My Little Drummer Boy

Elijah loves drums right now. Earlier this month, one of my student's dads brought his drum set to school and Elijah was thrilled.

Tonight we pulled out Ezra Jack Keats' "The Little Drummer Boy" and sang it many, many times. Elijah liked keeping the beat with his drum. We also discovered that none of our CD versions of the song actually use drums.



As he looked at the album cover for one of our CDs, Elijah noticed the "boat" on the cover. I corrected him and told him it was a sled. So he asked me, "Kind of boat?" Snow and winter things are such a foreign concept to him!

Gobble, Gobble!

We had our favorite 2 year old friend over today, so we made brown play dough and then stuck feathers in it to make turkeys.

Butterfly Q & A

I'm sure I read in some child development book that every one year old needs to know the life cycle of a butterfly...

Me: Who came out of the egg?

E: Caterpillar come out.

[Showing how the caterpillar comes out of the egg]

Me: What does the caterpillar like to do?

E: Eat food!

(Feeding the caterpillar a raisin to demonstrate his point)

Me: What does the caterpillar go into?

E: Chrysalis!
Me: Who comes out of the chrysalis?

E: Butter.

"Caterpillar want out of chrysalis."

Me: What do they eat?

E: Butterflies eat sugar water.

Me: Where did we take the butterflies?

E: Outside. Fly outside.

Butterflies!

Our last school science projects was watching caterpillars develop into butterflies--such fun!



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Busy Boy

Elijah went downstairs to play while I finished up some things upstairs; I came down to find him moving my pantry into his kitchen. He apparently has not internalized my desire for clean surfaces, but at least he set baby up nicely to play in the sink!

Pumpkin Drummer

Huntington Gardens

(from the drafts folder)

Dustin's brother came down in October to visit for the weekend. We spent the afternoon at the Huntington.

After walking the grounds, Elijah and I headed to the Children's garden while Dustin and Jason toured some galleries in peace.

Surfer Toddlers

And since the other cousins August visit was neglected on the blog (and they're adorable!), here are some pictures from our day with them at Corona del Mar:

Scooping and Pouring

Elijah is at the stage where he loves to scoop and pour--he can happily spend an hour moving his sand and water from one spot to another.

Fresno in August

Speaking of cousins, I found some pictures from our time in Fresno in August that got uploaded but not published.

Arkansas: Prairie Grove Battlefield

In between the screams from the child who wanted to push his own stroller, but could not safely do so on downhill slopes, we had a lovely time walking through Prairie Grove battlefield.

It was my first time to walk a Civil War battlefield and it was fascinating to be able to see the terrain while reading descriptions of the battle.

The North won, but it was close. Having the hill certainly helped until the South left the hill to pursue the retreating army.

There were also buildings (a church, school, houses) to look at as well as haystacks to run through.

Hugs and Kisses

Teddy loves to give hugs and kisses. I definitely got more kisses from my affectionate nephew over those five days than from my own son.