Slice of Life

I have to admit that Aaron has been getting pretty left at the wayside sometimes :-(. Being number 3 of 4, poor guy doesn't get a lot of activities or time that is designated just for *him.* When Matthew (and even Nathan - though less) was his age, I had us signed up for Mommy and me music classes and an art class for him, etc. Aaron usually gets to be in tow while we shuttle his older brothers around. Sigh. He is pretty introverted so it is not as if he is *wanting* to do any classes, but I sometimes wonder if I am not encouraging him to go out of his comfort zone by default.

Anyway, I have been spending more time with him recently with some preschooly fun stuff we have been doing at home.

Some reading and writing readiness.

He has been working on writing and identifying numbers. Here is a cool playdough activity that helps kids learn their numbers.

I really want to focus more on Aaron. He just eats it up when I spend quality time with him. It's been hard for him these past 6 months - contending with a new sibling, being bumped from the baby position in the family, having two older brothers who seemingly are capable to do so much more than him. He has been really vying for attention. He really needs some TLC. I am trying to carve out more time for just him.

Lily has been getting into playdough, too. Though honestly, this girl has such a short attention span! She can do playdough *maybe* for 5 minutes, then it is off to find something else to do. Or if I am not ready to switch activities yet, she will proceed to throw the playdough and then become boneless and wail. No photo of that today!

Oh, but this girl is also so sweet. Here she is right next to me after we woke up from our group nap.

And she does like helping me bake. Her favorite thing is sitting on the counter and helping me whisk. When she whisks she gets batter all over the place. Fun, but messy. If I try to make things less messy then things are a lot less fun for her. . . and then as a matter of course, for me as well because again I have to deal with a boneless heap of screaming toddler while trying to finish our baking project. Trust me, I have tried it before. Here we are baking pumpkin bars.

Yes, we are working on having Lily learn to wait and be patient. It is not going too well right now :-(. I think part of it is a communication problem mixed with a very low frustration tolerance from Lily.

After baking we went to Serra Park. Lily insisted that she walk the dog.

The boys ran.

I brought the pumpkin bars to snack on.

And I love this picture of Phil. He looks so noble!

I love these photo filter apps on my iPhone. They make everything look so beautiful and fun, don't they? These little slices of time make all the chaos and mess of daily life seem to fade into the background :-).