Clifford's Sleepover

Luke's Kindergarten teacher has so many great ideas for motivating her students to read. At the beginning of the year, she allowed students to take home Clifford, The Big Red Dog, for a sleepover. Clifford comes to your house prepared. Mrs.Schafer has made him his own sleepover backpack made with Clifford material which comes complete with a Clifford book to read, Clifford's own blanket and pillow for bedtime and Clifford's journal of his many sleepover adventures. Each child adds to the journal and writes about what they did with Clifford at their home. We also added some pictures to our journal page which are posted here. You can see that both Luke and Adam welcomed Clifford into their nighttime routine. Clifford watched tv in the morning with the boys while they ate their cereal, he slept with Luke is his bed and Adam shared his gumballs with Clifford.





The boys were very sad when Clifford had to go to back to school for the next sleepover. But it was a very fun time while he was with us. :))))

Adam Hits The Front Page

This is a picture of Adam taken by Mr.Osvog, Norris Elementary School Principal. The school used this photo for the September 7th weekly Newsletter. Mr.Osvog said he chose this picture because Adam was working away and then looked up and gave him the perfect smile. I can't think when Adam has taken a bad picture! Adam was very proud that his picture was in the school newsletter. Considering that there are over 800 kids attending the elementary school, I would say he has reason to be proud!

Big School- The Boys Go to Kindergarten

August 24th, 2009 was a big day for Adam and Luke. The previous week, Adam, Luke and Mom attended Norris Elementary kindergarten orientation. The boys were very excited to meet their teachers, see the classroom they would be in and tour the elementary school campus.

Luke's teacher this year is Mrs.Schafer. She is the perfect teacher for Luke. She is very organized, has many years of experience as a mother, grandmother and kindie teacher. She is helping Luke to use words to express his emotions; something that Luke does not do very well. She is also helping him to be more socially interactive with his peers. Luke tends to try and direct people. To date, Luke is thriving in school. He loves to bring books home to read. Luke does not like eating in the cafeteria much; in fact he tells me in detail every night what he expects to see in his lunch bag the next day. I think that Luke's one unfullfilled desire about school is the fact that he does not get to ride the bus home. For some reason he thinks that riding the school bus is the pinnacle of the school day. I never hear the end of his requests to be in the school bus group. Sadly for him, this request will probably go unfullfilled this year.

Adam's teacher this year is Mrs. Ramey. She is the perfect teacher for Adam. She is young, pretty and very sweet. Adam fell in love with her the first day of school. He composed a love note for her his first week. Adam struggled a little bit the first couple of weeks in that he needed to figure out when he could be funny and silly and when he could not. Once he got that worked out and his teacher figured out how many times during the day he needs to go to the bathroom- then it was all good. Adam tells me he already has a girlfriend in his class. He is such a happy go lucky child it is no wonder that everyone loves him. Adam loves to eat in the cafeteria. He was also delighted to find out that you could buy extra milk. I am certain that he is helping other kids around him to eat their lunch as well :)))

There will be more on this chapter to come. For sure.

More Disneyland Adventure Stories

So I continue with my tales of our Disneyland adventure 2009. My friend at work wanted to go with us but could not at the last minute; because she is such a nice person, she got the boys $10 gift cards to McDonalds (one for each of them). The boys thought this was great because they got to "pay" for breakfast themselves. Handing the card to someone is a big thrill when you are five. The boys also tended to show alot of love for one another in McDonalds every morning (ie they could not keep their hands off one another).

My boys have also picked up or learned from someone the art of looking cool in pictures. Recently they seem to have worked out the cool pose with your hands look. I was surprised the first time they did it and now resign myself to the fact that this is part of "growing up". I am on alert for any hand poses that are not nice. Hopefully they won't pick up on any of that until much later down the track. It is amazing what they absorb and incorporate into themselves at this age.

Finally, I posted a picture here of the boys and Madison with one of the Disneyland characters who roam the park. We actually got quite a few pictures with assorted characters which is a surprise because often the lines to get a picture are quite long.

Luke and Merry-Go-Rounds

Okay, so here is a little blurb about my Mr.Conservative. Luke took all of the DNA related to personal safety and left Adam with very little or none at all depending on the situation. So when it comes to being on a moving object with both feet off the ground, Luke is not a very happy boy. The first time I attempted to "have fun" with him on Merry-Go-Round was in San Francisco. He cried the entire time, no make that screamed the entire time. The next try was in Sacramento where he refused to get on the horses at all (refer back to previous experience SF) and cried the entire time we were seated on the seats. So here we are, 2009, Disneyland and I thought let's try this one more time. It helped that his friend Madison and brother were both keen to go.

The first picture I took was just after I strapped him to the horse; he is checking everything to make sure it is firmly attached.

The next picture shows his facial expression regarding the upcoming experience. Note, we are not screaming or crying but not really that ecstatic either!

Third picture, the ride starts, the world does not end and dare I say it I think I see the start of a smile!

Final picture, yes miracles do occur in this modern day, Luke actually smiled at the end and told me how much fun that was. I really don't think Luke is going to be one of those people who jump out of planes or free jump off high rocks, just because they are there. Now Adam on the other hand is a different story. Yet another installment of the ying and yang of the twins.

Disneyland Part II

Second installment in the Disneyland story 2009.

As mentioned previously, our friends the Preston family met us at Disneyland. We had not seen them in over two years, so it was really fun being able to catch up at the happiest place on Earth! (apparently). (Note Luke sneaking into their family pic!)

Madison, their oldest daughter is about 4-5 months older than the boys but at the moment she is much taller than even Adam! She is a very sweet quiet girl. She and the boys got along really well and had a great time together over the two days. I even managed to get some great pics of them together. The Prestons also have a set of twins who are two years old-Jacob and Emily. The little twins really liked the Small World ride. Both Madison and the boys were not so sure about the 3D Bugs adventure. In fact at different parts of the show, the boys and Madison took off their 3D glasses. Adam was not game to go on the roller coasters with me this time around (last year at age 4 both Luke and Adam rode Space Mountain and the Runaway Railroad ride; this year they were more aware and not having any part of it!) Adam did go with me on the Indiana Jones ride and absolutely loved it. In fact he jumped out of the car and yelled to everyone at the end- That was Awesome! Yeah! And punched his hands in the air. It was very amusing for people waiting in line to see a five year old, who was barely tall enough to ride, so enthusiastic. I am sure as the years progress, Adam will be my roller coaster adventure partner. And probably by that time, I will be too old to want to go on the roller coasters!

Disneyland Part I

Okay, so here is my first installment of our recent trip to Disneyland. We stayed at the Fairfield Marriott which is right outside the main gate of Disneyland. Best place I have stayed to date in my journeys to Disneyland. Noting the close proximity to Disneyland and also that there is a McDonalds in front of the hotel, a Pizza Hut/snack bar inside the hotel , leads me to my four star recommendation. I am also a little particular about how clean the rooms are and what the bathrooms are like- once again passed the test.

So our first day, we hit McDonalds for breakfast. While there, I placed a call to my Australian friends, the Preston family, who had flown in from Brisbane Australia the day before and were staying at another hotel further away. They had flown nonstop 13 hours with 4 adults and three kids, a six year and two year old twins. They had told me the evening before that they were heading to bed at about 5pm, so I am thinking that my call at 7:30 am would be appropriate given that we were to meet at the Disneyland gates at 8am. Come to find out, everyone was still asleep and we rescheduled the meetup for 10am(and who could blame them for being a little tired!). So that left myself and the boys free for a couple of hours to enjoy some rides together. I decided to hit Finding Nemo first as it can be a lengthy wait later in the day. This picture of Luke and Adam are of us waiting in that line. It was overcast and very cool (lucky I brought jackets even though it was June!) but the wait was only about 30 minutes. Luke was scared and would not look out the window for the first few minutes. After Nemo, we headed off to drive the cars. I was not sure if I would be able to get us all in one car but it turned out great. The boys took turns driving and loved it!! I was in charge of the gas pedal. Then we headed back to the main gate to meet up with the Prestons. More on our time with them in my next Disneyland installment