Teaching math concepts to a 3-year-old

Today Colby brought home worksheets from school showing how they had been practicing with the concept of zero. Following the suggestion on the bottom of the page, I started quizzing him about things we have zero of at home.

How many sisters do you have?

How many cats do we have?

How many older brothers do you have?

Colby happened to be eating jelly beans at the time, and he quickly caught on and said, "and when I eat all of these jelly beans, there will be zero left!" He gets his brains from me.

I left the room but could hear the conversation between the brothers continue:

Colby: Hey Tyler, you see these jelly beans? See, I have some now, but I'm going to eat them. After I eat them, how many will I have?

Tyler: Coffee!!!

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And in case you think the kids are the only funny ones around here, witness the exchange that took place earlier this evening:

Tyler: What's a tuba?

Brian: A little more than a one-ba.

The tooth comes out!

It seems like only yesterday his first tooth was coming IN, but.....

After only two days of wiggliness, Colby's first tooth came out! The anticipation leading up to the big event was a little stressful for him, but in the end he was very brave and let Brian get it out for him.

Shortly after the tooth came out, he had to call Grandma & Papa and tell them the news.

Here's my cute boy with his tooth missing, along with one of the apples that did most of the hard work for him.

We found the last phrase in this video to be quite humorous:

Try, try again

"'Trying' is quitting with honor.'
- Ropes course guy on The Biggest Loser

Uh, no

Driving north on the 14 freeway, there's a bulletin board that states,

"Pets are people too. Love them. Don't abandon them."

Uh, no.

I'm assuming it's a reaction to so many people leaving their pets behind when they lose their houses. Fair enough. Yes, love your pets. Yes, find them a home or at least take them to the animal shelter if you can't take them with you. BUT..

Pets are *not* people. People are people. There's a big difference.

Yes on 8

Just to clear up any confusion, if you vote YES on Prop. 8, you're saying that you want the following phrase added to the Constitution:

"Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California."

From the ProtectMarriage.com website:

Vote YES on Proposition 8 to overturn the outrageous Supreme Court decision and restore the definition of marriage that was approved by over 61% of voters. Proposition 8 is NOT an attack on gay couples and does not take away the rights that same-sex couples already have under California’s domestic partner law. California law already grants domestic partners all the rights that a state can grant to a married couple. Gays have a right to their private lives, but not to change the definition of marriage for everyone else.Passing Proposition 8 protects our children and places into the Constitution the simple definition that a marriage is between a man and a woman.


I will be voting YES on Prop. 8 and if you're in CA, I urge you to do the same.

More Kid Quotes

Recently overheard while the kids were doing a puzzle together:

Colby: "You're the best brother. You're the best brother I've ever had in the whole world."

Tyler: "Yes, I AM!!!"

New Favorite

I loved this song the first time I heard it, and it's fast become my new favorite. I want it played at my funeral.

Kid quotes

Saturday night, we let the kids join us for about 5 minutes while we were watching Star Wars. We haven't let them watch the whole movie yet, but they love everything Star Wars, so we figured we'd let them have a little peek. One of the scenes they watched included the famous quote from Yoda: "Do or do not... there is no 'try'."

Star Wars preaches a lot of "interesting" philosophies, but this is one I wasn't expecting to hear from Tyler: "Why did Yoda say, 'Don't try?'"

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On the way home from school, we were talking about Colby's harvest party at school tomorrow and how I would be coming to help out. Colby seemed pretty excited, so it surprised me when he said, "Ok, I'll try not to have fun." Thinking I must have misheard him, I said, "You'll try NOT to have fun?" His response was, "Yeah, because last time you came, it went by really fast."
Apparently "time flies when you're having fun" works in reverse too. Or at least it's worth a try.

Good news, musical road fans!

This article was in the newspaper today. The musical road is back!!!

Ring, bells, go ting-a-ling-a-ling

Today we enjoyed a real treat- Colby and his class played their handbells at the school's weekly chapel. Such beautiful music and precious kids....

Decisions, decisions

On Friday, Brian and I hung out at Daisy's Costume Shop for a little while. It's a cool little locally-owned place just filled to the brim with costume stuff. We walked in with no real ideas, fiddled with Beauty and the Beast for a little while (but decided the Beast head was way too impractical and uncomfortable for Brian), and ended up with Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. We'll look like an elf and a fairy on growth hormones. I mean, how many 6'8" Peter Pans have you seen? Or 6' tall Tinkerbells for that matter? Who cares, we'll have fun.

Anyway, I digress. At Daisy's, one of the girls who was helping us was Robin, and she had the *cutest* haircut. It was short and sassy, and she wore it really well. So of course I started thinking, "Hmmm... I might like to go short again." I got the name and number of her stylist.

I'm still going back and forth, though. I really liked my hair when it was short and spiky in the back. It was easy to fix, and fun.

But I also like it long. Right now, it's the longest I've ever had it since I was probably.... like 10 or 11. Of course Brian prefers long (why are men always partial to long hair?). He doesn't mind if I cut it, though. He suggested doing something in between first, to see if I like it without going so drastic. But that's half the fun of going really short! haha I feel like my hair is just blah like this... it needs some oomph and fun to it.

I dunno... I suppose I should keep it long at least until after my stint as Tinkerbell. I'll be taking comments and advice until then. :)

A Chicken Revelation

No, I've not had a visit from that big chicken in the sky. By "chicken revelation," I mean a revelation about the way I've been cooking chicken.

Now I don't claim to be a chef by any means, just as a disclaimer. So please don't laugh at me if you think this is silly. Well actually, go ahead, I won't hear you anyway.

The revelation is...... if you thaw the chicken before cooking it in the crockpot all day, it tastes much MUCH better! Previously, I had just thrown in the frozen chicken breasts with the other ingredients and called it a day. The meat would always come out really dry... like, need-a-drink-after-each-bite dry. I assumed it was the recipes I was using, because they all came from the same book. Last week, though, I had some chicken already thawed, so I used that instead of frozen like usual. Wow, what a difference! We tried another previously so-so recipe tonight and sure enough... much better!

Call me El Pollo Loco, but I just can't get over how much better our dinner was tonight. So that's my revelation for today. Check back soon for more gourmet dining tips.