Kindergarten Gymnastics Field Trip 4/2/10

The Friday before spring break, Marc's class went to a gymnastics place for a field trip. The teachers found out several years ago that they don't get much work out of the kids that last day before break, so they turned it into a field trip day. ;)
When the kids first got there they had to stretch out with some of the instructors. The instructors then told the kids the rules for each apparatus and then let them loose!
One of the things the kids can do it jumping in to a pit filled with soft, squishy foam pieces. This place had 3 different "levels" to jump from; the floor, a platform 3 steps high, and a REALLY high platform. The first thing Marc did was to make a bee-line to the ladder to go up to the platform. That totally floored me! When he took gymnastic lessons 2 years ago, we had trouble getting him to even jump into the pit, let alone the high platform. I thought that maybe as he waited (up really high) for his turn to jump, that he might change his mind.......
he didn't!!!!!!!!
and he landed safely in the soft, squishy foam. :)
He then walked directly back over to the ladder to do it again.
Marc got the biggest kick out of being able to jump on the spring board and jumping onto the vault. His "girlfriend" Katerie wasn't able to do it because she is shorter then Marc but he stayed there encouraging her. :)
They have what is called a tumble-track. It is a really long skinny trampoline-like thing that the kids could jump, hop, skip down.
One of Marc's favorite's was an inflatable whale that you crawl into its mouth......
crawl through an obstacle course in its belly........
and slide down it's tail to get out.
After Katerie jumped into the pit, Marc was ever so much the gentleman and helped her get out of the pit. :)
When it was finally Marc's turn on the trampoline, he was just jumping around like normal. I told him to loosen up and have some fun and make some silly jumps.
When Marc was in gymnastics, he had no balance what so ever! ;) This place had about 6 balance beams of varying height. He said he was going to walk all of them, even the really high one. And he did it!!
I had a lot of fun watching him do all the apparatus and being wowed at how far he had come since he took classes. :)

More Sun! 4/1/10

If you weren't here, you would think I was playing an April Fool's Day joke on you....but I'm not! The high on April 1st was 82 degrees! So we put on our shorts and headed outside for some more sun!!
For his birthday, Marc got some sidewalk chalk paint that he has been itchin' to use. So he painted some of the driveway, and my tire, with his green paint.Samantha had a ton of fun playing catch with herself. ;) She would throw the ball, then chase it down, pick it up, and throw again...repeat, repeat, repeat (about 10 times in a row), until, of course, I got the video ready. As soon as she saw me videoing her, she stopped. One of the times she chased the ball she tried to run quicker then her little toddler legs would carry her and she fell down boom. :( She got her first skinned knee of the season.
She did really well with it. I told her "oops....all better now" and she went on playing. As she played it started to bleed a little so I put a band-aid (Princess of course) on it. For 3 days after-wards, she would tell anyone and everyone about her "bo-bo".

Wacky Wednesday 3/31/10

The week before spring break at Chandler Woods was "Spirit Week". Wednesday tat week was "Wacky Wednesday". The kids were supposed to wear crazy clothes. Marc wore 2 different color socks, his vest backwards......and his hair looked like he stuck his finger in the light socket. ;)
He was so excited about going to school looking crazy. I think he looked really cute with his hair all spiked!!

Sunshine-y Fun 3/29/10

The sunshine was out so we went out to play!!!!! After a long winter of cold and snow it was great to get outside and enjoy the sunshine!! I have been working on cleaning out the garage and the kids helped by finding all the "outside toys" and making sure they worked well. During my cleaning I found a push car that Marc used when he was younger. We thought Samantha might enjoy it so I cleaned it up and she tested it out with Marc's help.
Last summer Samantha wasn't really old enough for sidewalk chalk, so I decided to pull it out and see what she thought of it......
she liked it!!!
I blew some bubbles inside the house a few weeks before and Samantha couldn't stop giggling and Marc LOVES chasing them, so when I found a bubble gun, the kiddos went to town! I "blew" the bubbles while Samantha giggled and Marc popped them.
Then Marc wanted to "blow" some bubbles for Samantha. He really is a good big brother. :)
We had a fun hour or so outside before it was time to go in for dinner. We are looking forward to many more hours and days to be enjoyed in the sunshine.

St Peter's Preschool Carnival 3/19/10

Every year my preschool has a school carnival. As an employee, I am required to be there from start to finish and to help out where needed. This year Samantha was sick so Daddy had to stay home with her. Marc was so sad that he might have to miss the carnival, so I took him with me to be my side-kick.
When we first got there we got put to work running the sucker tree game. Marc felt super-important. I had such a fun time watching him feel like the big man on campus in his old preschool.After some time running games we had a few minutes so Marc could play some games.
After playing a few games, we worked some more, then had a quick few bites of pizza before heading off to play a few more games before then night was over.
After playing games and getting redemption tickets, Marc turned his tickets in for some prizes. He got some nice prizes.
Marc had fun returning to his old stomping grounds and being the big man on campus by helping me run games and I had even more fun watching him. It was a fun night for both of us. :)

Celebrating My Mom's Birthday 3/13/10

The weekend after my Mom's birthday we all headed to my Grandma's house to celebrate my Mom turning a year older.
Samantha and Marc enjoy spending time and playing with Grandma, Great Grandma, and Uncle Jeff. It has become tradition that Samantha sits at the table and colors a picture.
Marc asked Uncle Jeff to tickle him.....so he did! And Marc screamed like a little girl! ;)
Samantha loves putting on shoes, whether they are hers or not. She found Daddy's tennis shoes laying around, so she put them on. They were so big she had to have Uncle Jeff's help to walk around.
Then she moved on to Grandma's high heels. She has better luck walking in these on her own since her feet slid forward into the toes of the shoes.
After some play time and some eating, it was time to give Grandma her birthday presents.
Marc made her a collage picture with the same number of hearts as the years old she is (she might hurt me if I put ion here how old she turned. ;) ), and a card. He was so proud of his creations and very excited to give them to her.
We got her some flowers that Samantha gave her. They were smelling them together. :)
After presents it was a little more play time. Uncle Jeff helped Samantha put the fish puzzle together. This is a puzzle that I used to play with when I was little too....that must mean it's really old! ;)
It was a fun afternoon spent with family.

Toothless!! 3/19/10

At the beginning of March Marc and I were playing around and I noticed that one of his teeth looked funny. I felt it and sure enough, it was loose!
If a child loses a tooth while at school, they get a cute tooth necklace to keep it in so it doesn't get lost. Marc kept saying that he wanted to lose the tooth at school so he could get a necklace. I told him that I wanted him to lose it at home so I could be there when he lost his first tooth.
While I was helping in his classroom he lost his tooth!! I guess we both got our wish. :)

Marc with his tooth necklace

Marc with his lost tooth in his hand

Marc and the hole in his smile

He was excited to wake up the next morning and find out that the "tooth fairy" gave him $3 for his first lost tooth. Luckily we do not do the "imaginary" people so we were able to tell him that he got $3 this time since it was his first tooth, but it wouldn't be that much for other teeth.

My kiddos seem to be growing faster and faster right before my eyes!!

Chandler Woods School Carnival

Saturday was Marc's school carnival at Chandler Woods. We took spent a couple of hours there. We didn't know what to expect, but it was fun. They had games set up in most of the classrooms. The first room we went in "HAD" to be his classroom. ;) There both the kiddos played Plinko.We then went across the hall and both kids plated the fish pond. Samantha had fun watching the fish "swim" around the pond. (There was a motor to make the water flowing and made the fish swim fast.) Marc picked one and got a bracelet. After some trouble catching one of the fast-moving fish, Samantha won a yo-yo. We decided to have the kids switch prizes. ;)
In the same room with the fish pond was the sucker tree. One of Marc's favorites! It doesn't matter if he has a whole jar of suckers here at home, he always does the sucker tree. Think they taste different coming from a carnival? ;) Both kids gt a sucker but no "tickets" towards a prize.
While waiting in a long line for "Mash the Mouse" we kept hearing a banging sound. We couldn't figure out what it was. Well, it was Marc's turn and we figured out the noise. The kids had to use a mallet and try to catapult a stuffed mouse across the table and try to make him land in his cage. I have made a mental note to ask NOT to assigned to work that game next year. ;)
Marc had fun at the traditional bean bag toss.
Marc had fun playing a bowling game. But, this was no ordinary game of bowling! The pins were half the size of him and the ball was twice the size of his head!! He knocked down half the pins with his first throw!
We were a little nervous letting Marc play the dart game when we found out they were using real darts, the real, sharp points! ;) But he did awesome!! We have an electronic dart board in our basement. Daddy said we should get him playing that since he did such an awesome job with the real darts.
DeeJay the Clown made an appearance at the carnival. This clown is know for his balloon animals.
Marc decided to ask him for a tiger this time. (We have seen him many times and have had many balloon animals/things in our house.) Samantha was fascinated by him. Not sure if it was the fast-moving hands while he made the balloon tiger or the make-up. ;)
The finished product! Dee Jay told Marc to go home and feed him some Frosted Flakes........Tony the Tiger. :)
This cross-bow game was one I had never seen before. The kids had to shoot a suction-cup "bullet" at the bulls-eye. Daddy helped get him set up and aimed. Marc pulled the trigger but it startled him so much that the "bullet" was NO where near the bulls-eye. ;)

After all the games were played we decided to head to the cake walk. (on a side note.....I am been craving a piece of a good chocolate cake.) We decided that we had enough tickets to have all 4 of us play the cake walk. We thought maybe having 4 out of the 12 spots would give us good odds at winning a cake. Samantha had been confined to her stroller for about 3 minutes prior to the cake walk. She took off as soon as the music started. We found a game she is good at! ;-) She tried walking past Marc she was so excited to be out and walking! I did not get a picture of her doing the cake walk since I was trying to keep her in line. ;) And, we did not win a cake. :( The bot right next to Marc won it instead. Oh well. My fabulous husband had already planned to take me to a bakery he had heard good things about. They had yummy chocolate cupcakes! :)