Train Tracks

Boogs still enjoys getting out his wooden train tracks. This kept up busy for about an hour the other morning. He had such a good time making the battery powered engines race each other for the drawbridge.

Feeling good!

Boogs was sick yesterday. He seemed fine when he woke up yesterday. We even played for about an hour before we had to get ready for school. When I tried to get him ready to leave, he had a meltdown about how tired he was. I comforted him and noticed he felt pretty warm. His temperature was just under 102 degrees. We stayed home and spent most of the day on the couch. Tylenol makes him hyper so he did not rest or take a nap until almost 4 pm. He finally fell asleep for about an hour. When he went to bed for the night, his temp was still pretty high. This morning it was back down to 100.8.  He was very concerned that he would be too sick to have a "Daddy Day". By 10:30 this morning, his temp was down 99, so he did not miss his Daddy Day. Must have been some sort of 24 hour bug. He did not have any other symptoms besides the fever. I am so glad he is back to his busy little self.

Halloween is creeping in

Boogs went with his Daddy to look at Halloween displays at several stores. I told my husband that was fine with me as long as he realized that nightmare patrol (getting up multiple times in the night to calm down a screaming boy) was all his responsibility. Luckily, Boogs has not had any bad nightmares for the past couple of days. Every night before he goes to bed he asks to tell him a good thing to dream about so he won't have a nightmare. These dream ideas have become part of our nightly routine. I am very surprised  the Halloween decoration my husband let Boogs purchase has not kept him up at night. Count Dracula tried to fly into Boogs' bedroom and got flattened against the door. Here is a picture of Boogs' bedroom door:

While I am tucking him in at night, Boogs asks me to close the door so he can't see Dracula.  I told him we would get out the Halloween decorations this weekend. Oh...it is going to be a long time until October 31st.

Hide and Seek

Boogs loves a good game of hide and seek. He is getting bigger and some of his favorite hiding places are becoming more challenging to get into. One hiding place that he uses often is "his" cabinet in the kitchen. He is too big to get in and move his arm enough to close the door. So the other day, Boogs asked me to close the door and then start counting "but don't come looking in the kitchen to seek me". Here are two pics of Boogs in "his" cabinet hiding place. The first one was taken when he was 18 months old. The second one was taken yesterday. He is growing up too fast for me.

Long night

Boogs is OBSESSED with Halloween. He has been since he was 18 months old. I remember, when he was 18 months,  he stood at the door and cried for several days after Halloween because he wanted to go trick-or-treating again and again. He loved wearing his costume and knocking on the neighbors' doors. I did not let him eat the candy, so candy is not a big part of his obsession. He loved the decorations.

That obsession has not lessened over the years. I had to make a rule this year that we won't listen to his Halloween CDs in the car until October 1st. He could spend hours looking at Halloween displays in stores. The Halloween displays are already up at most stores and Boogs is already starting to beg to spend time wandering around looking at everything.  Yesterday afternoon he looked through the displays at Walgreens.

Unfortunately, his fears have gotten bigger. During the past few months he has started to have an occasional nightmare. I know it is a common thing for kids his age to have nightmares, but his Halloween obsession is not a good combination with nightmares. Last night he cried out at 1 a.m. because he was scared. I was able to give him a hug and get him back to sleep. Then around 3 a.m. he woke up screaming about being scared. I spent an hour in his room and he started to calm down. When I left his room he started screaming again. I went back into his room and he was huddled against his pillows in the corner of his bed with a freaked out look of terror on his face. I snuggled up with him in his bed and sang his night time song a couple of times and he finally went back to sleep a little after 5 a.m.  He woke up this morning at 7:15, leapt out of bed and yelled, "Wow, it is bright outside. I had a good sleep!" I hope this is not his new definition of "a good sleep".  During the daylight, his fears magically disappear. Now, I just have to figure out how to avoid all the Halloween displays for the next two months so he won't have such vivid nightmares.

Messy Birthday Party

One of Boogs' classmates, the daughter of one of my fellow teachers, had her 5th birthday party yesterday. The theme was "MESSY". Yes, it did have to be spelled with all capital letters. Michelle had the great idea of making the party as messy as possible. She put out several small inflatable kiddie pools and filled them with various messy things...mud, shaving cream, cooked spaghetti noodles, jello, squeezable paint bottles, and bubbles. There was a slip-n-slide and water balloons. She served messy food - sloppy joes, chicken wings, watermelon and even had a mound of cake squares piled on top of each other with messy icing for the birthday cake.  She carried the messy theme through to her pinata. The pull string pinata was filled with goodies and flour. It was a mess! Luckily, there was a designated "mess-free zone" for the parents.  At the end of the party, the kids got to pull all of the streamers off of the trees. They were so cute. Boogs kept winding the streamers around his body like he was a mummy. Boogs had such a good time.

            

Goop!

One of Boogs all-time favorite things to do is play with goop. It always amazes me that a little bit of cornstarch, water, and food coloring can keep him entertained for over an hour. It makes a HUGE mess, but the clean-up is fairly easy. When he was finished playing with the goop, I took Boogs and his art mat outside and hosed them down.

After Boogs got washed off with the hose, he wanted to make rainbows. You can barely see the rainbow in this picture.

He also figured out how to step on the hose sprayer to get the perfect size stream of water to make his grass root dance.

Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge

This past weekend, we went on a family hike to the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge, which is a refuge to protect the endangered Golden Cheeked Warbler. On the way there, my husband told Boogs all about the attacking snakes and jumping spiders waiting to drop down from the trees. At the beginning of the trail, Boogs wanted to hold both of our hands and not let go. So we told him that Daddy was just joking. There might me snakes and spiders, but they won't attack if we leave them alone. Boogs then became brave enough to lead our hike, though he did continue to look up and check the trees for spiders.  I was amazed that he did not ask us to carry him. He fell once and scraped his hand, but he got back up and kept going. It was a slow hike because Boogs had to examine EVERYTHING.

Recent Science Experiments

Chemical Reaction to Inflate A Balloon - Boogs loves to make volcano explosions with baking soda and vinegar. We decided to try a different experiment that was not quite so messy. We put baking soda and lemon juice in an empty water bottle and covered the opening with a balloon. The baking soda and lemon juice combined and made CO2 gas rise up and push out the balloon. Boogs shook the bottle around to see if he could make the balloon bigger. Shortly after that he said, "Okay, that was a little experiment, now I need a really big one."

Air Spinners - We cut strips of paper and then connected them into fish shaped loops. We used printer paper and construction paper and varied the length of the tails. Boogs stood on top of a small chair and tried to drop the spinners in to a box. His observations: "Putting a short tail spinner is easier to get into the box. The long tail spinners were harder because they swirled the most and kind of didn't go into the box." "Construction paper twirled just like regular paper. I think they were like the same."

Water Patterns - We made 3 small holes in the lid of a small bottle and filled the bottle with hot water and food coloring. We place the bottle into a bowl of cold water. We watched the hot colored water rise up in spiral patterns as it pushed the cold water out of the way. Boogs observations: "It looks like smoke coming right at us, like 3-D. Looks like clouds." After a few minutes he noticed, "All the water is the same now. They mixed together."

Making Playdough

Boogs and I signed up to make playdough for his preschool class. They asked for red, strawberry scented playdough.  We ended up with a color between pink and red. Thanks to a package of Kool-Aid, it definitely has a strawberry scent. This is my favorite playdough recipe:

Flour 3cups

Salt 1 1/2 cups
Water 3 cups
Vegetable Oil 2TB.
Cream of tartar 1TB.
Food coloring few drops or unsweetened "Kool-Aid" 1pkg.

Mix ALL of the ingredients in a large saucepan.
Cook over medium low heat, until the dough comes away
from the edges of the pan and it becomes difficult to move the spoon. Remove from heat. Cool until it can be handled.
Place on counter or wax paper knead 3-4 times.

Store in an air tight container.

It always comes out great and stays nice through MULTIPLE play times.

Stamp Camp

I recently had another Stamp Camp at my house.  We made two cards and a Halloween treat box.  All of the materials used (except the black ribbon) are Stampin' Up products.

I used markers and colored on the Inspired by Nature stamp itself to get the multiple colors in this image. The flower on the ribbon is part of a paper daisy, cut and sponged to match the stamp image. It is secured with a chocolate chip colored jumbo brad.

This card was made with the Because I Care hostess stamp set, old olive ink and paper for a monochrome look. I used the Stampin' Up Circle Scissors to get the circle mat for the image.

I love the way this treat box looks. One of the other demonstrators, Chris Twing, showed me how to make it. I plan on making these hat treat boxes for Boogs' preschool class this year.

I think the cards turned out cute this time. I don't do as much cardmaking or scrapbooking as I would like to. Maybe on Fridays while Boogs is in school I will get caught up on his scrapbooks. I know I am a few years behind.

Monday Preschool Camp - Fairy Tales

We looked at two stories this week - The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The kiddos were familiar with these stories. While we read the Three Little Pigs, we acted out the story using wooden peg dolls and paper houses. The paper houses were great because the kiddos were able to work together and pretend to be the big bad wolf. The houses were light enough that they could huff and puff and blow them right off the coffee table. We made a block house for the brick house so that it could not be huffed and puffed off the table. We also used the peg dolls to act out Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Each child got to go home with 3 paper houses, 3 small peg dolls and one large peg doll. I could not believe how long they played with these. The pattern for the houses came from Frugal Family Fun Blog
http://www.frugalfamilyfunblog.com/2010/08/rainbow-village-printable.html

After story time, we went into the kitchen for our cooking activity. We made homemade bear biscuits. The kids really enjoyed working the butter into the flour with their hands. They decorated their biscuits with mini chocolate chips, except for Boogs. He ate his chocolate chips because they were too yummy to put on his biscuit. I think the kids used at least half a bottle of honey while they were eating their bears.

During outside play time, I filled the swimming pool and the water table with bubbles. We also had the wavy sprinkler on. Boogs is really going to miss these Mondays with his friends.

Robinson Park

We love to play at Robinson Park. It has a nice playscape area and a great walking trail. Boogs got a little bit too brave for me on our walk. He decided to walk across the bridge on the OUTSIDE of the railing. It made me so nervous!