Z's Bday week: Favorite Things @ 4

In preparation for this blog post yesterday I read Zane's favorite things at three. Turns out not a lot has changed over the past year. He still loves super heros, of all kinds. He still loves to rescue people, but he has gotten more into pretend battles with people. Currently one of his favorite words is attack, specifically a Fozzy attack. As in Fozzy bear who would never attack anything, but he can't be convinced of that. Why do boys always have to be fighting? I guess it's just in that Y chromosome somewhere. Of course Ninja Turtles have been added into the rotation this year as well as minions. 

 

 

 

Zane still isn't a huge fan of actually playing with toys, but after reading last year's blog post I can see great improvement in his attention span. He does sit and build things with me for longer than two minutes now. We also can have much more in depth imaginative play scenarios now, which do sometimes involve using his toys. Just in the past couple months he has really started to like playing board games. He started playing card games around the first of the year, and still enjoys those, but the board games are a new development that I am very excited about. He still really prefers to have my attention at all times, but can do well playing by himself when he so chooses. Sometimes, on amazing occasions, he can even keep his brother entertained without murdering him, while I do the dishes or clean the house.

 

 

The biggest difference from three to four is that he is much more interested in learning new things. We spend a little time everyday doing school like things, learning numbers, letters, practicing counting, practicing recognizing what words start with which letter, and I constantly trying to find new and fun ways to integrate learning these things without just sitting down and doing worksheets. Don't get me wrong he does enjoy his work books and thinking out problems and mazes. There would have been no chance of that a year ago. He now recongizes all the letters all the time. We are working on learning what they all say, which I'm struggling to figure out how to teach him, but we're trying. He can count to 12, always, with no problems. Sometimes to 20, but the teens are confusing and he is working hard on getting them down. He loves putting all his knowledge to use, counting things at the store, or counting his toys, finding numbers, and letters in books and on signs everywhere we go. He is constantly thinking, asking intelligent questions, and is wonderfully curious. We have moved on from purely why questions, over and over, to more indepth things! Hooray!!

 

 

Also, over this past year, as Zane's attention span has lengthened (some what), he has really started to enjoy listening too and understanding the stories in books. Not just looking at pictures and having fun turning pages, but understanding what is happening in the story. He even sometimes gets the take away message, such as "you not stop to talk to people or the wolf eat your Grandma." The obvious take away from Little Red Riding Hood. The library has become one of his favorite places this year, though we haven't gone as much as we should since we have moved to OK. He "reads" to Rowan now too, which is equally as cute and the stories he makes up from the pictures are pretty accurate. Rowan has taken up his love of reading as well, but sometimes Rowan's "reading" ends with him throwing a book at your face. What use to be song time before bed morphed into story time over this year. To be honest daddy is much better at coming up with random, short, off the cuff stories. But I really enjoy night time snuggles, so I'm working on my imagination. He loves hearing stories from when we were growing up. He would prefer that they all have to do with snakes, but really anything exciting will do. Immediately after you tell him a story he will repeat as though it happened to him when he was little. He is a great story teller, singer, and all around performer. Maybe he just likes to be the center of attention at all times. 

 

That brings me to his current favorite thing to learn about, snakes!!! Occasionally lizards, but mostly snakes. We borrowed this book from the library of Grandma the last time we were at the farm and we have read it at least three times a day since. I am not a fan of snakes, nor do I care to learn about them, but Zane is fascinated by them and possibly terrified of them. He loves to learn all sorts of things about them and watch videos of them as well. I'm not super excited about this being on the favorite things list, but it truly is one of his favorite things to not only learn about, but also to tell stories about, and even to pretend to be, so it had to be included.

 

Of course technology still would have to be listed among his top favorite things, but sadly he looses this privelage a lot. He has new phonics apps on the iPad that I wish he could work with more, but iPad time is the first to go when he gets in trouble, so it is often gone early in the day. He loves movies of all kinds and unlike last year he can sit through an entire movie, but often still gets distracted midway through and starts running around crazy (another of Zane's favorite things). 

 

Lastly, this year I have to include playing with his cousins, and the rest of my family, onto the list. He absolutely loves playing with Maggie and Brendan (Brentan as Zane calls him). We frequently have play dates and I don't think anything brings him more joy except maybe playing with Grandma, who we also have frequent play dates with. The move and the transition has been hard on all of us, but seeing Zane completely adore his Aunts, Uncles, cousins, and Grandma makes it all worth while. Uncle Able and Aunt Kari are huge hits as well, sure to be moving up on the list with their new swimming pool and tent in their backyard. We miss a lot of the fun outings we use to go on in the STL, but our current favorite OKC adventure is the Science Museum which Zane loves and has been lots of fun to explore.

 

 

 

Ok that was a terribly long list, but a great view of what Zane loves at four!!

Zane's Fourth Birthday Week: A Year in Pictures

Zane's third year was a big one. It brought about lots of changes and with them lots of difficult adjustments. Zane has been quite the trooper through everything and I have seen him grow into a very big boy, capable of doing almost anything by himself. So to start of this year's birthday week blogging, here is a look back at Zane's third year, in pictures.

June 2013

 

July 2013

August 2013

 

September 2013

 

 October 2013

November 2013

December 2013

 

January 2014

 

 February 2014

March 2014

 

April 2014

 

 May 2013

June 2013

And that's it, year three in twelve pictures. I can see his face change through these, from a face that still had some baby boy in it, to a face that looks all big boy to me.

Ten on Tuesday

1. This was yet another fun filled week! Thursday I packed up the boys and headed to the farm so the rental house people could work in our house all day, fixing numerous things that have been wrong for far too long. We did have a great time at the farm, but of course the repair man did not come, nor did anything get fixed.

The highlight of this farm trip was the kittens in Grandma's garage. I do feel bad for the poor little things. Rowan was surprisingly gentle, Zane not so much.

 Zane noosling this little peanut.

2. Rowan actually liked the chickens more than the kittens. He loved watching them stomp around their little pin, then of course there was the joy of chasing the chickens! Nothing is more fun than that.

This outfit was made for chicken chasing. I have a picture just like this of Zane, chasing chickens, in the monkey outfit.

3. The other highlight was that there were ripe cherries, ready to be picked by little boys. This brought back so many memories from my childhood, when we had a cherry tree in our front yard and we were responsible for picking the cherries. Zane did great with it, he is such a wonderful worker. Rowan really wanted to climb the ladder, and finally got a turn when the picking was all done. 

 Look at these two cuties!

4. Friday we went to the science museum with Aunt Abbey, all her kiddos, Uncle Able, and Aunt Kari. The highlight of the trip for sure was that Able and Kari were there for the kids to show all there favorite exhibits. Everyone had an amazing time then we had a cook out at Able's, complete with swimming in his new pool!!

The Blakley Grandkids quickly overtook, and cleared out, the power play area. Uncle Able got in on the action as well. Poor little Everett sustained a bad burn to his foot at Uncle Able's after this so he can't "go fast" for a while. "Going fast" is Everett's favorite thing, but he seems to be doing well all things considered.

5. I worked all weekend so the the kids had a a boys weekend at home with daddy. I hate missing things, but I know they have a great time with just Zach as well. 

6. This picture sums up how things have looked in the great state of OK this past week. Thunderstorms every night, pouring rain, drizzly cool mornings, things that usually are not seen in Oklahoma during June. I am not complaining, I love sleeping during a thunderstorm and everything is looking so green and beautiful! I am also soaking up every day that the temperatures stay under a hundred degrees as I know those are days are quickly approaching.

7. After my long work weekend I was ready for some fun times with my boys. I was planning an indoor activity since I thought it would be terribly muggy outside, but turns out it was in the 60s and a gorgeous Monday morning. We jumped on this opportunity and headed to the zoo with Grandma!!!

Don't ask me why my son is wearing a Yankee's hat or why it was found on the floor of my husband's car. I am not ok with it and measures are being taken to find him a Cardinals hat ASAP!!

 The Lorikeets were out in full force since they had been inside during the rain the day before. The climbed all over all of us and my stroller. It was so much fun and I think Zane handled having birds on him better than I did.

 Here is Rowan, waiting for brother to get out of the snake house. Zane claimed he didn't want to see the snakes, but ended up needing to go. He came out saying "well, I'm going to have bad dreams tonight." Hysterical! Also, this is how Rowan prefers to ride in the stroller, feet up, leaned back, maxing and relaxing.

 Oh and he loved the carousel as well.

8. Today I tried to take Zane to Unpluggits to paint something for Zach, for father's day. I can say this here without spoiling anything for Zach since Zane painted about two strokes before seeing the huge indoor playground and bolting out of the painting room. What was I thinking?? It was gorgeous today as well, wish we had just gone to park, but the boys had a great time.

9. June is full of birthdays and the celebrations begin Thursday with little Everett turning two and having a Mickey Bday Saturday. Of course next Thursday Zane turns four, with his Ninja Turtle day of fun that Saturday. Then the following week little Levi turns five on the 24th and we are headed to SEMO the weekend after that so maybe we can get in on his bday fun as well. So a very happy birthday to all the June babies and Happy Anniversary to Abbey & Brent, and Emily and Justin, both with June wedding Anniversaries! I think I've covered all my bases.

10. This evening Zane requested to take a walk to "look for Ninja Turtles." He looks at every sewer cover, just to make sure no Ninja Turtles are coming out. He quickly told me it was a "nature walk" then proceeded to ask what nature was. "We should ask google what nature is mamma." Or you could take a look around son. We found mushrooms, Redbud tree seed pods, sticks, a random medal circle that looked like a hockey puck (not nature, but fun), a pine cone, a kid who looked like the redheaded kid from sand lot, but sadly no Ninja Turtles. It was a great time and my second round of physical activity for the day. God knows I could use all I can get!!

Happy Tuesday everyone!!

Ok Google

 Growing up whenever we didn't know something, or there was a question about some fact, the phrase that would be used around the Blakley house hold was, "Get the world books!" The World Books were an Encyclopedia Britannica set that took up the bottom shelf of our bookcase. They were a dark red with gold lettering and when you opened them the pages had a very distinct smell. The best one was obviously M with all the maps, followed closely by whichever one had the picture of the human body with the see through over lays that would add the vessels, then the bones, then the organs. Amazing to the little girl who wanted to be a doctor more than anything. There were World Books at our house, but Grandma Dotter also had a set, on it's very own little book case, in the back den. These were also used frequently for questions and fact checking. Grandma and Mom both use to sell  them at different points in their lives and they would tell us about which books they would take with them door to door. You had to choose books with the most pictures, or the most interesting stuff in them, and of course the ones that were the largest. The World Books were my source of information for all the papers I wrote in grade school and into junior high. Even through high school, as the internet just was becoming common place, the World Books were still frequently our go to source. But here is the thing about the World Books, there were things that weren't included, and they couldn't be updated without buying a new set. 

 

Fast forward twenty years and now the go to source, obviously, is Google. So much so that google now is used as a verb, as "let me google that for you." When any question arises the immediate response now is "google it!" I know what you're thinking, "Audra all this goes without saying, it's not blog worthy." But I say this because Zane's new favorite activity is Googling things. On my new phone the voice recognition option works well so I ask Google questions all the time. The Google voice recognition is activated by saying "Ok Google," followed by your question. Zane loves this!!! He comes up to me all the time and says, "Mom can you ask the Google Machine _____" whatever his random question might be. Sometimes I hear him around the house saying, "Ok Google, how do I get to Rowan's room?" "Ok Google, videos of Ninja Turtles." No he doesn't have my phone, he is talking to his pretend "Google Machine."

 

Sadly the voice recognition on my phone isn't actually good enough to understand three year old speak, so we Google things together. Originally he wanted to Google videos of tornadoes, so we watched a few different videos about tornado safety. I think these might have been a little scary, but he does have a healthy fear of tornadoes now and knows things like, don't drive during a tornado, go to the bathtub if you can't get under ground, put your helmet on, the basics. He frequently asks, "mamma can we drive in the rain, if there isn't a tornado?" (So the car being blown off the road might have been too much). Then he wanted to learn about snakes, so we watched some snake videos, which were equally as scary. In an attempted to make our googling more light hearted I suggested watching Ninja Turtle videos, which he did enjoy, but really prefers to be learning about something. For instance he was talking about snakes becoming purple minions, leading to the questions "Mommy can you ask Google if there are purple snakes?" Turns out there are, the Eastern Indigo Snake, which lives in Florida. Who knew?? Then we learned fun facts about it. We also looked up lizards and learned they clean their eyes with their tongues.  Now that's a fun fact for a four year old.

 

On Friday, after reading The Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, he asked to watch Wilbur's movie. "Sorry buddy they actually haven't made a movie about Wilbur's life yet." "No Mamma, you just ask Google and then we see movies of him." So we spent the time between Zane waking up and Rowan waking up watching Discovery Channel videos about naked mole rats. We learned about all sorts of research being done using them because they don't feel pain, nor do they get cancer, and they live to be incredibly old for a rodent species. We watched them digging tunnels and of course the highlight, by far, was watching the soldier naked mole rats fight off a snake. Zane made sure to show Grandma all the Wilbur's videos when she came over Saturday. And when I arrived home from work Saturday evening he had found a new favorite video of a frog escaping from a snakes mouth, which we then had to watch. It's actually pretty impressive, feel free to jump ahead, it's pretty long.Today at the zoo we were getting ready to go pet the sting rays, but first Zane wanted to ask google about them. 

 

I love watching him soak up all sorts of knowledge, remembering the things that he has seen and sharing little tid bits here and there. He told Grandma that Wilbur can't get sick and repeats random fun facts to me all the time. I'm so proud of how much he loves learning new things. Most of our googling is completely random knowledge, but probably isn't really pertinent for him to know. It's all about creating and fostering an inquisitive mind. Growing up with a thirst for knowledge, always asking questions, always wondering how things work, and learning everything we can about the world around us.  Isn't it amazing and aren't we so blessed to have every kind of knowledge, picture, and video you could ever imagine at our finger tips!

The Boys Pictures

Since I put off Rowan's one year pictures long enough I was able to do Zane's four year pictures at the same time. I had Abbey's friend, Heather Warren, take them again, and I think they turned out quite nicely. I'm sure if I was willing to chase my children around a park longer we could get more shots. However, they get tired and frankly I get tired of it as well so we go with what we have and there always turns out to be some great ones in the mix. We have yet to get a good shot of the two of them together.  I think it is physically impossible at this point, but such is life. Here is the link to all the pictures, but these are some of my favorites.

 Love this picture of Zane trying to "get" Rowan.

 The closest we could get to a brother picture.

 These two pictures are classic Rowan's face.

 Big brother "helping" Rowan, not safe at all, but adorable.

 This is a great one of Zane's big boy face complete with a real smile!

 Not so much his real smile, but still cute.

 This one in color is good as well, but Zane looks unbelievably pale next to the asphalt.

 This is the face that greats me every night when I get home from work, running to meet me at the door.

 And this just completely cracks me, capturing most moments in our house perfectly!

Ten On Tuesday

1. After last week's Ten on Tuesday, jam packed full of funtivities, this week there is much to report. I got sick again, so that is the least shocking thing ever. I'm back on antibiotics (which are making me feel miserable this time around) and have been wiped out for my past three days off. But by the grace of God, and possibly my googling pressure points that relief sinus pressure, I made it through my three in a row at the end of last week.

2. After not taking Rowan to farm camp to keep him from getting whatever fever bug was going around there, Rowan has managed to get sick all on his own accord. I guess Zane might have brought something back, but he never acted to sick. Istayed home with Rowan today and took him to the doctor who told us he has some virus, akin to hand, foot, and mouth, but different. He has white spots on his throat, a fever, and isn't eating much, but otherwise seems alright. So he is out of daycare for the week, home tomorrow with Daddy. Oh the joys of daycare!

This is actually Rowan on Saturday before he started feeling sick, looking just like his daddy did as a baby!

3. I hear farm camp was a success, even if it did get cut a day short, with multiple illnesses going around. There were turtles, a snake sitting, horse back riding, feeding/petting cows, lots of sheep, and tons of farm fun. I haven't really seen a lot of pictures yet, I'm dying for someone to put them all up on picasa or somewhere. Abbey did this post Sunday with some highlights, looks like lots of fun. Zach took exactly four pictures on the day he was there. So this is all I have, they are pretty entertaining. I love the look on Maggie's face. She is being very brave holding the turtle, but I can tell she would like turtle picture time to be over!

 I hear mom released the turtles into the wild after their fun times with the Blakley Grandkids.

4. Just for fun, here are Maggie and Zane the first year Zane came to farm camp. Turns out Rowan was at that farm camp as well, I just didn't know it yet!

This tiny, red, farm camp shirt is currently in Rowan's rotation of clothes.

 Love those sweet baby faces!

5. In other news we bought a summer swimming pool and it's now boxed back up to be taken back since it didn't hold air. Bringing me back to my motto of "make time to do it twice." The boys did have some fun in it Sunday before realizing it wasn't holding air. Rowan was a real champion, making it through splashes, falling into the water, and hoses directly to his head. He would come over to the side to catch his breath, but then was right back in the thick of things. They had a blast together, now we just need a pool that will last longer than a day.

Rowan's favorite part was spraying his brother!

 I have a beautiful play by play of the first time Zane took the hose to his brother's face. It is a right of passage really, which Rowan did great with.

 Look at that gut folks!

6. In preparation for swimming season Zane went to his first swim lesson last night. I think it went alright, though I don't think he did much more than kick in the water a little bit. He looked very timid and shy sitting on the side of the pool, but he did just what he was told to do and managed to not act like a crazy person, even when the boy sitting next to him was breaking all the rules. I was very proud of him for being so well behaved. Rowan screamed for fifteen minutes in childcare so the ladies came and found me to rescue him. That was less than ideal, but we shall try again. 

7. Grandma came by Sunday night for hamburgers and hot dogs and to watch the swimming fun. She came bearing Cheetos, like everyone should. Rowan loved them and I captured these classic Cheeto face pictures.

 Say Cheeto!!

8. We also got our first squash off our of squash plant Sunday and immediately fried it. It was delicious. Zane did try to eat it like an apple, hence the teeth marks on it. He was very proud, since none of our gardening ever worked in St. Louis! Today we picked our second squash which Zane is going to take to school tomorrow for their healthy eating unit!

9. In what I think might become a weekly installment, here is an adorable photo of Rowan dressed up in clothes that are too big for him. I truly cannot get enough of it and he seems to thoroughly enjoy it as well. This week, Rowan as a fire fighter!

 

This fire fighter must have his binki at all times. Sick boy!

10. Since it is officially June Zane's birthday party plans are coming together. We have landed on a Ninja Turtle themed brunch, in hopes that Uncle Able can come before work. I am pretty sure Zane has really only watched Ninja Turtles about four times, so I lobbied hard for something I liked more, like batman or minions, but he was hearing none of it. So Ninja Turtles it is! He is very excited and really thinks there should be more party prep than buying napkins and plates, but really there isn't. Possibly going to have a pinata and end the day with pizza (Ninja Turtle's favorite) and swimming if anyone wants to come back over. It's sure to be exciting! It's hard to believe he is almost four!

Here is Zane showing off his new Ninja Turtle swimsuit. You really can't get the full effect unless the shirt is pulled up, obviously.