Little Blessings

I'm blessed to have a pretty remarkable kid. Don't get me wrong, he can be a booger at times, but overall he's a really great child.  It's been a rough year at school and home with learning to listen and obey.  We've tried many different things trying to see what works for him and have found that clear, specific goals with a specific reward seems to work the best.

Last week was really rough, so we wanted to start this one off on a better foot so Andrew has been working towards a new video game for the Wii. In order to receive it he had to go the whole week without being sent to a chair at school (he's sent there when he is a distraction or doesn't listen to the teacher or parent helper),  as well as be a calm, helpful teammate at his game Saturday instead of being wild and distracting the team and coaches.

I received daily updates from Andrew that he hadn't been sent to a chair, but this morning I received an update from his teacher that knocked my socks off.

We arrived to school early today in order to promote The Human Race SC (great fundraiser and if you want to donate to Andrew/his school, click here) which left time for Andrew to play with other kids in the courtyard, something he doesn't normally get to do.  I was impressed when the bell rang because Andrew immediately ran to his classroom without being told (something we've been concerned about if he were to be just dropped off).  Being a mom, I still wanted to check to ensure he made it to class, so about 5 minutes later I walked to his room and went inside to make sure he was in there at which point his teacher stopped me.  Apparently a few days ago his teacher had to step outside the classroom to speak with another adult which left the class by themselves and they were given the instructions to stay quiet. At some point they started getting loud as kids unattended tend to do. Mr. A reported to me that when he came back in, Andrew was standing at the front of the classroom leading them in song to calm down and it worked!  That's right, ANDREW was the one calming the other kids down through a song the teacher gets them to sing in order to gain their attention.  I am so proud of the changes Andrew has been making in order to grow in his listening as well as obeying and it was such an amazing blessing to start my morning with that great news.

Pinned it and Made it

One of my favorite time wasting sites is Pinterest, it's a great place to find ideas for everything from recipes to crafts. While searching the kid category, I came across a great picture that seemed like the essence of a little boy.  Check out the inspiration and my version:

It came out pretty cute if I say so myself! I didn't process the image as much as the original poster did, but I'm definitely okay with that. The plan is to get a couple cute Valentine's frames (Target has them on sale right now) and then give them as gifts to the grandparents.

Olden Days

Sunday Andrew went to church with his Gram and Gramps as a special treat and after they took him to lunch and a little farmers market type thing downtown.  While browsing the tables they came across a man selling old school marbles. These things are legit glass and beautiful. It was fun to see Andrew slow down and play games like kids "from the olden days" (as he said). 

Making Slime

I absolutely love Pinterest and have found so many cool things and ideas on that site. I was browsing it this morning and saw a link on how to make slime and thought what a great thing to try with Andrew once he got out of school!

One thing I wasn't crazy about with the link was that the recipe was at the bottom, so I'm going to give it to you up front (if you decide not to look at our pics, it's your loss ;).

We learned a few lessons from mistakes, and those are included at the end.

Homemade Slime aka GAK

1 teaspoon borax powder

1 1/2 C water, divided

4 oz (1/2 C)  Elmer’s glue, clear or white

food coloring

Add borax powder to 1 cup of water and stir to dissolve.  Set aside.  Pour glue into a medium mixing bowl and add 1/2 C water. Add a few drops of food coloring until desired color is reached and then stir to mix glue solution until smooth.  Pour the borax mixture into the glue mixture and watch the solids start to form.  Stir for a few moments and then use your hands to gather the mass.  The mixture will be very soft and wet.  Keep kneading until it firms up and feels dry.  Discard excess liquid in bowl. The more you knead and play with the slime the firmer it will become.  Store in a ziplock bag or air tight container and the slime will keep indefinitely.

patiently waiting for mom to get the camera ready

ingredients (plus water which isn't shown)

take a cup of water

add a teaspoon of borax and mix until it dissolves

in a separate bowl add 4oz of glue (you can use clear or white)

add half a cup of water

and food coloring

mix until smooth

add in the borax solution

if you did everything right, you'll immediately see the solid matter starting to collect

he actually wanted in a picture!

using your hands, gather all the goopy, icky slime and start kneading it 

(he is literally saying "eeeewwww!")

it is pretty nasty!

remove all the goop from the water

and keep kneading it until it dries up some and doesn't stick so badly to your hands

once you have it out, you can toss the leftover water

so stretchy!

definitely a fun and quick activity to do with your child!

What we learned:

1. Read carefully - I had read online that 4oz is 1/4 cup and proceeded to use that measurement for our glue. Truth is, the bottle of glue is 4oz. We didn't discover that until after making our first batch which didn't work.

2. Have extra glue on hand - Just in case you mess up.

3. Do NOT use the gel food colors - for the first try we put the gel right in and it didn't "take" at all combined with the extra water to glue ratio. Once I realized where we went wrong I halved the water and also mixed the food coloring in water separately to create a liquid food coloring. The color wasn't nearly as bright, but did work somewhat.

4. Have paper towels near by, it's messy, but worth it!

Getting so big

I love this photo of Andrew. We were at Verve Coffee downtown and he ordered a hot chocolate and picked it up all by himself, then stopped to talk to the barista. It's just such a cute moment in time captured and shows how fast he is growing.

cuteness

I was going through old pictures on Randy's computer and found this video of Andrew when he was about 16 months old. We were trying to get him to say "bye bye" so we could get it on tape. Adorable!

My baby

Andrew at 10 months

Andrew at 7

Electives

One of the cool things Andrew's school offers is Electives. The Electives are for 1st grade and up, taught by a parent or student (with parent supervising) and range from dancing to skateboarding and everything in between.

The sessions run 8 weeks at a time, so the kids get a good amount of experience with whatever they choose and are on every Friday. For Andrew's first session he chose dance. I was so excited he had picked such an active and fun thing to do. He was super cute coming home each Friday and wanting to show off the new hip hop move he learned.

The current session he's in is holiday crafts, and he absolutely loves it.  The items he brings home show he is taking time to focus, and truly do his best work. The parent that teaches it has actually stopped us a couple times to tell us about how Andrew is THE only kid in the group that sticks with what the craft is for the day and works on it until it is "just perfect".  I love that!  Usually it is hard for boys to focus, especially on things like crafts and Andrew is no exception to that. It's so neat to see how he is maturing and the amazing work he is creating.

This snowman was made last week, it was awesome to hear Andrew talk about how he made the hat out of pipe cleaners. Definitely a keeper!

Little singer

Love this video of Andrew. He has such a great little voice but is so embarrassed for people other than us to hear him sing. I'm praying that he'll get more brave as he grows and fully share the gift he has.

Seven

Andrew turned seven on November 23rd.  So crazy to think that our lives were blessed with him over 6 years ago. He has grown so much since the first time we met, but he has especially grown just in the past year. I swear each day he grows a little taller and becomes a little more mature. It's so beautiful to see the little man he's becoming and I couldn't be prouder to be his mommy.

For Andrew's birthday we planned a day o' fun. He was surprised by decorations in his room & downstairs, it was so cute to see his face light up when he saw the decorations everywhere. We had funfetti waffles with whipped cream and strawberries, then got ready for the day and went to see "The Muppet Movie" (so fun!).  After the movie Andrew chose to have lunch at the food court, then we went bowling, had a trip to the super fun Lego store and then went to dinner at Red Robin.  It was a fantastic day spent celebrating the most amazing guy I know.

 Decorations downstairs, cake and asleep 1/2 an hour before he turned 7

 Funfetti waffles & candle!

 At "The Muppet Movie" with his popcorn (Andrew's favorite snack)

Panda Express at the food court

 Bowling at 300

 Andrew & Randy kicking my booty!

 Lego store!

 Picking out goodies from the wall of bricks

 Sundae from Red Robin after they sang to him

Birthday cake

Andrew's birthday party

The weekend before Andrew's birthday we had his birthday party.  The theme was Legos (which was a surprise to Andrew) and he absolutely loved it.  I had a blast planning the different elements and seeing how much I could come up with on a budget.

Saw this tip on Pinterest for letting cake pops set. Stick them inside your colander, genius!

 Funfetti cupcakes with edible Lego bricks

 The dessert set up

 Lego head marshmallow pops

So festive! 

 The birthday boy!

 nom nom nom

Blowing out the candles

Embroidery Square

Andrew's teacher Laura was pregnant with her first child at the beginning of the year (she actually gave birth to a baby boy earlier this morning!). The class decided to make a quilt for the baby as a gift before she left on maternity leave. To make the quilt extra special, each family embroidered a sea creature onto a square and then our amazing art teacher sewed it together.  The kids presented the quilt at a surprise tea on Laura's last day.

For our square, I embroidered a sea turtle. I hadn't embroidered in the longest time (over 10 years) but was pretty happy with how it turned out!

Our square

Hiding

Surprise!

Kids loving on Laura

Laura (left) and Gwen (our awesome art teacher) with the quilt

Coffee Dates

A few weekends in October Randy had some events/activities to attend, which left Andrew and I on our own for Saturday breakfast. Naturally we decided to hit up our local Starbucks for some quality time. He was especially excited to try a caramel hot chocolate and have a drink similar to mom's (my signature drink is a caramel mocha).   As always, they were great times with my favorite kiddo.