Gageisms

As we were driving home this afternoon I was thinking aloud deciding if I wanted to stop at the store just to get croutons or make some when we got home. Gage pipes up "Mom, you should just make them...you don't REALLY want to waste your dollars on croutons do you?!?"  Smart boy...cuz now I'll obviously have money for Legos when he needs it!

The rest of October...

The last month has been a whirlwind of play dates, school, Halloween and a stomach flu thrown in there too. 

Gage hosted a play date and he and his friends painted salt dough, rocks and themselves...

...a little dress up fun with Baxter...ok, we had fun even if he didn't!...

...Here comes Indiana Jones! This is where the stomach flu came in, he got sick the weekend before Halloween and we missed most of the activities but we made sure he trick or treated at both Grandmas houses! (Hey, we know where to go to get the best goodies!!!)

At school last week we read "Night of the Moonjellies" (love that story,btw) and for our activity we talked about the lunar phases. What better way to demonstrate than with Oreos, right?!?

...and that concludes October! 

Miscellaneous

I typically try to blog on Tuesday morning while Gage is in class, however, he has been battling allergies the last few weeks so he wanted me to stay in class with him. So anyway, here is a recap of the last couple weeks...

Since his class read the book Madeline a few weeks ago, we decided to try a little French cuisine. And since I'm not a French chef even when we have a functioning kitchen, we headed to the farmers market that just happens to have a crepe stand. There were more combinations than I could have imagined, but Gage decided he would stick with the basics...Nutella and powdered sugar! Yum!!

Although it has been 95* here most days, the calendar says it is fall!! My fav time of the year! We made salt dough harvest veggies, so easy and fun, Gage loved painting them and "harvesting" his little garden...

We have been trying to fit in as many beach days as we can before it gets too cool (that would be anything less than 80 degrees) and while we were there last some guys fishing left the bait fish they had collected laying on the beach. The kids decided they needed to "rescue" the fish- at first they wanted to bring them all home!- so we quickly put them in our buckets and put them in the water. A little hesitant to touch the squirming fish at first, but then it was a race to see how many they could pick up.

Here is Gage at the library with his favorite librarian "Miss Sally", seems like wherever he goes he is surrounded by girls! Lol, thank goodness for all these boy cousins he has to give him the rough nod tumble time he loves!

And finally the days Daddy has been looking forward to for 4 (well 5 really I guess!) he has a golfing buddy! Gage joined "the guys" over 4th of July on the golf course and LOVED it, has been asking to go nearly every weekend, so he and Daddy and Mr. Jesus spent a beautiful day last Saturday chasing that itty bitty ball around. I don't get it. But at least they have fun! So much fun that he fell asleep in Daddy's arms that evening ;-

Week 2

Wow, this week went by fast! We had another great day at co-op on Tuesday, Gage's class read the story of "Lentil" by Robert McCloskey about a boy who can't sing or whistle but discovers he can make beautiful music with a harmonica. We discovered neither one of us can whistle either but God gives everybody different gifts. In the book, the town is eagerly waiting the arrival of the town "hero", Colonel Carter back home from war. We talked about how Daddy and Papa were both in the Navy. Since we have a Navy museum right here in our town I wanted to take an afternoon with Daddy to explore it, but we have been soooo busy we couldn't fit it in this week.

In Art class, Gage's teacher brought pastels and the kids made some beautiful art pieces. Here is Gage's:

He did the big shapes and his teacher came around the classroom and outlined their shapes. The kids were so excited to see the apple and pear come to life in their pictures!

Wednesday we visited with sweet friends that were in town from Alaska. Our boys are just a few weeks apart in age and played with one another from the time they were just sitting up until Zac moved 2 years ago.  We also got to meet Zac's baby brother, Jonas :-) The boys played so well, you would never know it had been so long since they had seen one another!

After a quiet day at home on Thursday waiting for dryer repair guy- never thought I would be so happy to do laundry again!- we went to open gym at gymnastics. It has been 95* with 100% humidity all week so we were VERY happy to be able to run around in air conditioning!

Saturday Gage started back at karate, he was a little hesitant when we got there but didn't take Sensei  Gator long to get him back into it! Daddy had errands to run all day Saturday, please pray for Grandpa Erhardt, he has had a rough few weeks. So on Sunday we packed up and headed to our favourite beach, I didn't get any pictures but here are some from the next day when we went with friends.

We have another busy week ahead, Grandma and Grandpa Haller are moving down!!! 

A Preschooler!

It happened. As many times as I have asked him not to, he went ahead and did it. My baby boy is growing up! Last Tuesday he started his first day of preschool. We found a great co-op of homeschoolers in our area, and he will go once a week for a few hours. 

The first class of the morning is based on the curriculum "Five in a row", the concept of which is to read a specific classic children's book everyday for a week and the curriculum gives you activities and experiments and topics to discuss that correlate with the story.  Our first book was "The Story of Ping" by Marjorie Flack. 

In the story, Ping is a little duck that lives in China on a "junk" on the Yangtze River. He doesn't pay attention and misses the master's call to return and makes the decision to stay behind rather than take his punishment which leads to some close calls!

So, in Gage's class, after they read the book they discussed why we should pay attention and then they also talked about ducks and rivers and how we use our local river for food, transportation etc.

Next, they did an experiment on buoyancy by guessing what items the teacher brought would float or sink by dropping them in a bucket of water. This was by far the highlight of Gage's day as his teacher had brought in a Lego man which Gage picked out to drop in the bucket! In fact, that evening we had to re-create the experiment at home in the bath tub! At least all his lego men are now clean!!

We also looked up China and specifically the Yangtze River on the map and made a Chinese stir fry  together this week. Such a fun curriculum!

His next class is an Art/Spanish class, his teacher is from Colombia and has taught art for years and she incorporates Spanish words while teaching art. He learned "buenos dias", colors and several others that I am going to have to review later, LOL! She also told them about Picasso and their objective was to completely color a page to the edges that she had drawn. Of course, Gage wanted to draw his own, so he drew a shark! 

I asked him afterward how much he liked his "school" to which he replied "my school is the bestest!!" So I would have to say it was a success! It also give me a couple of hours to update this blog ;-)

A hunting we will go!

Gage and I were hiking with friends this week and came across a geocache in the woods. Both boys of course said "cool! Somebody left toys out here!!" and were excited to hear that we could go on a real treasure hunt. So today, we went on our first official geocaching trip! We headed out to Bluefield ranch wayyyy out in western St Lucie county with a group put together by the county parks dept. Gage was the only child but quickly made friends with the entire group, of course ;-) We had a great time and went on about a 2 mile hike.

Brevard Zoo

Wayyyy back in June we spent the day at Brevard Zoo. It was Gage's first time and will definately not be his last! (cuz we got season passes ;-p) So anyway, we of course had to go straight to the alligators. I don't think I got a picture of it, but there is a zipline that runs through the park...and directly OVER the alligator pond...

Train to "Cairo"

Gage loved that we were "in" with the animals!

Stand back if you don't feel like sharing...

And the part that makes going to the zoo in Florida bearable...

Disney Take 2...

Cheesin' at the Chinese Theatre.

Lightning! Mater! Cheese!

Lightning Mcqueen Live!

Toy Story 3...they said it was worth the 90 minute wait!

Can't wait for next this year!!!

Sooo....whatcha been up to?

I know...doesn't look like we've been up to much at all...for almost a year now. But we have! Let's see...where were we?! Just before Gage's THIRD (I know, right?!) birthday, we went to Disneyworld! Tim, Jen and Justin were down and we spent 3 days at Disney with them.

The cousins together again. You would have never known they haven't seen each other in over a year. :)

Gage with a Lightning McQueen Topiary. It was Epcot's Garden and Flower Festival and there were giant topiaries throughout the park.

Meeting Mickey...

3D was cool!

I want to go to sleep to "It's a Small World" every night!

Happy New Year!

It's another new year and while I didn't make any resolutions to keep the blog up to date, my little man is proving to me everyday just how fast his childhood is moving! And I don't want to forget a thing! So since Santa surprised me with a new camera for Christmas and I have such a willing subject, I resolve to keep this blog (somewhat) up to date.