Star of the Week

Alice's class pick a "Star of the Week" each Friday.  This past week, Alice was the "Star".  She came home that Friday and couldn't wait to tell me she as she jumped around shouting "Mommy...I'm Star of the Week, I'm Star of the Week, I'm Star of the Week!!!!!"

As proud as I am of my Alice being the Star of the Week, this also entailed work for me....
On Monday, the Star is to bring a poster about all the things she likes and include pictures of Family and Friends.  On Saturday I visited Michaels and picked up poster board, stickers and jeweled dots. I also printed out pictures of Alice with family and friends from this past year.  If I don't say so myself...the poster turned out fabulous.  It had fun pictures, stickers of princesses, cupcakes, hearts, stars, Dora, Hello Kitty and flowers - all the things Alice loves.  I then laminated the entire poster to keep all grubby fingers from messing up the pictures ;-)  Lastly, I added jeweled dots for "treasure" around the entire perimeter, since Alice adores finding treasure.

So what happens Monday morning??? Alice wakes up with a 102 fever!  The poor Star had to stay home for 2 days and get over a cold before returning to school on Wednesday to finish up the week as the Star.
For the weekend, the Star takes home Dangles, the classroom stuffed monkey.  Dangles is to go on adventures with the Star and write in his journal about his visit.  Dangles' visit happened to fall on the weekend before Halloween.  We had already made plans to take Alice to a costume party at Sammie's house on Saturday.  Since Alice was going as Sleeping beauty, it was only natural for Dangles to go as Prince Phillip.  My next assignment included a trip to Michaels (again) to buy felt, ribbon and glue to create a costume for Dangles!

Dangles goes back to the classroom tomorrow, but I still have to create a scrapbook page and journal about Dangles' visit and his adventures at Alice's house.  We have pictures of all the places we ate at, pictures from the Halloween party, and pictures of Alice and Dangles at the house, but (as with the poster) I have the need to go above and beyond most parent's expectations.  Larry helped me post Dangles on Reddit and ask for some Photoshop help.  So, in addition to the normal adventures he had with Alice this weekend, we will be journaling about some additional adventures he had playing NBA Basketball, Climbing the San Francisco bridge, being abducted by aliens and taking a space walk.

Well....I'm off to print all the pictures :-)

Sunday

Alice and Cristy chilling out on a lazy Sunday, resting up after a serious bout of silly.

Homeland Security

Alice and Cristy were detained at a checkpoint close to the capital last weekend.

Potty germs....

For some time now Alice has been talking about potty germs and is insistent on either washing her hands or using hand sanitizer after going potty. She also has a funny move where she wants to give you a high five and then tells you that she has given you potty germs. Now you BOTH have potty germs and must wash.

At school they have been talking about germs and how they are spread. They even had a doctor come and talk to them and they did an experiment with glitter on the hands to show them how easily germs are spread from hand to hand. At first I thought it was a clever way to illustrate the point, but Alice is becoming a bit germaphobic.

Two examples....
One day Alice was cuddled up next to me on the couch watching a show. I sneezed into my hand ... Covered like we have all been taught... Alice instructs me to go wash my hands. I said I would do it later. A few seconds later, Alice scoots away from me to the other side of the couch.
Another evening and it is bath night. I start to pour the bath water and Alice needs to go potty. I lift the toilet lid for her to go. I proceed to place my fingers in the water to test the temperature. Alice looks at me in horror and tells me I have infested her bath water with potty germs. She then tells me to empty the tub and start again. When I told her it was a waste of water and I would not drain the tub, she changes her mind of where she wants to bathe, and now insists on taking a bath in her bathroom.... And by that way will get fresh bathwater.

She isn't totally consistent on the rules, but I will say that after I use the bathroom these days.... A little voice in my head sounding like Alice always reminds me to "wash your hands...."

Sweet Berry Farms

This past weekend we took Alice to Sweet Berry Farm in Marble Falls for a Halloween event. The drive was scenic and the Farm was fun albiet crowded. We started with a pony ride, then a hay ride, then we picked flowers, stuffed a scarecrow and picked out pumpkins. We left tired but Alice had a great time. We will go back next year.... But we will arrive earlier :-)

Let's try a new place

For dinner tonight, Alice decided she wanted pizza and she wanted to go to a new place. Although not new to Larry and me, we took Alice to Mangia Pizza. She stayed seated, ate and played with her doll Blythe except for the potty break in which she chanted "I gotta to the potty" over and over while walking through the restaurant to the other customers amusement.

Flower Girl

Uncle Andy got married this past weekend. This was Alice's first wedding and she got to be a flower girl. She did a fantastic job even though she had a hard time staying quiet and still up front with the wedding party during the ceremony. It was a special day for all and Alice was excited to get a new Aunt... Aunt Jen.