Awesome Things

This week has been awesome I tell you.  Great things are happening around here!

Who knew I'd love the at-home portion of Charlotte's Pre-K curriculum?  Granted, we've only completed 4 days, and it IS only Pre-K, but I really love having something written out (by someone else!) to follow as I do activities with the kids.  I have always loved coming up with little activities to do with Charlotte, but found it hard to regularly come up with *new* age appropriate activities and finding things that would occupy her interest for more than 5 seconds.  We spend most of the morning on "home school" days checking off her list of assignments and whatever other kind of coloring or play she wants to do.  And I enjoy it.  Even when I have to get creative to convince her to look at the calender on more time and tell me what day of the week is today.  Part of her assignment includes memorizing a Bible verse.  What a bonus for this Catholic girl!

Frederick loves to join in whatever we are doing, even if it just means I hand him some (washable) dry erase markers and a white board, crayons and paper, or math manipulatives.  If I am reading Charlotte a book, he loves to climb up into my lap and be right in the middle of it all.  Even though I've dedicated this time to Charlotte, I think he really benefits, too.

The kiddos really love playing together too, though I'm not too sure what I think about Charlotte trying to cook Frederick.

Okay, so really he climbed in there and closed the door all by himself when I told him it was time for a diaper change.  The silly little man never fails to make me smile. 

And a confession, I started this post yesterday and am sitting down today trying to remember all of the awesome things I was going to include in this post.  This is probably because we had Charlotte's 4 year old well check today, which included an over an hour wait to see the doctor, shots, and a toddler in tow.  I'm quite sure I was lucky to escape with my sanity mostly intact.  Charlotte screamed and cried after the shots and wouldn't let me put her down while Frederick threw an all out tantrum (that involved both throwing his body on the floor running away from me through the doctor's office) because I made him put down the toy trains that had been keeping him occupied.  Whew.  I confess to laughing at myself and the whole scene, but it was still draining!

So anyway, what was I saying, about awesome?

Speaking of 4, Charlotte had a fairy fun birthday party to celebrate her big day.

Charlotte and all of her Fairy Friends had a great time! 

And, how about this new trick? Charlotte seemingly dropped her nap around the time she turned 3.  I switched over to "rest time" mode and stuck her in her room with books and maybe a video, from which she would emerge every 5-10 minutes for some reason or another.  It turns out, she will still fairly easily take a nap if we both lay down on my bed.  She is out within 10 minutes! Who knew there could still be midday peace?

These two can be little stinkers, but I love them so :-).