The t-shirt

Today I dressed Gillian in one of my favorite t-shirts. It's a pink shirt with a picture of a chocolate chip cookie and over the cookie it says "tough." This shirt is perfect for Gillian, my tough cookie. 

Tonight at dinner, I looked at her shirt and realized there was pen or marker on it. The more I looked at it I realized that there was a big circle drawn around the cookie. I asked her "What happened?" She said "I don't know." I continued to question her and she confessed to drawing on her shirt. This really irritated me. She has lost Manket until she can behave. 

Chalk pictures

John and Gillian spent the day at Grandma's house. They spent most of the day playing outside. Aunt Betty sent me some pictures of Gillian's chalk pictures. 

That's Gillian. Aunt Betty traced Gillian and Gilly added the tutu! Then she added more detail. 

Gillian laid next to her chalk picture. 

When I picked up the kids, Gillian proudly asked "Did you see my picture?" She was so proud. 

At dinner tonight she said "Oh no! I wanted to make Elsa's ice palace." John said "Well, if it rains tonight everything will wash away and you can make the palace." I love her picture and how excited she is to create something new. Can't wait to see what else she makes. 

Magnets

Gillian had Mad Science today. Mad Science is a program at her school where they do science experiments. Gillian loves Mad Science. Today they learned about magnets. But the only thing Gillian told me about was the magnet she brought home. "I got to color it. I made flowers, write my name and Baby Kenzie and the sun! Did you see? I made a sun!" 

I think she did an excellent job decorating her magnet. As soon as we walked in the house, she stuck it on a lamp. "See?! It's a magnet!" 

Back to School Night

Tonight was Back to School night at John's school. We got to meet his new teacher and some of the parents of his new classmates. His new teacher is very interesting and I think she will challenge John this year. 

Hanging outside his classroom were these two pictures. 

It says Jogging, Ocean, Has a sister and Nice. I love all the words he picked. 

I really like this one. It is math about John. Plus I like how one shoe is red and one is blue. 

Pictionary

When I went to get Gillian from school today, I found her in her classroom with some of her friends. They were sitting in a semicircle looking at a dry erase board. One little boy was drawing something on the board and they were all guessing what he drew. They were so cute raising their hands when they had a guess. Gillian saw me and came over looking very sad. "But I didn't get a chance to play!" Miss Denise heard her and said "If Mommy has time, you can go next!" How can you say no to that?!

Gillian was given a marker and she confidently drew a loopy line. I immediately thought it was a tornado. The kids guessed all kinds of things. Finally Clarissa said "A tornado!" Gillian would smile and shake her head. Miss Denise said "Gillian can you give us a hint?"  Gillian said "If you want. I can draw more." And she did. She drew all around her loopy line, until there was a big scribble all over the board. I wasn't sure what she drew. And her friends were just guessing random things. "A butterfly." "A dog." "A mountain." Finally I said "Gillian, we can't figure it out. Can you tell us." She giggled and said "It's just a silly fly." I love her imagination. She drew how the fly flew around (his whole silly path).  It was also really nice to see how she interacted with the other kids and how confident she was around her peers. It was a Great Mommy Moment. 

The picture

I found Gillian at school tonight sitting at a table coloring. She looked up at me and said "I coloring a picture!" I said "That's great but we have to go get John."  She said "Ok. I gotta finish it."  She colored a little more and then handed me a crayon and said "Write my name."  As we were leaving her classroom, she described her picture to me "It's Beauty and the Beast!"

In the car she continued to tell me about her picture.  "It's got all the princesses. Cinderella. Ariel. Who's Ariel?" I told her that Ariel was the little mermaid. She said "Oh. And her boy! Her boy has a dog." I said "Her prince is Prince Eric." Gillian pointed at her picture and then said "He's over here with his dog." I asked her who else was in the picture. She said "Jasmine. Sofia and her mommy. And her daddy and James and Amber." I said "Is Sleeping Beauty in your picture?" Silly Gilly asked "Who's that?" I reminded her that Sleeping Beauty was the princess that the fairies kept trying to change the color of her dress. She remembered and said "Yes. Her is over there in her pink dress!" I love that she saw all of these princesses in her little drawing. 

She carried her picture into John's school. All the Time+ teachers complimented her on her beautiful art work. Gillian was super excited to show John. John took one look at it and said "Nice job Gill." Then he turned to me and whispered "Does she know it's just scribbles?" I told him that Gillian drew a picture of all the princesses. He just shrugged his shoulders and put on his coat. Sometimes he has no imagination.  

Below is Gillian's beautiful picture:

The artist

Today we went to lunch at MJ's in Tinton Falls with Grandad. The restaurant overlooks a small waterfall. We were seated at a table by the window. John and Gillian were given crayons to draw on the paper-lined table. Gillian started scribbling right away and drew a rainbow. John, on the other hand, stared out the window before he started drawing. He drew a big blue circle and colored it in. He stopped and explained his drawing to Daddy, "It's a waterfall that has a hole at the bottom that drains to the ocean. Can I make the rock green?" He added his rocks and a big yellow sun. The whole time he was coloring he would stop and look out the window for reference and then continue. I asked him how big the whole was to the ocean. He said "Not too big. It's tiny. You wouldn't even know it was there!" I love that he took what was out the window and put his own twist on it. Love his imagination. 

Drawings and iPads

I was going through John's book bag tonight to get this week's word list and I found a drawing. The drawing was a house on top of a tall mountain with a twisting road. The drawing was on the back of one of his worksheets. One look at the picture and I knew it was Daddy's grandparents house. What amazes me is that John has only been to this house a handful of times, but his drawing is pretty accurate. I asked him what the picture was and he said "It's my Gigi and Pop-Pop's house. But I didn't get to finish it. I didn't get to color in all the grass!"

After Gillian got her PJs on tonight, she went to find Daddy in our room. She didn't find Daddy, but she found his iPad. Before I realized it, she had the Netflix app open and said "I watch Wonder Pets! I push it?" And she tapped the screen and started watching an episode of the Wonder Pets. She is too smart!