Who's That Celebrity in the Limo?

Oh! It's Jonas!

Photos: December 1, 2010

Jonas was one of the lucky kids to have his name drawn to go on the Limo Lunch Cruise. It was a "reward" earned by some kids during the school fundraiser this fall. The kids who sold 25 items earned a Limo Lunch Cruise. We were not even close to selling 25 items but fortunately, all kids got entered into a drawing for every 3 items they sold. Jonas was entered into the drawing 4 times and his name was drawn to go on the cruise. They rode from the school to have lunch at a pizza place that is about 1/2 mile away. So not a terribly long cruise but the kids thought it was awesome. I asked Jonas what the best part of it was. His reply: "We didn't have to wear seat belts! There weren't even any seat belts in the car!" Safety Third, that's what I always say.

Christmas Program

Photos and Video December 18, 2009

Nothing says Christmas quite like a preschool musical. I heard a lot of bits and pieces of the plans for the Christmas Program from Jonas from mid-November on. He had some interesting information and I was very curious how it would all play out. It was a packed crowd, maybe 100+ people came to see the 22 total performers. Very entertaining.

The first glimpse of our little shepherd.

For the opening act we have a reenactment of the night Jesus was born.

Now for Jolly Old Saint Nicholas.


Unfortunately, the last and best video, which includes sign language, has some sort of error and will not upload from my camera. I'm going to try to work that out and hopefully will be able to publish it somehow.

Jonas with his friend McKenzie, who is in his class this year, and her little brother Jace. The boys are so cute in their matching sweaters.

Jonas is all about the Christmas Love.

What Happened to 2009?

November 25, 2009

What? It's 2010 already? But what happened to fall and winter of 2009? It seemed to have slipped by without an update about all the stuff Jonas has been up to. I guess maybe because he is such a busy guy it leaves little room for me to sit down and blog about it....that or I'm just super-lazy. You decide.

I will try to get you caught up as painlessly as possible. We'll try out the Reader's Digest Version of everything from Sept through Dec 2009.

This awesome pumpkin magically grew in Aunt Connie and Uncle Pat's garden. Neat-o! We got to enjoy it at our house for about 6 weeks until it became a little more squishy and a little less magical.

Jonas stared his second year of preschool in September. He is at the same school as last year but he goes 3 days a week this year. His teacher is Miss Shalynn and she's super nice. He's been having a great year so far. As you might recall from other posts, Jonas is really into ASL (sign language) so he was very excited to find out Miss Shalynn is teaching sign language in class. Since he knows all the alphabet signs and most of the colors, Jonas gets to stand up in the front of the class with the teacher and show everyone else how to do the signs. He loves it. (Sept 9, 2009)

One morning before church Jonas found the sandals I had put out for myself to wear and he thought it very funny to try them on for size. 

"Boys can wear sandals, too, right mom?"

(Sept 20, 2009)

We had our first encounter with Shoofly Pie this fall. Our wonderful friend Lil sent a homemade Shoofly Pie all the way from Lancaster County Pennsylvania for us. And her husband Dave was so kind as to transport not just one but a whole bakery's worth of pies from PA to OR for all of us Oregonians who needed to experience this fabulous creation.  It is worthy of its title Official State Pie of Pennsylvania. You can see that Jonas really enjoyed his experience with this delightful dessert. Thanks Lil !

(Sept 12, 2009)

Jonas is becoming quite the crafty kid. He got a whole box of crafts for his birthday and I think his favorite is this melty bead kit. He is really quite good at following the pattern on the front of the box. He has made this owl at least a dozen times this summer and fall, maybe more. Jonas does not, however, like to actually melt the beads to make it permanently into the design. He prefers to just dump them back into the container and make it again. And again. And again.

(Sept 2, 2009)

Memorial Day started off by Tony cutting down about a thousand limbs out of the trees in our yard. Then we proceeded to drag them from their various places in the yard to our burn pile behind the garage. It was a big, tiring job and by lunchtime we were pretty wiped out but only about halfway done. Instead of just eating lunch and trudging through the rest of the job we decided to be spontaneous (which is rare here in the Cook house) and throw together a quick picnic and head to the park. Jonas rode his Big Wheel around while we cooked hotdogs. After lunch Tony pitched some balls for Jonas at the full sized baseball diamond. Pretty funny for a 5 year old to run around that huge baseball diamond. He shouted out that he was exhausted about the time he rounded second base. (Sept 7, 2009)

We surprised Jonas with a trip to Sun Mountain Fun Center in Bend for a round of mini golf.  It was pretty fun and not many people were out there that day which was good since it took Jonas an average of 25 shots for each par 3 hole. We stopped keeping score after the second hole. (Sept 4, 2009)

We headed up for the Annual Tree Hunt during our stay-cation in December. After playing in the snow a little we found a tree, took some photos and headed back into Sisters for lunch at he Depot as usual. Then we went right home and got that tree up and decorated. I think that's a first for us to cut and decorate our Christmas Tree all in one day. (Dec 2, 2009)

I really wanted to make an Advent Calendar this year with drawers or doors to open each day with a note inside with some kind of activity for Jonas to do. I found a beautiful kit online but, alas, it was sold out so I did the next best thing and scrounged at the Goodwill for something to fancy up. I found this sad little thing...

and turned it into this. It was not exactly what I had envisioned but it was fun to make and Jonas loved opening the doors each day and finding out what the "surprise" was for the day. There were things like going to cut a Christmas Tree or drinking hot cocoa and listening to Christmas music or....

making Christmas cookies...

or making a Deluxe Gingerbread House complete with Gingerbread Boy and Gingerbread Tree.

(Dec 2009)

Whew! That was a lot of catching up....and we haven't even done Christmas yet! Maybe I'll start another post for that. Take a break, you deserve it for persevering through this ridiculously long post.

Fancy Bribery

I just created this cute little sign/bribery note for Jonas. He's been having trouble obeying at school off and on for the last month or so and I thought some bribery might be in order. I think his FUN SURPRISE will be a family outing somewhere. Hopefully this will help him remember to be a good boy at school and not let his arm-breaking hugs (among other things) get him sent to the office.

On a crafty note, I made this fancy page with a digital kit that I got free at 2Peas in a Bucket. This kit is called Schoolin'. They have lots of other free kits there, as I think I mentioned a while back. I have been gathering free digital kits online as of late and came across an awesome blog. Raspberry Patch is dedicated to posting the latest free digital kits. This has lead me to some other awesome blogs that have freebies like Summertime Designs. Of course most of the sites only offer these freebies for a limited time and also have kits for sale. A digital kit can be very inexpensive but I'm strictly looking for freebies. At least for now.

The Letter Q

Photos and Video: February 18, 2009

Each day at school there is a letter of the day and a number of the day. Last Tuesday was the letter Q and they got to fashion this headband with a feather and be quail. Jonas thought this was super-cool since he is an quail expert from watching them out at Grandma Rose and Grandpa Jim's house. He even helps Grandpa throw seed out for the quail and other birds.

We hadn't been up too long when he modeled his quail headband and requested a video. Perhaps he should wear this headband all the time to try to keep his wild hair under control.

Valentine's Day

Photos: February 11, 2009

Jonas totally got his craft on getting ready for his first Valentine's Day party at preschool. I was going to buy a box of little valentines but didn't see any that I liked the theme of (I didn't want Jonas to be the kid that handed out the lame valentines.) I decided to just by a pack of glittery pencils and we could make little pennants out of them. Red pencils for the boys and purple for the girls (well, one girl and Miss Donna, his teacher.) Jonas added the stamps and stickers and we had some fancy, homemade valentines.

I was feeling so clever using the pencil to be the cool gift and not doing candy....that is until Jonas came home with his haul of valentines from his classmates and he had not one or two but three pencils! Apparently the valentines manufacturers had a similar idea and made sets of boxed valentines with slits in them that you could slide a pencil through. I guess it's the Year of the Pencil at Kidz Center School.

My Family

Original Artwork by Jonas: January 22, 2009

Look at the first image and see if you can guess what the painting is. Then look at the second image to read Jonas' explanation of his art. You might want to click on each image so you can see them larger.













P.S. He's so not getting a rabbit.