Three and a Half

I've been posting mostly about what we've been doing and taking pictures of and not as much about who Nate is these days. I figured since he is 3 1/2 as of June 7th that it was a good time to do a Nate update.

Nate loves...

~ dressing like and reading about super heroes, especially Superman. He's been wearing a Superman shirt with a cape almost daily for a few weeks.

~ pretending to be someone or something (a dog, any animal, super heroes, characters from books and shows). He also involves us by giving us personas that fit with whoever he is at the time.

~ reading, we still read several books a day and he can be caught reading on his own during quiet time

~ riding bikes, although since we returned from Las Vegas he's sort of taken a break from that

~ playing with cars, trucks, trains, airplanes and anything with wheels

~ macaroni and cheese (still but he doesn't have it too often), almond/coconut milk, hard boiled (carboiled) eggs, ice cream, cheddar bunny crackers

~ to ask 5 million questions all day long. Why did Nano jump in the car? Why does the sun go down? He can tell you a some what scientific answer for that one since he's asked it so many times. 

~ listening to kids music like Raffi and music from Curious George and listening to audio books

New interests...

~ numbers, he counts all the time (not always correctly) and is starting to know the names of numbers 0-10

~ clocks and time, he asks about 10 times a day what time it is

~ letters and words, he doesn't know all his letters but he likes doing letter magnets and puzzles. We were playing around with making some words the other day and discovered he has a knack for sight words. We are going to proceed slowly, but I made him a book with some animals pictures and the word underneath. Maybe he'll start recognizing some simple words, but if not that's fine too. He's only 3 and we are only doing things that interest him. 

~ helping cook and bake

~ being in charge of holding the leash to walk Phantom

~ coloring just within the last week

~ playing games on the iPad as a reward

~ dressing up

Nate doesn't like...

~ naps

~ getting dressed in the morning

~ going to bed by himself ever since he stopped sucking his thumb

~ singing or being sung to

Nate still surprises us with what he knows and remembers. He continues to change so quickly I can hardly keep up. I have been reading like crazy about homeschooling lately. I feel like a college kid reading and taking notes. I know a decent amount, but I want to learn more about the different methods of homeschooling so I can be better prepared when we officially start. Nate wouldn't start Kindergarten until the fall of 2015 when he is nearly 6 since he has a late birthday. I think that we will most likely start doing some more formal homeschooling prior to that so I want to be prepared. We have made some friends that homeschool. There is a family with a boy a little older than Nate so I am trying to make connections and learn from them. I'm so excited to homeschool because I know it is what will work best for our family. 

Nate is in bed, somewhat reluctantly, and listening to knight stories. Time to go do some more reading.

Fun Weekend

As I type we are enjoying the second part of a thunderstorm that made an entrance yesterday afternoon. Luckily we had all of our fun before the rain moved in so we can sit at home and enjoy it today. As I was working on this post we lost power for an hour so I'm coming back to finish it now.

On Saturday I attended a Preppers meetup about using essential oils for health care. Eddie usually attends the Preppers meetups, but I have really been wanting to learn about using essential oils for health care so I went. It also happened that a sale at the kid's consignment shop was going on and the warehouse sale at a local bookstore so I just made a day out of it. Since I was going to be gone all day the boys went to the car museum (I don't remember the official name) downtown and had lunch together afterward. They had a great time. It was a special day because we could use our membership from the Discovery Museum to get in free. They'll do that again in September so we'll have to be sure to take Nate again.

The noodle car they made

A picture Nate took of Eddie. He's quite the photographer these days.

Nate's favorite vehicle

On Sunday we decided to go explore a lake just over the border in California called Frenchman's Lake. It was about a 45 minute drive north on the 395. We found a nice spot to set up some chairs and play in the water. It was warmer than we expected but Eddie and I were not in bathing suits so we didn't do some more than wade. Nate wanted to be in the water the whole time. Phantom liked the water too and had fun playing ball along the beach. He won't actually swim though. We are thinking about planning our first family campout there sometime in the next month.

Barking at the camera, of course

After the lake and an early dinner we went out for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. Eddie and I aren't big ice cream eaters so Nate has never had ice cream somewhere like that before. We let him get anything he wanted so he ordered vanilla ice cream with gummy bears and M&Ms. Nate loves ice cream. He's had ice cream instead of birthday cakes the last few years. Nate is wearing his Jake the pirate headband. He's been Jake for a few days now.

We had a fun and busy weekend again. We enjoyed a laid back day together today. Our hour of no power resulted in an hour long game playing session with Cootie and Candy Land. Nate is starting to actually be able to play games now. It's about bedtime for Nate, which will involve reading about Splat the Cat, knights and dragons, super heroes or anything else that catches his eye tonight. 

Valhalla Renaissance Faire

Eddie and I have always loved the Renaissance Faire in Las Vegas. We went just about every year since we met and have taken Nate twice already. There are several faires in our general area (mostly Northern CA) each year. This one was in South Lake Tahoe, CA, about an hour and a half drive for us. This faire goes for 2 weekends and includes school and family days on a Thursday and Friday (which we'll probably do when Nate is older for more educational purposes). Today was perfect. The weather was beautiful and it wasn't very busy at all.

One the way up traffic was slow going through South Lake Tahoe, and this is why...

We aren't sure what the wagon train was for or where they were going, but it was fun to see. There were also lots of bike riders on the road for some organized event.

Nate dressed up as a pirate and was much admired by the other renaissance people. Several people stopped to talk to him and one person gave him some gummy bears and another gave him a "gold" pirate coin. We stopped at various booths and looked or played with the things they had. The first booth we stopped at had a wooden catapult and cross bow that you could try out (and of course buy). On our way out we bought the little DIY catapult set for Eddie and Nate to do together.

Petting a bird very carefully. It had a very sharp beak. Of course he loves animals so I'm sure that is why he agreed to sit on this lady's lap. 

Trying on a real helmet. 

Pirate flag

Giant turkey leg and garlic fries I ordered. Nate took one bite and decided he didn't like  turkey leg. 

Lemonade hog

"Bad guy" in the jousting tournament

Good Guy

Good guy ended up losing...

...so his brother came out to challenge the bad guy

Whoa that looks scary and it sounded scary everytime he hit the good guy's shield with it.

After the tournament was over they had horse rides. Nate got to ride by himself his year.

Luckily Nate held on the whole time. He loved it. This was his 4th time on a horse.

Here is a video of the horse ride. It gets blurry sometimes (weird camera thing) but you get the idea.