Where Ezra Spent the Day

Right here on the couch.

Sick Ezra

After having a bout of nausea in the middle of the night and waking up this morning with no energy and a slight fever, Ezra had his first sick day home from Kindergarten. Good thing, as the nausea returned at about 11:00. He has literally spent all but about 15 minutes of the day on the couch and took a good two-hour nap. Poor little guy; I hope he’s better tomorrow.

At least Batman’s here to help.

Batman cares for sick Ezra

Ana’s Videos

Finn’s teacher Ana took a couple of videos on her iPhone this week. They’re pretty cute!

Finn’s Phone Call

Finn made a series of phone calls the other day during his play date with Charlie. Luckily, Jerri caught one of them on film.

Montrose Octoberfest

We took the boys to the Octoberfest in Montrose this afternoon/evening and a good time was had by all. Bruce took the boys on a couple of spinning rides — Ezra wasn’t always sure it was fun, but Finn laughed all the way through.

Spinning

Moisions on the dragon spinning ride

Ezra played a horse-racing game. He came in second both races. So close!

Ezra's horse came in second

Finn got a big hammer.

Finn's big hammer

We all had ice cream.

Ice cream!

And we finished out the day with a few songs from the brass band.

German brass band at Octoberfest

Here’s the boys reaction.

The boys' reaction to the brass band

Two Creations

Bruce pulled out the art box this morning for a glue/glitter/paint extravaganza and many projects were made and destroyed. My favorite was Ezra’s painting:

Ezra paints 1

He said it was a blueprint, which he then described as a “picture of how to build a house.”

Later, Finn saw the box of magnetic gears in the closet and built this:

Finn's gears

He managed to get all the gears connected and moving, and was very proud to have built it all by himself.

Ezra’s Orange Painting

Sometimes these Moision boys can be so sweet. This week at school, Ezra made a painting that was all orange. When he was showing it to us this morning, he said he knew that orange was Finn’s favorite color and he wanted to give the painting to Finn. So, he cut off the part of the painting where he had written Ezra and wrote Finn instead. We hung it up on the wall by Finn’s bed. Finn was thrilled.

Ezra's painting for Finn

Oak

Finn’s in the Oak Tree class at Cottage this year and Thursday was my first day working in his class. It was a pretty nutty day — lots of sand and water play, and a ton of conflict resolution. My hat’s off to Teacher Ana and Teacher Art for keeping their cool amidst the craziness.

Here’s Finn telling one of his friends something very important.

Finn tells Quest something very important

And here’s a bunch of the very busy boys in the class. The girls, smartly, had made themselves scarce rather than get in the middle of this mess.

Oak is a whole lot of boys this year

Museum Sunday

We headed out to the Science Center this morning (at Ezra’s request) only to find it completely packed with families. We initially thought people were just trying beat the 100+ degree temperatures, but realized they were there for Sid the Science Kid Day. Oops. So we walked over to the Natural History Museum instead.

We saw some fossils and then had lunch.

On the tortoise

Lunch at the Natural History Museum

After that we went to the Dinosaur Encounters show, where they have a paleontologist discussing dinosaurs and a giant T-Rex puppet that’s a little too life-like if you’re three years old. There was too large a crowd for me to make our way out, so Finn just squirmed on my lap and covered his eyes. Poor little guy.

But we managed to survive the trauma and went out to the newly retooled Butterfly Pavilion — now the Spider Pavilion.

The Spider Pavilion

Finn wasn’t so crazy about that either.

"Let's go out from here!"

Neither was I.

Alternative Transportation

There’s an Aveson family who, instead of driving a car the three miles from their house to school every morning, rides this:

How cool is this thing?

It’s called a Ped E Cab. I can totally see Bruce riding Ezra and Finn up to school on one of these in the future!

Kindergarten Week 3

Week 3 at Aveson went swimmingly — Ezra showed no signs of stress (nightmares, accidents, sleepwalking, etc.) like he had in Week 2 and he reported that he had a super day at each pickup. He’s starting to talk about other kids he’s meeting and loves his teachers. There was a dining night out fundraiser on Wednesday night which was well attended, and it was fun to walk through the restaurant and hear a couple of kids say, “Hey, that’s Ezra!” He’s a little clueless, but was very happy to see everyone. And he ran right up to his teachers and told them all about the paper airplane he and Bruce had made earlier in the day.

After school today he asked if we could go get ice cream because it was so hot (95 degrees according to the thermometer in my car). I thought it was a great idea so we went to the Baskin Robbins in Hastings Ranch. The boys got clown cones and had a messy, grand time.

Ice Cream Friday 3

Today’s Mail

I got a kick out of my mail today — five pieces of  junk mail. The great thing was that only one of them was addressed to someone who actually lives here.

Mail

And two were for people who aren’t living anywhere. I think the health insurance flyers are a little late.

A Little Celebrity

I asked our friend Colleen to do a post for Finn’s preschool fundraiser on her super website Hometown Pasadena. She graciously obliged and every time I see it I smile, so I thought I’d post a link.

Update: I decided to include a screen shot because I’m sure the link won’t last forever.

Saturday

We had a pretty laid back, enjoyable Saturday yesterday — did some shopping and some backyard demo and then had an impromptu barbecue with the Heffernans. First, here’s the demo. Finn’s not too sure about the whole thing, despite the ear mops.

Finn isn't quite sure of what Bruce is doing

I didn’t take many pictures because I was too busy relaxing as the kids played together without incident. They got pretty muddy and had baths before dinner. Then they sat on the stoop and had some hotdogs.

Ezra, Finn and Lucy have dinner on the stoop

Charlie wasn’t interested in dinner, but he was happy to play a game on the iPad while everyone else ate.

Charlie plays on the iPad

After dinner all the kids watched their latest obsession — Roadrunner cartoons. I don’t know what it is about that show, but all four kids think it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen and beg me all the time to watch. We gave in to their demands, turned on the iPad in the house, and enjoyed a quiet, relaxing adults-only dinner out back. It was great.

Juggling

Finn wants to be a juggler. Here’s his first attempt.

Wacky Wednesday

Ezra’s school has early dismissal on Wednesdays — 1:00 versus the regular 2:45 — so we have the whole afternoon together. Yesterday, in an effort to not win the Worst Mother of the Year award, I took the boys on an outing to the California Science Center. Ezra has been begging me to take him since we got back from Belize, but I was much too discombobulated last week to manage it. He loves the place, and he also wanted to get some Goobi magnetic construction toys from their gift shop.

We spent almost the entire visit in the Ecosystems exhibit, starting with the desert room. Finn loved (and waved to) the chuckwalla.

Finn waves to the chuckwalla at the Science Center

We went outside to find a mini ocean, complete with a ton of sea creatures and an area where you can pet some of them. Neither boy wanted to touch anything. Ezra was more interested in a display where you try to catch flying ping pong balls, which is meant to simulate how difficult it is for barnacles to catch their food. I think the meaning of the display was lost on him, but he could have stayed there forever trying to catch the balls.

Ezra loved this exhibit

Once inside again, we found another ping pong display. This one had different mechanisms to shoot the balls into a hole in the middle, simulating how different animals get to islands. Finn had a grand time when he found one he was good at — he celebrated each successful launch with a karate kick and “hi ya!”

Finn celebrates success

They also both liked the oversized nest (with sticks and eggs) and spent some time protecting their eggs.

Ezra protecting his eggs in the nest

We left in time to beat the traffic home. All in all, a successful outing. (And Ezra got his Goobi set, too.)