Jessica performs at Holiday Sing

On Friday, Jessica's school had a holiday sing program. Here is a photo of Jessica at the holiday sing.




The kids sang a collection of favorite holiday songs. Thanks to video, you can see the whole performance!

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

The Dreidel Song

Deck the Halls

The Raindrop Song

We Wish You...

Jingle Bells

This Little Light of Mine

Jessica makes cookies for the teachers

Jessica helped me bake and decorate cookies for her and Jamison's teachers. She is a big fan of sprinkles!

Jessica's Photography Exhibit

On Thursday, one of Jessica's schools had a photography exhibit of photos that all the children had taken. Photos, cameras, and subjects had been an area of interest amongst the children, which resulted in the photo exhibit. Jessica chose "Carl" for her photo.



Jessica's description of her photo in her own words...

"It's about Carl. I took a picture of his face. Isabella and me dress up Carl. We dress him up like a princess. We ride him."

Jamison week 24

This week Jamison had fun dressing up for the holidays. She donned many holiday outfits, including a Santa costume (see previous blog post). Here she is in her elf outfit with candy cane striped pants.



Despite all of the holiday festivities, Jamison managed to hit a milestone this week when she tasted rice cereral for the first time. The results were mixed. At first, she seemed to be somewhat interested in the food and spoon.



Then, she seemed to contemplate the food for a while.



And, eventually, we think she really just wasn't sure about the whole thing.



I guess we will just have to keep trying.

Jamison has also decided to show us how vocal she can be. At times, she squeals and screams in delight.

And, Jamison is no longer just sitting. She likes to lean over to pick up her toys now. We wonder how long it will be before she is really starting to move around.

Santa and Rudolph go to the zoo

Our own little Santa and Rudolph (pretend as Jessica said) went to the zoo today for a Santa breakfast. Before heading out, however, Jessica was so excited that she was dressed up as Rudolph and Jamison was dressed up as Santa, that we just had to take pictures.







While Jessica waited for Santa to arrive, she decorated Gingerbread cookies for herself and Jamison and made reindeer ornaments. Jessica has learned that decorating Gingerbread is fun, but eating the decorations is better.





Santa came soon after and Jessica and Jamison took a picture with him.



A bit later in the day, Santa was sitting by his reindeer who were taking a rest. The girls were lucky enough to get another picture with him.



Before heading home, we had to take a quick spin on the carousel.

after school dancing

When Jessica and her friend got home from school this afternoon, they danced to the music from one of our snowmen decorations.

Christmas comes early

Christmas has come early for Jessica this year as she has started to receive some presents already. Recently, she got Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Chipettes stuffed animals from her Mimi and Papa. They are now one of her favorite toys. She takes them on fake picnics, puts them in her stroller, and sleeps with them every night. Britney also goes in the car with us everywhere now.



She also got a Princess laptop from Benjamin, Elaine, and Mike. It has princesses on it and they talk to her, so she loves it!

Jamison week 23

This week, Jamison continued to practice sitting. She's not yet sitting on her own, but she's getting closer. She spent quite a bit of time sitting in her boppy and playing with toys.





She's also still playing in her activity center.



And, she spends quite a bit of time rolling around on the floor. We actually have to watch her more closely now as she moves around a lot more than she used to.

Decorating the house for Christmas

This past weekend, we got around to decorating the house. This year, getting the tree, decorating the tree, and hanging the lights was a very big deal for Jessica. As soon as we started on hanging the lights outside, she wanted to help.



Unfortunately, when a 3 year old is your assistant, hanging lights takes a lot longer. Luckily, she got bored with the whole thing and went inside until we were done. She loved the final product, which includes snowflakes, candy canes, and even flamingos. This year, our whole picket fence is lit up too. We're still on the hunt for a lit up Santa, but that may have to wait until next year since all the stores are sold out.



Once we were done with the outside, we moved on to decorating the tree. Jessica wanted lots of lights, tinsel, and even beads. Our tree is quite the Fancy Nancy tree. I think I've been reading Splendiferous Christmas a few too many times. Anyways, Jessica loves the ornaments on the tree and points out her ornaments to everyone. So far, she has collected Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Rapunzel and is working on us for more (princesses that is). She's also acquired a princess stocking this year. It looks slightly out of place on the mantel, but she just had to have it!



And, now that the Christmas tree is up, we can ask the girls to pose for lots of pictures for us.

Santa lunch at Gilroy Gardens

A few weeks ago, Jessica and Jamison went to the Santa lunch at Gilroy Gardens. Snoopy and friends were also there.

Here is a photo with Santa.



And, here are some photos with Snoopy and friends.





Linus was very interested in Jamison because she had a blanket just like him (well a pink version).





I'm not really sure how the girls managed to eat popsicles (it was very cold), but they seemed to enjoy them.

Jessica's Learning Story: Rapunzel's Tower

Jessica's school has Learning Stories, which are written pieces of documentation that illustrate particular learning experiences that the children have at school. We recently got a learning story from Miss Pam entitled Rapunzel's Tower.

Dear Jessica,

As I walked into the block room today, I found you, Isabella and Ellie dumping nearly everything off the shelves into a pile on the floor. When it was clear to me that you didn’t have a plan, I asked you all to put everything away and then sit down to have a meeting with me.

“Now, girls. What is your plan? What would you like to do here in the Block Room?” Ellie decided to go outside to play, but you said clearly, “I want to make a castle… a tower for Rapunzel.” I smiled, as you’ve been talking about your “Tangled” movie experience since we returned from the Thanksgiving break. “Great plan, Jessica!” I said.

First you stacked some square blocks and explained, “This is going to be the castle floor.” Then you strategically placed four vertical blocks to add height to your building. But after that, you seemed stumped. You clearly wanted your tower to be bigger but you reasoned, “If I put any blocks on top of these it will fall down.”

(Developmentally, at 3 years old, you are at the ‘stacking’ stage, without the cognitive awareness yet of making ‘bridges’, the next stage of block-building strategy for young children.)



It is at this point in a child’s play where scaffolding is so important, and yet so sensitive. How can I facilitate your vertical building skills without getting in the way of your play?

I made the decision to show you the benefits of placing a square block horizontally on top of your four vertical ‘columns’, and you seemed delighted (and somewhat amazed) at the stability this technique provided.



As I stood back to let you use this new knowledge, I watched as you placed two more square blocks on top of each other. Of course, MY idea was to have you alternate vertical blocks with horizontal blocks as you built higher and higher (The ‘Bridge’ stage). But clearly you were showing me that you were not ready to move to the next stage.

Again, do I intervene? Your purpose, you said, was to build your tower ‘as high as me”. I helped you notice how you’d built up your tower so far, and, on your own, you grabbed more vertical blocks to repeat your previous pattern. Now I was the one who was delighted!




Finally, you looked into the mirror and noticed that your tower wasn’t quite tall enough so you found some thin planks to add yet more height, (although you did stack them horizontally) until finally it was “as big as me!”



Learning to build vertically is a developmental skill that develops with practice. I hope that you will return to this activity and cement your new skills.
Thank you, Jessica, for helping me ‘see’ child development in action… through play!

Love,
Miss Pam

Jamison week 22

Jamison continued to show off her sitting skills in the Boppy. She is able to sit up longer and longer each day and seems to prefer the view in this position.



When she's not sitting in her boppy, she likes to roll around on the floor and play with her toys.



She's starting to roll more frequently from her back to her stomach and this does not make her happy at all. In fact, one night, she did this in her crib and we had to go and rescue her. We still haven't been able to capture this on film yet. Maybe one day she will do it for the camera.

Jamison also still likes to sit in her bouncy chair.



We're starting to hear Jessica say that Jamison is rude. That's because Jamison is really a vigorous spitter. And, since we've told Jessica that it is rude for her to spit, she assumes that it is rude for Jamison to do it too.

And, when I got hit with spit from across the table the other day, I did think it was quite rude!

Jamison has also become a lip smacker with her fishy face.

Additionally, both Jamison and Jessica are getting excited that Christmas is right around the corner. They got new Santa pajamas that they modeled one night after their bath.

family photos with Jack and Nicky

Recently, the girls took some photos with their cousins, Jack and NIcky. Here are a few of the pictures.

Thanksgiving photos

Jessica was very excited to be dressed up like her sister for Thanksgiving.



We even managed to snap a family photo.

pumpkin pies means happy thanksgiving

Today, when Jim and I picked Jessica up from school, she said that she wanted to make a pumpkin pie. I assume someone at school had talked about making a pumpkin pie, since we have never made one (or any pie for that matter) and Jessica's only experience with pumpkin food has been pumpkin bread, which she seemed to like. Anyways, Jim thought that baking a pumpkin pie would be a fun afternoon activity for Jessica and himself.

Jessica and Jim worked on making the pumpkin filling together. She decided the pumpkin filling was too gross to stir, but soon got involved pouring in sugar, etc.



Making a pie takes a long time, and Jessica wandered off before it was done. But, she sure did dig in to the pie when it was ready to eat (as did the rest of us). It was very good (as you can see by the big chunk missing from it) and she even asked us to save it for her (a sure sign that it was a winner).




Anyways, we hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving.

Jamison week 21

This is the week where Jamison showed everyone how strong she was by sitting up a bunch. Here she is sitting in front of her bear toy.



She loves to play with her toys now and everything goes in her mouth. Sophie is one of her new favorite chew toys.



And, she spends lots of time inspecting her toys too. Here she is starring at her rings. Fascinating I know!



We finally were able to catch Jamison laughing. She loves peek-a-boo.

My friend Elaine visited the girls while she was out in the Bay Area. Here they are mugging for her camera.



It was a happy week!