Preschool

I am so excited about the preschool we chose after touring several.  Relinquishing control over Grant and placing trust in someone to nurture and teach our child was made EASY with this school because of the people that are involved.  He loves getting ready for preschool and he can't wait to get out of the car and see his friends and go to school. However, he forgets for a moment that mommy is leaving and the tears flow but only for a moment.  When I pick him up he's happy and says "preschool is cool".

The first day I picked Grant up from school the teacher gave me a class picture.  At that moment the kids were coming in from the playground and one little boy crying hysterically vomitted his lunch all over the carpet.  For days Grant looked at his class picture and pointed out the boy who got sick.  We talked about asking if he felt better next time we saw him.  The next time I picked Grant up from school the same little boy who had gotten sick was playing with Grant. Grant said he was funny so I told the teacher that he made a friend.  We discussed the vomitting incident and to my surprise the little boy had thrown up that day too. So in my head I thought does Grant think this kid is funny or does he think the site of vomit is funny.   I swear Grant gets sarcasm already with his parents being Dave and I.

Grant for the most part is very reserved until he is comfortable with his environment.  I picked him up one day and the teacher told me she didn't know he had it in him. And of course I know he does because he's a wild jumping wiggling never sit still kind of kid at home.  Story time everyone was suppose to sit down and the teacher told me Grant kept getting up and would try to make eye contact with another kid and coerce them to come play. Another instance Grant apparently didn't want to be bothered with school work and wanted to play with the toys instead. So she told him he could play after he traced his name and letters. She said he came over and did it as fast as he could and then ran off to play.  She didn't expect him to already know how to do it so we got a laugh out of it.  Parent teacher conference is coming next month, I'm worried we may have the class clown child. He tells me, "I'm funny mom".  Gonna have to keep an eye on this one.

My first day of preschool!

Waiting for all his classmates to get their picture taken

Grant loves all construction and work vehicles, especially cranes. He says he wants to build skyscrapers.   Engineering degree possibly.

The school practices the fruit of the spirit listed on the left.  If your little star with your name on it ends up on the cart of fruit it means you are not practicing either patience or kindness or something.  I think its a great way to teach some wonderful values.

Telling the class who he is. Kind hearted boy who loves cruise ships and his fireman boots. when I showed him this picture he said "I'm happy".

This week the class is working on the letter "B" so we brought nutritious snacks to share with the class starting with "B" for butterfly

15 minutes of Fame

1. audition 2. call-back 3. booked
  Grant booked his first commercial for Garanimals!

This year Grant has been lucky enough to be going to auditions a couple of times a month.  He also is really enjoying it and says its "fun."  Not sure he fully understands it all because we are one of the few that cancelled our cable TV years ago and watch Netflix.  So he's probably never seen a commercial.   But he usually gets to play with a toy, answer silly questions or do something fun for his audition.   Auditions happen rather quickly.   The commercial is about a toddler who is in a dinosaur museum and his mom isn't paying attention when he pulls the head off of a dinosaur skeleton and of course it completely comes apart.   Grant was cast for a principle role in a commercial along with 2 other child stars.  One, who's parents are both TV actors/actresses and I must say she was very cool and Grant loved playing with her son.  At this age they like to choose 3 toddlers on set, a back up plan in case of melt downs.  It was a grueling long 6 hour day before they got to the kids scene.  We entertained the boys in a holding room for 6 hours by playing simon says, red light, green light and other games.  By the 4th hour of straight playing in a room with no TV or toys they finally took the first boy to wardrobe.  Once dressed he spilled water all over himself so they then took the 2nd boy to wardrobe and marked him in the shot where they wanted him but no filming. As it turned out, the first boys shirt dried and they took him to the set and got the shot they wanted and said "its a wrap."  So long story short we waited 6 hours.  Grant never got to put his wardrobe on or film. He did get the credit for being booked out of 4000 kids and can put it on his resume for exposure and he did get paid. My heart almost broke for him when we were leaving because he wanted to know why he wasn't getting dressed because he wanted to go the museum.  It was a learning experience and I now know the procedure and can explain it to Grant for the next time.   He did have fun playing with his new friends and the moms were great.

Grant at his fitting for wardrobe, the orange outfit above. Below is him waiting to be called.  They had him sit and hold his arms out to gage how long they wanted the sleeve to hang or the pant to fit. The seamstress tailored it to his needs. 

Walking to the holding room across the set while they turn the lobby of this hotel into a museum

Our view from the holding room. 

Left to right, Ocean, Huxley and Grant.  Wish I would of gotten a better picture of these guys

Setting up the green screens for the shot.

Wardrobe trailer

Literally nothing to do in this room except play all over this couch, simon says, red light green light.  There were no toys, TV, and it was small. Added bonus is it was right off the set so it was also expected to keep 3 toddlers fairly quiet while they filmed other scenes.  We were in this room for 6 hours and the boys did really well.

Vacation

We were overdue for a real vacation.  Not one where we vacation wherever Dave is stationed with the Army. Although those are fun and I love to travel it was nice to get away as a family with no work.  This was our first real vacation in five years and we are going to make it a practice to do it yearly.  We went on Carnival Cruise lines to the Mexican Riviera and stopped in Puerta Vuerta, Cabo, and Mazatlan.  The crew was fabulous and so attentive. Excellent entertainment, I saw a couple comedy shows while the boys slept. The beaches were beautiful and Grant sat at the shore laughing while the waves crashed on him and carried him back and forth.  Surprisingly he wanted to dance a lot on the Lido deck and learn the electric slide so we did. We stuffed ourselves with delicious lobster and steak, all you can eat cookies, ice cream the works.  Thanks to Pinterest I brought zip lock bags so I could make a quick sandwich or bag some goodies to take to shore with us. My coffee mug and water bottles, magnets for the room to hang our maps, etc.  Oh, now that I'm raving about the great time I just remembered I was sea sick 3 out of the 7 days.  The last night while packing was the worst with the rough seas.  Try packing and wanting to throw up at the same time on a deadline to get your suitcases into the hallway. Grant can see the cruise ship from the beach where we live because its docked in Long Beach.  He thinks we can go back anytime and keeps asking to go on "his" cruise ship. Too bad he doesn't understand its big $$ and we can't do that everyday.

Click Here, our little dancer

Dave reading for school out on the balcony of our room.

Pirate excersion in Puerta Vuerta.  Sword fighting with Spider.  He got a spider tattoo drawn on him and when we went ashore to a private beach the pirates put on a treasure hunt for the kids.  They dug up numerous piles of sand looking for buried treasure.  One pile had a coconut and all the kids left it thinking it wasn't a treasure.  Grant thought another mans trash is his treasure and proudly picked it up while holding the master treasure map and went to the next dig. 

His personal pirate "spider" made him a grasshopper out of palm leaves

The arches, tourist trap 

Every night his steward Gregorio made him a different animal.  We would come back from dinner and Gregorio said "Mr. Grant I left you a surprise."  Grant went running in and always came out and yelled down the hall, "I love it, thank you."  However, we had a melt down every night when the animal lost his shape

Hat Trick, Trifecta, Confucius say things of 3

Its been three months since I've updated our blog.  Life is kind of blending together with work, school, and Army but we are finding a balance and are extremely busy.  Dave fractured his foot running days before he was suppose to deploy with the Army which led to the trip being cancelled.  Grant graduated from his tricycle to a two wheeler with training wheels. He will be starting preschool in September and then its off to Pre k and Kindergarten, how time flies. We are both doing well in school and enjoying it. Online learning can be a challenge, almost like teaching yourself but I'm sure glad we are doing it together.  Otherwise I would want to watch TV or whatever Dave was doing so its nice to have a partner in crime.  There's going to be a lot of pictures attached. I'll do better next month.

Loves maps and he can put this one together and associate pictures with states.  He knows when he sees a ferry boat its Mississippi, UFO is New Mexico, etc..

My Kind of Hearts and his baby bear

"We are"...Penn State

First timer on this

Ready to go fishing

His own space under his loft bed

He said he was making this for daddy.

His buddy Keanu over one night while his mom and dad had a date night

His best buddy Dylan

Mommy and son day on a weekend that Dave had drill

We mined for gems and on the way home he examined them

Big boy bike

Hiding behind a tree lol

DIY T-shirt for St Pattys day

Morning off St Patts day, lucky charms and a pot of gold (1big chocolate coin) at the end of the rainbow.

Some friends from our mommy group