Category Archives: Audiovisual

Paul’s Friends

I think it’s about time to introduce the rest of the family.

Paul has a mommy named Rebecca and a daddy named Ryan. Also in our family is Goldbug, and Pootie and Frosty and Frosty Goo (who is sometimes just called Goo).

Goldbug has a pink shirt and white pants, and white socks. He is a little bit short.

Pootie is a boy. He has yellow pants and a blue shirt. He is short.

Frosty and Frosty Goo have blue pants and white underwear pants. They both have pink shirts and gray socks. They are not snowmen, even though that’s what they were named after.

Sometimes they change their clothes, so tomorrow it may be different.

Paul also has a lot of other friends that visit every day. Pinoochio; Huckle, Lowly, Pig Will and Pig Won’t, and Hilda Hippo (from Richard Scarry); and ABCD; and “no more” (he says right now).

Most days, Paul will ask about random letters. “What does QXRG spell?” and I’ll try to pronounce it. He’ll repeat it and say “that’s my imaginary friend! He’s coming to play today!”

He also pretends real peopel are imaginary all day long. A pretend Brother B– from church, for example, or a pretend mail carrier who comes with Christmas presents (already, yes).

As we talk right now, he says, “No more imaginary friends!” but I know there will be more tomorrow. It’s just how it is today.

Goldbug and Pootie are here to stay though. They are his brothers. They live in a house above ours, but it is in Florida. They share a car with Frosty and Frosty Goo, which has  three toilets in it. In short, they are pretty cool friends to have. He loves to bring them along every where. When we’re going for a long drive, he often talks about how he wishes we had a toilet in our car too, either because he needs to go or because he really didn’t want me making him use the toilet before he left.

One week when Goldbug was new to our family (last September?), Paul begged to bring him to church with him. I said, “as long as he is reverent.” When Paul started squirming during the meeting, I said, “Paul, show Goldbug how to sit reverently,” and Paul sat right up. It’s very convenient.

Here is a video of a few conversations I had with Paul about his imaginary friends. He mostly wanted to tell stories about his friends, but he does introduce them a little bit too. It is quite funny, if you ask me. The video was taken April 10, 2011. We both have colds then, and somehow we already both have colds today too.

 

Zoo Flakes ABC Snow Day Activity

I certainly hope there is not snow in the coming 48 hours, but in honor of one last crazy storm this winter-ish season, here’s one more “snow day” book that Raisin and I enjoyed. It’s one that would be fun any time of year.

Zoo Flakes ABC by Will Howell is a fabulous ABC art and craft book. Each letter of the alphabet is represented by a snowflake cut in the shape of an animal, and they are fantastically detailed. Given Raisin’s love of the ABCs, he loved following the alphabet in the book. I loved how it was a different ABC book, because sometimes the same old thing gets boring. There are plenty of same old thing ABC books, and we’ve read them all. We both also loved finding the image of the animal in each snowflake. As an adult, I personally loved the details in the images of the animals.

I cannot find any online page images from Mr Howell’s book to show you, and I’ve already returned it to the library. But since Mr. Howell included detailed directions on how to make our own zooflakes, we did just that.

You should know that I am completely not an artistic or crafty person. I’ve never made an attractive snowflake in my life. But I was finally successful on this project. At least, I felt like I was.There is one image below that I intended to be a sheep and Raisin insists it is an octopus. Okay, then, maybe not.

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Can you tell what animals I was trying for? If not, here they are. The first is a fish. It fell apart; there weren’t enough edges to keep it together. The second is people (Raisin calls them “Munchkins” since we went to The Wizard of Oz musical recently.) Then the four are a chicken, a sheep (sitting on his rear hunches, he looks like he just has two legs…), a cat face, and a snake. My favorite is the chicken, which is, I think, the last one I made. I was improving!

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This post cross-posted on Rebecca Reads.

Spring Has Sprung!

I took these pictures and the video on Wednesday, March 17, 2011. I had intended to post them as a “Wordless Wednesday” post to contrast with the post from a few weeks ago. But I didn’t have a chance. The first day of spring is a good reason to celebrate a day of sunshine, though!

Here’s Paul on the day he wouldn’t come in. We were outside for at least four hours.
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Apple Orchard

Photos taken October 18, 2010. Paul’s preschool went on a field trip to the apple orchard! Paul got to pick apples (although I didn’t get a picture of that) and then we visited the petting zoo and played on the playground. It was a fun day.

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On the wagon to go pick apples


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Playing on the "fire truck"


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At the petting zoo