Stinky

Gene decided to take a shower this morning after the kids told him he smelled like the goats at Grants Farm.

Gross. Gross. Gross.

Have you ever been so embarassed you just wanted to disappear? Well, I have!

Will told the preschool principal and school secretary that he was going to twist on them. (For those of you who don't know, when Will says the word "twist," he means passing gas). Before I could intervene, one of them asked him what that meant. He mimed it. With sound effects.

Lost another tooth

Jenna finally lost that bottom tooth tonight. She's very proud. Both of her bottom permanent teeth have come in before the baby teeth were loose enough to come out, and the permanent teeth are growing in at a freakishly fast pace. That makes it hard to tell where the tooth came out, but if you look you can see a little red spot on her gums in front of the shortest front tooth.

Spicy

Another one of Jenna's pictures. This one is entitled "Spise". The dinosaur ate a small mammal that was too spicy (that's "Spise" for you phonetic spellers). That made him drool and he is running to the lake to get a drink. The small animal above his head is laughing at the dinosaur for drooling so much and also because the dinosaur is wearing a bracelet, even though he is a boy.

Kayak race

We watched the start of Leg 2 of the Race for the Rivers kayak race in St Charles. Will was esp. impressed with the larger boats that needed to be backed down the boat ramp with a truck. After the race we went walking along the Katy Trail and even found a tractor to sit on.

Will's picture

This is the picture Will drew during the Rams game of the injured player being driven off field.

Decathlon

Jenna made a list of the events included in the Olympic decathlon. I helped her spell the words Olympic and Decathlon, but the rest of it she wrote all on her own.

1. 100 m run

2. log jump

3. shot pot

4. hdl jumping

5. dikis

6. pol volting

7. javlin

8. hi jump

9. 400 m run

10. 1500 m run

The illustrations were her idea. For the final picture, she decided that rather than draw the competitors running again, she would show the top 3 overall winners wearing their medals and a close up of the gold medal.

I don't want to go to school

One day last week Will didn't want to go to school. That's unusual for him. Despite the historical disinterest in school by some of the other Perry men (you know who I'm talking about), Will really enjoys it so far. Until last Wednesday. It was garbage day and we had a new garbage can. I guess when you're a 4 year old boy and your hobbies include garbage truck watching, a new can just kicks it up a notch.

Unfortunately for Will, I am not a 4 year old boy interested in garbage, so I said that he had to go to school. He was not happy. He tried the whining and crying angle but that didn't work out for him. So he decided to switch tactics. He walked into the kitchen and calmly said, "Mommy, I don't need to go to school. I already learned everything."

Good try, Will.

She did it!

Jenna figured out how to ride her bike today

Chicken pox

Jenna brought a note home in her folder saying that there's an outbreak of chicken pox at her school. Lovely.

Army Guys and Bad Guys

Will drew a pictures this week. This is the first of the series.

Will explains that the green dots are Army guys, the red dots are bad guys, the large green object is an green Army emergency helicopter, and the red shapes are bad guy airplanes. The red squiggle is mud.

Ostrich

Jenna drew a picture of an ostrich in art class. No, I do not know why she drew an ostrich.

Update on Will's 1st Rams game

When Will got home from the Rams game Saturday night, I asked him what was his favorite part of going to a football game. He said "When everybody clapped for the truck." A player badly hurt his knee and they had to bring out the cart. When everybody clapped for the player as he was taken off the field, Will assumed they were clapping for the truck. He claps for trucks, why wouldn't everybody else??

Will also really enjoyed the cheerleaders. He clapped for them too and yelled "Go cheerleaders!"

And to top it off, the women Gene works with fed Will cookies and gummy bears. And you know how Will feels about older women.

With all of the trucks and cheerleaders and candy, it was the perfect night for him. He probably didn't even notice there was a football game going on.

Garbage truck

Here's Will watching the garbage truck.

What it takes to be a successful 1st grader

This is Jenna's rendition of a successful 1st grader. Her suggestions to anyone starting 1st grade are as follows:

Lisin to dreksins

Do your best

Be respetfol

Do not run in the halls

Be quiet

She regrets that the portrait is not her best coloring, however there was insufficient time remaining in the class period for her to complete the coloring in the manner she would have liked.

Treasure map

Will has never put so much work into a craft. It's usually just a quick scribble on the page and then he's done. But these past few weeks he's actually been putting some work into his school projects. He's even done some drawing at home. I'll be publishing some of his art work on this website soon, as well as some of Jenna's more inspired pieces.

Rams Game

Will went to his 1st Rams game tonight with Daddy.

Sculpture Park

We took the kids to Laumeier Sculpture Park today. The unanimous favorite piece was the double slide, however Will was quite disappointed when he found out he couldn't play on it. Jenna also liked the face dug into the ground. Will liked the 12 foot eyeball . What is it with my kids and eyeballs???

I just don't get some of this "art" they have at this place. I don't get what is art about a row of metal marine buoys. They weren't even painted pretty colors.

Warning: The Following May Be Disturbing to Some Viewers

Jenna and Will have one of those bingo game where you pick the number balls out of a cage. This week one of them (I'm not positive which one but I think her name rhymes with Benna) put one of those little rubber balls with the eyeball painted on it in the cage. Here's what I saw looking back at me when I sat down to join the game. See if you can spot the eyeball yourself. When I asked (and I know I shouldn't have asked) why they put the eyeball in there, Jenna answered, "Because if you spin the cage and get the eyeball, it means good luck." Frankly I don't know why I found this any more bizarre than any of the other things that happen around here....

Checkup

Will had his checkup today. He's almost 34 pounds! Go Will!!! He's now at the 25th percentile for height and weight among boys his age. That's a big jump from the numbers he'd posted previously. He got four shots and was very brave.


He also took part in his first medical research study. There was a researcher from the pediatric plastic and reconstructive surgery departments at St Louis Children's Hospital and Washington University Medical School recruiting for a study. They took a 3D picture of Will's head and face that they will put in a database for surgical research studies and procedures that will help children being treated for head and face injuries and birth defects. Very cool.

Haircut

Will got a haircut this week. Sorry Kristi.

Olympics

The kids are very excited about the Summer Olympics. Especially Jenna, because a) she likes the sports you don't usually get to see on TV and b) there is a boy in her class who just moved here from China so she's really interested in China right now. Will made an Olympic megaphone and flag at school. He walks around yelling "U-S-A!! U-S-A!!" into the megaphone. I'd like to thank his teachers, Miss Dawn and Miss Vicki, for introducing him to this performance enhancing drug for his voice. His new motto is "Faster, higher, stronger, louder."

My Cutre Tis Uv The

Jenna sang "My Country Tis of Thee" for me and Kristi several times yesterday. Then she decided to write out the lyrics all by herself. She didn't want any help. The only word she asked for help on was "die", for some reason it was important to her that word was spelled correctly. We didn't try to tell her it's "died", not "die". What do we know??

Here are the lyrics, according to Jenna:

"My cutre tis uv the swet lad uv librt uv the I sing lad war my fathrs die lad uv the pilgrums prid frum evre mawtim sid let freebum ring!"

Gross

Will tried to hand me a booger last night. A really big one. He thought it was hilarious. Luckily I looked before he put it in my hand. And no, I didn't take a picture of it.

He's all boy, isn't he?

Baseball Players and Ninja Warriors

We've finally finished T-ball/baseball. Will loved it, Jenna hated it. Next summer she wants to take Ninja Warrior lessons instead. I told her I'd try to find a place that teaches Ninja Warrior. If anybody has any leads, let me know.

Milestones

We've had a few milestones at our house lately. Will turned 4. He's so excited to be 4 years old. He tells everybody, "I'm 4 now" and holds up 4 fingers. He was worried for days before his party that the plastic trucks on his cake would catch fire. The mark on his forehead is the result of falling on the morning of the party and hitting his head on the metal bench at Jenna's baseball game. He keeps things interesting.

Jenna started 1st grade. She says she loves 1st grade and that 1st grade is way better than Kindergarten. And so far, she's gotten off to a much better start this year. She's had good behavior marks every day!!!

Will, TBall Champion

Here's Will scoring the winning run at T-ball. OK, so they didn't take score but it was still exciting enough that he leaped onto home plate.

Let's see how this goes....

I'm going to try this blogging thing out. Now when my children say or do something "precious" you can all know at once.

It's easy to remember. Hippos and Trucks. Sums up everything at our house.