jib halloween

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Or go here: http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/5ll7RkXaDeUC2EUd

pumpkin drop

We went over to the Frerich Farm for their annual pumpkin weigh off and drop.  It was crowded and Aiden was being a bit of a crankster not wanting to wait for them to hoist the pumpkin (which we later figured out had to do with hunger which he fixed with some portuguese sweet bread).  They pulled the pumpkin up into the air in slow motion and had one false alarm countdown before the real deal.  After the pumpkin guts are spread all over they allow the kids to swarm and pick the seeds to eat.  Aiden found a pretty gushy piece of pumpkin but no seeds.  Right as he was checking out his piece for seeds we ran into his teacher Mrs. Healey with her family.  Aiden seemed a bit confused to see her outside of school, but it was nice to see her.  We checked out the big pumpkins waiting to be weighed and all the fun kiddie games.  We came home with some mums and pumpkins.

Pumpkin Drop from LB on Vimeo.

good list

I kept this fun hippo pop up card from my aunt because I just love it.  She even personalized it with the 31 - which is turning out to be a good age ;)

Gran adopted this philosophy after seeing it on some sign along the road.  I found this scrap library coloring page with her scribbled, "Wag more, bite less."

Daddy helped Aiden make a Moose from Nick Jr patterns while I was at class one night.

Australian wild life books Gran found while daddy was in Australia

The Jototes camera bag I got for my birthday is the perfect camera bag that doesn't look like a camera bag.  I just love it and it had so many padded dividers.

These two Trader Joe's goodies have been top picks lately - Ooh, those teeny, tiny potatoes with some olive oil and sea salt - yum!  Those Swirls never make it in the milk, they are just like little healthier cookies.

whack

Aiden picked a pretty hard froggy smash game at the Pumpkin Somethin. Even with daddy's help he only just barely got it near the tub it was supposed to jump in, but he had fun.

octoberfest

It's always fun to break away from our usual haunts, so we cruised on down the road to New Haven, Connecticut on Sunday.  We had an invite from my old friend Lara to visit during their neighborhood Octoberfest.  It's such a remarkable neighborhood to pull together so many different people in such a festive event.  The main attraction was a chili cookoff (with quite a few entries!), a bouncy house (which Aiden stayed in for about 1/4 of the time), tractor rides, chickens, and a playground (which Aiden named the castle playground, which is his designation for top notch).  There was also a Sorcerer Magic Show, which spooked Aiden, but I think it was just a ploy to get back into the bouncy house.  Then to cap off the evening they had square dancing, which was surprisingly fun!  I teased J that I was going to surprise him on our next date night with a trip to the VFW for some square dancing ;)  Thanks Lara for inviting us!  Here are some snippets - the first part was visiting the ridge that looks over New Haven:
New Haven from LB on Vimeo.

circus

The circus was in town this weekend! Aiden danced his way up to the big top where he was presented with a foam clown nose and permission to play in the circus ring before the show! There was this crazy four armed slinky creature named Slinko that Aiden said was his favorite.

stretch

We visited the Pumpkin Somethin fair at a local elementary school. Aiden earned enough tickets during the games to get some swanky prizes: a superman pencil, doggie notepad, superman finger puppet, and a super stretchy lizard friend. Here is a sequence of photos where Aiden gives him a super stretch and snaps part of his tail off. He didn't get upset though because we told him the lizards tails grow back (not specifying that plastic lizards don't count). He just laughed.

35 months

Dear Aiden B,

You are now known as Aiden B at school and I laugh when I hear you calling yourself Aiden B. You even called me Mommy B the other day when I came to pick you up. I'm glad that you have latched onto your own name and identity at school. You're the kid at school dropoff that turns to the other kids that are hesistant to come in to encourage them to come to the door. You tell them "it will be fun, come on!"
I will remember you playing hours and hours of playdoh this month. Mushing, rolling, poking, cutting, and shaping tons of colors at once. You ask me how many points on the star and laugh if I answer incorrectly on purpose. You have these crayons that have little faces on the end and you love to wrap them in playdoh "to keep them warm." You make playdoh pizza with extra toppings like matchbox cars. You love squishing it through the press to make hair or noodles. Your Gran says this was her all time favorite thing to do too.You really started using phrases that you've heard at school, which is fun to hear. You talk about "turning your voice off" and "look at me and what do you see?" You understand the rules and have picked up the habit of telling us the new rules, "My daddy had to go back to work but he didn't see the sign on my hand that said don't go!" The teachers frequently tell you you must have missed something instead of correcting you. It seems to work well. You are adamant about "what Mrs. Healey says" and you think what she says should fly at school and at home, except for the always-putting-your-toys-away deal. I think the trick is making everything seem more important, like your "works" at school. Or even better is making clean up into a game, like toy basket sorting and identifying all the vehicles, tools, animals, and shapes into their own piles.
You like using words you think are funny to say, like scrumpt-u-ous. You will repeat scrumptious with the funniest little pronunciations until you get it just right. Then you will tell me that your mini wheats are truuuly scrumptious! During the breakfast song at school (where you told them that you eat broccoli for breakfast) you learned about mini wheats and you really wanted to try them. You pulled my hand down the cereal aisle asking me what mini wheats looked like. We found some and it turns out you love them! Your favorite lately is a bowl of mini wheats and a square of cheese for breakfast (sounds pretty french to me).Your sidekick, arm load animals this month were the three australia animals, a platypus, koala, and kangaroo, your dad brought home from his big trip last month. You proudly wore your australia hat to school for hat day the other day. You've already learned this fun song about the continents that says "and don't forget Australia! " and you get excited every time. You even told your teacher about your dad's big trip.
One of my favorite times of day is when we are driving home from school and you tell me random bits about your day. You also like to play with toys that you left behind earlier. One of the funniest things was when you started talking with your Lightning McQueen car to your ear. You told me that you were on your "car phone" to call your cousin Kayley and tell her a new story. As we leave school, you carry your backpack (not a bookbag you tell me) as you strut out to the car and start most of your stories then. Most of the time it's about a new song that you learned or a new "secret" you heard. I think "let me tell you a secret" is the way that Mrs. Healey gets you to quiet down and really listen. You usually tell me what all your friends did for their work before you reveal what you did.
Continuing in the tradition of the "man bat" creation that you got so excited about last month, you love to make up funny combinations of words and even fully made up words and names. You sing some songs from school and sometimes make up your own songs that relate to your favorite stories. The breakfast song and the hello song are clear favorites. It's pretty fun to learn the songs from you! And to find out what all your friends like to have for breakfast ;) You tend to always claim to have O cereal, although that is never actually the case.
You are still addicted to Lion King videos on youtube and now like to watch the broadway show performance the most. You imitate the call at the beginning of the Circle of Life "nah-te-wen-yaaa!" You even dream that you are Simba and woke up yelling about Rafiki the other night. You will click through your own videos, although sometimes you ask for help, "Ah, excuse me mommy, it's stuck." Your little excuse me is one of my favorite things. "Excuse me mommy, I want to take your picture, say cheeeese!" Then you take your little old vintage fisher price toy camera and switch out the little color wheel and tell me what color I am - "Mommy, you are pretty blue!"
You love to play the same pretend games over and over. One of your favorites is switching out roles as the big bad wolf, woodsman, and little red riding hood. You will pretend to be the big bad wolf most of the time and you have to chase little red riding hood all around while growling. These are what they call playground games at school ;) You get how to play go fish but you have a habit of announcing the card you pick up with a loud whisper. You are just starting to understand that trying to play by hiding the cards will help you make more matches.
We like to go on little adventures and walks after school and one time I asked you "Are we having fun or what?" You looked right at me with a smile and said "Or what!" What a little jokester. I think you do actually like hunting down squirrels and visiting farmer's markets. I look forward to another month filled with fall fun and a few more face paints (where you ask to visit the bathroom multiple times just to look at your bat in the mirror). It's going to be fun!

Love, Mommy B

school potluck

We headed over to Aiden's school for the fall potluck tonight.  I was amazed at how many people were there on a rainy evening.  Talking Carl on the iphone helped me keep Aiden from falling asleep in the car after a no nap afternoon.  Aiden immediately saw one of his classmates when we walked in and was excited to say hi and was energized.  We gobbled down some eats and treats and got a chance to say hi to some familiar faces. We saw people we knew that we didn't even know where associated with the school.

I'd asked the Director if I could take some classroom photos for my RISD class project and create a "What is Montessori" brochure for them.  She lent me her keys and I got to poke around in Aiden's classroom taking some photos.  The absolute highlight was this sign hanging on the door - it made me laugh:

I went back out to the party and asked Aiden what he wanted to be when he grows up and he repeated with a smile - "I want to be an adult!"  The lady next to us laughed and said that sounded about right.  Then the guy on the other side said that he wanted to be a kid when he grew up.  Aiden said his favorite cake was lion cake, of course.

Here's a peek at Aiden's friends at school:

Here's peek at their other classroom friend:

hello

Aiden pulls out these songs from school and sings them over and over luckily so that I can learn them too:

Hello to all the children around the world... from LB on Vimeo.

tracing

Tracing back over the last few weeks, it's hard to believe how quickly time is passing.  School has been going really well for Aiden and the routine seems to work for the whole family.  He wakes up without an alarm around 7 usually and has a pretty leisurely breakfast.  Then at 8 he's out the door to be dropped off by daddy.  He sometimes acts a little shy when his teacher greets him with a handshake, but he's always interested in going straight in the door (no fussing even when other kids are).  This transition seems so easy mainly because he's so positive about it and hops right on into school every morning.  Part of our obligation to the coop setup is that we help out with classroom tasks.  So I signed up to do some tracing for the teacher to use with punching exercises.  I hope Aiden is excited to punch the shapes.  I think the teacher is right that it makes you feel more involved with your child's experience.

Aiden has a bit of a habit of telling his teacher funny made up stories, which are usually obvious things like having zebra for breakfast.  I guess they are studying continents right now and they were talking about Australia.  Aiden must have chimed in that his daddy went there, so we got this note in our pocket.  Then the next morning she asked J if it was true, since you never know with Aiden (he's very convincing even with made up stories).  Aiden's going to be excited when daddy gets to come in to talk about Australia later this year.

The school celebrated International Peace Day by making peace pinwheels.  Aiden's was in pretty good shape even after being smooshed into his book bag.  It sounds like from Aiden that they all played with these as a school.  I'm looking forward to the first school newsletter so I can learn more about when they've been up to at school... or more than what I can translate from my two year old's explanations.

apple fest

Fall is coming and going lately....with a few super warms days last week it felt like summer still!  I still haven't had a true apple cider donut, but we went to the Apple Fest this weekend ...although no cider donut  in stock. The fresh cider was really good though!  Aiden had tons of fun on the little gas spewing, backwards number 1 choo choo, but I think he was just high off the fumes - ug.  He liked seeing the friendly high school students dressed as characters (although the scream monster guys not so much) and the big tanks in the park.

Apple Fest from LB on Vimeo.

tyler's bday

Aiden's best buddy Tyler turned three yesterday and he had a backyard Blues Clues bash to celebrate.  The bouncy house was definitely the highlight.  The pinata took a while, but the kids did eventually get it open without adult help (which I was beginning to think never happened).  Tyler's tricky Grandma put trick candles on the cake, which was pretty confusing to the little ones.  Tyler's grandpa brings out the giggle puss in Aiden and it was fun to see how excited Aiden and Tyler were to see each other.