Sunday, February 20, 2011

Long Overdue...but I have a good excuse!!!!

Yes, I realize that it has been over a month since I last posted something here, but in my defense I have been kind of busy. I am now officially a teacher again - I'll go in to more detail later, but I spend most of my free time planning lessons (I am writing my curriculum as I go) or grading papers. In addition, to make our lives more difficult, The Boy broke our camera. But before we get to that, here is what we have been up to this month!

The boy loves Queen! We will watch the videos on YouTube and he will dance around, and even sing along!

Our local power company - PEPCO - decided to sponsor a "Back to the 18th Century Night" in January, so we had to find ways to not only keep ourselves warm, but also entertain ourselves. Luckily I had seen that snow was coming, and I had brought in some wood for our roaring fire! (It was so hot that it burned the hair off of my hands when I tried to put more wood in.) Owen and Beki used Owens flashlight lantern to play some puzzles and games, and we survived the 18th century just fine! (Thanks PEPCO!!! ...bastards...)

 Staying warm by the fire!

 This should give you an idea of how awesome the 18th Century is.

Since it snowed, the next morning there was a snowman to build!

I think that I have made it pretty clear on this blog that I am all about teaching the boy to fend for himself, and more especially, to do things that are beneficial to me! After seeing a post on my cousins blog about her son making his first Peanut butter and Jelly Sandwich, Owen was anxious to give it a try, so we had a little lesson!

 He had a pretty solid foundation of knowledge...he knew that you needed two pieces of bread, and that the PB goes on first.

 It took a little bit of time to get the mastery of spreading the PB around...

 But the licking of the knife came naturally! (And we then had to get a new knife...)

 Jelly is much more tricky to get out, so there was some supervision needed here...

 But once he saw what I was trying to do he took over.

 Look at the concentration!! (My oldest brother Todd used to always stick his tongue out like that when he was thinking hard...I wonder if it is genetic.)

 A little unorthadox on the method used here to put the two halves together, but it worked.

 A very important step...cutting out a shape, and cutting off the crust.

 These comfort-fit cookie cutters are awesome...I might have to talk about them more later!

And we have one sandwich!! (The next step in training is to teach him to make me one too!!)

I cannot remember why, but one night Beki came home with a can of ginger ale. The boy has a nose like mine, and so you cannot have food or drink without him knowing about it. He managed to finagle Beki out of her drink and this is what I see walking around the corner, just chugging away!!

 Unfortunately I turned the camera off right before the boy had soda bubble up and come out of his nose...it was awesome!! He decided that we should pour it into a sippy cup after that.

One of the things that we really like about Owen's school is that they celebrate holidays. Since it was Valentine's Day, Owen needed to make his Valentines for his class.

Mommy was there to supervise, but Owen did all the writing himself!

Good Job Buddy!

This is the last good picture that our camera ever took...

Last Sunday, while Beki and I were getting ready for church, Owen was watching Veggie-Tales, as he normally does. For some reason he decided that he would play with the camera, which he has done on occasion, taking a bunch of pictures, but never really doing too much damage. Now a normal 4 year old would break your camera by dropping it or possibly even hitting it with a hammer, but oh no...that would be too 3 year oldish for our son. Instead he poured an entire bottle of Lens cleaner on the camera in an attempt to "clean it." Beki and I took the camera apart and tried to dry it out with a hair dryer, but even though we were able to get it to turn on and even take pictures again, this is what they looked like...



So once again the boy has led us to upgrade our electronics, and we are now the owners of a Panasonic Lumix! Thanks Owen...grrr...

I will try to balance my work load so that I can update more often, but I make no promises! Also, if you want to see what I am ranting on lately, check below. (I should say that not all of them are rants, I will tell you about my job, cookie cutters, and my awesome cookie making skills as well!)