ABCs

We've been working with Noah on his ABCs and while he knew his letters, he had shown little interest in learning the sounds they say, etc. That is, until we went to San Antonio several weeks back. We took a DVD for the kids to watch called The Letter Factory (Leapfrog). Since we were in the car driving, and Noah didn't have anything else to do, he watched it. Suddenly, the kiddo is SO interested in the letters and the sounds that they make. Here is a video I took last weekend of him saying the letter sounds.

Little Thinker

I'm going to start posting a continuing series entitled Little Thinker. Some of the questions Colin poses to us are thought-provoking, while others are downright hilarious. He's beyond the simple "Why?" questions and now is putting far more thought into his questions. It's always interesting trying to determine how he came up with the questions he asks, as many times they are out of the blue. So, without further adieu, here are some of the more recent examples of the questions Colin has asked.

"Why don't people live on Pluto?"
"What if we were out to eat and I threw Earth Ace in the trash? Where does he go?" (Earth Ace is a character from the Planet Heroes from Fisher-Price)
"Did you know that all drains go to the ocean? But why are they so dark?"
"Why do I have to be big?"
"What do I do to make myself not grow up?"
"Did you and Daddy get married on Earth?"
Standing on a bridge at the zoo, looking at ducks swimming below - "What would happen if I fell?"
"Why does the moon follow us? Does it want to go home with us?"
"Why does my poo-poo come out of my bottom?"

San Antonio Trip

At the end of April, we went on a vacation to San Antonio. We spent four days there and visited the zoo on Wednesday and went to Sea World both Thursday and Friday. We spent all day each day at the parks, going right through the kiddo's naps and they did just marvelously. But as you can tell in the picture in the link below, they quickly crashed once in the car. Noah was out before we even got out of the parking lot. It was a blast and Sea World was a huge hit. Feeding the dolphins and the sea lions were great hits, and Colin loved the Shark Reef.



Shamu's Happy Harbor, a play area for kids, was a big hit as well. It had a huge jungle gym, probably spanning half a football field. It also had a small ferris wheel and a miniature roller coaster that Colin just loved. Noah was upset that he couldn't ride, but he missed the height restriction by 3 inches and they wouldn't allow him on.

On Saturday we stopped by the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch just north of San Antonio (next to Natural Bridge Caverns) and went on a drive-thru safari where we were able to feed lions and tigers and bears - oh my.... The lions looked more like buffalo, the tigers reminded me of zebras and the bear sure looked like an ostrich. We also saw giraffes, rhinos (although they were behind fences) and even got to go into a goat petting/feeding area that the boys just loved.

See the link below for pictures of our trip:

http://picasaweb.google.com/westerfamilyphotos