Parker’s music class at co-op put on a little Mother’s Day program today.  Too cute!

My children LOVE commercials.  I’m always being told, “Mommy!  You need <fill-in the blank>.  It’s only $19.99 and then you get a free ice scrapper!”  Last year it was all about Pixos.  Pixos, Pixos, Pixos was all I heard.  And no amount of talking could get them to think that Santa would bring them anything other than Pixos.  In fact, when Parker was sitting on Santa’s lap, he was too shy and giggly to say anything, but eventually he did lean into Santa’s face and blurt out rather abruptly, “PIXOS!”  Poor Santa didn’t know what to think!

Anyway, don’t tell them, but Santa actually brought them a cheap knock-off called Magic Beads, which got even better reviews than the Pixos did on Amazon.  The Pixo frenzy on Christmas Day went exactly how I imagined it.  They were excited beyond belief to get the Pixos, they jumped up and down and squealed while Mommy and Daddy opened the extraordinary amount of packaging.  Then the creative juices began flowing … and along with that the bleeping beads flowed all over the floor!  Not only that, Sophie is the only one with the attention span to complete even one design.  Needless to say the Pixos don’t make it out of the closet very often.

Today was one of the rare days that the Pixos made an appearance.  All went well … until the bleeping beads went all over the floor!  Sigh.  It’s too bad they don’t make refills.  Shhh…

Sarah working hard:

Parker hiding his work until it was done

Sophie hamming it up

Sophie’s Pixo Kitty Cat

Parker’s Great Pyramid of Giza

At the Davis house we are learning about symmetry.  One simple little project we did involving symmetry was to fold a piece of paper into fourths, draw a design on it, lay it on a folded towel and punch around the design using a giant pushpin (but not so much that the design comes out).  When done, unfold and see the symmetric design.  This has been a popular activity around here and much requested.

Even though Sophie doesn’t know how to read and can only write a couple of words she certainly knows how to express herself!

This one is titled: ‘Little Sisters Don’t Get Into Big Sister’s Money Bank’

Note the detail: curly hair, big frown.  Yep, that’s Sarah!

About the next picture, I say maybe I say, “Sophie, Stop!” too much.  Dan says she wrote this because stop is the only word she knows how to write.  What do you think?

Sophie’s art class at co-op last week made body collages.  I LOVE Sophie’s collage – it makes me smile everytime I look at it.

Sarah learning to use the abacus.  Note the intense concentration!

I don’t remember where Parker first heard about the number googol, but ever since he has been fascinated with it.  So, when I saw the book Can You Count to a Google by Robert E. Wells at the library, I snatched it up!  It’s a very well written book and we had a fun time with it.  It starts with the number one and keeps adding zero until it gets to a googol (a one with 100 zeros!).  It’s very engaging and captures the child’s attention right away.  The first page reads, “If you’re looking for a really big number, it certainly won’t be 1.  One is the number of bananas you can balance on your nose, if you’re a good banana balancer.”

Here is a partial dialouge of the conversation we had while reading this book …
Mom: How long would it take you to spend a million dollars?
Parker: Oh, about 2 days.
Mom: What would you buy if you had a billion dollars?
Parker: A Dollar store!!!

Parker, Sophie, and Sarah are budding gardeners.  They are always digging in the dirt, tending to various plants, etc.  Imagine how excited they were to discover real live onions in our front yard!!!!  (The children do not get their green thumbs from Mom and Dad!)

Sorry for the poor picture quality – don’t know what was going on that day!

I find myself trying to steer clear of messy projects even though I know my kids would enjoy them. The girls especially love to paint but I don’t love cleaning paint off the walls and floors for days after. I found some paint markers (kinda like bingo dabbers) and thought it was a perfect solution!  All the mess ended up on the kids and not the walls!

Sarah showing off her picture of a baby.

The kids and I have been a little stir-crazy this week.  It’s been too cold to go outside and even snowed a tiny bit on Monday!  Today was a nice day so we took advantage of it!  The ground was still wet but they and their friends used the opportunity to make mud sculptures!