Early Intervention

Jackson is in "Early Intervention" to help with his speech and motor skills. He has been slow to talk, although he says more words than we realize- we just don't always recognize them since he often leaves out the consonants- and he still seems to walk more like it's new to him, rather than like he's been doing it for a year. We are lucky that our school district has such a good program to help with these issues. Here is a cute clip from his last home visit:


The EIS (Early Intervention Specialist) was playing some games with him that work on eye contact and reactions and this one was when they were playing with a popper. Jackson loved the popper and would go into a fit of laughter everytime it popped (but chose to not laugh as much once I got the camera :( ). The EIS just loved Jackson's reactions and thought he so fun to work with. Unfortunately, she's not our regular EIS, just a substitute while our regular one is on maternity leave. (Maybe I should call and request a switch?)

Jefferson's First Day of School

Wow! Jefferson is now officially a kindergartner! Yesterday was his first day and no matter how much I pleaded with him to let me drive him to school, he insisted on riding the bus. He does love buses, after all. He was quick to get on the bus when it arrived, so quick that I missed getting a good picture. Here are some pictures of before school and getting on the bus:



The school assigns each bus a picture, so that kids can more easily remember what bus they ride. Jefferson was stoked (okay, that's an old-school word these days) to find out that his bus home is the "airplane" bus. He sure won't have any trouble remembering that. Here's a picture of him getting off the bus after his first day:



He really enjoyed his first day. His teacher sent home a fun-size bag of M&M's with a little card with questions to ask for each color M&M. The card read:

My First Day of Kindergarten

A Rainbow of Fun!

Have your child open the M&M's and choose a color. Read the question that goes with that color of M&M. Have fun talking with you child about the first day of school.

Red: What is you teacher's name?
Orange: Tell about a new friend in your class.
Yellow: Tell about your favorite thing you did at school.
Green: Tell about the rule you learned at school today.
Blue: Tell what letter you learned at school today.
Brown: Retell a story that you teacher read to you today.

It was a struggle getting the answers out of Jefferson and even then he didn't give me an answer for all of the questions other than "I don't know." But, I probably got more out of him than I would have without the M&M's. Here's what he did say:

• There's a boy named Brian who has hair the same color as mine (dark brown).
• That his favorite things about kindergarten were: Riding the bus, playing on the playground, and meeting new friends. (Hopefully he'll add some educational stuff, like reading, to the list as time passes.)
• The letter for the day was M.

He couldn't remember the rule they learned, didn't want to talk about the story (must not have involved cars or trucks or trains, etc.), and couldn't remember his teacher's name (to give him credit, it is a hard name to say for a kindergartner).

He had a great first day of school and as a treat I made his favorite meal for dinner: Macaroni & Cheese. He didn't even give me a hard time at bedtime once I reminded him that he had school again the next day. He happily got on the bus again this morning and had a great second day. I'm sure he's going to be sad when Saturday comes and he doesn't get to ride the bus to school that day.

More of Jackson's words and Mason's new dog

I love how Jackson says "night night" when we put him to bed so I just had to get an audio clip of it (which means video for us). Here it is:


We went to IHOP this morning to celebrate my birthday and while we were paying our bill, Mason was looking at the stuffed animals that they have in the entryway. He found a dog that he just absolutely loved and instantly hugged and no matter how many other stuffed animals we showed him, he kept going back to the dog. They even had about 7 different dog stuffed animals, yet he had his heart set on the one particular dog. We just couldn't pass up getting it for him after watching him hug it so tightly and seeing how sad he was when we took it away from him. Here's a picture of him with it on the way home (he loves chewing on the ears):



So now Mason has 3 stuffed animal dogs and loves them all (and chews on all of their ears).

I've been tagged!

My old roommate Angela tagged me, but since this blog is for all things kid-related, I figured that I would just post my tag Q&A on my other blog. And by the way- Sherrie, Shayla, and Sally are now tagged!

The Faux-First Day and Discovery Gateway

Yea! A new post! Sorry, I just haven't been able to come up with anything to write about in the past (almost) 2 weeks, but now I have something:

Yesterday was the first day of school in our school district- for most kids. Kindergartners don't start school until a week later (next Tuesday for us)- something that I didn't even know until about 3 weeks before school started (when I got around to reading the fine print on one of the handouts I was given when I registered Jefferson) . Not being from Utah and being a first-time school parent, I was not aware of the way things are done in Utah. The school districts in Utah (or most of them) use the first week of school as a time to do Kindergarten assessments. Rather than start school, each Kindergartner meets with their teacher once sometime during the first week so that the teacher can find out more about each child and what they've learned already. Kindergarten assessments=Normal, Using the first week of school to do that=Strange to me. Where I grew up, assessments are done during the summer before the school year starts. Who knows, maybe my home region is weird for wanting to do that stuff early. Jefferson had his assessment today and did well.

Jefferson with his new teacher:



I bring that up because yesterday Nate also took the day off work. He submitted the vacation request long before I found out Jefferson's first day of would not, in fact, be the 21st of August, but would actually be the 28th of August. He could have changed his request, but unfortunately, Nate will be out of town next week, missing Jefferson's actual first day of school. So instead of Nate just working on the faux-first day, I figured that we could do something fun as a family for the day. We decided to go to Discovery Gateway. It's a children's museum at The Gateway in Salt Lake City. I took Jefferson and Jackson to the Children's Museum when Jackson was still a small baby and it was located in Northern Salt Lake City, but I hadn't had an opportunity to visit the museum at it's new location (which it has been in for almost a year). There were a lot of similarities between the old and new museums, but the new museum is definitely nicer -except the price: $8.50 for Utah residents 1 & up, $9.50 for non-residents 1 & up, plus parking- the old location was $4/person 1 & up, free parking.

When you first walk in, you enter the "Beehive" which has a bunch of activities centered around tube and balls. The kids spent at least an hour in this area. Even Mason was able to participate. Jackson apparently associated the balls going down the tubes with sliding down a slide since he kept saying "wee" every time he dropped a ball down a tube. Here are some videos and pictures of them putting balls into the tubes:


(Jackson still isn't saying much but he does like repeating some phrases after me, like in the second video he says "good job" after I say it to Mason. Did you recognize it?)



The next area of the museum is like a kid-sized town. There is the Construction Zone, the Market, the House, the Farm, and lots more. You can pretend to be a construction worker, home decorator, cook, cashier, mailman, farmer, gardener, etc.. It's a place full of imagination and fun. There's even a Climbing Wall and a Water Play exhibit. We let Jefferson loose in this area to play wherever he wanted, while letting Jackson and Mason take sanctuary in the "Hatch, Waddle and Fly" area, an area for children 3 and under.

Jefferson playing around:



In the Sanctuary:




The upstairs level of the museum has some cool stuff, but most of it is geared towards older children so the kids didn't have quite a much fun up there, but still found things to do.

Jefferson was able to pretend to be an Anchorman and Weatherman:
(Jackson did too, but he didn't stay long enough to get pictures)



And they got to sit in a Life Flight Helicopter provided to the museum by Intermountain Healthcare, which Jefferson really enjoyed:



We all had a fun day at the museum (even Mason- which is I guess why they charge even for 1 year olds). We would have stayed longer at the museum if it wasn't for the grumbling in our stomachs telling us that we were really late for lunch. Unfortunately, we went over the 3 hour mark by six minutes and had to pay the next fee level for parking. If it hadn't been for our empty stomachs, I would have turned around and gone back into the museum to make the most of the extra hour of parking we had to pay for. I think next year it may be worth buying a membership to the museum so we can go as much as we want and not break the bank. The cost of a membership is a little cheaper than three single day price visits. It really is a fun place for everyone- even the parents!

We didn't spend any extra time at The Gateway, which I was disappointed about, so I'll have to go back sometime to see the other fun things there. They have a fountain that I hear is fun for kids to run around in and the Clark Planetarium also relocated to The Gateway. Another day.

Yogurt can be used as hair gel, right?

This is what happens when you let a 2-year-old feed himself yogurt and then not watch him. Yeah, good going Dad! Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture before he was somewhat cleaned up and just got the slicked hair pics.



This happened before church and all I had time to do was take a wipe and scrub his yogurt-hair to get rid of the slick look. It worked okay, but then his head smelled like a mix between lemon yogurt and Costco baby wipes. Poor kid.

When I Grow Up

Lately, Jefferson has been telling me that he'll do stuff when he "grows up"- which to him right now means when he goes to kindergarten. For example, he loves vienna sausages (or mini hot dogs, as he says), which he started eating when my parents lived with us and my dad would be coerced into sharing with him, but now he's decided that he's not going to eat them again until he grows up. I asked him when that will be and he told me, "when I go to kindergarten." I'm not sure where he got this idea from, but it certainly is like Jefferson to come up with something like that.

So today, on our way to drop of the rest of his Kindergarten registration info, Jefferson told me that he can drive the car when he "grows up." I, of course, had to tell him that going to kindergarten doesn't make him grown up enough to drive a car, and that he has to wait until he's at least 15 to drive a car. I was somewhat surprised to not have him fight me on that. He just said "okay."

Swimming Lessons

Jefferson just finished his first session of swimming lessons at our community center and absolutely loved it. He used to be so afraid of the water but now has seemingly outgrown that fear. Here is a video of him practicing some swimming and then showing off for the camera once he saw me filming him. He was so distracted by me, that he even almost missed moving to another area of the pool with his class. I guess that's why the parents are supposed to stay in the designated observation areas.

Fireworks

I grew up in the suburbs of our Nation's Capital and I've always enjoyed celebrating Independence Day. I loved going downtown and watching the fireworks display and don't think any big show can compare. Fireworks at home are a different story. While I have great memories of trips to the National Monument to watch the fireworks, I also have great memories of staying home and having our own little family fireworks display. Plus, you didn't have to fight the traffic driving into D.C. or the crowds on the metro. Growing up, my favorite ones we set off at home were the ones that you had to nail to a fence or tree and they spun around like a windmill. It's been years since I have seen one of those. Do they even make them anymore?

One day I would like to take my children to D.C. to see the best fireworks ever, but for now they'll have to settle for the small displays at home and the larger city displays that we can see from Grandma and Grandpa's house. This year we had a barbecue with our neighbors and then set off fireworks at dusk. Mason was too tired to stay up so we put him to bed. Jefferson and Jackson were very excited to watch. Jefferson never gets too tired to watch fireworks- even when he was 6 months old and the city we lived in set off fireworks at midnight for the new year. He stayed awake until the second they were over and then was instantly asleep.

Here is a cool picture of the boys in shadow watching the firework display:


Jefferson was excited the whole time, especially when the firetruck one was set off and it moved across the street (Jackson loved that one also).


It was a fun night and Jackson very much enjoyed his first real exposure to fireworks and Jefferson was very excited to know that 3 weeks later we would set off more fireworks for Pioneer Day.

The Birthday Boys

I'm trying to catch up on some of the recent events and I figured that one post covering the three boys' birthdays would probably do.

Mason was the first birthday in June and like his older brothers' first birthdays, we decided the theme would be his stuffed animal, which is a dog (Jefferson had bears, Jackson has a monkey). Since I had purchased a special cake pan last year for Jackson's monkey cake, I figured I could make the pan more worth it by using it for Mason's puppy dog cake. The cake pan I used is Animal Crackers by Wilton. It can be used for various animal faces. Here is how it turned out:

My dad did most of the decorating, but the ears and color matching were all me. Maybe one year I'll try my hand at the actual decorating. I wouldn't mind taking a class.

Here's the birthday boy ready to have some cake:

At first, he didn't know what to think of having a giant piece of cake put in front of him. All he could do was say "oooo!"



But it didn't take long to figure out it was all his and dig in. He enjoyed every bite and made quite a mess in the process. Good thing we put a blanket down on the floor under him!



Yea! Now it's present time! Grandma got Mason a book about Dogs and we got him a t-shirt from our trip to the Coca-Cola store in Vegas, along with a few other things.




Toward the end of June, Jefferson and Jackson had a joint birthday party. Jackson is still young enough to not have enough of an opinion or understanding to protest, so we figure we'll do it that way as long as we can get away with it. The theme was CARS (and racing). Jefferson had originally chosen Hot Wheels as the theme, but I convinced him to change it to CARS when I found a CARS paper supplies kit at Costco for $15. The kit had tons of paper plates (in 2 sizes), bowls, napkins, cups, and placemats. I couldn't pass up the good deal. Just one package (of 8) of plates, cups and napkins would have cost the same.

Once again, I purchased a special cake pan for the cake. I was all set to just order the cake from the local bakery, but once I saw the pan and added up the cost of everything I needed, it cost about the same, if not a little less. The cake supply store had a CARS cake pan but Jefferson liked the NASCAR pan better, plus it made a slightly bigger cake. Jefferson was set on having a blue cake (his favorite color right now) and so we decorated (well, my dad decorated) the cake in Dinoco blue, just like in McQueen's vision.


The kids had fun making racecars out of candy, doing races around the orange cones that doubled as party favors, and hitting the pinata (sorry no picture).


Jefferson and Jackson enjoyed opening their presents and got right to work playing with the new train set from Grandma and Grandpa.

Mason finally gets his first haircut!

Of the three boys, Mason has the hair with the most curl. The back of his head was covered in loose curls and I loved it, but I knew that, despite my love of the curls, he really needed a haircut. His hair was just getting too long in some areas. Plus, since the hair on top wasn't really curly he had some weird things going on up there. Here is a picture of him on his birthday (right after getting a bath to wash the cake off) that kind-of shows how long his hair was before we cut it.



Unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of his curls. This is the best I have and his hair was just brushed and still damp from his bath so it hadn't had time to curl back up good.



Amazingly, Mason actually sat mostly still throughout the haircut (although he did require some help from his father)- something neither Jefferson nor Jackson could do at that age. It was nice. Here's how he looks now (doesn't he look so much older?):





Jackson and Jefferson also got some much needed haircuts. They had some wild hair before:



They looked much better afterwards:

Okay, I'm finally jumping on the bandwagon...

So I've been meaning to do this for awhile. I've even had several blog accounts from signing up months and months ago. I'm just slow. I hope friends and family will be able to enjoy the stories that Jefferson, Jackson, and Mason inspire. Check back for fun stories, silly experiences, and life events. Until then...