Home Team Advantage!

IT'S HERE!

BASEBALL SEASON!!

We love our Red Sox!! ...And of course the Patriots, Bruins, Revolution (I hope more than 2 of you know who they are!!), and Celtics!

 Living in Maine though, we have no actual major league home teams :(

We DO have a Double-A minor league team right in our backyard though, the Portland Sea Dogs! AND they just happen to be the Red Sox farm team! What does this mean??

It means that we get to see Red Sox hopefuls try their best to move up and that we just may get lucky enough to have a bit more personal viewing of a true Red Sox!

Before returning to Fenway after an injury a player just may show up at Hadlock Field for a little rehab!!

A few notable players we've laid eyes on in the past (either as Sea Dogs or mending Red Sox) include: Josh Beckett, Clay Buchholz, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, Kevin Millar, Jonathan Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz and this past weekend Daisuke Matsuzaka took the mound!!

Walking in Ed was so very excited taking in all the magic of a baseball stadium! Hes still young enough that every time still feels like the first!! :)

 The crowd, the smells, the fooooood, the statues, flags, music and dancing, his baseball jersey all coupled with the beautiful sunny day ... heaven :)

And let us not forget the mascot!! Ed still wont go near the thing but oh how he loved his very own non talking, unable to move, mini SLUGGER The Sea Dog!

GOOFBALLS!

After 6 innings of homeruns, strikeouts, snacks...many snacks, and foot stomping cheers it was time for us to leave.

And just a short walk away...

The back entrance of the stadium and another one of the many perks Hadlock field offers us...

A front row seat to the major league players getaways!!

This little fan just scored himself a "hey there" wave from DICE-K!!!!

<3



The Kid WANTS To Learn!!

"The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, 'the children are now working as if I did not exist'" -Maria Montessori

This morning Ed was playing ever so quiet and peacefully out on the sunny porch with his Lincoln Logs and trucks, having some "Ed time" before the house got crazy for the day, when all of a sudden I hear:

"Mumma! Mumma! Come here, come see what I made!"

I walked in every so carefully, with my eyes squeezed shut (per his request) and waited patiently for his "SURPRISE".

And then I opened my eyes.

What I saw on the floor was not a building, or a garage, or a road...Ed had built letters!

He very so proud of himself yelled out:

"I MADE A E!"

He sure did!

Ed had been out here working! Teaching! Learning!

All on his own!

This is one of the many reasons I loooove Montessori!!!

Through our prepared home environment and work time throughout our days Ed has come to love and seek out learning! It comes so naturally to him now and every day offers new and exciting experiences :) Even when we're not trying. Come on now! This was Eds TRUCK time!!!

As I continued watching in awe, Ed went on to prepare his environment

by sorting and laying out the different lengths of logs

and continued building letters 

including I :)

He also worked ooooooo so carefully on tiny little tower.

Ed usually completely dislikes when I ask to take his picture and barely looks up!

But today he was so very proud of his work that he ASKED me to take his picture! 

...And he wanted to share this creation with you all :)

Another fantastic, knock me off my feet, Ed inspired Montessori Moment!

<3

April Showers ... Looooooots of April Showers

Its been a rainy few days here in Maine with not much sunshine in sight :(

The raindrops have been falling steadily both inside and out!

With Eds everyday natural observations and curiosity, these past couple of days have been a fantastic time to talk about clouds, rain, and what the rain does for the Earth.

Ed always notices when a cloud passes by and makes it dark where he is playing, inside or out!

So yesterday we talked about clouds. 

Also how it gets so very dark and cloudy outside while it rains.

The we talked about the rain in the clouds.

What it is,where it comes from,

and where it goes!

Along with all the rain talk, this art provided some wonderful lacing fun! :)

Today we talked about what the rain does for the Earth.

Specifically the grass, making it tall and green!

We began with a simple little cloud.

And as you all know, Eds favorite art time includes STAMPING so today we stamped the rain!

Ed pressed the top of a pencil eraser into a blue ink pad which left behind a wonderful little blue dot once pressed onto his paper!

After our little cloud rained and rained and rained we drew some grass nice and tall and green!!

We talked about the rain coming out of the cloud and helping the grass grow, hence the rain only under the cloud and on top of the grass ;) Such a literal little guy :))))

Frozen Treasures

Spring here in Maine has been pretty indecisive this year!

Warm, HOT, chilly, we even saw SNOW on Easter!! And this week hasn't been any different with temperatures ranging from below freezing to high 80s!

We are so grateful though to finally see the sunshine and are spending every possible second outside that we can!! :)

With the up and down temps we aren't quite ready to fill up the pool or even the water table but, we did need to find some way to stay cool on those few glorious sunshiny days!

We had played with buckets of ice a few bright days ago but, today I wanted to find something new to engage Eds mind and hands.

So we took the ice concept a bit further and made mini "ice treasures"! Individual ice blocks with animals frozen inside!

To create the individual treasures we used a muffin tin! Filled it with water, placed a miniature bug, dino or animal in each and froze!

We placed them in our water table already home to our beloved beach rock alphabet and watched to see what happened once introduced to the sun.

They began to melt!...FAST! and soon we could feel feet, tails and heads!

Not fast enough for Ed though! :) So he began to experiment.

He placed the spider on the driveway to see if it would melt faster, it provided us with a great visual of where the ice(water) went!

To pass the time on the driveway, artist Ed was chalking up some beautiful pics! And as it always goes, we drew about 100 "E"s and wrote out his name.

He then asked to see the animal names :)

When that proved to be too slow still, he decided to excavate!

Such a little worker worker :)))

When we were done watching ice melt and all our little hidden treasures were mostly free, Ed wanted to talk about the sounds that began each animals name!

And of course, in between all this exploration were silly songs of Itsy Bitsy Spiders, 5 Green and Speckled Frogs and Little Black Bugs Floating On The Water :)))

Id say overall our little ice experiment was a success and will probably become one of our favorite sunny day activities!
xo

History Lessons From GPa

Growing up history was hard, and boring, and something that had to be learned. Too many dates, too many places, too many people...History to me today though is so very interesting, something I look forward to hearing about!

Because these days I get to hear the stories behind the stories. More than just dates and far away places, now I have faces, pain, joy and laughter! 

Who could deny, that anything could make history any more interesting than hearing a first hand account!?

The very same thing that got me excited and eager about history is the very same thing that I hope will suck Ed right in!

My Grandfather, Eds Great Grandfather!!

...

We are so incredibly lucky to have so much family so close by and to have what we call "Saturday Dinners". As often as possible 3 generations of Mothers, Fathers, Grandmothers, Grandfathers, Brothers, Sisters, Aunts, Uncles, Wives, Husbands, Children and Cousins (and one sweet little dog :)) gather to play, cook, eat, drink, relax, LAUGH and share at a jampacked dinner table! Im not sure which happens more, talking or eating!! 

:)))

One of the most beloved conversation topics: Eds Great Grandfathers personal stories and songs from WW2!! Hours are spent well into the darkness gathered around the table listening to him lovingly recall for maybe the 100,000th time his war days and my Grandmother recall her days at home without him.

As children (and maybe still today!), my sister and I giggled over, loooooved and memorized his never forgotten songs and begged him to sing them anytime the topic of the olden days arose...nobody can sing them quite like he can! And I'm sure that I'd be able to recount many of the stories about training, life in and behind the scenes at war, the boat ride home and home life without him to Ed when he was ready, but what an opportunity he has right now to live them with his Great Grandfather!!

A few weeks ago my Grandfather created a memory that will forever remain in my heart. As usual we talked war. This time though, my Grandfather came to the table IN his uniform...from 1945! Something I had never been lucky enough to see until then! After talking about and examining the uniform and its many medals, pins and patches my Grandfather slipped out of the jacket and placed it onto Eddie!!

:)

Today my Grandfather (Eddies Great Grandfather) turns 89!!

I just want to say thank you. Thank you for all of your love, all of your patience and all of the memories that you have shared and made!

We are so proud, honored and blessed to call you our GPa :)))

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

xo

Love you :)