Friday, October 18, 2013

And now for the farm report...

We went to a farm to get a pumpkin, take a hayride, feed the cows, visit the animals, and play on the playground.

We got an informative talk on how pumpkins grow and how to pick them up properly.

 

[We took a hayride (pulled behind a tractor) out to the pasture to feed the cows.]

 

 

[It took me about 5 tries to time the picture just right.]

 

 

[She was super excited to see these rabbits. There was another one whose sign said "Cottontail". We've been reading some Beatrix Potter lately, and she could read the signs herself. Then she had a little conversation with Peter, which was, of course, adorable.]

 

 

[Feeding the goats]

 

 

[Goat on the roof of the sheep hut]

 

 

[You can't tell, but those three little piglets are nursing. They were going after it!]

Lately...

So much stuff...

Drawing lots of maps.

Making up lots of very intricate stories.

Writing lots of words (but getting very frustrated when she has to write the letters we tell her to write after she asks us how to spell things).

Watching this one Sofia the First DVD from the library over and over. This led to us buying some dried figs at the grocery store today because they mentioned them on the show and we wanted to know.

Building things with wooden blocks.

Learned about the 10 plagues of Egypt in Sunday School. She drew pictures of each one, and if she's looking at the picture she can tell us what each one is. She was surprisingly unphased by the dead babies aspect of the whole thing...

["The sea -- turns to blood. The river -- turns to blood. Frogs -- jump everywhere. Mosquitos...? -- fly everywhere. Flies -- fly everywhere. Animals are sick. People have... let's say bruises. Hail -- everywhere. (She always forgets the 8th one, locusts.) It was dark everywhere. Then a happy face because his answer was the people could go, but sad because the babies died."]

Here she's written an invitation for the lizard who live in our backyard to come inside to hang out with us.

 

[When: 10  Where: Lucy's House]

  

[Why: Because of (drawing of lizard)]

And here is her as a dinosaur, like Edwina, except that little square on the side of the dinosaur is a built-in oven, so she can actually bake cookies. Plus a nut tree and some fall leaves.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Played with Playdoh. When she put it away the other day, she mixed the blue and the orange. I used to care about that and make her not mix them, but then I realized that's ridiculous and we can always make more. So when she got that stuff out again today, she mashed it up together and it turned a dark green and she was very excited.

Put on her Belle dress and a Superman cape at the same time. That was pretty great.

She watched Brave while I was gone at skating.

On my way back and found this awesome set of Duplos at a garage sale. It's all modular construction equipment, and you can mix and match the pieces by attaching them with a screwdriver. (Like this.) She loves it!

Norman took her to a friends house to drop something off (she was very happy to see the inside of this person's house, which she had previously seen on video chat when Norman stayed there when he came out here to interview. She is inordinately obsessed with the insides of other people's houses. Her mother's daughter.), then they went to Star Wars Day at the library, although apparently she was a little freaked out by the Stormtroopers, so they didn't stay long. But she did get a balloon, which she was very excited to show me when they got back.

She also loves setting up pretend birthday parties for people. Today it was for me, but most of the prep involved wrapping a book in construction paper with tape.

Bath with foam letters!

I read her a book about Mount Rushmore. Then she read most of the back cover by herself. One of these days I'll stop being amazed that she can read? Maybe?

Friday, October 4, 2013

She spent the majority of her day watching Blue's Clues and responding by doing some of the things they were doing.

When she wasn't doing that, we visited the local firefighter museum. Which is a thing that was have. Thankfully it was only $6 for us to get in, because it was a little overwhelming for her -- sirens, smoke alarms, random motion activated firefighter statue/robot (AAACK!), and just generally having to think about sad/worrying things. Sometimes I forget that she's pretty sensitive, not just to loud noises, but emotionally. I kept emphasizing how they just want us to know what to do so we can be safe just in case something like that happens. But she doesn't like having to think about it. We left after maybe half an hour.

Then, because we were up in a shopping area that we don't usually visit, we went to a used book store and bought this CD and a Horton Hears a Who pencil. (It was going to be a Muppet Golden Book, but at the register she saw the pencil, so I told her she'd have to choose.)  Then we went to Starbucks and had coffee/juice.

I read her a short book about Memorial Day before bed. (Don't ask -- she just yanked it off the shelf at the library. Although, it's pretty great. It explains the Civil War in 4 short sentences.)

 

[Lucy said, "There's my imagination cloud, and there are the bubbles that attach me to my imagination."]

 

 

[In response to the Blue's Clues episode where they have a Mr. Salt & Mrs. Pepper Appreciation Day. (That's them in the drawing.) I spelled "to" and "from" for her, and I drew the heart.]

 

 

[In response to the Blue's Clues episode where they learn Spanish and make marionetas, she made a marioneta out of Playdoh.] 

Tuesday and Wednesday, October 1 and 2, 2013

She came with me to Bible study and listened to Laurie Berkner while the rest of us... studied.

Watched Blue's Clues.

A couple different times she was surprised to discover that a magnet she was playing with stuck to something unexpected (laundry basket. baby gate).

Duplo/action figure/furniture/plastic animals situation.

Asked why it's called a library if it has to do with books, but the word library doesn't have anything to do with books. Good question! I tried to explain about Latin and everything...

I also explained the concept of arranged marriages for political peace (thanks, Brave).

Read In the Night Kitchen again.

Wednesday: Library (Magic School Bus game again). She always swipes the books for me at the self-checkout. It's a big deal to her.

More Blue's Clues.

We baked a cake for Scaredy Squirrel's birthday tomorrow. Chocolate cake with peanut butter/maple frosting. (Yes I'm aware that peanuts are not tree nuts, but it's the thought that counts.) 

 

[Lucy blew out the candles for him.]

And then they put it on the official Scaredy Squirrel Facebook page!

 

Monday, September 30, 2013

When I got out of bed, she already had an office set up in the living room (paper, broken laptop, clock).  Then she got to work drawing a recipe on the paper.

Grocery stores. We found baby bananas! Which I'm pretty sure I'd never seen before, and Lucy definitely hadn't. Of course we had to buy some. First she decided that they're the Halloween candy of bananas. Then when she saw them sitting on the counter with the other two normal-sized bunches of bananas, she decided that they were a banana bunch family.

On the way home, a car made a very bad decisions right in front of us, which caused me to exclaim. Then Lucy wanted to know what happened, but I couldn't explain it very well. So I told her I would show her with some of her toy cars when we got home. Later this afternoon she took me up on it! Then she made up a whole bunch of other bad decisions that cars could make, at least one of which had Duplo-Me driving our Duplo train-car around and around in a circle.

She made me a ruler and a driver's license out of craft foam and marker. She had me spell our address so she could write it down.

She watched Elmo Loves You, then she was looking at the back of the DVD case and noticed that it had a section of advise for parents, which she wanted me to read. This resulted in us playing a short game of Name That Emotion, where we made faces and had to guess each others' faces.

I read her In the Night Kitchen before bed. She was fascinated! She had to go back and look over all the pictures again before she would consent to go to bed.