Aunt K and Uncle J

My sister and brother-in-law, Kand J, came to visit this week, and we all loved having them around. The entourage was expectedly shy when they first arrived in late afternoon (we haven't seen them since Christmas), but by the end of dinner, Bug walked up to me and whispered, "Mommy, Uncle J is a boy and he's big. Can I wrestle him?" My response: "Absolutely! Go get him!" It didn't take long for the whole entourage to jump in; although, I think I overheard them giving him some instruction on proper rough housing techniques. They kept coming back for more throughout the visit, but he must have been a fast learner. Their favorite activity with Aunt K was playing picnic. They'd get out all the plates and play food, and K (a personal trainer with an interest in nutrition) would lead them in sorting out the foods by food group. During my absense for some me-time one afternoon they also got K to start reading them The Wizard of Oz (Illustrated Classics edition). By the end of the evening they were 160 pages in, and we finished it the next day! We attempted a visit to the swimming pool, but distant thunder kept us from getting in, and we gave up and returned home. Fortunately, the girls had another present from Daddy waiting them: a sprinkler! We found a setting then send out a bunch of tiny streams about shoulder high to Goose, and they loved it! Monkey and Bug enjoyed jumping over/through, and they all eventually got their faces wet on purpose. Bug also decided to relocate the sprinkler a number of times, so the lawn got watered too!

READING!!
Monkey and Bug decided they just couldn't wait until they turned 4 and asked if they could start learning to read this week. Between Wednesday afternoon and Friday evening, we completed the first five lessons, and they LOVE it! The curriculum we have is a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons. It's very a very simple and straightforward, phonics-based program made up of 15 minute lessons intended to completed while snuggling on the couch with your kid. Perfect! So far they know the sounds m, s, e (as in me), and a (as in am), are working on the concepts of sounding out letter pairings, and practicing rhyming words. It also includes learning to write each letter as it's introduced. For this purpose, I purchased three small white boards and a handful of dry erase pens. Bug is a hardcore perfectionist, and I thought the ease of erasing her mistakes on a white board might be the best way to free her up to practice writing letters and pen control in general. Let's just say, it's good to be right! She (and Monkey and Goose) love these boards and they pull them out alot just to practice drawing as well as writing. Bug's pen control has particularly improved over just a few days along with her acceptance of making mistakes and taking correction well.

Practicing on their white boards

Bug wrote es!

Goose is indeed involved in this process as she is in just about everything her big sisters do. On Friday she was sitting in my lap and sounding out letters along with Monkey and Bug and has insisted that I write letters on her board for her to scribble on top of too. (Monkey and Bug are mostly tracing letters at this point.)

While Daddy may not be around to help or observe this process, he is definitely on their minds! Monkey and Bug are incredibly excited about the possibility of being able to read books to Daddy when he gets home (at this rate it just might happen!). I also let them pick out a special pencil bag to put their markers in. At first they picked out a sparkly one with stars, but it got ditched without a second glance when Monkey spotted one that "looks just like Daddy's work clothes!"

Math? Physics!
Monkey and Bug have been counting everything lately, and I've overheard Monkey counting accurately up to 15. However, they hijacked my "official" math activity for the week. I set out to do a fun gluing project (Goose could do it too!) in which we would play with arranging construction paper squares in a variety of patterns and shapes of their choosing. As soon as I had the supplies out Monkey and Bug started throwing their background pieces of paper in the air to make them fly, showing no interest whatsoever in the glue and squares, so I went with it. A conversation about basic aerodynamics ensued, and I helped them build paper airplanes out of their paper instead. We experimented with a couple different designs and different take off locations (something they called a rocket tossed from the top of the stairs proved the most popular combination). We never did get back to the "official activity," but they learned alot and a lovely time was had by all.

Swimming!

Once again, the Monkey and Bug had a fantastic week at swimming lessons. Monday was a little rough since their teacher was absent, and the girls weren't happy about having a new face to deal with. Fortunately, nobody had an actual meltdown, and they paid attention and did eventually get in the pool with the substitute. By the end of the week they even participated in the "talent show." (Thanks to the foresight of the head lifeguard who remembered them from last time and had them go first. They were showing off before they even figured out what was going on.) They both demonstrated that they could doggie paddle all by themselves with just small floaties tied to their hips. In class I saw them putting their heads under without a problem, doing starfish floats, using kickboards, and jumping in to their teacher.

They didn't have swimming lessons on Friday, but I took them to our neighborhood pool instead. I was so proud of them! They spent very little time in their floaties. Mostly, they wanted to practice their newly learned skills and experiment with their newfound ability to touch the bottom in the shallow end. Of course, Goose is fearless and takes her cues from her sisters, only without the ability and height. She had no hesitation about sliding into the pool from the side without checking that I was planning to catch her. Fortunately, she's mastered holding her breath, and I never got out of arms reach, so I was always on hand to fish her out again. Needless to say we are really looking forward to when Daddy comes home, so the girls can show off and have another grown up on hand!

Projects

Mostly led by Goose (who keeps walking up to me with a glue stick demanding, "Open! Open!"), the entourage has done several collages lately. Goose loves sticking things onto paper then methodically pulling them off. Monkey and Bug like to pick out the letters from the pile of magazine cutouts I have available, then count how many they've assembled on their papers. Inspired by their interest, I've started collecting a box of odds and ends of various materials for them to use in projects, and I'm looking forward to future seeing their future creations!

Library Day
Library day was quite the adventure this week. It started at the library playground/splash pad with an afternoon playdate with two other families who have kids the same age. The entourage refused to get on the splash pad (disappointing--it was miserably hot outside), but they had a great time climbing and sliding on the playground with their friends (Many Busytown Mysteries were solved). When they all got tired and hungry, we said goodbye to our friends and enjoyed the special treat of dinner in the library's cafe before looking for books. This week we came home with:
The Pigeon Wants a Puppy
My Many Colored Days
Curious George Rides a Bike
Tasting
As a result of my asking, "What do you want to learn about this week?" we also checked out:
A First Look at Dinosaurs (Monkey's pick; she loved finding the ones she knew from Dinosaur Train)
My Body (Bug's pick; she specifically wanted a book about what's inside the body illustrated with children of different races. That can be challenging to find, but this book was exactly what she wanted--it had transparency cutouts of all the systems for an African American boy and a Caucasian girl. She's been studying it every day.)

"Schwim! Schwim! Schwim!" says Goose

We signed Monkey and Bug up for a second session of swimming lessons, and after a week in it was definitely worth the investment! The had the same teacher they did last time, and they had no meltdowns or serious hesitations about getting in the pool itself. They both learned to hold their breath and let their teacher dunk them. They've been practicing starfish floating (on their back with all limbs spread out and their teacher supporting their head/back; they tooled around with kickboards; and Monkey even doggie paddled around all by herself with just a floaty strapped to her back.

Monday morning before swimming lessons, however, Monkey in particular wasn't happy about the idea. I decided it was a good time to pull out a present that Daddy left for them: a new plastic pool with an 8 foot diameter.

(It's still filling up; they just couldn't wait to get in.)

It turned out to be the perfect idea: they got head-to-toe wet, and they were so excited to go get in the real pool and learn to really swim. They played in it more when we returned home, and I left it up one more day for playtime after swimming lessons. The transition to emptying the pool and putting it away is that I assigned Monkey and Bug the task of figuring how to empty it--especially because Bug had already pointed out that we could just dump it like we did our little wading pool. They considered the problem for a little while, and Monkey had the brilliant idea that if she and Bug each squished down part of the side, then the water would flow out.

On Wednesday we had a cookout and swim date with some friends of ours, and the girls improvements in swimming really showed. They gained a particular boost of confidence after their friend D showed them that they could touch the bottom in the shallow. They got a huge kick out of walking around "like grown ups." Pretty soon instead of clinging to their inner tubes they were flinging them out into the water and seeing if they could walk out to them. They also switched to using the tubes like kickboards.

Baking a Cake

Monkey and Bug are extremely proud of this creation.
Goose just wants to hurry up and eat it.

It was one of those "this is why I love homeschooling" moments. I wanted chocolate, and a recently found recipe for microwaveable chocolate cake in a mug was calling my name. I realized that if I got the entourage involved, this indulgence could be completely justified as educationally enriching. Here's how it went down: First, the entourage peered over my shoulder as a I looked up the recipe and read off the list of ingredients, which they helped gather from the pantry (language arts, following directions). Next, we pulled out the measuring spoons, and I told them how many of each dry ingredient we needed, which they counted out and dumped into the mug (math: measuring and counting, fine motor skills, following directions). We speculated about what would happen when we mixed the light and dark colored ingredients, then the girls stirred it up to test our hypothosis (science, fine motor skills). Next, we measured and poured the wet ingredients; once again speculating about what changes might occur when we stirred them up (more math, science, and fine motor skills). Then we popped it in the microwave and waited through the countdown to the finished product (more math, patience). Finally, we tipped the cake out onto a plate and figured out how many slices it would need to be cut into for everyone to get some (more math: counting and fractions). The results: absolutely scrumptious!

More Math!
Besides the math involved in the baking experience described above, the entourage has been really into math this week. My "official activity" of the week was creating and getting them to play with a number line that would help them practice the order of the teens (ribbon with 20 velcro squares and numbers 1 - 20 written on in small print + felt squares with velcro and numbers 1 -20 written on them large). This game proved popular although the big girls got frustrated when Goose wanted to play too.

We played several more rounds of the number puzzle game with lots of talk about the teens (for example, explaining that sixteen is ten plus six, so it's a 1 like the 10 but with a 6 instead of a 0). Later in the week Bug had an epiphany about the pattern of counting while playing with a twistie strung with paper clips. She was pulling them off one by one to count out how many she had in all. After 13 she started asking me what number came next. After 22, I turned the question on her, and she was absolutely thrilled to realize that it had to be 23! and then 24! . . . She got up to 26 or 28 and ran out of paper clips. Goose has become particularly fond of the dice. She knows they're for counting out one at a time, but the only number she can remember is three. I occasionally find her placing the dice in and out of their containing, saying, "Free, free, free" with every die.

Alphabet Puzzle
The girls finally remembered they had an alphabet puzzle along with a number puzzle, and we played with that this week too. We started by sorting into three piles the letter, word, and picture pieces. Goose helped too; mostly she picked out the pictures. Next Goose would choose a picture and hand it to her sisters who would find the matching letter and word. Bug demonstrated excellent problem solving skills by realizing that each puzzle had a uniting color and that there were a limited number of colors of puzzles. When Goose picked out a picture, Bug would find each piece of the same color (no more than 3 for each letter or word), and she and Monkey would take turns picking out the appropriate letter and word from these less intimidating options. The only problem we ran into was that I had to clarify for the girls that the puzzle wanted S for Snake, not R for Rattle snake ("But it is a rattle snake, Mommy! See, it has that noisemaker on its butt!").

Playdate and Pretend Play
This week we had a playdate with our friends Miss K, N, and G. Goose and G got right down to pushing trains around, and Monkey and Bug had their usual wonderful time with N once they warmed up to his overwhelming outgoingness and exuberance. This was the first time I've seen Monkey and Bug involve anyone besides Goose in their pretend play. Somehow they figured out that they are all big fans of Busytown Mysteries. Monkey and Bug adopted their usual personas (Huckle and Sally, respectively), and they suggested that N be Hilda the Hippo (gender is obviously inconsequential to preschoolers and we weren't about to interrupt such a fun game to sort things out for them). They had a grand time running around the backyard, solving various mysteries.

Library Day
We did the Tuesday afternoon library day again this week. Goose, mostly cheerfully, shared my lap with another toddler who decided to plop down and make herself at home. The theme was clowns this week, and the craft was to make a paper plate clown with bits of tissue paper for hair. Goose loved this craft (anything with glue sticks!), and Jos did really well too--she made a great goofy faced clown. Bug, like Goose, loved putting on the hair, but was stymied by her own perfectionism when it came to drawing on the face. I made one too to show her I drew it and to demonstrate that it didn't have to be perfect to be fun. A couple of big kids across the table showed of their imperfectly delightful creations to her as well, but she wasn't convinced. Eventually the librarian was cleaning up around us, and I told Bug she could always finish it up at home sometime.
This week we came home with these books:
Goggles
Do Kangaroos Wear Seatbelts?
The Rhinosaurus Tap!
For You Are a Kenyan Child
Remembering Miss Perry
Five Ducklings
Dot & Jabber and the Acorn Mystery

I Spy
Monkey and Bug came up with their own I Spy game for the car. One of them yells out something that catches their attention ("Yellow bus!") Then they continue finding things of the same color ("Yellow sign!" "Yellow car!") until something else jumps out at them ("Green sign!"). At some point while playing this game, they spotted what is now Monkey's dream car: a bright pink Jeep Wrangler with a soft top. "A pink car, Mommy! The kind that goes not on roads!"

Social Sunday
Sunday was a busy day, and we all had a great time. We had the usual Sunday school and church service, and after church another family invited to us to join them for lunch. Daddy and I had a great time getting to know another couple and their teenage son, and the entourage behaved beautifully (they even got compliments). When they weren't participating in the conversation (yes, they actually talked to new grown ups!), they sat quietly and ate their lunch, so the grown ups could chit chat. We had just enough time at home for naps before we headed out again to the great big playground for a BYO picnic dinner with church folks. Unfortunately--since I was hoping to meet more parents with little ones--it turned out to be just us, the children's pastor and her family, and the head pastor and his wife. We still had a lovely time getting to know each other a bit (once again the entourage actually talked to relatively new people!), and the girls had a blast on the playground. Monkey even conquered the huge climbing thing.

Library Day
We decided to do storytime on Tuesday afternoon again--this time because the girls asked Daddy to come. They enjoyed having Daddy to hang out with while doing puzzles and to read books to them,but we skipped storytime itself this week (unbeknownst to us they had some kids/teens rock band performing--really loud and not preschool appropriate songs. The entourage wasn't interested.)
This week we came home with:
George and Martha: One Fine Day
Richard Scarry's Best Little Word Book Ever! (the entourage has gotten very good at spotting Goldbug)
Dot & Jabber and the Great Acorn Mystery
Cornelius
Counting Money (Daddy was explaining money to Bug this week)
Sheep Take a Hike

Unrelated to the library we've also started reading the Illustrated Classics edition of Peter Pan.

Little Helpers
Bug was legitimately helpful this week in assisting me in cooking a chicken cordon bleu casserole. Usually "helping" means it takes longer and requires lots of supervision and instruction. This time it meant Bug fixed the topping (mostly crushed saltines) and layered each ingredient while I prepped the next. She was quite proud of herself and, fortunately, the dish proved highly popular with everybody.

I also pulled a Tom Sawyer this week and had the entourage scrubbing cabinet fronts and baseboards. The kitchen is cleaner, and they have all mastered an important life skill and learned about the importance of attention to detail (though this last was more Bug's doing than mine).

Literary Comparative Analysis
One morning this week we watched the Super Why version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. This show always messes with the traditional tales, but this was exceptionally different (the troll was a neatfreak and the goats needed to learn some manners), and the original Three Billy Goats is one of the entourage's favorite stories (siblings who back each other up to defeat the bad guy--of course it's a favorite). They noted a few discrepancies while watching it, and afterwords they wanted to read the real story, stopping at the end of each page to point out the differences.

Math
A few weeks ago I purchased Preschool Math, a book chock full of crafts, games, and other hands-on activities to help preschoolers learn math concepts. Monkey and Bug have paged through it with interest, and today when Bug wanted to play something with me, I pulled out an idea from the book. We got out our box of small wooden blocks, and I set out a simple pattern (for example, red rectangle, blue square, repeat) and asked if they could copy it and predict what came next. Bug played along with accuracy and critiqued my technique (the blocks should be closer together apparently), but Monkey chose to create her own more complex pattern (disregarding color she laid out short, medium, tall, medium, short, medium, tall, medium, short). From there Monkey and Built a series of towers, first counting how many blocks up they could build, then experimenting with building sturdier towers by making them thicker and more complex (doors and windows). Monkey moved on to some other activity, and Bug proceeded to build an entire neighborhood of houses made from squares and triangles that she was very proud of. Goose of course was right in the midst of this activity practicing the fine motor skills of building simple towers and revelling in the pure joy of knocking them down.

Ideally, my plan is to do at least one an activity per week from this book or another source. Most of the activities involve items already on hand and are suitable for Goose to play alongside or to bring them to her level.

Later in the week at Monkey and Bug's request, I helped them with their matching numbers puzzles (each puzzle is a numeral, illustrations of the number of objects, and the number word). They've got 1 - 10 down nicely (numerals to objects), and we worked on 11 - 20. The teens are much harder for some reason.

Goodbye Again
We had to take Daddy to the airport at the end of the week to send him off on his next "big trip." Monkey and Bug did a lot more processing before he left this time: they wore his t-shirts around the house for several days before he left, a number of times they enacted pretend play with their buddies (stuffed animals & dolls) in which somebody's daddy had to leave for a while, and when they piled on the couch to watch Kung Fu Panda 2 the day before he left Bug even pieced together on her own that "Daddy wanted to watch the movie with us so we could get extra snuggle time." We will miss him!

Library Day
Because Wednesday was a holiday, we headed to the library a day early and in the afternoon instead of the morning and discovered that they have storytime then too! The upside was that this storytime had far fewer kids and both storytime and the children's section in general was therefore much less of a mad house. The downside--at least for Monkey and Bug--is that this librarian (a different one than usual) expected the kids to all participate in a round of Ring-around-the-Rosies. Goose was all about it, but for Monkey and Bug it was just an annoying interruption to an otherwise lovely story reading session and they bowed out of participating. They all enjoyed the craft though:

L-R: Bug, Monkey, and Goose
(painted popsicle sticks + construction paper squares + star stickers)

This week we came home with these books:
Moving Day
Cat's Colors
Butterflies
The Bugliest Bug
Dot & Jabber and the Big Bug Mystery
Renewed from last week:
Owl Lake
Chopsticks

Happy Fourth of July!
We celebrated the Fourth this year with a potluck cookout at their friend B's house. They had a couple of kiddie pools set up, a small swing set, and each kid brought their own riding toy to share. The kids got to play, the grown ups got to hang out, and everybody ate lots of good food.

This was the first year that the entourage got to stay up for fireworks. Fortunately, we can see the local big show from our street, and we told the girls if they could handle staying up late, they could watch with us. Miraculously enough they all made to 9:30 when the fireworks started! Monkey and Bug were incredibly excited and thought fireworks were just amazing. Goose heard a couple of booms and informed me that she was scared and wanted to be picked up. Goose and Monkey lasted 10 or 15 minutes, and Monkey decided she was just too tired and wanted to go to bed. I took the two of them to bed, and Bug stayed up with Daddy to see the rest of the show. She loved them!

Water Play
Our original plan had been to spend the morning of Daddy's extra day off at the pool, but I decided the entourage probably wasn't going to be up for that much excitement after staying up for all the excitement the night before. Instead we decide to do some water play in our own backyard. We finally tried out a tree-shaped inflatable sprinkler toy that Nana bought us a while back. Sorry, Nana, but it didn't go over well. It was just the right height to consistently spray Monkey and Bug in the face. Next we tried turning on the lawn sprinklers to see if they were low enough to be fun, and discovered that the one Mr. A replaced a month ago was accidently positioned to spray directly into the back door, which of course happened to be open at the moment it turned on. This scared everybody, and we opted to get out our tiny kiddie pool instead. The entourage had lots of fun with balls, buckets, shovels, and other sand toys. Goose also got out the chalks and discovered that coloring in spilled water makes very vibrant colors.

Saturday we tried the neighborhood pool again and had a great time. Monkey and Bug can now climb in and out of the pool (not on the steps). And today we discovered they are almost tall enough to stand in the shallow end. Goose had fun too--she still won't get back in her baby float, but she spent some time in her big sisters' floaties, and she loves jumping in!

Valymanisses
Monkey and Bug have taken the next step in pretend play and started making up their own creatures instead of just using characters from books and TV shows. The other night they went into great detail about Valymanisses, small giants who live in our backyard. Apparently Valymanisses can be defended against if one climbs on top of the climbing dome and roars at them. This causes them to shrink until you can barely see them and turns them into nice fairies. The nice Valymanisses are quite helpful: they make thunderstorms go away by licking the clouds with their very long tongues (that curl up like butterfly tongues when not in use). Pretty fascinating stuff.

Coloring Sheets
The entourage has completed quite a pile of coloring sheets this week. I found several free printable mandalas and other detailed pictures to color online that Monkey and Bug have been using to practice coloring in the the lines. Bug's skills are pretty impressive and Monkey is showing definite improvement. Goose wants to color too of course, and I usually give her plain paper or one with a simpler drawing on it. She cheerfully scribbles for a bit then brings it to me, asking, "Nice? Nice?"

Goose as a cow. She's been really into costumes lately. Too cute!

Bug commandeered the camera at some point this week, and Monkey and Goose decided to start pulling faces for her.

Math Games

Inspired by the girls' recent interest in numbers we acquired a few new math toys. First, a set of dice. Bug in particular loves these. She spends time arranging and counting them all by herself, but Daddy and I will also jump in to roll two or more dice for her and Monkey and ask questions like the following:

• Which dice has the number [ ]? (preferably answered without counting every dot)
• Which number is smallest/biggest?
• Put them in order from smallest to biggest.
• What do they add up to?

 All the while, we reinforce ideas like the consistent arrangement of dots (1 dot in each corner is always 4) and consistent answered to math problems (2 dots plus 2 dots is always 4)

  

We also purchased a set of fraction bars since they've already evidenced a practical understanding of splitting things in halves or quarters. Daddy sat down and explained (to a rapt audience of all three girls) fractions up to quarters, and Bug at least has spent some time playing with various arrangments of the different bars.

They also pulled out the numbers matching game I made with juice can lids awhile back, and they can consistently match numbers of dots with numerals up to 8.

  

Zoo

We did another zoo day on Monday, and this time we got to take Daddy! Monkey and Bug were most excited to show him the giraffes, ostriches, the massive pigeon, and the tasty looking turkey. Our girls have no qualms about the fact that we eat some of these cute critters, and they were fascinated by the fact that Daddy had also eaten rabbit and goat. They also had fun connecting the animals they saw to various stories they're familiar with (Timon the meerkat from The Lion King, Kaa the python from The Jungle Book, various fish from Finding Nemo, etc.). This time Bug also worked on her map reading skills. She'd find where we were on the map, locate the next animal she wanted to see, and show me what path we would need to take to get there. Of particular interest to Monkey and Bug was a large sign showing the skeleton of an elephant. They noted that the elephant's tail had bones, but the trunk did not. Goose loved running after her sisters and seeing the animals; although we still can't convince her that not everything with four legs is a doggie and not every bird is a duck.

Language Arts
Bug at least is actually starting to read. On our way to the zoo, she was excitedly pointing out the signs to the zoo and explaining that she knew they were zoo signs because they had Z-O-O written on them (they were just green highway signs, not the zoo's official sign with pictures). Monkey, Bug and I have discussed that they  both know the first steps to reading (knowing letters and what sounds they make), and they are up for doing lessons to learn the next steps--but only once they turn four. They can rattle off a whole list of books they can "read" all by themselves along with close to a dozen nursery rhymes they have memorized. They often read these memorized books to themselves and to Goose.

Monkey and Bug also love to make up original songs as the soundtrack to whatever the pretend play of the moment is. Monkey in particular enjoys this, and I've even heard her intentionally rhyme some of her lines.

Goose and Bug started playing a new game this week: Goose dumps out the bag of Memory game cards and picks one out of the pile. She looks at the card, hands it to Bug, and asks, "This?" Bug takes the card, tells her what it is, and adds it to a very neatly stacked discard pile. I had been watching them play this game for a while when Bug looked up and informed me that she was helping Goose learn new words.

Bunk Beds!
Monkey and Bug loved helping Daddy build these! It was a good excercise in following directions and learning about tools, and they are just so much fun!

Nana and Papa Bear! (and Library Day)

Nana and Papa Bear came to visit for a few days, and for two nights Daddy and I left for a belated anniversary getaway. Daddy and I had a lovely time sans kids (movie night, uninterrupted dining out, perusing bookstores at our leisure, exploring the area, . . . It was lovely). Right before we left, everyone but me went to the pool, and the girls got to show off their swimming skills. While we were gone, they did some shopping, went out to eat, played with Nana's iPad, and basically had so much fun they wore out themselves and the grandparents.

 

The highlight outing, though, was that Nana and Papa Bear got to do library day this week. Instead of going to storytime, they went to the "big library" where they got to play on the playground, play with the library's "buddies" and statues, make Papa Bear read books til he was hoarse, and eat lunch in the library cafe. This week they came home with:

Chopsticks

Owl Lake

Players in Pigtails

Little Hawk's New Name

The Berenstain and the Ghost of the Forest

Cinder Rabbit

We also still have the books from last week as well as a newly purchased copy of The Complete Mother Goose, which the girls are very excited about. We've checked out versions from the library on a number of occasions, and Monkey and Bug love finding the nursery rhymes they already know. (The funniest one to read with them in the new book is the "What are little boys/girls made of?" rhyme. They think it's silly and quickly note that boys and girls are actually made of bones, blood, and muscles.) 

 

Superman!

After Nana and Papa Bear left, the entourage settled in with Daddy to watch original episodes of Superman and Aquaman (Daddy's favorite). They were all enthralled, but Goose was hilarious. She says alot of words, but not many of them clearly. However, "Superman! Superman!" comes out loud and clear. She definitely follows some of the action too, yelling "Wheeeee!" as the runaway train is falling and "Got it!" when Superman catches it.