First day of 4s!

 
Ethan was so excited to start school in the 4s room this morning. The only thing he was disappointed about is that he did not get to watch a movie at the end of the day. His school still doesn't have power! They are running the water w/ a generator, and sunlight for their classrooms- guess their electric bill will be down. I think it's pretty amazing that they are not cancelling, but they said they are making it an adventure.  

National Toasted Marshmallow Day

Once I found out that there is a national toasted marshmallow day, and that it happened to be today, I felt that it is clearly my duty to pass the word. We also felt compelled to celebrate with, what else? Toasted marshmallows. Ethan asked if we were going to make Smarshes (smores) but it was already so close to bedtime that I should have my head examined for giving him the extra large variety.

Skunk Machine

Sometimes Ethan's imagination is very entertaining. He invented the skunk machine to fill the skunks with their spray. He kept telling me to stand back because it would be very smelly.

Sneeze

I thought this would be interesting to those of you who remember this: http://ethanhocking.blogspot.com/2007/11/sneeze.html. He was looking up because we were watching an airplane.

Aftermath

We were very fortunate, the sum total of our hurricane damage is in this pile Ethan is showing you. We had races to a tree in the yard, then we picked up sticks all the way back to our pile. We're going to turn them into a nest for the dinosaur egg party favors. yes, I'm insane. But we had fun.

Splash!

Make it work

It's pretty gross outside, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun. Or Ethan anyway. He was playing in the puddles while we worked on the garage.  Figured he won't be able to go outside tomorrow, might as well give him a chance today.  He had fun, but even w/ the boots and slicker needed a change of shorts and socks.

March Farm

Friday Ethan had the day off for classroom setup, so he came to work with me for a while. When I was done, we stopped at March Farm for some play time, where we met up with Auntie Mandy, Baby Gavin and their friends Dana and her son Austin. The kids had a lot of fun, but they were so quick I didn't get many good pictures. It was very hard for Ethan to leave for nap time, but boy did he need it. He was a complete crank by the time we got home. In the afternoon we braved the stores for a few extra things, and it was a mess.  Our favorite cashier was there, she had agreed to work late. She said it was nothing compared to what it had been a few hours earlier- guess it's a good thing we waited till afternoon. 

Last day of 3s

Yesterday was Ethan's last day in the 3s room. Tonight is his summer "meet and greet" picnic, and Monday he starts in his new classroom with new teachers. This room has a huge kitchen, I think he's going to love it.

Dinosaur Day

 
It was dinosaur day at Dinosaur State Park. Ethan had a great time, he did some prehistoric fishing, a bean bag toss, a ring toss, watched a movie, pet a snake, met Smokey the Bear and a dinosaur, dug for fossils, went dino-bowling, and made a few crafts.  He asked me this morning if he could go back.   

Eggplant

Ethan picked this from our garden. He swore he would try it, but he didn't. I can't say that I blame him.

Toucans

Ethan is studying rainforests and jungles this week.  We got a lot of good books from the library on Tuesday, and we also made the Toucan on the top. He went to school the next day and saw that his friends had all made toucans with feet. While I thought our Toucan was more interesting in that it's beak is tissue paper and you hang it in the window for the light to shine through, he wanted to make one with feet. So we did. We also went to get some birthday party supplies at the craft store and at Target this morning. Ethan was really good, didn't ask me to get anything, he just wanted to be able to touch certain toys, then he put them back without arguing. He had a treat at Starbucks at Target- and I have to say I'm totally disappointed that the mini vanilla bean scones he loved seem to have vanished in favor of cake pops. I wasn't thinking because it was also farmer's market day and so he had a donut too.  What a life. After that, we played bubbles outside- I was kicking myself for not having the camera. He totally cracked me up this morning when I told him his breakfast was ready. He said, "Ok, just a moment Mama."  Just a moment... What a kid.

Day at the Farm

Sunday we spent the day at the farm. Ethan sure was busy. He dug taters and pulled carrots with Gramps, went for rides in the ranger, picked half a bucket full of blueberries, took a nap, then ate a good dinner Granny made us.  We all had a fun day and came home with a fridge full of veggies.  Now I need to make a blueberry something :)

One More

Ethan asked me to post this one.

Brownies

Ethan got a new cookbook from Grandma Jo Ann and Pa. It's a Sesame Street book. This morning was nice and cool so we decided to try it out. We were going for the caterpillar cookies, but with the hour of chill time required, I thought we wouldn't get done before it warmed up. We made Bert's brownies instead. Don't you think they look just like the picture? They're yummy too.  I was skeptical since they were made with whole wheat flour, but they are very good. We also cleaned up in the basement, did some laundry, played with Mr. Potato Head, made Color Wonder pictures, finished our teacher presents, and went to the farmer's market.

Splash!

Feeding the Giraffe

Hear Me Roar!

Elise roared at the lion, he roared back.  She is the first one talking, then Ethan chimed in.  The lion gave a really big roar at first which I didn't catch.

Road Trip!

Wednesday night, our friends Jeannie and Elise came to our house.  On Thursday morning, we packed up the car and headed south.  We left the house a little after five, and arrived in North Carolina around 6.  We made a few stops, including this one for lunch at a playground with picnic tables and one later on for ice cream.  The kids were absolutely amazing on the ride down.  They read books on tape, sang songs, played games, opened presents when we got to new states, and looked at a lot of books.

We had planned to go to a really nice park with a playground, mini train, carousel, and boat ride on Friday. On our way there, the rain started and it didn't look like it was going to end any time soon.  We went to the Greensboro children's museum (with everyone else in the city) and played all morning. The kids got to try out race cars, fire trucks, airplanes, and a police car. Ethan even got to be the fire man on the train, just like his grandpa White.

Ethan was thrilled to go camping with Pa, he keeps bugging us to take him so this was great. He wanted to climb in all the tents.

We also delivered mail, went grocery shopping with grandma, made pizza, played with trucks, and shopped at the book store. Pa rolled him in a barrel for a while. He was running around so fast that I barely got any good pictures.

On Saturday, we went to the zoo.  For weeks Ethan has been asking to go to the "Giraffe Zoo" since before he even knew we were going to NC.  He was not going to rest until he saw them. So even though our plan was to see North America, we had to go see the giraffes in Africa first.  That done, we saw the crocodiles and alligators, checked out the polar bear getting an icy treat, saw some sea lions and a few other things before heading home for lunch.

In the afternoon we stopped by a few stores then took the kids to the playground to make up for it. Though they didn't seem to mind, Pa entertained them the whole time. Anyway, the playground was hot and sunny so Ethan stole my hat.  After that, we went to Cookout where Grandma and Pa treated Ethan, Elise and the rest of us to burgers and shakes.

When we got back home we let the kids try out the kiddie pool. They had a blast, and Ethan decided to throw all the water out of the pool to make a river on the tarp that was under it. 

Sunday we went back to the zoo to see Africa, and we actually fed the giraffes. That was pretty great. We were giving them mulberry leaves. we also saw hippos, elephants, white crocodiles, zebras, and a few other things.

We played in the afternoon and the kids played piano with Grandma. Then it was time for bedtime stories. We drove back yesterday, it took the same amount of time, the kids were also very good though the nap situation did not go quite so well.  But we might just do this again, they had a lot of fun and so did we.

Bug Week

 
This week is bug week at Ethan's school so today when we went to the library we got all bug books.  When he wakes up we're going to work on a bug craft and read some stories.  We did find out that our caterpillars can't be monarchs because they are eating parsley, and monarchs apparently only eat milkweed.  Whatever they are, I hope they are as pretty as butterflies.  They are getting fat and happy and I'm getting no more parsley. 

When we got home from errands, we decided to check out our tomato. We knew it was getting ripe and we decided to pick it before any bugs or critters got to it.

Things he says

Here's one more picture from yesterday.  James got Ethan a tee.  It held his attention for a good five minutes.

I forgot to mention this in the post yesterday.  On Saturday Ethan and I went to get hair cuts.  When I finished, I came to the waiting area. He was already finished. When he saw me, he said, "Mama, I think your hair cut looks kinda silly." It got better.  We got in the car, James told Ethan that wasn't nice, so he said, "Mama, your hair cut looks just a tiny bit foolish."  Maybe he thought that was a compliment.

Tonight I was very sad to have Ethan tell me about marshmallows and whisks.  I'm going to miss smarshmallow and swisk. I think cunumber is still alive and well.