The King of All Wild Things Turns 3

We celebrated Aaron's 3rd birthday with a "Where the Wild Things Are" party for friends and family. After inviting everyone to join us for a Wild Rumpus, we set to work decorating and planning games that fit with the theme of Aaron's favorite book. The kids (all 13 of them) got gold crowns and listened to the audio recording while Matt turned the pages of the book. After the story, they made Wild Thing faces on paper plates with googly eyes, yarn, colored macaroni, construction paper shapes, and markers. We had some little artists among us! We played Pin the Tail on Max, and then they were free from organized activities to jump in the bouncy house and play in the yard. Of course there was cake and ice cream, and then Aaron opened many wonderful gifts. He is having a great time this week playing with all of his new toys!

Notable Quotes

Aaron while driving to church: "Mom, can you move that sun?"
Elliott to Aaron while driving home from church: "There's no W in Elliott."

A few more of Aaron's special words:
grass is grasshopper
basket is basketball
hot fudge sundae is hot fundae (I think he may be on to something there.)

Elliott was playing with the Batman and Luke Skywalker figures yesterday. They were going to the local art museum to see the paintings.

And, finally, at the grocery store the other day, Elliott examined at least 3 cartons of eggs for cracks before he found one for us to purchase. He was so sweet looking them over so carefully. (They did not all have cracks...they just didn't pass his inspection.)

I know these sayings are probably only funny and memorable to me, so thanks for sticking with me!

Nose

God must really be looking out for my nose. It's not a particularly attractive or special nose. Sometimes seasonal allergies attack it. More often though it is one of my children. Elliott's knee just connected with my nose as he launched himself to the other side of our pillow fort (or pillow fork as Aaron calls it). By my calculation that is 46 pounds of Elliott landing and pushing off my nose. And it hurts! This happens to me pretty often. You would think I would learn to protect my face from flying boys, or at least get one of those nose guards like the NBA players wear. Now that would be attractive!

Do other moms have this problem?

Money

Elliott and I were discussing a quick trip to Target this afternoon. He wanted to know if he could look at Lego's so I told him to get his wallet and we'll see how much money he has. And then just to have a little fun, I said maybe he could buy himself some fall clothes. His reply: "Oh no no no no."

Hall Monitor

After our morning lessons one day this week, Elliott finished his work and went to play. Aaron stood up in his chair and shouted "Elliott, get back in your chair! We're doing seat work!"

Music 101

So how does one teach music to a child who is only interested in Star Wars? Quite by accident actually. Matt put the Star Wars soundtrack on my computer. I thought it might be a nice change to see the orchestra playing the music so I found a video on YouTube. While we were watching the video, I started pointing out the different instruments to Elliott. Which led to a Google search where I found a website for kids with descriptions of many instruments and clips of music played with each instrument. Then we read about some composers and heard some of their work. And who was on the composer list? Of course John Williams, who wrote the score for Star Wars, Harry Potter, ET, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, etc. So we started with Star Wars and ended with Star Wars, but I like to think there was a little music lesson in there somewhere.

Aaron Speak

I finally put our hummingbird feeders out last week, and now we have hummingbirds visiting our deck throughout the day. Funny how that works! They are such interesting little birds, and we have enjoyed watching them fly up to the feeder before our loudness scares them away. When Aaron sees one drinking out of the feeder he says, "he nosing that." Well, Aaron, I suppose that is what it looks like.

He has also taken to calling Matt "Daddy Big Ole Man." I have no idea where he came up with that, but it is hilarious! Perhaps it's a new variation of Elliott's term "Daddy O Man."

Aaron also has started saying "oh my goodness" and "oh my stars." Both of which are extremely funny in his little 2 year old voice.

I guess he's at that age where most of what he says sounds cute. Stormtrooper usually comes out "Stormpooper." And his knowledge of Star Wars characters is astounding, but of course that's all we talk about in our house now. Even the way he says "sippy cup" is cute. And he doesn't yet have a grasp on pronouns. Matt discovered that he puts his negative at the first of his sentence, such as "No I want that" instead of "I don't want that."

There are some things that are just too cute to correct even if it is technically my job to teach him to speak properly. My niece used to say "belly butlin" and the first time I heard her say "belly button" I was so sad that she had learned the correct word. It is definitely worth writing down the funny things they say before they move past this stage.

3 Boys at the Zoo

Aunt Christy and Baby Jack came for a visit last week. On Thursday, we took a trip to the zoo and were glad that Mimi could join us too. All three boys started out in their baseball caps. Only one of them kept his on. (Hint - it's the little one who was asleep most of the time.) But it made for a cute photo of the 3 cousins ready for their zoo adventure.

After a stop at the playground, Mimi treated Elliott and Aaron to a ride on the carousel which they thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you, Mimi!

Go, Titans, Go!

The boys are ready to cheer the Titans to victory in their new shirts. My uncle gave Matt and Elliott his tickets for one the preseason games. Elliott was incredibly excited about going to the game. Aaron, however, was quite disappointed that he couldn't attend "Titans Go Night." Maybe next time, buddy.