Believe it or not, Kaleb didn’t know how to climb out of his crib (or at least didn’t dare) until he saw a clip of a baby on America’s Funniest Videos. Nice, huh?

Because Rick and I were going away for a few days and didn’t know how he would handle the whole ‘freedom to roam’, we decided to wait to move him to the bottom bunk until we got back. While we didn’t say that, the kids kept reminding him that when Mommy and Daddy got home he would get to sleep in his big boy bed. So not an hour after we were home and said it was bedtime, he climbed up on the bed and covered up.

And he’s been there ever since! There haven’t been any major problems and it has been so sweet listening to him and Zachary talking to each other and playing together in the morning before they get up.

But it is the end of the crib era ~ and I’m still a little emotional about that. The extra room is nice, but that ‘baby’ aspect is gone {sigh}.

Next week…more actual school happenings. :)

Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

He suprised me with some of the things he has apparently been learning while I was blissfully unaware – go figure. He was stacking pegs one at a time and counting on his own. I sat listening while he counted to TEN! The little stinker! Of course if I ask him to count for me any other time, he sits and thinks for a moment and then shakes his head and says no.

This day ended up being more Kaleb-directed. He had too much fun pulling toys out and playing to his hearts content. As always, he kept trying to put the pegs in the wrong holes (on purpose) and would just giggle and then put them in the right places.

To go along with our “I am the Good Shepherd” verse this week from Totally Tots, we made little cotton ball sheeps. I found the idea at Kids Craft weekly awhile back and have been holding onto it for some time. Just too cute!

We used our sugar shaker to put spaghetti noodles into. Kaleb really enjoyed for a bit until his older sister showed him that he could chew on the noodles.

Apparently I felt like living on the edge and decided Kaleb must be full, so we pulled out the glue stick and some green construction paper to make shamrocks. This craft lasted until Kaleb decided to try and eat the glue stick.

We have the Wii Outdoor Challenge mat and Kaleb likes to think that he can keep up with the big kids – and it’s just too fun to watch him play along.

I found some plastic frog and lizards at Target this week and we used them to sort into piles by what they were. Kaleb also had fun lining the frogs up and letting me count them for him – and then he would mess them all up. :)

That’s it for Tot School this week! Just to let you know, I have a great giveaway in store for my blog readers this coming Friday (the 27th) – worth $300!! Be sure to stop back by and see what’s in store!

Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

All for the sake of my children. {grins}

I found some great things for Tot School {ok, and lots of other things too} but first up this week was the sugar shaker and some candles on a stick (both from the Dollar Tree). Kaleb was oh.so.excited to play with these over and over again. And later in the week I found him trying to climb up my wall {literally} to get the container again – ‘More! More!’ Thanks to Carissa for her lovely idea, although I didn’t make it in time to get those cute little hearts that she has.

We were blessed to have amazing weather early last week and took a walk at a local park with all the kids. Kaleb spent most of the time in the backpack but had some time at the end to explore and poke around at the end of our walk.

Kaleb wanted to join in when Zachary was playing in a tray of rice, so he jumped right up and worked his way in. We moved him to the floor with a little more rice, some bowls and spoons and he had a blast pouring, stirring, dumping, transferring – and making a MESS of rice all over the floor. Because nothing says ‘this is fun’ like dumping 3 or 4 cups of rice all over the kitchen floor. Especially when you are super-excited about using the dust pan and the broom!

Since Kaleb enjoyed the rice so much, I filled a large plastic tub with a HUGE bag of rice, added some funnels and toys and let him play on the deck a few days later. Just a quick note: when you hide the container of rice, be sure to do it better than I did and avoid your own bedroom, or you might just find a few cups of rice in your bed when you are ready to sleep. Just sayin’.

Kaleb runs to the table every.single.morning and says ‘Paint? Paint?’ and I finally caved said yes. He painted his own beautiful watercolor. And then dumped the bowl of water all over the floor and table. And stained his hands and mouth blue when I turned my back for two seconds. You’d really think I would know better with our fourth child.

I pulled out our color matching cards to use this week (just three colors at a time) and Kaleb had a great time naming the pictures and putting them on the right color piles. The boy loves to sort.

And don’t tell any of the other kids in the house, but Kaleb got to play on the laptop when we were alone! We went to the FisherPrice website (you can read more about the site at Totally Tots) and he had a blast playing the counting game and the alphabet game for a little bit. Next time we will move to the computer downstairs so there isn’t so much banging going on, but he was thrilled to have a turn!

I asked Kaleb if he wanted to play a game this week (just me and him) and he pointed up to our game shelf and kept saying ‘Who! Who!’ so Horton Hears a Who it was! We hid the little clovers all over the living room and then ran around trying to stick them on his Horton mask. Listening to his little giggles was just too sweet.

Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.