Houghton Falls Hike

On Monday, I decided I really wanted to get the boys out into the woods to just explore and be in nature.  After a couple times getting lost and one unsatisfying venture, we headed to a trail we'd been to before and knew was nice.  The boys had a great time.  They were picking up leaves and sticks, pointing out rocks and water, posing for pictures, and chatting away.  It was so nice to get out and just walk through the woods with my boys.

The cuteness.  It kills me.

We stopped at ate lunch while gazing at Lake Superior.

We had so much fun, in fact, that we decided to plan an outing for our local mom & kids outdoor group next Friday.  Even if no one else shows up, I know my boys and I will have a great time!

Preschool: Letter B

I'm never sure how the week is going to go when we start school and I'm met with this face:

Kidding.  He was just being serious at the moment.  Sometimes, he does run away yelling, "no schooooool!" but there are also times he asks to do school so I figure we're doing ok for 3 years old.  We haven't been doing school every week day but there are also weekend days that we do a bit of review on the letter we worked on.  

One of the activities we did this week was creating our letter B.  This week we did some painting with various sized balls and tempera paints.  Ev thought this was a great idea.

The finished product.

 Another activity was something I'd been saving up.  I picked this up at the kids day of the farmer's market and we pulled it out last week.  I was super impressed that Everett got almost all the food groups correct on his first answer.

And of course, we did some in the workbook.

Overall, Everett does a good job at remembering the sound that the letter makes but he has trouble remembering the name of the letter.  I guess it's better that way than the opposite.  :)

Running Update

Today, we ran ten miles, which is about 3.8 miles farther than I'd ever made it last year and 1.8 farther than I've made it this year.  I finally veered from my training plan this week, when I was supposed to have a four run week.  I cut out a two miler scheduled for the day after my seven mile because I was sore, I was busy, and I was kind of nervous about the ten for this weekend.  I'm happy to report that I made it through the entire ten miles today, feeling great.  After a shower and some lunch, I completely crashed though.  My legs are just exhausted, I'm dead tired, and very much looking forward to bed.
Brian decided he didn't like some aspects of the plan (like a long run mid-week and weekend) so we made some adjustments and here's what the rest of the plan looks like now:

Next week: T-3 miles, W-5 or 5.5 miles, Th-2 miles, Sat-10 miles (the original plan had a seven mile on W)
Oct 1 week: T-3 miles, Th-6 miles, Sat-9 miles (we took out a two mile from this week)
Race week: T-5 miles, Th-2 miles (we flipped these two from the original plan), Sat-13.2!  Eek!

It's definitely coming up and with how nervous I was for today's run, I wonder how I'll get any sleep on Oct 12.  I am feeling more confident now that I managed to do ten miles after having only done 8.2 before.  I figure if I can do that, I can manage 13.2 after having done ten miles twice before.  I'm still trying to convince Brian that he should run WITH me rather than speeding past me.  :)

First week of Preschool: Letter A

We've completed our first week (and a half) of preschool, learning about the letter A.  The first week we skipped Labor Day, and then we went to the cities that Friday so we skipped that day too.  Needless to say, he didn't quite figure out the letter A in three days on his first time doing something so structured, so we did another week of working on it.  I am proud to report that if I ask what letter we learned, he can now answer "A!", make the ahhh sound, and list some words that start with A.  He's also enjoying making sounds and asking what letter makes them.
Here are some of the activities we did.  And please see my amazon widget to the right for easy access to some of our favorite supplies.

Painting the letter A

A brief selection of the (many) library books for the week

Working on Big and Small in his workbook

 We bought this Mead preschool workbook from Wal-Mart and I like it so far.  It has sections on letters, colors, shapes, math, etc.  He enjoys it, especially with his new pencils.

Counting Bears!

Scores from le Target dollar section, 75% off.  So $.30 for flashcards and another $.30 for this pocket holder.

He's loving learning colors, shapes, and numbers with this 

Melissa and Doug shape sorting clock.

I've read several places that these books are awesome for learning to read so we finally got some of the BOB books.

And here's the star pupil with his home-grown little baby pumpkin!

18 Month Check Up

We finally made it in for Callum's 18 month check up today (he's only 18 months, 2.5 weeks old).  Besides the boys being unbearably wiggly and loud, it was ok.  We were in and out.

Here are the stats:
Weight: 26.6 lbs, which is around the 50th percentile (was 25 lbs three months ago, so about a pound and a half gained)
Height: 34.5 inches, which is just about the top of the 95th curve (that's like nearly three feet, people!) (was 32.5" three months ago, so two inches gained)
Head: 19 inches

Vaccines: Last dose of HepB, first dose of HepA.  At his two year check, he'll get his second and finaly HepA and his first Varicella.  Then he'll be all caught up to the usual schedule and all while only getting two pokes/appointment and one instance of three pokes.

He screamed (through his nuk) for the shots but was immediately back to normal and excited to get his shoes back on and find a truck sticker.  Then we decided since it was the last hot day of the year, we needed to go to Dairy Queen.  It's so expensive, we very rarely go, but hey, shots deserve special ice cream, right?  The boys shared a mini M&M/brownie blizzard and I got a mud pie mini blizzard.  Mmmmmm.  Since we even managed to get Callum down for an early nap after our morning run and errands, we now have the whole afternoon to just play.  We maaaay have already had a treat outing today after our run, but hey.....it's hard to say no to these faces!