Great Minds

Thomas had a cold.  So Colin tucked him into the shed and lit up his "humidity-fire."  Such a sweet, caring boy.


Gillian decided to re-purpose Cinderella's carriage for some farm work.  Seemed like a grand idea to me!  Such a waste to save the carriage for only taking to fancy balls!
 


Such creative minds!

Princess Party on the Moon

Yesterday the kids wanted to build sandcastles in our sandbox. And then Colin decided to make water towers. So, we ended up with two princess castles and two water towers. Castles in the rear, towers in the front.

Gillian told us there were three princesses in the two castles, which sounded like trouble to me. Then Colin discovered an old nerf rocket thing and turned it into "blast off rocket to the moon." He kept telling us that the princesses were on the rockets and they were going to a party on the moon. Too funny. BUT, Gillian was not pleased. She kept telling him that the princesses DID NOT want to go to the moon. It was too scary. She probably got that idea from me since I always tell Colin that I'd rather not go to the moon with him in his rocket because I don't like space. Anyway, we settled things by them each getting their "own" set of pretend princesses. Some to rocket and some to stay in the castles. Oh boy.

Snow Shoe Sillies

Last Friday night, Daddy went out with some friends for the evening. After dinner, I was straightening up and the kids came up with this "game." They put my oven mitts on their feet as snow shoes and ran around in the "cold."


Of course, no one has on pants. And our house is a toy explosion. But, my favorite part is when Colin starts calling Gillian "Millie" (one of their favorite cartoon people) and she just picks up the game immediately and goes with it (calling him Geo, Millie's brother). I love that pretend play. And how seamlessly they play together. And their giggles are so great.

Mighty TV Powers!

For the longest time Colin and Gillian only wanted Max and Ruby when it was time for a little tv. Nothing else. But, Daddy begged and pleaded that they PLEASE find something else to watch. He was tired of C&G imitating Max's one word phrases over and over and over. So we were in search of a new "it" show. I recorded a few "Super Whys," "Word Worlds," and "Team UmiZoomis." After some trial runs, the kids settled on UmiZumi as the NEW FAVORITE SHOW EVER! Woo hoo!



I have to admit, I am impressed with the things they kiddos have learned from the Umiz. The focus of the show is teaching pre-math skills. So they work on a lot of counting and quantity concepts, but also on learning shapes and patterning. And, boy, are we obsessed with patterning now, or what!



C&G love the Umiz so much that we have to play Umiz quite a bit when the tv is off! For those of you who don't live in toddler world, Team UmiZoomi is made up of a brother/sister team of Geo and Milli and their super handy robot, Bot. Apparently, Milli is the absolute favorite of C&G. They BOTH usually pretend to be Milli and I have to be Bot. Bot has extendable arms, so that's handy for Mommy. Poor Geo though, no love here!



I know that tv isn't great for growing brains, especially Mr. Sponge Bob apparently. But, honestly, sometimes a Mommy (or Daddy) just needs 20 minutes to cook a meal, start some laundry, or make a phone call! Or, heck, regain sanity. So, as long as I feel like my kids are LEARNING something (and they obviously are), we'll continue to enjoy a little tube time!

Snakes

Our new favorite pretending game is to play "snakes." The kids hiss like pros and wiggle all about. Daddy kept telling them how much Grammy LOVES snakes and she would want to play snakes with them when she came to visit!! (Ok, Grammy has a HUGE snake phobia)

HISSSSSSS......

I don't think Grammy minded this particular breed of snake.

The Great Pretenders

Wow. What a lame blog month for us. We lost a week to pneumonia and a week to Thanksgiving, but other than that, I have no excuse. We do have some Turkey Day pictures, but I'll have to nag Michael to process them for me so I can blog them. Before the calendar turned to December though, I did want to write a quick note about our new favorite activity....PRETENDING!

What a big step in the lives of Colin and Gillian, to be able to pretend something that isn't real!!! This started the end of October, when we would go to the playground and they crazy kids would totally ignore the slides and swings and head straight for the picnic tables. They would make me sit down and then they would run over to the fence, wave their hands, then run back to the table and present me with NOODLES or BROCCOLI or SOUP! Pretty funny.

Since then, their skills have grown leaps and bounds, especially Gillian's! Some of their favorite games right now are "tending!" Once game they really like is to turn the bottom step into a car and drive. Colin will drive from the back seat most of the time, and Gillian makes sure you click your seatbelt before she drives off. Most of the time we drive to the beach, but sometimes we get to go to Schmo's house (funny, I thought he lived in our house!). Daddy even got them to get out of the car at the beach, run over to the "sand," dig a hole, and jump in!

This week's favorite 'tend game is "Wonder Pets!" The other night, Michael was holding up a blanket like a tent for them and G kept telling him, "Get the wheels!" We were very confused until we figured out that she wanted to find the wheels for the FLY-BOAT. Silly us, not getting that one right away! Once we figured out what she meant, she had so much fun "building" the Fly-Boat. Then she and Colin pretending to be Tuck and MingMing. And, yes, Gillian is totally a MingMing. Their favorite animal to save is a camel, by the way.

I'm thinking that Santa better bring some toys to promote these new skills!!