Jackson and Mason and the Soccer Ball Giggles

I recorded this clip the other night because Jackson was having such a fun time rolling the soccer ball off the bed and having Mason go fetch it. I just love his laugh. Unfortunately, Jackson ended up being in the shadows most of the time but it's the audio that I really wanted.

Hide-and-Seek

Mason initiated a game of hide-and-seek with Nate and so Nate grabbed the camera to take a couple pictures of Mason trying to be sneaky.

And then Mason was caught!

Children's Discovery Gardens

Early in the month I met one of my old roommates, Sarah, and her two kids, Jackson and Paul, at Thanksgiving Point for an afternoon out. We went to Children's Discovery Gardens, which I had heard is a fun place to go, but I was disappointed with it. If I were to go again, I would definitely pay for admission to the main gardens which then include admission to the Children's Discovery Gardens. One of the cool things about Children's Discovery Gardens is the Noah's Ark sculpture which has a splash pool around it. It was drained when we went, so the kid's weren't able to play in it, and due to the recent outbreak of cryptosporidium infection (which causes severe diarrhea) only potty trained kids would have been allowed in the water (which would have knocked out Paul, my Jackson, and Mason from splashing around). That was our first disappointment. Another sad thing was that we were the only people in the gardens which lessened the kid's enjoyment (at least it lessened Jefferson's). Even with the disappointments it was still fun to get together with Sarah and we at least ended the outing on a happy note by going to the Soda Fountain for ice cream and frozen yogurt.
Here is one pictue with Jackson in the shadows and a couple of Jefferson (the other kids wouldn't cooperate):

Almost a month? So sorry!

Wow, I can't believe I've let a month go by without posting to my blogs. For an explanation to at least one of my MIA weeks, read this: The Twilight Obsession. It's not that I haven't had anything to post about it's more about the complete lack of energy that I've had for a couple weeks and the above mentioned item. I'm here now to give some updates and share some recent pictures. I'm sorry to post so many items on one day, but I want to get up to date and I'm determined to get it done now. Enjoy!

Bedtime Stories With Daddy

Nate is so good about reading bedtime stories to the kids. Here's a picture I took the other night (and like usual, the really good pose was gone by the time I got back with the camera - Mason left the group):



I know that Jefferson just settles for me reading him a story when Nate is out of town or working late.

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.