Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Aaron on the ParentDish Website
If you head on over to the ParentDish website you'll recognize the little boy on their front page. I always thought it was a cute photo but its nice to see that someone else thought so too. Their news items rotate but this link should take you to the photo even after it drifts off the site.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Mother's Day
For mother's day we went to the Huntington Botanical Gardens in Pasadena. Grandma and Grandpa Meraz met us there. After touring the gardens and some lunch (where Aaron entertained us with his favorite mealtime game...'I am thinking of an animal...") we split up. Michael and I took Aaron to play in the children's garden, while Grandma and Grandpa went into the library/museum. Here are some pics from the outing.
At the very end of the day we were excited when a hawk flew down right near us to grab a lizard...it was beautiful! (He is in the center, this pic is him just taking off)
At the very end of the day we were excited when a hawk flew down right near us to grab a lizard...it was beautiful! (He is in the center, this pic is him just taking off)
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Playgroup Update
Aaron's original playgroup got together today for an afternoon at the park. It seems that the older they get, the more fun they have together. I've added an older playgroup photo from 2005 for comparison. They're growing fast!
Yes, there once was a little girl in the playgroup... Annabel. Her family moved to Arizona for her father's new job but recently returned to Novato in Northern California. Lael and I have stayed in touch and she recently sent me a photo of Annabel and her younger brother, Owen.
Of course, the four boys need to share the playground these days now that their younger siblings are hitting their 2's. Below is the complete group. All boys!
(Hayden, Lucas, Ben, Aaron, Zander, Jacob, Murdoch)
Yes, there once was a little girl in the playgroup... Annabel. Her family moved to Arizona for her father's new job but recently returned to Novato in Northern California. Lael and I have stayed in touch and she recently sent me a photo of Annabel and her younger brother, Owen.
Of course, the four boys need to share the playground these days now that their younger siblings are hitting their 2's. Below is the complete group. All boys!
(Hayden, Lucas, Ben, Aaron, Zander, Jacob, Murdoch)
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Happy Birthday David
Aaron's friend David turned 8 today and had his party at Pump-it-Up. New bouncers (and a larger variety) made the party even more fun.
Aaron and I gave the boxing bouncer a try with a Father-Son match. I thought the heavy gear would make him lose interest but it didn't. In fact, I've never seen him look so determined and focused.
"Time-out for daddy" was the last thing I heard and the picture below was the last thing I saw...
K.O.
Aaron and I gave the boxing bouncer a try with a Father-Son match. I thought the heavy gear would make him lose interest but it didn't. In fact, I've never seen him look so determined and focused.
"Time-out for daddy" was the last thing I heard and the picture below was the last thing I saw...
K.O.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Aaron at Kindergarten!
Yesterday morning we had our scheduled classroom visitation at the charter school we are considering for Aaron this fall. Well, our mind is definitely made up about the school (loved it!).
The teacher started with circle time where they talked about what the date was (in both English and Spanish), and then they had a question of the day (what kinds of transportation vehicles they had all been on before). She asked a lot of the kids to answer the question directly, including Aaron, and I was happy that he actually answered as I had coached him pretty heavily about being polite and answering the questions he was asked. Then they sang some songs and had a quick game of Freeze Dance. She then broke the class into three groups, a math center, a choice center (free play basically), and PE. Normally she would have had two academic centers and not just one but was short a parent volunteer.
We went with the PE group first, which was led by the parent volunteer, and it was just free play outside, not organized games or anything. Afterwards his group went to the math center, and Aaron did really well. Each child was given a paper bag filled with colored blocks that interlocked. The task was to build towers by attaching the blocks of the same color together (3 red blocks, 4 blue blocks, etc). Then they were to sort the towers in order from tallest to shortest. Lastly, they were to color in squares on a grid sheet corresponding to their towers. So, the task involved sorting, counting, and conceptual thinking.
Now, granted, Aaron had two of us (Michael and I) keeping him on task, but honestly he did really really well on his own and only needed help when he got to the grid part. Translating the concept of what he had built to coloring it on paper was a bit advanced for him. But no trouble building or sorting his towers. He did better than at least 3 of the other kids in the group of 6 kids .
At this point it was snack time, so we excused ourselves.
Aaron liked the visit and his special day, but he definitely made a point about not being big enough yet to go to this new school.
The teacher started with circle time where they talked about what the date was (in both English and Spanish), and then they had a question of the day (what kinds of transportation vehicles they had all been on before). She asked a lot of the kids to answer the question directly, including Aaron, and I was happy that he actually answered as I had coached him pretty heavily about being polite and answering the questions he was asked. Then they sang some songs and had a quick game of Freeze Dance. She then broke the class into three groups, a math center, a choice center (free play basically), and PE. Normally she would have had two academic centers and not just one but was short a parent volunteer.
We went with the PE group first, which was led by the parent volunteer, and it was just free play outside, not organized games or anything. Afterwards his group went to the math center, and Aaron did really well. Each child was given a paper bag filled with colored blocks that interlocked. The task was to build towers by attaching the blocks of the same color together (3 red blocks, 4 blue blocks, etc). Then they were to sort the towers in order from tallest to shortest. Lastly, they were to color in squares on a grid sheet corresponding to their towers. So, the task involved sorting, counting, and conceptual thinking.
Now, granted, Aaron had two of us (Michael and I) keeping him on task, but honestly he did really really well on his own and only needed help when he got to the grid part. Translating the concept of what he had built to coloring it on paper was a bit advanced for him. But no trouble building or sorting his towers. He did better than at least 3 of the other kids in the group of 6 kids .
At this point it was snack time, so we excused ourselves.
Aaron liked the visit and his special day, but he definitely made a point about not being big enough yet to go to this new school.
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