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February
2006 Journal
Will
Punxy Phil see that shadow of his?! I sure hope he
does.....I WANT IT TO SNOW!
Good Luck Steelers! SuperBowl XL! Here We Go!
Happy Valentine's Day Everyone! xoxo
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My
Pre-School Assessment
February
1, 2006 |
Mommy &
Daddy received my pre-school assessment from Miss Carol
today. They said they were really pleased with what they
saw. Miss Carol said this about me: "Cole is VERY
well liked by his classmates. He knows all of his shapes,
colors, and about 2/3 of his letters. (he still needs to work on u,
w, v, m, f, d, n and k). This is a dramatic improvement from
when we started letters in September. His small motor skills,
cutting, gluing and writing are right on track. His drawing
skills are amazing. He has a GREAT sense of humor and shares
his "silliness" with all of us. He is a wonderful
child and we are happy to have him in our class. He is ready
for his next step, Kindergarten!"
I need a little help with: "The only problem Cole has is
arguing with me. If he is told to do something, he will come
up with 10 reasons why he shouldn't do it. It is really hard
to reason with him because his explanations are right on track, but
the lack of respect is not there for his teacher. (Update) He
is getting better at this now. I count and he has till 3 to do
as I asked or so sit for awhile. We will continue to work on
this."
Mommy asked me why I argue with Miss Carol and I told her that I
don't! (Mom and Dad just kind of looked at each other when I said
that!). Mommy & Daddy weren't shocked by that
comment....we are working on this arguing thing at home too.
:)
My checklist of skills that I "should" be able to do,
looks pretty good too. I need to work on some things
like: Motor Skills: turning a somersault. Communication
Skills: Identifying common opposites such as hot/cold.
Cognitive Skills: Knowing my street, town, phone
number. Understanding day/night. Understanding concepts
such as: in, out, under, over, front and back. Self-Help
Skills: dressing doing zippers, buttons, and
snaps. Using tissues. (Mom would LOVE for me to get
this!). Going from one activity to another without
assistance. Social/Emotional Development:
Complying to rules w/o arguing. Distinguishing from fantasy
and reality.
Most of the areas I am right on target. The ones I am a bit
off on...is very common for my age. Mommy & Daddy said
that we will work on opposites and continue working on my
alphabet. That arguing thing....well....I DON'T DO THAT!
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Happy
GroundHog's Day!
February
2, 2006 |
We watched
little Punxsutawney Phil on the TV this morning. It appears
that he has seen his shadow.....again! Here is "his"
official report:
Phil Says Six More Weeks of Winter!
Phil's official forecast as read 2/2/06
at sunrise at Gobbler's Knob:
It is said that imitation is the sincerest
form of flattery.
Around the country there are many imitators of me.
In Harrisburg there is Gus who appears on
TV
working for the lottery.
Then all around town,
Cute groundhog statues abound.
They all look like me, I found.
Today on the Knob as I'm doing my job,
I don't like this likeness of me.
It's my shadow I see. Six more weeks of
mild winter there will be.
I'm glad because there is no way that I have been out in the snow
enough this Winter. I really want to do some more
sledding!
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SuperBowl
XL ~ Steelers Win!
February
5, 2006 |
YAY!
Finally, ONE FOR THE THUMB!
Our friends; Darrin, Jen, and Ryan joined us to watch the
game. We had a fun time sporting all of our Steelers
gear. Daddy even had a shirt! Mommy & me made signs
for the porch and we made cookies too! I liked the black icing
the best! It turns your whole mouth colors!
Jen and I swirled and twirled our "Terrible Towels" into a
frenzy hoping for a score.....heck, a first down would have been
nice! It seemed to take forever to get one of those! The
game was very nerve wracking....not a pretty one that is for
sure...but we pulled it off and won the game, 21-10! It was
obvious that Ben Roethlisberger was nervous. We needed to
remember that this "kid" was only 23 years old and only in
his 2nd season with the Steelers...nor did he come from a
"big" school that played in front of thousands of
people. He did manage to settle down and did make some good
plays...even scoring a touchdown! The Seattle SeaHawks didn't
play that great either...lucky for us...they missed a lot of opportunities.
We all agreed that the half-time show was a snore. Not big
"Stones" fans around here. The commercials were
pretty good. I liked the ones with the horses.
Daddy had gotten me ready for bed after half-time and I didn't last
too much longer after that. I fell asleep on Mommy. I do
remember some yelling going on shortly after that....I think the
Steelers scored or intercepted or something good like that. I
just opened my eyes a bit and rolled over and went back to
sleep.
So....after 26 years....we finally get to add that fifth trophy to
the collection! The Steelers not having won a SuperBowl since
1980. We tried in 1996 but lost to the Dallas Cowboys
:(.
A fond farewell to Jerome Bettis....who went out on a high
note...becoming a "Hall of Fame-er" and winning a
SuperBowl in his hometown of Detroit! Good Luck
"Bus"!
We LOVE the Steelers! See you next year!
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Letter
"V" Day
February
7, 2006 |
Today was
"V" day at school. We are talking about Valentine's
Day this week. I took in Mommy's vase. Other friends
brought in things like: vanilla pudding, vegetables, vinegar, videos
and a violin.
We cut out letter v's and decorated them with hearts for Valentine's
day...it was fun.
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Ear
Infection
February
9, 2006 |
I woke Mommy
& Daddy up in the middle of the night because my ear was hurting
really bad. Daddy gave me some chewy "grape"
medicine and that helped it to feel better for a little bit. I
stayed home from school and Daddy took me to see Dr. Webb. I
did not behave very well...I was too scared that I was going to get
a shot. Anyway, she said I had puss and yucky stuff in there,
so she gave Daddy some medicine for me. I hope to feel much
better soon.
UPDATE: I stayed home one more day from school with
Mommy. I was feeling much better and only had a small
fever. We had a nice day together. I am ready to go back
to school on Monday!
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Geocaching
Fun!
February
11, 2006 |
I am all better
from my ear infection, so we decided to do some geocaching
today. We have been putting off this multi-cache called the
"Brownstone Ghost Train", but we finally got to it
today. It was a nice, easy and fun one to do. We had to
walk along this really nice bike path and find 5 of the
"engine's" cars (micros). Each one had a clue to
unlocking the "engine". We walked, and I actually
did a good job of not complaining too much, a good 2 mile
hike. Mommy spotted most of them and Daddy found the
final.
I really enjoy when we come to this park because there is a pond and
it is always full of ducks. This time Mommy remembered to
bring along some bread. I had a good time feeding them.
This one duck came right up to us...that was neat.
We got out of there just in time....it really started to snow on us
on our way back up the trail.
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Let
It Snow....FINALLY!
February
12, 2006 |
Mr. Groundhog
said that there was to be 6 more weeks of Winter! I was hoping
I would get to see snow again this year. Well, it snowed all
night last night and I woke up to the greatest thing I ever
saw.....at least 4 inches of snow! Woo-Hoo!
I could not wait to get outside and play in it. I woke Daddy
up and told him about the storm and he just growled something and
rolled over. Mommy was already up and ready to go! I
helped Daddy for a little bit in the driveway, but then Mommy and me
got the sled going down the hill. She even took a few trips
down! It was a lot of fun!
I hope the snow lasts for a few days before it melts. I want
to go sledding again!
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Letter
"C" Day
February
13, 2006 |
Mmmm...we are
talking about "chocolate" this week! YUMMY! My
favorite thing to eat! Anyway, today was "C" day and
I thought about a lot of things that I could bring....coal car from
my train set, a matchbox "car" or some of that coconut we
cracked open, but I decided to take some of my
"construction" men from my little sandbox toy. Mommy
bagged them up for me and off to school we went!
My friends brought "c" things too. We had a Care Bear,
crayons, cars, chocolate and a can of corn.
Again, we practiced writing c's and "c" words. We
also cut out a large letter "C" and decorated them like
clowns. I don't care much for clowns but they look really
silly hanging on our wall at school!
I am doing really well with my letters. I can find all of them
if you ask me to point them out, especially when searching for them
on the keyboard of my Batman computer. I do still get a little
confused but only if I am in a hurry. I still have some
trouble telling you what the letter is if you show it to me
first. I am practicing every day and will know ALL of my
letters soon. Hmm...I can even spell some words all by
myself! For example, I can spell "bee",
"ant", "bat" and "eye". This
thanks to the infamous "Batman Computer"!! :)
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Happy
Valentine's Day! xoxo
February
14, 2006 |
Happy
Valentine's Day Everyone! I had a fun party at my
school. I worked really hard on the cards I got my
friends. I wrote them out all by myself this year....even my
friends names and my own. I was very specific about what card
went to whom too. It was a lot of fun. Everyone wore
"red" to school and we all looked so nice. We played
some fun games, ate a bunch of good stuff and have fun reading our
cards and eating candy! I made a chocolate pie for dessert and
EVERYONE thought it was just great! I was very upset that
there was none leftover for me to take home. I asked Mommy if
we could make another one. It was sooo good.
I hope everyone had a nice day!
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A
Fun Road Trip ~ Roadside America and More
February
18, 2006 |
Being a 3 day
weekend and the fact that we haven't really "gone"
anywhere in quite awhile, we decided to head out on I-78, do some
geocaches along the way, stop at Roadside America and Cabela's.
We loaded up in the car and set out early. Daddy made some
short stops along the way, grabbing some micro caches for a
multi-cache called "Voyage to the Solar System". I
think he found a few of the "planets"...then once you
collect all of those you have to add up some numbers to find the
sun. Or something like that. I just stayed in the car
and watched my new Tom & Jerry movie...it was bitterly cold
outside and some of the caches were along the highway.
We then stopped at a place called Roadside
America. I thought this place was awesome! It was
the hugest miniature train set I have ever seen! We saw all
kinds of neat things. I liked that there were buttons that I
could push to run some of the electric trains and other displays,
like cable cars, trolleys, elevators, steamrollers, a circus parade
and dancers! I liked when they had everyone go to the top
level and then they would turn all the lights out, except for on the
displays and pretend that it was nighttime and then daytime coming
back. That was cool. I bought a couple tiny trains in
the gift shop with my money that Grammy & Pap sent me.
What I really want is my own "electricity train"...Daddy
says, maybe when I am older.
We went out for lunch at Subway, Daddy did another geocache and we
decided to stop at this store called Cabela's.
It's the World's Foremost Outfitter store, what ever that means, all
I know is that it is HUGE! It was very crowded with lots of
people. They had a lot of displays of wild animals that people
had killed and then donated. I had a lot of questions as to
why they were killed and how they got them to stand there. I
wasn't very happy to see that someone killed the beaver or the
bears. "They like to be alive." However, I
liked the shooting gallery part of the store the best. It was
funny to watch...this guy shot this one thing and it sprayed water
at me! Plus, there were these talking deer heads outside of
it....I watched them for quite awhile. We have a store here,
The Bass Shop, which is not quite as big, but has about the same
stuff to look at.
It was a fun day....what will we do tomorrow?!
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Sunday
= Funday
February
19, 2006 |
Well....we
weren't about to sit around today doing nothing either. We got
up this morning and went bowling. We have been wanting to
start going again, more regularly, but just haven't had the
chance. I really like bowling. I am doing pretty
good. This time Daddy bowled better than everyone...Mommy said
she did horrible. I hope we can go again soon.
Then we went to this place called Color
Me Mine. We picked out a bisque item to paint. I
picked out a cool race car, Mommy got a mug and Daddy did a
plate. Then I had to pick out all the colors that I
wanted. I got dark ones, red, blue, green and orange!
Plus black for the wheels. I painted "Fast Car" on
mine, along with fire flames on the side! We had to leave them
there to be "cooked" in the kiln, but we can pick them up
next weekend. I can't wait to see how they turned out.
We will have to be sure and take a picture of them.
Of course, we would not drive anywhere without doing a few
geocaches! And we had lunch out at Applebee's. They have
a special Weight Watchers menu, so Daddy and Mommy were glad.
I got yummy pizza and a milkshake, of course!
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Geocache
#600
February
20, 2006 |
Happy
President's Day! Daddy & Mommy both had off of work
today. We decided to do our 600th cache together as a family
today.
I am not always in the best of moods, especially when I am not doing
something that I "want" to be doing...plus it was FREEZING
cold out. However, I did not do that bad.
Daddy picked out a puzzle multi-cache called "Salute to Veterans",
we had to decipher clues and find 4 little micros hidden around this
park, to come up with the coordinates for the final cache. We
started out strong but fizzled quickly as we had to call for a
"life-line" from the owner to find the 1st two
caches. The one we would have never found, as it had gotten
buried and frozen to the ground! After that we had no
problems. It also helped that this park was empty, so no
muggles to worry about. That made it much easier. We
were ready to figure out the final coordinates, and Daddy realized
we were missing a part...oh no! Mommy & me were freezing
cold at this point and the thought of going back thru everything was
not something we wanted to do...sorry Daddy! Daddy took a
guess and headed down over this big hill....so, Mommy and me
waited...and waited....and waited....and then finally Daddy showed
up in the car! He found it, came out near the parking lot and
picked our frozen bodies up. I was a little disappointed that
I didn't get to see the final "prize", but I was happy with
the sticks I found along our journey.
Happy 600th....sorry I wasn't really in the "mood"!
We should have no problem making 1,000 caches found by 2007!
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My
Follow-Up Ultrasound
February
21, 2006 |
Today, I went
back to Tristan Associates for another ultrasound for my left
kidney. Mommy & Daddy have been talking to me a lot about
it and what would be going on. We've been looking at pictures
of when I was little and had my surgery. I'm glad I don't
really remember that!
Anyway, I was a really good boy. I was a little silly but
Mommy thinks I act that way when I am nervous. The lady doing
my test was really nice and talked to me a lot. I liked
looking at my kidney and bladder on the computer screen. You
could even see the "pee" in there. It would show up
in a bunch of different colors.
The doctor looked at my test results and told Mommy & Daddy that
everything looked really good. He said that it was more like a
typical baseline reading and that there is still a dark spot on the
kidney but I may always have that.
We still aren't getting our hopes up....Daddy wants to talk to Dr.
Hollowell first. She is still in Virginia but said she would
read the test results for us anytime and then let us know what she
thinks we should do. Mommy said that she won't be surprised if
she recommends that I have another test in 6 months.
We will keep you posted as we learn more and hear back from
her. We aren't sure how long it will take, since she is doing
this as a favor to us.
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Letter
"D" Day
February
21, 2006 |
We are talking
about Dinosaurs this week...so today was "D" day! I
wore my dinosaur shirt and took my stuff dolphin to school. My
friends brought a lot of cool things too. We shared things
like, donuts, a doll, dog, and dinosaurs.
We made our letter D today, but this time it was a lower case
one! Miss Carol tried to trick us! We turned it into a
....DINOSAUR...of course.
I am excited about dinosaur week. I am taking in my volcano
for Miss Carol to use and show all my friends how it
"explodes"! What fun!
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Lyle's
Birthday Party
February
25, 2006 |
I was invited to
a friends birthday party. This was my first "all by
myself party" without Mom or Dad there! I had a great
time and the party was so much fun. It was at the Whitaker
Science Center downtown. We got to play in the museum for
about an hour, then we saw a cool Dino-Magic Show. The lady
showed us some cool tricks! We watched a 3-D movie about
bugs. That screen was HUGE! It was a hundred feet
tall! We had to wear special glassed and boy did my friends
and I look funny wearing those. We all ate yummy pizza, then
had some of Lyle's cool Batman cake and ice cream. Before I
knew it, Mommy and Daddy were there to pick me up.
I got a good report on my behavior and I was so tired when we got
home.
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Letter
"L" Day
February
28, 2006 |
Today was letter
"L" day. Mommy & me decided that my Lego's would
be a good choice. We didn't just take in a bag of Lego's
though, we worked really hard to make "L" things out of
them! We made a big letter "L" with white Lego's, a
lighthouse, and a lion! It was fun helping look for the right
pieces that we needed.
My friends remembered their "L" things too. We
looked at: lions, lollipops, lizards, lipstick, light bulbs and
letters.
We cut out our letter "L" and glued a light bulb and a
left hand on them. We did our writing worksheets too. I
did a pretty good job, well...my coloring wasn't so good.
Mommy said you can tell that I was hurrying to get done and
play.
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