Cutesy the Elf - Day 2 & 3

Boogs woke up Monday morning and immediately spotted Cutesy the Elf in a bucket of blocks.

Apparently, during the night, Cutesy cleaned up Boogs' playroom and then made himself comfortable in a block fort. I wish I had taken a picture of the play room before Cutesy cleaned it, it was a MESS. Boogs commented on how surprised he was that Cutesy was able to reach to put everything away. He is really on the edge of wanting to believe in Cutesy even though I can tell by his comments that he is playing along because it is fun, not because he believes it.  When he was a two-year-old, he would constantly ask "is this real or made up?" about almost every story we read. I am pretty sure he is going to give up Santa this year.

Tuesday morning, Boogs found Cutesy sitting in a pile of presents under the Christmas tree. During the night, Cutesy wrapped up all of our holiday books in snowman paper. The note says, "Hee hee - I wrapped all of your holiday books. Open one at a time. QT" Cutesy really has bad penmanship.

(Yes, he is wearing the same pjs as yesterday. It's a boy thing or maybe a 5-year-old thing.)

Boogs searched the house for Cutesy and yelled out, "He left me a bunch of presents under the tree! Momma, there is a note written in elf writing!" I helped Boogs read the note. He loved it. He immediately opened one of the packages and had me read a story to him. For the next hour, he walked around singing/repeating "Hee hee, I wrapped your books. Hee hee." Too cute!

Oops! Our Elf Came Early

I was planning on having an elf come stay at our house for the month of December, but my nosey little Boogs made him arrive a few days early. I wanted to get Elf on a Shelf but I did not like how the story said a child can never touch the elf or the $35 price tag. So, I bought an elf at Hobby Lobby for $7, a Christmas bucket, and wrote a letter (some of the content was "lifted" from The Magic Elf website) to attach to the top of the bucket.

I put the bucket on a shelf in my craft room and was going to put it in front of Boogs bedroom door on Dec 1st. Unfortunately, Boogs came in my craft room Saturday morning while I was making Christmas cards. He immediately noticed the bucket, took it down, and asked "Momma, what is this?" Grrrr! At least I had already attached the note and the elf was inside. I told Boogs I had no idea what it was or where it came from. He went and asked his Dad about it. His Dad noticed the note on top of the bucket. Boogs saw his name on the note and asked us to read it to him. He was so funny. He was very nervous about opening the bucket. I wish I had gotten a picture of Boogs standing behind the bucket, tilting it away from himself, and looking kind of freaked out. After he took the top off he was surprised that the elf was still. He thought the elf was going to jump out and run around. Boogs loved that the elf might get up to some nonsense and mischief. He said the elf was so cute that he would name him Cutesy. Throughout the day, Boogs would move Cutesy to different areas and then tell me Cutesy had moved by himself. Boogs wanted to know more information about elves. I found a website that we read together that was pretty good, as long as you skip over info about The Hobbit type of elves. There is a video running at the bottom of the screen, I just kept the screen from going down that far while Boogs and I read the elf info.
http://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/holidays/santa-elf.htm

Yes, he is wearing Christmas pjs. Boogs is ALL about Christmas as soon as Thanksgiving is over. He has been wearing the Santa hat for a couple of days.

In the afternoon, Boogs accidentally pulled the jingle bell off the top of Cutesy's hat. I sewed the bell back on and decided to leave my needle and thread out for Cutesy. This is what Boogs found when he looked for Cutesy this morning:

Cutsey had sewn "QT" on the bottom of his foot. Boogs was pretty excited about it. I explained to Boogs that Cutesy must have thought that was the best way to spell his name. Boogs said it was kind of like how Woody, in Toy Story, had a name on the bottom of his boot.

Boogs checking out Cutesy's foot.

Boogs asked if he could keep a list of Cutesy's mischief to send to Santa.  I love that this is making him want to write .

We can't wait to see what other adventures Cutesy will have before he leaves with Santa on Christmas Eve.

Today's Lunch

Boogs asked to read this book and make a lunch out of it today. Bento Blog Network's next technique of the week is homemade picks, so I added a bee pick, a butterfly pick and a flower pick to the lunch.

The Crunching Munching Caterpillar by Sheridan Cain
Pb&j caterpillar sitting on carrot branch with spinach leaves, Italian dressing, grapes, salami, cheese stick, and black olives.

Boogs new joke: "Did you eat all of the olives?" I told him I did not eat all of them. He rolled his eyes at me and said, "You don't get it, Momma. I said Did you eat OLIVE the olives! It is a joke. Good one, huh?"  I had to agree that is was a good joke. Boogs made it up all by himself. 5-year-olds are so much fun!

Turkey Cookies and Pizza

Yesterday, Boogs had a kindergarten friend over for several hours. Boogs and C played for quite a while in the playroom and then decided they were ready to make handprint turkey cookies. Boogs and I have been making these for the past several years. I traced Boogs' and C's hands onto cardstock and then had the boys cut out their outlined handprint. We rolled out our sugar cookie dough and I gave them each a piece to put their cardstock handprints on. They used plastic knives to cut around the paper. While the cookies were baking and cooling, we made homemade personal sized pizzas for lunch. Boogs told me not to eat "olive" the black olives. He loves to make up jokes. After we baked the cookies, the boys decorated them with squeeze tube icing. They were yummy!

Kneading the ingredients together
because it is always fun to use your hands.

Cutting around the cardstock handprint.

C's decorating his turkey.

Boogs decorating his turkey.

Thanksgiving Lunch at Boogs' School

Boogs bought his school lunch on Friday, the day of their Thanksgiving Feast. Here is a quick pic of us at school together.

I love his turkey headband. 

I love this little guy!

Feeling A Bit Creative

I have not used my craft room much since we moved into our new house in July. Today, I pulled out many unused supplies to make a birthday card for a 1-year-old. I can't remember the last time I used my Stampin' Up Big Shot. I had to read the directions on it so I could use it.

Making this card made me realize that Christmas is almost here. I have yet to start working on my Christmas cards. I know I want to use the Extra-Large Ornament punch from Stampin' Up. I just need to figure out what I want to do with it. Last year, I had planned on using that punch for my Christmas cards but it was on backorder.

Boogs has been crafty and creative lately. He has been:

Making "brews" 

Hosting an Oreo turkey making playdate

Building with Lego at the library

Making cards

Baking pumpkin muffins

Making sure each muffin has enough
chocolate chips.

Eating his creation.

Lunches November 14th - 18th, 2011

Next week is Boogs' Fall Break from school. I don't know if we will be making themed lunches while we are at home. We will be hosting Thanksgiving for my folks and my sister's family. It should be a busy week. As usual, Boogs' lunches are based on the story we read at bedtime the previous evening. To see past weeks of lunches, click on the label at the end of this post.

A Good Day by Kevin Henkes
In the lunchbox: Fox pizza, kiwi, yogurt, and broccoli. I was feeling kind of lazy this morning and Boogs was happy to have leftover pizza for lunch. Win/win situation.

Cool Dog, School Dog by Deborah Heiligman
This little dog follows his owner to school and causes all sorts of trouble. In the lunchbox: cool dog pb&j sandwich with fruit leather glasses, pita chip "books", cheese sticks, broccoli (can you tell I need to go grocery shopping for more veggies), grapes, yogurt, and applesauce.

Arthur's Computer Disaster by Marc Brown
Boogs really likes Arthur stories. I had planned on making a computer mouse sandwich for this book but Boogs asked me to make a computer screen of the "Deep Dark Sea" game in the story. In the lunchbox: pb&j sandwich is supposed to be the Deep Dark Sea computer game with fruit leather squids on the screen, underneath the computer screen is a cheese stick scuba diver, thre is an apple mouse, carrots & tomatoes, and some goldfish crackers with pretzels.

Thanksgiving Day by Gail Gibbons
I have always liked Gail Gibbons books. In the lunchbox: ham & cheese turkey like the turkey on the front cover,  two mini "pumpkin" oranges,  zucchini bread,  carrot chips (Boogs said we could call those his gourds), and spinach leaves.

Boogs' school is having a Thanksgiving Feast for lunch tomorrow. He is going to buy his lunch, so there won't be a story book lunch this Friday. 

This week I linked up at:
http://livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com/
http://www.bentolunch.net/
http://www.jdaniel4smom.com/
http://teachinggoodeaters.blogspot.com/

Our Calendar

Boogs and I have been doing a morning calendar since early 2009. On Pinterest, someone pinned a teacher's website that has free printables. The website is doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com  I printed out these cute Thanksgiving calendar numbers. Boogs likes them a lot. Before November began, we played with the cards for a while. I had Boogs put the number cards in order, sort them by color, sort odd/even, skip count by 2s. There are so many things to do with them besides just putting them on the daily calendar. Here is a picture of the calendar in Boogs' room. Each morning we sing our calendar song, put up the day's date, and read our poem of the week. I call out words in the poem for Boogs to find and point to. I found the Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme Cards at Half Price Books a few years ago. I don't remember where I found our calendar song. It is sung to the tune of "Oh My Darling, Clementine".

There are seven days, there are seven days, there are seven days in a week.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
Today is Tuesday, today is Tuesday, November 15th, 2011.
Today is Tuesday, today is Tuesday, November 15th, 2011.

Explorer's Club

At the last library Explorer's Club, the kiddos learned about weather. The planned activity was to make a rooster weather vane. Boogs was very excited about making the weather vane and putting it "up on the roof". Our librarian quickly discouraged this idea and suggested that everyone fine a nice flat spot in their yard to stick their weather vane. When we got home, Boogs had me get out a compass to line up the placement of his weather vane.

Color a rooster and then cover it with contact paper to help "weather proof" it. Cover an arrow with tinfoil.

Take a skewer and wind a rubber band near one end, next poke a cup onto the skewer, add another rubber band to hold the cup in place, put a bead on the skewer, then slide a straw (attached to the rooster and tinfoil covered arrow) over the skewer. The rooster and arrow will now spin freely when you blow air on them.

The cup has N, E, S, W written on its base.  You just have to line them up properly when you poke the skewer in the your yard at home.

Boogs, and most of the other children, needed quite a bit of help to complete this project. We had fun working on it together.

Little Hike

We took a little family hike on another one of the cave preserve trails near our house.

Boogs read the cave sign to us.

All of the entrances are locked up tight.

Boogs found a hole in the rock.

He spent about 15 minutes filling it up with rocks.

They made me nervous by jumping up and down on the grate.

GP and GM we will know all of the trails by the time you get here next month. I am sure Boogs will enjoy being the leader on all of our hikes with you.

Lunches November 7th - November 11th

Boogs' lunches are based on the story we read at bedtime the previous evening. To see past weeks of lunches, click on the label at the end of this post.

Waddles by David McPhail
Waddles is a sweet story about the friendship between Waddles the raccoon and a family of ducks. In our lunchbox today: raccoon boiled egg, ham & cheese ducks, duck apple swimming in a blueberry pond, carrot sticks in a hummus nest, and swimming goldfish.

Desert Dance by Charlotte Armajo
In the lunchbox: salad with cucumber snake,  homemade chicken nugget tumbleweeds, grapes lizard, and a fruit leather wolf howling at the Babybel cheese full moon. This is a good movement book. Boogs got to prance & dance, thump, stamp, shake, flap, howl & prowl, and jig & jog. We read a calm book after this one to help get settled for bedtime.

Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett
In the lunchbox: apple cucumber cutouts on a salad,  pears, orange, onigiri bear colored with soy sauce, stir-fry chicken, and yogurt.  This is a cute little book that only has 5 words. The combination of the words changes the picture. On one page the bear's shape becomes a pear. Boogs loved guessing what combination would be next. Bento Blog Network's technique of the week is onigiri (rice balls). You can find them here: http://www.bentoblognetwork.com/

Can anyone guess the book for today's lunch? The author is Judi Barrett.
Boogs loves this book. When he asked me to make a lunch from the hen page, I had no idea what to do. I think it turned out a lot better than I expected. In the lunchbox: hen wearing a ham tank top with cheese pants, shredded wheat nest, Annie's bunnies wearing top and shirt, yogurt pretzels, broccoli & carrots, and an owl (who can't fly because of her long, tight dress) with grapes.

Baby Elephant Gets Lost by Sandra Iversen
This was Boogs' reading homework book. In the lunhbox: pb&j dad with baby elephant, goldfish crackers, carrot chips, dried cranberries, Babybel monkey (Boogs thought it was a giraffe), banana, and juice.

This week I linked my lunches at the following sites:
http://livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com/
http://www.jdaniel4smom.com/
http://www.bentoblognetwork.com/
http://www.bentolunch.net/
http://teachinggoodeaters.blogspot.com/

Lunchbox Dad:Throwback Thursday Lunch & Link-up

One of My Favorite Things

One of my favorite things is watching Boogs enjoy reading on his own. He loves to get his Lego Club Jr. and Click magazines in the mail.

Name Change Game

Boogs frequently asks me to tell him stories about things I did when I was growing up. Several months ago, I told him about a car game I used to play with my family on long road trips to Grandma Love's house. We called it the Name Change Game. Each person in the car chose a new name. Everyone had to use only the new names for the remainder of the trip. If you said someone's real name, you had to be silent until that person allowed you to speak again. Boogs brought this game up yesterday morning and we played it for several hours. Boogs decided to be called Piggy Bank, my husband was Boss Hog, and I was Twinkle Toes. It was a lot of fun. Boogs and my husband tried to team up against me because I never got their names wrong and they had to repeatedly be silent. At one point, I heard Piggy Bank whisper to Boss Hog, "I am going to try to start an argument with Twinkle Toes so she will get my name wrong and we can keep her from talking." Boogs even tried to trick me several times by telling me the game was over just so I would slip up. This game is so much fun to play with an enthusiastic 5-year-old. After about two hours of Piggy Bank, Boss Hog, and Twinkle Toes, Boogs wanted to change our names again. Boogs decided to be Jelly Fish, my husband chose Jelly Stitch, and I chose Jelly Pop. That got really confusing. GP and GM, you better start thinking about your new names. I am sure Boogs will want to play this again when you are visiting.

Christmas already?

Boogs woke up this morning ready to get started with Christmas crafts. While he was looking through an Oriental Trading catalog, he decided that he HAD to have their Christmas Tic-Tac-Toe board. So, we collected our supplies and made one ourselves.

Boogs chose candles and gingerbread
men for the playing pieces.

He carefully stamped out 5 of each image.

Then we had a marathon tic-tac-toe
game playing session.

The completed game.

Now he is ready to make some more games. I asked if he would like to make something for Thanksgiving. He said, "No I really like Christmas crafts better."