5 year old check up

Dr. Helene Sheena

75 percentile weight - 44lbs 6oz.
80 percentile height - 3 ft, 8.5 in.

Museum of natural science - after school!

Science museum is free on Thursdays!  In the inclement weather, we didn't have any takers but we had a great time indoors!

An astronaut!  How tall am I?

Churning the coin machine 

Snail shell or clam shell?  Make your observations and hypothesis 

Dinosaurs!

Oil from around the world 

- Lia

Carter's class

Practicing counting in VN 

He can count up to 27 but skips 8 (tam) so we are stopping there.  

Learning English and VN shapes

Hinh:  vong tròn, Vuông, Tam giác, 8 góc, 5 góc, thoi, trai xoan, chu nhât.

Learning VN animals through puzzles.

Nong trai: con ga trong, cuu, meo, heo, vịt 

Story time:

Lincoln said last night that he was afraid of the "eyes wide open" page and Carter studied llama's eyes today.  

That was an opportunity to name body parts in VN:

Mát, mui, miệng, chán, má, cầm, vai, lưng, eo, ngón tay, ngón chân, cù chỏ.

Reading the last words on each page.  He was able to "read" (remember) llama, llama, red, pajama, mama, run, busy & sleep 

Examining the pictures. Carter really gets into books.

Today's lesson lasted 30-45 minutes.  Good job focusing Carter!

Today is also the 2nd day he's been telling me when he needs to go "potty" and trying to keep a dry diaper, "không ướt!  Khô!"

Lincoln turns 5!

Lincoln walked to our bedroom sometime in the middle of the night, toward the morning.  I had him go potty and climb into bed with us.  He was probably too excited about his birthday to sleep.  :)  When Chris went to the bathroom, he stirred and said, "It's my birthday today." 

When I told him it was time to get dressed, he asked if I could bring in his clothes.  Ofcourse.  I watched him change, tired but so happy.  He got ready in our bathroom, stating "Daddy, it's my birthday today."  I watched him as he brushed his teeth, and then I brushed his hair.

We walked downstairs together and I showed him the Turbo tags that I had put on his treat bags.  There wasn't much of an impression, but when i picked him up after school, he said, "Mommy, you're the best mom ever.  Do you know why?  Because of your writing this (pointing to the tag) Lincoln Turbo paper.  Everybody liked it."  The PTO president was next to us and her heart melted.  Mine did too.

We headed to Chick-fil-a for our playdate with Marley and Jake.  Benan happened to be there too.  They played, ate, played some more; Marley's sister Jonna played ghost chasing them and they had a blast!  Then Lincoln got to open presents.  What a pleasant surprise that was!  Several Star Wars Legos & calendar, a Bumblebee Transformer and a monster truck.

When I asked him this morning what he would like to eat for dinner, he said sweets, candy.  I asked what entree and he said shrimp pasta without the green stuff (last night's shrimp linguine without the parsley).  Done.  I made that again tonight- without the parsley on his portion.  But he barely ate it- Daddy brought home salmon sashimi as an appetizer and Lincoln filled up on that (plus the whole nuggets meal from earlier). 

After dinner I surprised him with a birthday cupcake with a Turbo cupcake topper and candel and birthday present.  He really was surprised and thrilled.  His birthday video is precious.  He made his first birthday wish:  I wish for a good borthday and to grow big."

Daddy built the fort.  We went upstairs to brush their teeth and get the balnkets for the fort.  They played in it.  Then I surprised Lincoln with a flashlight and they got to play with that in the dark.  Lots of ghost sounds and giggles.

What a fantasitc and fun fifth birthday he had. 

Tonight duirng his turn for prayer, he said:  Cam on Chua cho Mommy, Daddy, Carter.  Thank you God for my birthday and my students.  For my bed, our house, and everything you give us. Amen."

I checked emails just now and Mrs. Lizzie wrote to us saying that Lincoln thanked her for helping him turn 5 today, and that she was so touched by it.  Earlier I had joined him during his lunch and instructed, "Truoc khi con ve hom nay, con cam on Ms. Lizzie giay con cho con duoc 5 tuoi."  He took it literally and told her right before the left.  He's got such a good memory and he is so deliberate. 

Thank you God for Lincoln.  Thank you for a healthy, smart kid who tries so hard.  He is a wonderful gift to us.

Santa Claus came to our old town

Mrs. Claus brought Santa because he doesn't drive, he only rides sleighs I Christmas Eve- to visit our friend and ex-neighbor Wendy Hackney's "holiday open house". They get to watch the neighborhood kids grow up, and this year Lincoln got to experience a magical Christmas w him.  He was concerned about whether Santa had him on the naughty list, thankful for his potty sticker chart, and thrilled that Santa gave him a sleigh bell and a light up Rudolph nose.  It was so exciting for me to watch.  All that elf work really prepped him for Santa.  

Toward the end of the night I asked L to go potty, that I would hold onto his bag and drawing.  He said he liked it so much that he wants to "tell Santa thank you but he's gone." I said he's in the back and L gave me his things and told me he'd be right back.  He went outside and told Santa thank you for the presents (and also asked him if it was him at the Children's museum.  More on that later.)

When I told Chris Nguyen, he said, "oh what fun it is to be a child," or something to that effect.

As Santa was leaving, Carter hugged the back of his legs, and said "Santa Claus come to town!"  Earlier he was the last to get dressed for the party, and I could tell he was wondering if he would get to change into nicer clothes too.  Then at the end of the night he didn't want to take off his sweater.  I guess he liked feeling handsome and all the compliments he got about his sweater... And hair.  :)

Thankful for the Scarlatellas and the Hackneys for making this experience possible.  And of course, Melissa the photographer and the Clauses.

Tonight ranks right up there with traveling w the kids to London & Paris.

Wendy hired her wedding photographer to come set up a green background and we were able to capture some fun shots!

This is our favorite:

Lincoln reads his first book!

Lincoln came home with a book in his take-home folder.  He took it out while he was having a after school snack at the bar stool- and eagerly read it to me.  I enjoyed every word, and he was so proud of himself.  He carefully read each word, trying not to look at the pictures on the page, but sounding out each animal word.  We took pictures!

He then read it to Daddy when he got home from work.

We received an email from Mrs. Lizzie just now- he wanted to read it to us so she allowed him to take it home.  How special!  

We also need to work on "high frequency words", he's at a DRA level 4 (beginner first grade).  

Jack-o-lanterns

Day 1:

Jojo's house.  His mom bought a pumpkin for us for Ms. Wendy's annual pumpkin carving party that night.  Together, we gutted 3 pumpkins.  We brought them to carve, but had so much fun inside eating bad talking to friends that we just took our pumpkins back home.

Lincoln & Carter's pumpkin is the first one.

Got our guts digging gloves on!

My favorite part:  first look of the guts!

Carter us getting a good feel of his new hands.

He's having trouble pulling out the stringy mass... Izzy keeps going!

Lincoln is grossed out.

See?

Day 2:

John invited us over to his all boys no-girls-allowed pumpkin carving party.  We almost ran out of time, but did get the deed done.

Ms. Joelle served mummies!

John has lots of Legos!

The boys played with them the last 30 minutes...

The parts are too small for Carter.  

Guess what he played with instead?

Meanwhile, Mommy is carving the pumpkin.  Lincoln picked out the stencil. Stencils make it easy!  Had to do it quickly bc John had to leave gut Art class...

The boys really enjoyed all of the Halloween decorations.  Creepy spiders, scary skeletons, sticky ghosts, and...

vampire teeth as party favors!  What more could a kid want??  Here they are trying to scare Ms. Porchia at our house.

Now we have our own pumpkin sitting on the table on the first floor waiting for some love!  Maybe it'll get done on Halloween...