this one. She just kept picking it up and dropping it and giggling. Who would have thought oats could be so much fun! ;)
Marc found the insta-snow table and stayed there for a while. There were also some chunks of ice in the table and some toy hammers. Marc spent a lot of his time there trying to break up the ice chinks.
My handsome little man!!! 8-)
Then Samantha wandered over by her brother and started scooping and pouring the snow. She did an awesome job of scooping up the snow and pouring it into the cup without pouring it all over the floor or herself. ;)
It was a lot of fun seeing Samantha explore different things with kids her own age and size and Marc feeling like a the big man on campus. :)

New Glasses 8-)

Marc went to his yearly eye exam in the middle of February. We were wondering if this was going to be the appointment when we were told that it was time to get his first pair of glasses. The last few years, he has had his eyes checked at the preschool by the county. Each of the last 2 years of preschool he "failed" the vision test. Our normal eye doctor told us that he was going to hold off until he was doing more "board work" at school.
As I sat there during the exam, I saw how many letters on the eye chart he got wrong. Even though I have taken him for yearly screenings, I found myself having some Mommy guilt. It was fun seeing the look on his face when Dr. Crank put the new lenses in front of his eyes and he could see the eye chart!! 8-) Dr. Crank confirmed that this was the appointment that he was getting his first pair of glasses.
I told Marc that we would not be picking them out that day since Daddy would want to be there too. He said to me, "Mommy, can we at least try on a couple of pairs????" We was SUPER excited to get glasses. He thought it was cool that he was going to be the only kid in his class that has glasses. :)
So, the next weekend, we went out and looked at like 5 stores looking for a pair of glasses we liked that also had a price tag we liked. ;) We seemed to pick out the same type of frames from each store and all the prices were pretty close, so we chose the get them from the store that gave us the best service! The sales clerk was super nice, helpful, and friendly. She didn't like the fact that I kept taking pictures. ;) She called what she was using a "pupil-ometer". I don't know if that is really what it is called or not, but it is a machine that measures how far apart his eyes are to make sure they made the frames to fit him.A week and a half later we got the call that his glasses were in, so we trekked down there to pick them up. he was excited when he was putting them on for the first time.
I was trying to get a good posed picture of him in his new glasses.....but this was the best I could get.
Daddy snapped a picture of me giving Marc a lesson about how and where to hold his glasses.
The super helpful and nice sales person making sure the glasses fit well and properly.
I asked him what he thought of them. He studied himself in the mirror for a few minutes and then said.......
THEY LOOK GOOD!!
We had to start him wearing them little by little. We started with 15 minute increments and slowly increased it until he was able to wear them for most of the day. He has done great with them!! I am so proud of my handsome little man!! :) :)

A Little Remodeling

About a month ago I posted about some new curtains we got for our living room. Well, we have finally gotten around to painting the accent wall to match them. This is how our wall looked before we painted it.....this is our best litter helper EVER helping.......
and this is the finished product!
I am SO excited about how it turned out!! I like walking in the house or driving up after dark and seeing the color on the wall. This little home improvement has really made me want to do remodeling all over the house. But alas, our checkbook won't allow it. ;)

"I Won't Grow Up!"

A few weeks ago Marc had a field trip with school to go see "Peter Pan". It was put on by Children Creations Workshop. All the cast members were kids ranging from, I am guessing, 10-20 years old. We carpooled with another Mom and a couple of kids. This is Marc and his friends Gabe and Guntter riding in the van on the way to the play.The boys waiting somewhat patiently for the show to start. ;)
This particular performance was for field trips only. So there was a whole auditorium of kids on field trips. I never knew an auditorium could get so loud. ;)
it was not one of the best kid-acted plays we have been to, but the kids had a lot of fun and that is what matters. It ended and Marc said to me, "That was the best play I have ever seen!"