Caterpillars + Cookies = C Day!

Welcome to C Day!!

The first thing Dylan wanted to do on C day, was "Dots." I'm telling you, those things are a success. So we did two Confessions pages. The first one was a simple dot page.

Confessions activity

The second one was a letter search. I had him "dot" all the Cs on the page. He got most of them on his own. He only needed help with three of them. I was so proud! he was pretty proud of himself too.

After that, I told D that I had a special book for him.

I loved If you Give a Mouse a Cookie when I was a kid, so I had to get it from the library for him. And there was a HUGE copy! He was pretty excited about the really big book! We read it a few times before we took a break for snack time. I told him he could have a cookie and a glass of milk like the mouse did. He said, "Great! I want a straw like the mouse too!"

[Side note: Do you notice my shoutout to baseball? Since football season ended yesterday, it is now time for me to get excited about baseball season! Opening Day is right around the corner! Go Cardinals!]

Dylan has always been a HUGE Eric Carle fan, so it was obvious that we would have to include the Very Hungry Caterpillar in our C Day. In the afternoon we read the book, watched the animated cartoon, and had a caterpillar snack.

I saw a picture of the caterpillar snack on Pinterest, but (of course) mine didn't turn out as perfect as the one online. It's kind of hard to see in this photo, but he had an apple slice body, a Babybell for his head, and cut up fruit leather for his antenna and legs. Here's a link to the original source. Maybe if you make it, you'll be more successful than I was.

However, Dylan liked it so much that he wouldn't eat it. Every time I took an apple slice out, he would grab it and put it back. He just wanted to look at it. So eventually, I had to take the whole snack apart so he would eat the apples and cheese. I love that even if my craftiness isn't successful, my son still loves it. He is so supportive.

This evening we went out for dinner with Mom & Bob and I told Dylan he had to eat something that had a C in it for C day. Before we got to the restaurant he said, "Mommy! C like Cheese!" So, naturally, I agreed to Mac & Cheese at dinner.

I had so many more activities to do today, but we just didn't have enough time. Maybe when the month is over, we can go back and do review days where we do games and crafts that we missed the first time around?

*That is actually Dylan's Longhorn from TX,
but he calls it a cow...so  he was included in the photo

Loving the Outdoors

Well, Josh is gone. After many LONG delays, rescheduling, and frustration (due to the crazy storms last night), he finally took off this evening heading to his last training school in California. I’m already sad that he’s gone (again) but at least I can sit here and smile as I continue to write about all the fun we had over the last two weeks.

There was a morning during the first week that Josh was here that I just couldn’t resist going outside. We’ve had some gorgeous weather over the past two weeks and we tried to spend as much of it outside as possible. That morning, we headed down to Ben Butterworth Parkway. For those of you not from the area, it is a walking trail along the Mississippi River that stretches for miles through Moline.

We took a long walk along the river and then let Dylan burn off some energy at the park. The playground is kind of shaped like a ship and there’s a really tall slide that, I think, is supposed to look like the crows nest? Well, Dylan wasn’t intimidated by the height at all. As a matter of fact, he climbed those stairs several times, passing up the smaller slides in favor of the huge spiral one.

He’s quite the adventurer! For being only one and a half, he’s such a rock star! I think he may have been showing off a bit for Daddy. Josh was at the bottom of the slide to pick him up and swing him around in circles every time, so that was probably another big part of why Dylan braved the top of the ship so many times.

On the other hand, he was not really a fan of the swing. For a kid who loves to rough house and be thrown around, he wasn’t all about flying through the air in swing form! Not even with Daddy holding him on the swing. But after clearly telling us he was through with the swings, he was running back to the tall, curvy slide in no time!

Back a home a few days later, Dylan got an early Easter gift from Grandma Linda, Grandpa Bob, Great-Grandpa Ben & Great-Grandma Cathie…his own slide for his backyard! He loved it! It was even better when Daddy gave him an extra push so he flew down extra fast! He also likes to stop himself before reaching the very bottom and then jumping off into the grass. Once again…such a boy!

We also got to celebrate Opening Day! I was happy to see that ESPN was celebrating the day by showing the Cardinals vs. Marlins game. Dylan and I got dressed in our awesome St. Louis gear while Josh wore his Tigers shirt. I am a baseball girl, and getting to watch the first game of the season with my boys made it the perfect evening. We even had my parents over for dinner! One of many great nights.

These two weeks together was so wonderful for Josh & Dylan. Dylan got to spend time with his favorite person (Yes, he’s a Daddy’s boy and I am totally okay with that. It’s easy when he’s got such a great Daddy).

And Josh got to really experience how much Dylan has started talking and communicating. He learns so quickly! Josh taught him a few really funny things while he was here and wouldn’t stop smiling the whole time. I’m sure it was the combination of how fun it was and how proud he was of his little man.