St. OMSI Day

I thought I'd post pictures from our most recent outing to OMSI. Why? Because Daphne was wearing a green shirt and made a green picture. We'll just pretend it was today. Happy St. Patrick's Day!




James' concentration face

Thank Goodness for Indoor Parks

We spend a lot of time at "indoor parks" around town during the cold and rainy seasons in order to burn off steam. Here are some shots from our latest trip.






Steam burned? Check.

From Elk to Envelope

Many of you know of my internal battle over preschool. Daphne qualifies for 3 years before kindergarten (that fact alone still boggles my mind, and that fact makes me feel very old-fashioned). We already passed on this current year, and we're passing on the next. I'm still undecided on that last year before kindergarten. Although I think Daphne would enjoy it and I could certainly use the "break" (i.e. one-on-one time with James), something deep down inside my gut just keeps telling me it's unnecessary and that I should be using our money on other things, since I have the privilege of being home with her all day. She gets plenty of socialization through classes, playgroups, and other activities. And I'm not worried that she'd be academically behind. Maybe I'm just not ready to "let go" yet, but those of you who know me well know that's probably not the core issue. I am, however, hoping to do a mini home-school co-op with a couple moms once per week starting in the fall, just for fun (and free!).

In the spirit of finding out what I could teach her on my own, I started looking at some online preschool resources. We've been doing "letter of the week" for a month or so, and one activity Daphne enjoys is making little books about each letter (templates found here)

Here's a sample of what they're like.


(I can't get this picture to stay flipped for some reason...new camera...)

However, once we staple together the 4-5 picture pages provided in the template, in the order she insists on specifying, she also then insists upon me making up an actual story out of the words. This task proves difficult. For example, for the letter P, I had the following to work with: pilot, penguin, pumpkin, police officer, and panda. In that order. I find myself cringing as Daphne chooses the order of the words, and then looks at me expectantly after turning each page of the assembled book. And then sometimes she wants to read it again with a different storyline. But lately she's been getting in on the stories more, so it's becoming more fun to see what we come up with together.

So for E this week, we had: elk, egg, Earth, envelope, elephant. Your suggestions are appreciated.

New Camera

We got a new camera this week. It's a Canon Powershot and came highly recommended by friends. We've had our little Nikon for around 6 years, and it's been good to us, but it was time for an upgrade. I'm still figuring out the various settings but I'm very excited because for one thing, the video quality is so much better! I tested it out on our little trip to the Tigard Indoor Park today.

Tricycle Time

Daphne just recently figured out the whole tricycle thing. Learning steering was key. Here she is riding our $4 Value Village tricycle we bought ages ago. It was such a beautiful day today! With the gradual turn in the weather, James has been getting reacquainted with his old buddy, Noah.

Happy Valentine's Day

I really hope kids come bring me Valentines when I'm in a retirement home!

A Friendly Giraffe (etc.)

It's not often that one gets to look a giraffe in the eye, but we happened upon this friendly (fellow?) at the zoo yesterday morning. The picture above is either really artistic or really bad, you make the call. But I thought it was at least kind of nifty how Daphne is reflected in the glass. Here's a brief video of Mr. Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata

"Giraffe" was one of James' first signs and we think it's still his favorite animal. I think he might have been a bit confused, but I can't really blame him since he was looking down at it.

Here's some snuggling hippos and then a goat, just cuz:


And a couple random bonus shots of James playing at the indoor mall playground (or as a friend of mine calls it, "the germ structure") today.


So, yeah, random blog but I suppose it's my prerogative.

P.S. Even more randomly, can anyone of my generation utter/type the above phrase without thinking of this (about 40 seconds in)? (And then be disturbed but certainly not surprised to check youtube and find this additional gem?