Videos of Brody reading and balancing

Gymnastics is obviously his thing.  ;)  He did this over and over again for over 30 minutes!  Monkey--through and through.



He read this with some silly voices but he reads everything these days!  He loves the Pigeon books--this is a new one and he read it every day multiple times a day for a week!  lol

VIDEO of Brody reading part of "Moo Moo Brown Cow"

Disclaimers:  This video is pretty dark since it was at night and the light in his room doesn't give off a ton of light PLUS he has a paci in his mouth since we were about to get ready for bed.  (yes I know he's getting too big for that but he only uses it at night and like Travis was......he's very attached to it---for the record Travis was over 5 when he finally got rid of the paci at night)

Travis' "Barter Day" project

It's apparently normal practice for the 2nd grade to learn about bartering and have a project around it.  Basically the kids first come up with something they can make that they think other kids would like.  After the teacher approves it they make whatever it is, complete with a speech and a poster.  Oh and you don't just have to make a few of the item.....you have to make TWENTY!  Ugh.  Travis decided on bookmarks and I saw some super cute monster bookmarks on Pinterest that you can see here.  As of right now we have done about 1/2 and they are due early next week.    They aren't hard to make but the really hard part is getting Travis to willingly help me make them "with him".  This project is going to cost about $1.50 total--I had all of the paper in my scrap booking stash and the google eyes are super cheap at Michael's right now.  There are ways to make them more intricate with different paper etc but we are just sticking to solid ones.  Make a bookmark today......summer reading lists are just around the corner!

Some of our monstrous creations!

Travis is hard at work!  lol

Big reader

Travis has always been a big reader.  This summer he did the summer reading challenge at his school to read at least 1000 pages.  I can't remember how many pages he read/turned it but it was well over 1000 pages!  Thanks to the Harry Potter books we read this summer.  :)  He was excited about getting a certificate and a special treat at school (a popsicle since so many kids have food allergies) and they take a picture of the summer readers too. Yay for reading!

Another good kids book

My sister Tammy seems to find the best books for Travis.  He loves all of the books with random facts, "why" things are the way they are, almanacs etc.  The latest book she found is called "Weird but True" and can be found HERE.   I was trying to find the old post that I wrote about the other books but I am having trouble finding it.  The other books he enjoys are here, here (his is the 2010 version though) and here.  If you have a kid that loves to learn odd facts then check some or all of these out!

Bedtime stories

There are few things sweeter than seeing your oldest child reading to your youngest child.  I ran and grabbed the camera but I didn't get the best pictures.  Oh well.  :)

Great books for kids who love to read and know interesting facts....

Last night at the book fair my Mom stumbled on this book......it was right up Travis' alley--random facts, all color pictures and pages etc.  Granted he kept reading me facts out of it all night like who has the largest stadium in the world but oh well.  He read it all night and got up early this morning and was reading it again!  Thanks Gramma for finding this book!

 

 

Here are 2 other books Travis has that he has read cover to cover a few times and still pulls them out to read all the time.  He's just like his Daddy--wants to know the little weird facts that other people don't know.

He loves this one too and I am very tempted to buy him the 2012 version that is coming out later this month.   This has a ton of great color pictures and facts to keep kids reading. 

Tammy got him this book as part of his Christmas gift one year I think and it's been another well loved book.  Actually he was re-reading it just this week when it was his "turn" to read.  I read for about 10-15 minutes out of Harry Potter and on his "turn" before bed he picks that or something else.

 

 

 

 

All of these books come with the "Travis seal of approval".  :)  If you have a curious littler person at home make sure to have one or all of them in your house too!

The video of Travis "reading" the book I mentioned Tuesday

As I said the other day Travis loved this book like Brody loves this book. He is a little more than 1 1/2 in this video and he looks so much like Brody to me!

Re-organizing Travis' books

Travis has hundreds of books. (I should have counted but I didn't-lol) I needed to get the baby type books out of his bookshelves so I could get books off of the FLOOR! I tried to get him to start this project last weekend but it ended quickly with 5 books left by Brody's door. So today during Brody's nap I went through all of his books. Basically I weeded out anything that was a "board book" or had 5-6 words per page. It took about an hour but his books are now neat and tidy! Unfortunately I failed to take a before picture but imagine books all over the floor, on the top of the shelf in huge piles and you will "see". Here are the"after" pictures:


These are all of the books that are being sent next door to Brody's room. It will be a challenge to fit them on his 3 bookshelves with the books he already has! (that will get done tonight I hope)



This is the larger of Travis' 2 bookshelves. The shelf in the very middle has his new series books in it-such as the whole "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series, the whole "Captain Underpants" series, all of his Club Penguin books and his 8 or 9 Mr. Men books. The shelf on the top left is all of his kid encyclopedias and almanacs that he like to read-now they are all together and hopefully easier to find. On the top I organized his trophies and medals (though you can't see the medals since they are laying on the shelf). The bins are currently empty and I had originally assumed toys would go in them but he's been in this room for a year and a half and that hasn't happened yet! ;)



This is the small bookshelf right next to his bed-on the top is his Lego clock and his CD clock and his current reading selection-Harry Potter #1. The bottom shelf are some large books that don't fit anywhere else and some classics like "Frankenstein" that his Poppy gave him a few years ago.

Awesome kids book (if you can find it)

We had this book when Travis was little and he LOVED it. I have a video of him pointing out the different things in the book as I said them when he was maybe 1 1/2 (I will dig up this video soon). We read this book over and over and over again when he was little. It shouldn't have shocked me that Brody loves this book just as much as Travis did. We read it at least 2 if not 3 times before bed every day. He can't get enough it. Maybe it's the bright colors of the pictures or it's the fact that it's Baby Einstein and has those cartoon animals in it. Who knows. All of the items in the book are listed in English and in Spanish. We mainly read it in English since neither of us know Spanish. ;) I will tell you the book unfortunately is hard to find these days (I just looked). If you get lucky and see a copy pick it up if you have little kids- you won't regret it.

Books and Goodnight Kisses

Travis reading a little to Brody before bed

Travis reading to Brody

Book fair!

Today was one of Travis' favorite days at school....it was Book Fair day! They invited all of the parents to come in to help with a craft (we made a "I'm thankful for" turkey) and then it was off to the library for the book fair! Travis was in heaven.....he LOVES books. Somehow I spent almost $50 on books! I've always told myself that books are something I will always buy him! He just loves his books! He even picked out a book that was over 150 pages! The print is really large but still! Thankfully I was able to hide a few of the books for Christmas.....

After an hour of reading in bed........

This is what will happen to you.....awwwwww so sweet.......

All signed up for Kindergarten!

Travis is officially signed up for Kindergarten! He is beyond excited about this! When I was there with the papers they said he had to have a skills assessment the next day or the day after. Kind of a pain with short notice but we dealt with it. I told Travis he had a "Kindergarten quiz" the next day to make sure he was ready etc. What's interesting is that I asked a bunch of people who live in the county but will be sending their kids to different elementary schools for K and Travis' school seems to be the only one that does this assessment. Wierd. It was today and took a grand total of 10 minutes. They took him to a classroom and asked him a bunch of questions. I wasn't there but I assume it was things like the alphabet, his name, his birthday etc. They said he did fine and I filled out the informational form they asked me to fill out. I made sure to put in the "additional comments" that he has been reading level 1 and level 2 books for about 6 months now. Crazy! Next up is the Kindergarten orientation on the 27th-the big deal with that is you get to ride the big yellow school bus!

256 minutes.....

Travis is the proud owner of 30 Chuck E Cheese tokens! Now I can't stand taking him to "The Rat" because the food isn't that good and he always gets sick a few days later from some germy kid there but......he won these tokens from a school contest!

Over Spring Break the class was tasked with reading at least 100 minutes over the break. This could be reading themselves or being read to. Our every night routine is I read Travis 3 books in his bed and then I hand him 3 books to read himself-we have done it this way for as long as I can remember. When he was younger he just flipped through the books and looked at the pictures. About 3 months ago he started reading to himself at night out loud!

He told me he would win this contest and he was right! Travis read for 256 minutes over the break and one night read for almost an hour straight! (that night I had to ask him to put down the book because it was so late!) My cute little reader....

p.s. This pic is from my phone so the quality isn't the best....

70 degrees and sunny

Sunday was such a great day with the weather for once around here. After the crazy winds from Saturday it was a nice change. There was still a little wind on Sunday but we didn't need coats for the 1st time in awhile so it was a good day.

Evan and Travis did a little yard work in the front yard. We have this white birch tree at the bottom of the driveway that was planted there years ago by the previous owners. The stinking tree has crazy roots all over the front yard that are barely below the ground and have killed almost all of the grass in our front yard. At first Evan was going to put down some of the patch stuff to fill in the holes but the next thing I knew he was hacking at the roots with a shovel and a saw. Some of these roots were all the way under the house, through the flower bed etc. It was nuts. Travis had a good time hauling away the sticks in his dump truck-he was a great helper. Eventually Evan got all the roots that were in the yard part and started to lay the patch stuff. If you have ever seen this stuff it's bright aqua....so our front yard is now almost completely aqua-lol. After he was almost finished Evan said "Maybe I should have just gottten sod". Well that is step 2 if the grass from the patch stuff ends up dying.

After Travis went to bed I watched the movie "Twilight" Evan was sweet and got it for me at the Redbox since he thought I would like it. (he saw it on a plane) I haven't read the books though I feel like I should now. The movie was ok.....I mean I definately wanted to know what happened next but technically speaking it isn't that great of a movie. They story is what drags you in...hence why it seems the books are in my future. It's funny since everyone had been talking about Edward the main vampire and how hot he was etc. I didn't find him hot at all....just really creepy. I'm not 100% sure what people see in him. I even looked at pictures of him in regular light etc and I still think....meh. So I will be reading the books and probably seeing the next movie....

Weekend fun!

Unfortunately Saturday we a very gloomy and rainy day. I had a super early doctors appointment but was home before 8am since the wait is minimal when you get there when they first open! Then I had to think about what we were going to do for the rest of the day. Evan wanted to work on the taxes and some work stuff so Travis and I headed over to the mall to get him some new running shoes. His old ones lasted almost a year but were just getting too small. I have now realized it's 100% worth it to get good quality shoes for kids. Prior to these shoes his running shoes were all of those crappy "character" shoes and they would only last a few months before falling apart.

We got to Nordstrom and he picked out a pair of Geox http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/3004276/0~2376780~6009391~6015034~6015040?mediumthumbnail=Y&origin=category&searchtype=&pbo=6015040&P=1 , Keen sandals http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2914736/0~2376780~6009391~6015431~6015437?mediumthumbnail=Y&origin=category&searchtype=&pbo=6015437&P=1 and some new Reef flip flops http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2914408/0~2376780~6009391~6015115~6015121?mediumthumbnail=Y&origin=category&searchtype=&pbo=6015121&P=1 . Granted I spent $160 on these 3 pairs of shoes.....good thing they will last awhile-they were a size 1! His feet are growing so fast! After that we decided to take a ride on the train. For those that don't know....there is an actual train that drives around the mall at Dulles Town Center. The kids love it and if you get the frequent ride pass it's only $1 per person. Eventually we made it over to the food court for some lunch and it was at this point Evan texted we are getting a nice tax refund this year! Woohoo! When I left the house he was just hoping we didn't owe anything! So that was a nice bonus. After lunch I let Travis run around at the playground-that places grosses me out but all the kids love it so much!

After leaving the mall we headed over to the library to pick up some new books and maybe a kids DVD if we were lucky. Travis loves looking at all of the different books-he makes a beeline to the transportation section every time we are there! We found a bunch of great books and I even let him get a "Captain Underpants" book. These books are above his level but he has a few friends that are reading them so he thinks they sound super funny I said we could try one. We did find a few DVDs-one was a DVD with books in cartoon form-it had one of his favorite books on it...."I Stink". He loved watching that since he has memorized that book! ;)

Later Saturday evening Cal and Wendy came over to catch up/hang out etc. Since Evan has been travelling so much we haven't seen them really in weeks. There were only a few bottles of wine and a bunch of bourbon consumed. :) We watched the end of the Pitt basketball game and it came down to the wire! Then we introduced them to our new favorite show "East bound and Down"....they both thought it was really funny. The show is crude humor but great! We decided to play a little RockBand after that which is always a good time. The night ended at around 2am and we were tired!

Unfortunately for us Travis got up at his normal time of 6:30ish on Sunday morning. We were lazy most of the morning and then we decided to head out to Target for a few things and to Mc Donald's for lunch since Travis wanted a "Monsters vs Aliens" toy from the kids meal. Later in the afternoon the sun came out briefly and we decided to head over to the elementary school to play football and fly Travis' SpongeBob kite since it was a little windy. ;) Travis had a blast running around and trying to get the kite up. It went pretty well and we got the kite up a bunch of times but the wind would die down and then the kite would fall.....oh well! He had fun regardless! Then Travis and Evan started playing football and they were having a great time until Evan slipped in the mud.....he got pretty muddy and so we went home. We all had a great day! :)

"Froggy" came over for a sleepover!

When I picked up Travis from school on Thursday he was bubbling with excitement. At first I thought it was because Evan had come home that day from Eruope (he was also excited about this but it wasn't the cause for the jumping). Finally I get out of him he is so super excited becuase Froggy is coming to our house for a sleepover! Now for those who don't know...."Froggy" is a series of books about a small frog and all the things he learns in life....how to ride a bike, how to swim and in this case it was "Froggy's 1st sleepover". We have a few Froggy books but this was a new one for us. So they are doing the "Froggy" books for the next 2 weeks as a part of their lessons so this sleepover thing is a part of that excercise.

Travis was telling me all about Froggy's clothes, pillow, toothbrush, flies etc etc etc that he was bringing to our house. He was SO EXCITED! Travis even stuffed Froggy into the seat belt with him so he could be safe too. :) Froggy also came with a journal where each kid was supposed to write down their name, address and phone number so Froggy's parents had the information and also write about what they did with Froggy that night. This sounds not so tough until you get home......

When we get home he is all excited to see Evan and tell him all about Froggy. Travis launches back into the whole story and then deposits Froggy on the kitchen counter. Hmmmm now what? I agnored it for awhile until it was time to start the journal process. This is where things got a little ugly. Travis wrote his name and copied down the address and phone number with only a little fuss but then broke down when it came time to do the sentance part. Oh boy it was good: crying,sobbing,"I can't do this" etc etc. Finally I get him to calm down and start drawing pictures of stuff he was supposedly doing with Froggy. Video games and so forth. SOmehow Evan got him to write a sentance and that was the end of that.

WHen it was time for bed though Travis wanted to take Froggy upstairs and brush his teeth, feed him his flies, pjs etc. Which is technially great since that was part of the assignment but he waited so long on the other part that it was getting late. Oh well. Eventually everyone went to bed and Travis read Froggy stories until they both fell aslepp. :)

Hopefully I can get the one pic off my phone at some point and add it to this post.