Beach Trip, Take Two

We spent the last several days in Orange Beach, celebrating Memorial Day and relaxing! This trip was SO much better than the spring break trip that we took in March. For one, the weather as close to perfect as you can get. It was so warm, but there was a constant breeze blowing. Also, Grady really warmed up to the sand this time. He played and played! Pete taught him to build crab houses (and then they turned into alligator houses, frog houses, etc.) He was all about tearing down sand castles that we built for him. That's okay for now of course, because the whole point was to get him excited about playing in the sand. But the child is going to HAVE to have some "respect-the-sand-castle-creation" lectures soon! ha! He still isn't too wild about the water. I was just glad that we conquered the sand this trip, so we'll work on water when we go back in July. Susan, Jon, and Jenny...we REALLY missed you and wish you could have been with us!

Wolf Bay

We rode the ferris wheel at the Wharf

Ahhhh....the BEACH! (And please note...Grady is not sitting on a towel OR in his duck chair, but IN THE SAND!!!!!)

snack break...

Hey Pete, what kind of house are we going to build next?

Mom just thinks that I am going to learn to respect the sand castle creations... She's got another thing coming! I am the DESTRUCT-OR!

and my favorite picture of the trip:

Summer...it's almost official!

Ahhhh...the end of May. It's here! One more half-day of school and a teacher work day after that and I am officially on a break for summer! I'm so ready to get to hang out with Grady-man more. I am totally obsessed with the Children's Museum and Grady is loving it, too...so we plan to visit quite often this summer. We took him this morning for a couple of hours. He had a blast as usual. Wish they would have had a place like this when I was a kid! The last two visits, I either had a dead battery in my camera, or forgot the memory stick and was limited to my picture-taking. But I went prepared today, so I got lots of cute shots!

THE GEARS STATION

LEGOS
INTERACTIVE MAP OF JACKSON

STRONG MAN

WEIGHING CATFISH

ROCK QUARRY

BUILDING RAMPS

YEE-HAW!

We love the dancing room with all of the hats and mirrors and the big jukebox!

Zoo

A chilly trip to the Jackson Zoo... Who knew it could be so cold in mid-May??? (Obviously not us, as you notice we all wore shorts and tshirts and almost froze during our "picnic." ha!)
Grady seemed to be more interested in running around and climbing on things instead of looking at animals.

A baby giraffe was born at the zoo on May 3rd. Grady was fascinated with the giraffes. They were definitely his favorite animals of the day!

Sweet Story

In some ways, third grade has started to grow on me. There are still days that I miss kindergarten SO much and wish that I could go back, but there are things that I like about third grade that I couldn't do with younger kids. One in particular is read-alouds. I would read to my Kindergarten kids nonstop, but it was mostly silly rhyming stories and short little tales. Now I get to read stuff with so much more depth to my third graders. Especially the class I have this year...they are SUPER listeners and have grown to love reading as much as I do! We've read some great books this year. I wanted to share this one in case you haven't heard of it. If you like those classic dog-type stories like Where the Red Fern Grows (yep, read that one to my kids, too...I cried and they cried as well...) and My Dog Skip, then you will like this one, too. It's called Because of Winn Dixie. And it is SUCH a sweet book!
But if you are not a book lover like me and would rather watch a movie, then you are in luck because there IS a movie! My students watched it at school this week because we had finished the book. It is a cute, cute movie as well! Jeff Daniels is the dad and Dave Matthews also has a role in the movie. I am making Josh watch it soon! :)

All of this reminds me of being in fourth grade and having Mrs. Wilburn read aloud the best books to us! If any of my Yazoo friends are reading this, I'm sure you remember as well...she would read Willie Morris books to us and say the cuss words and we'd all freak out. Her reply was always the same... "I didn't say it, the BOOK said it!" And when she read Where the Red Fern Grows, we got such a kick out of the dogs' names (Ann and Dan...two of our classmates!).

So anyway, when I "grow up," I think I want to be a children's book author...

Random, I know... just my thoughts for the day.

But seriously, you should at least watch this sweet little movie! It's worth seeing whether you are a third grader or not!

Grady's First Skype

Dear Aunt Jenny,
I miss you! I am going to have to talk my parents into getting a camera for our computer like Pete has so I can talk to you more. That was really fun! Don't worry...I'm going to convince them to get me one! I can't wait to see you in June!
Love, Grady

Easter

Easter Bunny's goodies...
BUBBLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

checking out the new crayons...

After church, we had lunch with Josh's family at Aunt Vonnie's house. Grady had a BALL hunting for Easter eggs! He was a little pro!

Happy Easter!!!

***Disclaimer: My corny husband decided to make a post on the blog under my name without telling me (see previous post about dyeing eggs...) NO, I would not describe the color of the ruined eggs the way that he did on a blog post for all to see. In the future, Josh will have to sign in as himself if he would like to post! ha!

Dyeing Easter Egg Experiment

This year was round 2 for dyeing eggs with Grady. We had to restrain the poor guy in the high chair, or the cups with dye would have been empty before we started. We tried to avoid a mess, but ofcourse, Josh ruined any chance of that. Josh splashed one all over the eggs and a few ended up the color of terd brennel. We survived the potential disaster and managed to keep the cups from being toppled over on us. 

Momma, I promise I won't break them!

The new meaning of egg drop soup.

Evidence of minimal mess

Some eggs just never make it to Easter.

Backyard Baseball

Dad and Erin, these are for you...

3rd Grade Cafeteria Conversations

Kids say the darndest things. When you are a teacher, you hear so many funny things... The first year I started teaching, someone told me that I needed to keep a little notebook just to write down the hilarious stories. I have had some GREAT ones over the years... WHen I taught kindergarten, I definitely had more stories than I have in 3rd grade.....but still, I get a few every now and then that are just moments that crack me up... So here's one from Friday in the cafeteria:

Most of the time, my kids want to talk my ears off at the lunch table, but sometimes, they are so involved in their conversations, that I'm not even noticed even though I'm squashed in on the end of the bench like a sardine... oh, the joys of eating lunch in a school cafeteria every day! ha!

Well Friday was one of those days that they were chatting away to each other and I was just taking up space on their bench. ha. I returned to the table from heating my lunch in the microwave and found within 3 seconds of listening in to them that they were discussing how old their mamas are... Here's the conversation that made me bust out laughing:

Boy: Hey, how old's your mom? Is she 25?

Girl A: No, she's 32.

Boy: (shaking his head...) MAN! 32! (turning to another girl...) Hey, is your mom 25?

Girl B: No, my mom's 41. And my dog's 42...in dog years.

Boy: (eyes popping out of his head and shaking his head like he'd heard some awful news...) MAN!!! Old dog and old MOM!

I couldn't help it...I busted out laughing... They were dead serious. I guess I am ancient to them! ha! Funny what kids are thinking about.

The Paci-Thief

I am a bad mama. Grady still has a paci...but ONLY in his crib when he goes to sleep at night. That's it. I know, I know...I need to get rid of it. But mamas will do ANYTHING to get sleep, it seems. When I was Grady's age, my mom told me that the Easter Bunny needed a paci for her baby...and according to Mom, I just accepted it as that, no questions asked...and that was the end of the paci for me. Hmmm....... Josh wanted to do this at Christmas and let Buddy the Elf take it to Santa for an elf baby somewhere. But I didn't think that would fly with Grady-man, and so we didn't. So now, Josh has told me that I have no choice...the paci is going bye-bye. SO, Grady and I have been having some "talks" about it at night when we are doing the bedtime routine, getting out of the bathtub, getting his pj's on, etc. I told him all about the Easter bunny and all of the baby bunnies around the world that need paci's from big boys and girls who don't need theirs anymore... (Meanwhile, Grady listens to every word I am saying very carefully with wide eyes...) I am feeling good, like he's paying attention and might be possibly comprehending just a portion of what I'm saying. And then I ask the question... "Grady, are you going to be a big boy and give the baby bunnies your paci?" He looks straight at me and says REALLY loud and emphatically as he shakes his head, "NO!" Ok, so he DOES understand me... But the boy has a mind of his own for SURE! Lately, we've figured out that his favorite word on the planet is NO. But we've also realized that it's our fault... we say it to him all the time, so he's quite used to hearing it and knows exactly how to say it himself. ANYWAY, maybe he'll change his mind about the whole give-the-paci-to-the-bunny-thing. We'll see... Here are a few of his "bunny pictures"... He would NOT let the bunny sit in his lap, or on a bench near him. He liked it "over there" but not up close and personal. Poor kid...he was probably thinking this was the paci-thief and didn't want to get too close...