Big Boy in a Bumbo Seat

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong.  Can you tell which thing just doesn't belong by the time I finish singing this song?

 

December Preschool Art Projects

Here is a look at Brennan's art projects from school this month.

 

Brennan's Christmas Party

I signed up to organize the Christmas party for Brennan's class.  With a ton of input from my mom, the retired kindergarten teacher, I planned a 2 hour party for nine 3 year olds!  We started with cookie decorating: snowman sugar cookies decorated with icing, candy eyes and marshmallows.  Then we headed into snack time where the kids enjoyed chips, teddy grahams, grapes, strawberries and blueberries.  Due to allergies in the class, we kept the food simple.  For our cookie decorating, one of the moms in class made vegan sugar cookies so all kids could participate.  The cookies were delicious!  After playing a little freeze dance to get the sillies out, the kids completed a craft: decorating Christmas trees.  I wrapped the party up with a "guess what's in Santa's stocking" game.  While I worked with the kids, the teachers, Mrs. Teuscher and Mrs. Bradish, traded off on holding Tyler.  Mrs. Bradish even took him down to the church nursery to rock him to sleep when he started getting cranky from being overtired!  Thankfully, Tyler slept through the second half of the party.  Here is a little picture with me and kids.

I had a great time being in the class and felt more natural than I expected.  I am feeling more confident about my ability to do things with his class in the future now!

Below is the ornament gift that Brennan made for us at school.  I offered to wait until Christmas day to open the package, but he didn't want us to wait!  Brennan is now on vacation from school until January 4.

Play That Funky Music

Tyler has been practicing sitting up with support and I realized that his sound and music stage would give him just the support he needs to steady himself when sitting upright.  He has really taken to the toy and loves pounding on the piano keys and drum set.  Every time he fell backwards (the Boppy pillow was there to soften the landing), he would start to kick on the toy with his feet to continue to make music. 

We've moved from rice cereal to oatmeal and multi-grain cereals.  Tyler has been loving them and eats like a champ.  On a whim, I let him try mashed avocado, but he didn't seem thrilled.  I know I have to try many times before we'll know if he likes it or not, but I'm not pushing it for now.  I plan to start with yellow vegetables in January.  It's almost time to get my Beaba baby food maker out.  I'm looking forward to introducing foods to Tyler is a way that I wasn't with Brennan.  I guess I'm just less nervous and feeling more adventurous with baby #2!

Last Friday, Brennan had his school Christmas Program.  Each of the classes played a different role in the story and Brennan's classmates were mice.  My flash didn't carry in the big sanctuary, so my pictures were awful.  The story was about a tiny fur tree that wanted to be someone's special Christmas tree.  The big and medium sized trees got taken home by families looking for the perfect tree, but the tiny tree wasn't chosen.  He was sad, so the forest animals decorated him so that he could still feel like a beautiful Christmas tree, even though he remained in the forest.  It was a very cute story.  The preschool director narrated the story while the kids sang the songs.

In other news, Regina and her adorable baby, Frankie, came for a visit on Wednesday.  On Saturday, I had to put my foot down and push Brennan to let me cut his hair.  He's been procrastinating for over a month now and he was starting to grow a tail - it was ridiculous.  He insisted I use the buzzer, instead of a scissor, and I have no experience with doing a proper fade, so it's far from perfect, but it's better than it was before!  He cried the entire time I cut his hair and we had to keep taking breaks to wipe his nose and brush the hair off his hands and neck.  I was just as happy as he was to be done with the cut!  Later that day, on a happier note, Brian took Brennan to see his first movie in the theater: Happy Feet 2.  They got popcorn and M&Ms to snack on.  Brennan loved the experience and was thrilled to spend one on one time with Brian.  December has gone by fast.  My shopping (and wrapping) is just about done.  Can't believe we're just 6 days away until Christmas!

The Week in Review

This has been a busy week, so I'm going to catch up on the last 7 days in one post.  Tyler has had a few new firsts.  The biggest one is that he started eating rice cereal!  And, he seems to love it.  In fact, he started scarfing down bowls of it.  I've been giving him rice cereal, mixed with breast milk, for his second meal of the day (mid-morning) and dinner.  He has been eating 3-5 ounces of milk mixed with cereal at a time.  It's made our days a little more "normal," as he is now going longer between meals.  Tyler also discovered his feet and grabs them all the time, especially when he gets his diaper changed.

My parents and Debby visited last weekend so that they could watch the boys for us overnight, while Brian and I spent Saturday night in DC for Brian's office holiday party.  I was so excited to have a full night's sleep, and although it was great, I wasn't as refreshed as I expected to be.  I guess 5 months of interrupted sleep has depleted my reserves more than one night can catch me up on.  My mom brought a few crafts to work on with Brennan.  Brennan had a blast!  Aunt Debby also brought her iPad, so Brennan was all over that!

Brennan loved decorating the gingerbread men cookies, so we made sugar cookies on Wednesdays and decorated those with Brennan's friend, AJ, who came for a playdate yesterday.

Brennan has been hitting everyone up for dollars.  Since July, he has collected $45.  I let him go shopping with his own money this week.  We went to Toys R Us and walked the entire store.  It was a great learning opportunity for him.  I allowed him only to put things in our cart that he could afford, so he had to make decisions about what he really wanted - sometimes he chose to swap an item out of the cart, other times, he passed on whatever else he was looking at and kept the item in the cart.  In the end, he bought a set of Cars Squinkies and the Squinky Globe dispenser.  I never heard of these before and it definitely looked cooler in the package that it has turned out to be.  While I wouldn't recommend this item to a friend, I will say he has loved it and played with it non-stop since bringing it home.  He was excited to pay the cashier and get the change by himself.  He is now saving up for some other toys he had to put back.  Later in the week, while playing with his coins, I explained that 4 quarters = $1.  I told him we could go to the bank to change his coins into dollars.  We counted 12 quarters and brought them into the bank to get $3.  Brennan was so excited about the transaction.  We waited for our turn and then he asked the teller to change his quarters into dollars.  It was so cute and the tellers loved it!

Two days ago, Tyler started rolling over from his back to his belly.  He has been going from belly to back since he was about 1 month old, but from back to belly is totally new.  In the picture below, he had rolled from back to belly and managed to creep off the playmat onto the floor.  He has also started drooling a bit - maybe a sign that teeth are getting ready to push through?

Smiling with Santa

We went to see Santa and to my delight, both boys smiled for the picture!  Brennan had been asking to go see Santa for over a week - I think some of the kids in his class were talking about it.  I was a little worried about Tyler, since he sometimes gets upset around new people.  Thankfully, it was quick and painless.  After taking the picture, Santa asked Brennan what he wanted for Christmas and Brennan told him that he wanted toys and books.  I heard Santa tell Brennan that Santa loves him and to be a good boy.

November Art Projects

In addition to the crafts made for the Family Feast, which were pictured in an earlier post, here are some of Brennan's November preschool art projects.