Freddie Hills Farm

Oct. 5- Oct. 12, 2008
Monday morning we had to make a shopping run because we were totally out of all of the basics. Shopping with boys totally wears me out. We usually go to Aldis and Superfresh and the boys love the shopping carts at Superfresh with the two little steering wheels. Shopping at Aldi’s totally brings me back to the time we spent living in Saginaw, Michigan. Aldi’s was practically behind our apartment and we would go there all the time. It was a great spot for camping food supplies (like those yummy sticky buns) that we couldn’t live without when we went our our spontaneous camping trips with Jake, Matty, Cesar, and Mikeli. Good times.
Tuesday night we went over to the Cruz family’s apartment building to go swimming (they have an indoor pool on the top floor) because we’d been promising the boys a swimming adventure for a while. When we were about to get in the elevator to go up to the pool, we’d already changed Isaac into his swimming suit and he wanted to put his shirt back on. I said, “no necesitas tu camisa” and he said, “pero mama, si no tengo la camisa las personas van a decir ay mamacita en el acensor”—I have no idea where he got the “ay mamacita” phrase but James and I got a really good laugh out of that. The water wasn’t the warmest but what really made things chilly were the big fans overhead that they had going full blast. It seems like they would turn those off in colder weather. Anyhow—we didn’t last too long in the pool because Levi’s teeth started chattering.
We went out to get our car Wednesday morning and it was gone. Yep. First we thought that it had been stolen, but then we realized that we had tragically misread the parking sign. We thought that it said the tow zone began at 8 am like most of the other streets in our area, but it said 7 am. It was a pretty costly mistake.
My ASL/Spanish classes went really well this week but I’m realizing that I need to cut down on the about of vocab I try to cram into each lesson. I went a little out of control with the food lesson because I wanted to incorporate the Melissa and Doug food cutting toys into the practice session of the lesson and I had to teach quite a few words to make that happen.
Levi now says “my turn” when he doesn’t want to hold your hand in the street when he’s walking. It drives me crazy because I have to hold his hand in the street.
Thursday the boys were treated to another pumpkin farm visit—this one was called Freddie Hills Farm and we went there for a field trip for Isaac’s preschool. The boys loved going on another hayride and hunting for pumpkins. The corn maze there was better than Snipes (we really got lost this time), but the playground at Snipes was a million times better. Freddie Hills had one big slide but they only let the kids go down in once and that was a bummer.
For the Spanish class today I used the eensy weensy spider book that I found at the thrift store and it worked perfectly. The kids also love the “caminar, caminar, y parar” song and I am SO grateful that my friend Sandra in Houston introduced me to that song on one of her CDs. We also practiced saying “cuantos años tienes” and most of the older kids can say their numbers now.
Friday morning we went shopping in quest of a pirate costume for Isaac and we couldn’t find anything good at Target or Walmart. We ended with a visit to the Goodwill thriftstore and at first I couldn’t find anything there, but at the end when I scoured all of the costumes I found EXACTLY what we were looking for! It was a perfect match to the pirate costume that someone had already given us for Levi.. Isaac was elated and I was happy too that I didn’t have to try to create a pirate costume from scratch. Plus, the price was right.
We started up our babysitting co-op again last night (after a week break) and James and I went out to eat at the Indian restaurant where we’d gone for our anniversary date. The food there is so amazing. I can’t get enough of the nan and tiki masala.
Levi is all about pleasing his big brother this week. When Isaac is hunting for his Buzz lightyear toy or trying to find his T-Rex and Levi finds it first, he’ll run over to Isaac and say “Here you go Isaac!” Not to say that Levi’s always good about sharing with Isaac, but for the most part he’s very accommodating and a lot more tranquilo than Isaac.
James took the boys to the zoo on Saturday and he discovered that both boys have developed even more advanced monkey climbing skills since the last time he took them. There’s an indoor playground at the treehouse building and both boys scamper up a fake dinosaur and bee honeycombs. I think James understand more now why its such a big accomplishment just to have the boys alive and well at the end of the day.
So I modified the Accountable Kids program this week with the boys and instead of giving tickets for chores, I’ve switched it to putting rocks in a jar. They like rocks a lot better and when the rocks reach the star sticker they get a prize. So far Isaac has been very motivated by it. Levi doesn’t totally get it, but he does love putting rocks in the jar. We’ve added music time and story time to our morning routine and the boys really enjoy it. Levi discovered a tiger hat from an old Halloween costume of Isaac’s and he gets a kick out of running around wearing it for the “elephant/tiger” song. In the afternoon I added an “art time” and “helping hands” time and that has also made things go more smoothly because it’s a set thing that we do now. The boys paint with watercolors and then “help” me do a chore like picking up rice krispies that are plastered to the floor. . .