Friday, May 28, 2010

Dean painting video

Dean is pretty funny! After his nap today, we decided to get out some art supplies and do some painting. He was coming up with some pretty creative stories about the pictures he was painting, so I grabbed my little camera and took some video. Remember, if you get these updates via e-mail, you'll have to go to the actual blog HERE and to today's post to watch the video. Be sure to scroll down to the post titled "Dean painting video" and click the play icon to watch. Make sure your volume is turned on so you can hear his stories!! Classic Dean.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Seabury Hall Craft Fair

It's become our tradition to go to the Seabury Hall Craft Fair the day before Mother's Day each year. The event is huge and seems like it gets bigger every year. It's held on the Seabury Hall campus Upcountry in Makawao. Seabury Hall is an exclusive private school (6th-12th grade) - and by exclusive I mean that one year's tuition costs well more than my entire undergrad college education at OU, probably even the entire 7 years of college tuition if we're just talking tuition and fees. And I'm not exaggerating. But it's a super cool campus, really beautiful. You may remember my post about it from last year? Anyway, my pictures this year probably look almost identical, right down to the swimsuit Dean wore for the gigantic Slip-n-Slide! But it was lots of fun. We headed up again this year on May 8.

We had to stop for some breakfast at Starbucks & Jamba Juice before heading out of Kahului and we can't seem to make it out of Jamba Juice without Dean insisting on some Pirate's Booty. It's so messy (as can be the fresh squeezed OJ if we're not careful!), so we sat outside Starbucks for some silliness and to eat/drink our breakfast - coffee for Joel, OJ and Pirate's Booty for Dean, and Jamba oatmeal for me.

When we did finally make it Upcountry, the weather wasn't as good as the last few years - it sprinkled on us a bit, but it was still fun. We didn't do much craft shopping - kind of difficult with a 3-yr-old in tow. And Joel stuck to his word to NOT go in the giant rummage sale in the gym this year, even though I could tell deep down he really, really wanted to go (especially after we ran into Ellyn who had scored a kid's scooter and a tennis racket for just a couple bucks!). The best part was Dean on the slip-n-slide. And this year, finally, it was well worth the $15 arm-band unlimited pass!!

He slid down probably 15 times before he got cold and needed a break. So then we headed over to the Kids' Craft area and Dean knocked out some of his Mother's Day shopping - in the form of making a beaded bracelet for TuTu and painting a Pet Rock for Grandma Jo. He picked out which gifts he wanted to make for which grandma and was very particular about which beads to put on TuTu's bracelet and which paint colors to use on Grandma Jo's Pet Rock.

My favorite part of the morning? The beautiful jacaranda trees that were in full bloom! We really don't get Upcountry enough this time of year to enjoy this site.

After the kids' craft, we headed back to the slip-n-slide for some more water fun before grabbing a quick lunch. I took some video of Dean going down the slide that I'm posting here. Remember, if you get the e-mail updates, you need to go to the blog HERE to watch the videos. Just scroll to the post titled "Seabury Hall Craft Fair" and then go to the end of the post to watch the video. It's short, but Dean's squeal of laughter at the end is worth it!!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Video: Into the Universe, Part II

OK, here's Part II of Dean watching Stephen Hawking's Into the Universe and driving us CRAZY!! Here's the link to the blog so you can find the video. I'm posting lots of videos today, so be sure you scroll through to each of the posts and watch all of the videos. www.TaplerOhana.blogspot.com

Video: Into the Universe, Part I

I forgot that I had filmed Dean watching the Stephen Hawking Into the Universe special. This will probably only be interesting to the grandparents. The rest of you will be like "why would you video your child watching TV?" But the grandparents on the mainland don't get to see/hear Dean talking very often and I think this proves that the child really is a genius!! :-) Remember, you have to go to the blog to watch the videos: www.TaplerOhana.blogspot.com

Video: Dean dying Easter Eggs

I was finally able to get some videos off our little point and shoot camera. We've had a problem with getting photos and videos off of it, but Joel was able to find a card reader today and we're good now!! But I have several videos to post. Sorry!! Remember, you have to go to the blog to view the videos. So if you receive the e-mail updates, you'll have to click on this link to go to the blog: www.TaplerOhana.blogspot.com. I may be posting several today and tomorrow, so be sure you scroll through all of the posts and click the little "Play" button on any videos and watch them all. Make sure the sound is turned on. Here is a video of Dean dying Easter Eggs the day before Easter:

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Dean and a new fascination with Space

It all started with the Easter Bunny scrambling to try to find a book on Volcanoes. Dean was showing a sudden interest in volcanoes that had lasted longer than a few days (which is how long his usual interest in things lasts - like his dinosaur phase and bug phase). He had been talking about volcanoes and eruptions and lava and magma and even using words like the "Earth's crust" for a few weeks. So the Easter Bunny decided maybe Dean needed a book about Volcanoes. We do live on a gigantic dormant volcano after all. It seemed appropriate. And since Dean is reading at about a first or second grade level right now, we're buying books like CRAZY. So yeah. The search for a volcano book was on. But it was like the day before Easter and Borders was fresh out of Volcano books. But they had these really cool Discovery Kids "Eye Wonder" books on just about every other topic you could think of and the Space book caught my eye. Let's go with the Space Book.

Oh my goodness. We have unleashed an unstoppable force in this child. He is OBSESSED with Space. He LOVED the Space book. Dean has read that Discovery Kids Space book MULTIPLE times and now knows more than I do about Space and the planets. He talks about Nebulas and Giant Nebulas. He talks about stars and knows that the sun is a type of star called a Red Giant, but he tells me that there are other types of stars like Super Giants and Super Novas and that one day our Sun will turn into a White Dwarf before it goes out. He knows the names of all the planets, in order. He knows that "Mercury is too hot for humans" and that Venus "has poisonous clouds of acid". He told me that the moon "got made" when a meteor hit Earth and "a giant piece of Earth broked off and that made the moon" (which honestly I thought he totally made up - but I looked it up - and he was RIGHT!! Who knew? I didn't know that. Turns out that is the theory most astronomers agree on these days!). But his favorite planet is Jupiter and he's very dramatic when he describes Jupiter with it's swirling (and there's always A LOT of emphasis on the word "swirling") storms and it's 63 moon (and yes, he knows that Jupiter has 63 moons and he can name the 4 largest, which are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto - and I only know this because Dean taught me!). And he can tell you lots of interesting (ok, interesting might be debatable, but it's definitely interesting when it's coming from the mouth of a 3-yr-old) things about Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. And guess what? It turns out Pluto isn't a planet. Did you know that? I think that is the first thing that has been disproven that I learned in school. Because it was totally a planet when I was in school! But I guess they've figured out since then that it's not a planet. So yeah. Dean knows that too.

Anyway, since the Easter Bunny totally scored with the Space Book, Dean has collected a few more books about Space. We made the mistake of watching some Discovery Channel special with Stephen Hawking called "Into the Universe"a few weeks ago. That was an hour of torture for Joel and I. Dean LOVED it. But the ENTIRE time he was standing there pointing at the TV yelling and jumping up and down either asking "What's that, Mommy?" (to which I had no answer because I had NO IDEA) or he was so excited and shouting something like "Look Mommy Look! It's a Giant Nebula" (still no idea). Trying to get him to just be quiet and listen was impossible. He was too excited.

But a few days later we bought a Solar System mobile thing that you paint and put together yourself, made out of styrofoam balls and small dowel rods.

Dean did a great job painting the planets and he LOVES having his new Solar System hanging from his ceiling and is so proud of it! He picked out the paint colors himself and was very particular about the colors and was very accurate (he swirled together orange and yellow for Jupitor, he painted Mars red, Neptune was blue, Earth was blue with green smudges for the continents, etc etc etc). It was really cute! Here are some pics of Dean painting the planets and then one of the finished mobile.