Busy D

This is our busy boy. He comes home and jumps into something right away after school. Been keeping Mommy on her toes since he could move!


Working on an etching activity he earned as a prize from his piano teacher.


And a bonus shot of little brother batman with his "matella toast" (nutella toast). The most interesting people show up at the breakfast table sometimes.

Fall work day at Aggieland Country School

We enjoyed going as a family to Milo's school this morning for the Fall workday, a nice tradition where the school's families come together to wash windows, do gardening, repairs, prepare school materials and have a nice lunch picnic together. Dominic enjoyed showing Milo his old favorite things to do at school and enjoyed rediscovering his old jobs. Oh how I wish we could afford to send our children to Montessori all through primary school! After lunch, Bronius took the big boys to St. Francis' church festival and blessing of the animals. The kids wanted to bring the fish along, but we decided he'd be safer at home. :) Pictures to follow soon, I hope!


Milo working on pouring job.





Dominic showing Milo a sifting job.


Took this picture since it reminded me of an earlier time, when a much younger boy stood here and washed/dried dishes:
(press play twice on video)



A summary of some of the things Milo will be working on this year.

THE MONTESSORI MATERIALS
The Montessori materials cover the development activities designed to meet the needs of the child in five curriculum areas:-
Practical Life Skills

Developing concentration and hand/eye co-ordination
The activities develop concentration and co-ordination of movement. It includes exercises such as pouring, spooning, threading, sorting, cutting, dressing frames (buttons, buckles, hooks & eyes, bows), opening and closing (bottles, padlocks, boxes). Apart from teaching the basic skills needed for everyday life, they also promote independence, introduce the child to mathematical concepts (such as volume) and encourage the child to correct their own mistakes.

Sensorial Apparatus

Combining and grading cylinders in height and diameter
Our sensorial materials help children to develop their five senses. Some of these are: The Pink Tower; Cylinder Blocks; Colour Tablets; Sound Boxes; Smell Jars; Touch Fabrics and Geometric Cabinet. The sensorial materials provide concrete experiences.

Mathematics

Combining sand paper numbers and quantities
Dr. Montessori carefully designed the maths materials to give the child a sound understanding of numbers and their relationship. An idea is always introduced in a simple and sensorial way so the child can see, hold and feel a number or a concept. Gradually the child is led to a more abstract understanding. The mats material includes number rods, sandpaper numbers, seguin boards and golden beads.

Language

Practising writing letters and shapes in the sand tray
Language materials take the child step by step through all stages of language development; including oral expression, writing and reading. Sand paper letters are used to teach the sounds of the alphabet to the child. When the child knows all the sounds a phonetic reading scheme is used which is graded in difficulty; the pink series (three letter words), the blue series (longer words) and the green series (phonograms such as ‘sh’ or ‘ch’).


Matching sand paper letters with initial sounds of objects
Cultural Subjects

Experiencing celebrations from around the world - Chinese New Year
Cultural Materials introduce the child to geography (using globes, puzzle maps etc..), nature studies (life-cycle games, matching cards), art and music.

http://www.cranbrookcastlenursery.co.uk/materials.php

Childrens museum and Aquinasfest

We took advantage of a free museum day to visit the Children's Museum and see some of its new exhibits, and had a yummy lunch afterwards! Although I have no pictures of our parish's annual festival, we also enjoyed the family dinner and dance at Aquinasfest that evening, and the carnival and games on Sunday. Happy weekend, happy family!

Catching up

So...what do you do when at long last, big brothers are at school but the baby skips his morning nap? It's now too hot to take a walk outside, but you can't write your article now that there's a crawler on the prowl. So, you ignore the little voice telling you to clean the bathrooms and you decide to blog instead. And then happily surrender to playing on the floor with a cute baby. :)



Uh oh, here comes trouble!



Independent reading is much more fun with a flashlight in your bunk bed :)



Tickling the ivories.



Enjoying the morning view of the backyard.



Race car painting. Best idea ever!

Jonas at 9 months

This ordinary kitchen scene reminds me of the painting The Fall of Icarus. A common scene with something almost unnoticeable, but very important! :) In our case, Jonas is pushing himself around by resting on chairs. He seems to have spent one week crawling and decided crawling was too babyish I guess? I don't think I'm going to be able to slow this kiddo down!

I'm so happy to report that Jonas' tear duct seems to have resolved itself, praise God! In a last ditch effort before a pediatric opthamologist appointment in Houston, we triple applied some antibiotic eye cream that we had been given a few months ago. For whatever reason, I guess we did not apply it as liberally as we needed to the first go-around. We made up for it this time around, and it seemed to take care of the infection AND tear blockage. YEAH!!!!

Also, things are looking up where sleep is concerned. Once crawling kicked in, I think Jojo became mentally and physically exhausted. Even amidst teething, he's so tuckered out he'll go from about 7-8pm (feeding), 8-11pm (feeding), and 11pm-5:30am. Trust me - this is good. This is GREAT. B and I got 6 hours of sleep 3 nights in a row. It has been 9 months since that has happened. We are thankful.

Jonas still nurses about 6 times a day, but I don't really count because I think it would make me feel tired if I did. He eats bananas, yogurt, cheese, avocado, beans, rice...anything we're having basically, except for the off limit items. He is a happy, exploring little guy. Very go-with-the flow and lovie dovie, even when he's fussy because of teething. He continues to love his brothers and everything they say and do. We love you baby boy!

Milo's first day of preschool

Milo began a Motekaitis rite of passage last week - he started Montessori school. He is going to the same school Dominic attended, and it gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling to be here again. He has different teachers than Dominic had, but these ladies are just as lovely so far. He spent the first week doing an egg-shell crushing job, bringing home zippy bags filled with pulverized shells, which are supposed to be a garden fortifier...for whose garden, I do not know, since ours was fried this summer. But maybe he will use it in his little bitty garden plot at school, where he gets to plant, water and pick his own vegetables! Needless to say, I know he must have had fun using a mortar and pestle for the first time!

At school he's getting the basics down, taking socks and shoes on and off by himself, pottying all by himself, and beginning "jobs." Already at home I notice small things, like his initiative to grab the dust buster when the popcorn bowl fell over. And putting things back where they belong. Hallelujah, cue the choirs of angels! These things do NOT come from me.

We are really looking forward to watching Milo blossom with a foundation in Montessori, it's just such a beautiful way to set a child up for a love of life long learning , self-motivation, self-discipline, curiousity and social sensitivity. It is a natural way to help a child discover their God-given abilities and gifts. As I've mentioned before, Montessori has changed the way I view parenting and education, and I'm ever thankful to have been introduced to this method by my Mother in Law.

My next goal...get a decent school picture for this child! Enough of this blurry nonsense.

Happy First Week of School, Milo, we're so excited for you!

First day of First Grade!

We have had a smooth first 2 weeks of first grade, and we couldn't be more proud of Dominic. I know he misses kindergarten, but he's taking the growing-up thing on the chin. I wish I could too! Mrs. Rosen is great, and I pray for a wonderful, blessed year for our Dominic.

Pottery painting, swimming and baby cuteness

DFW trip - farewell to summer!

We've just returned from an action-packed trip to DFW. Friday night, we stayed in the hotel (Homewood Suites rocked...$85 a night for a one bedroom suite with kitchen and living room!) We swam and ordered pizza and watched Neverending Story while a thunderstorm kicked up - my favorite part of the whole trip probably.

Saturday, I failed to check the weather forecast, and so while we were thrilled for the earth, the rain put a damper on our plans. But we got to go to the Children's Museum and we were NOT disappointed. Wow. The "exhibits" were top-notch, hands on, age appropriate and well worth the admissions fee. We stayed there 3 hours!

Then we let the kids catch a nap in the car as we drove to the Grapevine Mills Mall for Legoland - and, I'm sorry to be negative Nellie, but I wouldn't return there if my life depended on it. We purchased our Legoland tickets online (which was supposed to save us time and money, but we still waited in a line that took a half hour - however we did save $10). The attractions were okay...after leaving the Children's Museum it just kind of paled in comparison - it was like a birthday party on speed. But the kids had fun!

Apparently I haven't been "out in the real world" enough in the last 6 years because I came close to a panic attack trying to walk through the Mall. I never go to ANY Mall on a Saturday, let alone a Mega-mall. I can't believe I used to do this with my friends as a recreational activity! It was crazy, and I have come to realize that I don't do crowds, it just makes me tense, nervous and grouchy (with small kids at least!) So Mommy was kind of in a bad mood. But we did go to Rainforest Cafe on the way out....we only sat at the bar for dessert because the wait was like an hour long to eat over-priced, mediocre food while having animatronic gorillas scream at you and have strange- smelling steam blowing on you while your children cry because the fake thunder is scaring them. Well, Milo was scared last summer. This summer he did great, but he did fall off the bar stool and they had to bring him an ice pack for his head. He's fine now! But I think we could have probably skipped this part. It occurs to me that adults were getting much more out of Legoland and Rainforest Cafe than the kids were - little kids really don't need all this crazyness. Life is fine without it!

All was well when we tucked the kiddos in bed, watched "Life as We Know It" and finished off our wine and dessert. Sunday, we headed out to enjoy the beautiful, milder weather at Burger's Lake - the kids loved the water slides, diving boards, sandy beach and the dipping dots! Again, well worth the money and the hassle of loading up chairs and picnic food and getting wet and sandy. It was $34 for all of us, and the water was divine, and the shade was perfection.

We stopped in Waco for Mass at St. Jerome's, and it was a life teen Mass, the kids really enjoyed the music! And we ate dinner at Panera (only place without a wait, we were done with waits!) and now we're home, and you, my friend, are totally up to date. :)

We are glad to be home and ready to kick off the Fall. Praying for a blessed remainder of the summer for us all!

End of summer

Well we're here, at the end of summer. I must admit, it has been my favorite summer so far. We've spent a lot of time at home, the kids have enjoyed playing together, we played in our little pool, we took some trips, we went to some camps, we visited with some friends and family. Sadly, I have hardly any pictures to show for it all!

And believe it or not, I'm going to miss the kids in the Fall (I know, right?) I think I might feel a little lost without them. Good thing I'll be chauffering someone somewhere every 3 hours each day. No chance of me getting lost in a good book or even trying to write one of my own, that's for sure. :) I'm sure I'll get my bearings soon enough.

To come soon...pictures of our "good bye to summer" Ft. Worth trip and reports from our meet the teacher nights for both kiddos, stay tuned! :)