Five: First Foods

Macy turned 5 months on the 17th. All big and smiley and silly.

My once awesome sleeper has decided she is over that. Why sleep when you can move around?

She is now waking up a lot at night, fussy from rolling on her belly, or being mad that I tried to help her...whatever the reason, she is tired. I am tired. Hopefully, she will revert back to her old wonderful sleep schedule. Soon.

Since she is now five months old and growing like a weed, we decided to start feeding her solids, beginning with baby cereal. I was hoping this would help her sleep longer, as well.

She has no idea what is coming.

Cereal!

Her very first taste of solid food. Baby oatmeal to be specific.

She was not a fan.

At all.

In fact, she hated it. Every single bit of it.

Oh, baby.

Maybe we will just try again later...

Museum

One of the biggest blessing that came from our move to the Detroit Metro area is finding Jack's school. It is a wonderful, small co-op school that insists on heavy parental involvement, the only one of it's kind in the state of Michigan. It has been running for 40 years and has a very unique teaching system that I just adore.

One of the things that the whole school participate in is a called Museum. The school bases a lot of it's ideals off of Jean Piaget's style of learning. So, each student will pick a subject that they are interested in and would like to study and they do a complete research project and presentation about it. It can be anything that they are interested in, no matter what they are studying in school at the moment. Pre-K through 8th graders all participate.

The day of Museum, all of the kids will either present their studies or sit by their presentations and answer questions, like the kindergarteners did.

Jack chose to study Fire Safety.

He is my old soul, and wanted to learn how to be safe, how to get out of fires, and so forth.

He created his board on his own, he did all the paper mache on his firetruck and painted it. He created his own survey, asked his classmates and the elementary students and than created a chart.

His question?

"Do you think a house fire is more than 100 degrees?"

The majority voted yes, fyi.

He than researched and found out that house fires reach up to 15,000 degrees.

All of the kids did such a great job. There are 10 students in Jack's kindergarten class and the topics varied from Fire Safety to Dinosaurs, Lemonade Stands to Octonauts the Disney Jr. cartoon.

Math, reading and writing were all involved in their projects. They had to go to the library to get books to support their project.

Not too shabby for Kindergartners.

Ryan made sure that Jack had at least 10 books. He wanted to make sure his works cited was complete and accurate ;)

It was such a great way for the kids to be able to learn about what they are interested in, all the while learning how to present, create and process information.

The Kindergarten room  was bustling!

Jack was very serious about his topic. He wanted to make sure that people know how to Stop. Drop. And Roll.

 

We just adore Jack's teacher, Miss Venee. She has helped him come out of his shell, while not forcing him into activities till he is ready.

Here he is talking with her.

He just adores her, as do we.

I feel so blessed to be able to send him to school each day, and be excited to hear about what he is learning.

I didn't think I would ever feel confident and o.k with his schooling being done by strangers, but I have not had one moments doubt.

Jack is perfectly placed, and they let him flourish in his own way.

It was a fun afternoon, full of learning and knowledge. The kids were SO proud of their work and the parents were excited to learn from everyone.

I look forward to going again next year. Jack will be in 1st grade and will have to do an actual presentation before his peers and the parents. I wonder what his topic will be next year?

Love Extravagantly

My Valentines. 



If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

1 Corinthians 13:1-7, 13b 

The Message Version



Happy Valentine's Day Weekend!
Spend time with your favorite people.
Enjoy your surroundings.
Love extravagantly!

On the Bright Side...

It is snowing today.

Again.

Only 3-4 inches this time.

This is the picture of my commute to Jack's school at 11am today.

I live in a large suburb of Detroit.

A nice suburb with supremely wealthy along with a modest middle-class.

Very nice homes are in developments behind those trees.

Except, they don't plow here. Ever.

 So, in order to NOT dwell about the fact that my first winter back in the midwest after a seven year break is recording setting in both cold and snow amounts, I am going to try to look at the bright side of things.

1. I have 4 wheel drive on my Escape.

We were planning on getting a new vehicle to accommodate our expanding brood this summer, but between selling and buying houses, moving and so forth, we just could not put a ton of money into a new vehicle. We have no payments on our Escape, so we just decided to buy a new car seat that would allow our bench seat to fit 3 car seats. I am SO thankful we did that. Not only because of the money saved, but because I use my 4 wheel drive ALL the time here. Ya know, because they don't plow. Ever.

2. We have not been sick.
It is just too dang cold for germs to survive. At least, that is what I like to think. We have had some sniffles here and there, but no real sickness this whole fall and winter. I am super thankful for that. If those sub zero temps have anything to do that, than I am thankful.

3. I have had to buy new things.
Warm things. Sweaters and more sweaters. That is what I have had to buy. I gave away most of my warm sweaters from when I used to live in Minnesota a few winters ago, thinking that I would never need them in the mild VA winters. Welp, now I need them. Since I didn't have any, I went shopping.
Online shopping mostly, since it is too cold to head out... but at least it is still shopping.

4. We had 6 snow days in the month of January.
This September I was sad and weepy, thinking about how I no longer had lazy mornings with Jack. Getting up, snuggling with blankies and watching Disney Jr. before breakfast. It was nice to have my little man back for the whole day, no agenda, just jammies and playtime.

5. I get to wear sweatpants all day, every day.
First of all, it is freezing and fleece pants help keep me warm. Secondly, I am two and half weeks into a diastasis  recti repair program and I am wearing a stomach brace 24 hrs a day. (I will blog about this whole experience soon.) So finding pants that fit either over the brace or under it can be tricky. Sweatpants are the easiest. Plus, I am usually either snowed in or risk the chance of exposure and frostbite when going outside, so staying inside in sweatpants is the perfect solution.


6. Our garage can be used for a second refrigerator.
We keep a lot of our drinks out in the garage. It keeps them nice and cold, but does not freeze them. Plus, I get more room in my fridge.

7.Blankets and snuggles.
I get lots of them.
It is a winter bonus.

What are some things that you do to keep things cheery when temperatures plummet?

Any advice on a good winter coat or snow boots?

Good recipes?