Train Ride Field Trip

Today we got together with a few preschool-aged friends and their families to explore public transportation in a big way. A friend shuttled 12 of us in her 15-passenger van to the Rantoul Amtrak station where we met up with 10 more friends. We hopped on the train and rode back to Champaign in luxury (a whole train car to ourselves!). Then we took the bus home. It went remarkably smoothly considering how many ways it could have gone terribly, terribly wrong (6 adults and 16 kids?! Holy cow). I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Thanks, guys, for a great morning!

In the van:

The whole group together:

Waiting for the bus:

Ballet

Froofy ballet costume worn in 1984
(can you spot the 5-year-old Susan?)

Froofy ballet costume rediscovered in 2011

She took to it like a fish to water. You go, Girlie.

Vocab-splosion

Robert is trying new words. He makes up his own signs for a few of them, too.

cat/kitty = mmmmaaaoh (flicking his right ear)
dog/puppy = arh arh (high pitched squeal) or goggie
keys/cheese = tcheeeesh
Alice = a-ligch, a-yughsh, agsh
Buddy = Bubby
outside = tshide (right arm motioning down repeatedly)
hello/phone = huh-wo (hand to ear)
bubbles = buh-boh


He makes Mommy, Daddy, baby, I-zhee, hi, and bye all sound like they're spelled.

When he wants you to come, he grunts to get your attention, reaches out his hand, and moves his fingers like he's signing for "milk." It's a sweet little beckoning. I prefer it a million times over the ol' scream-and-shout.

When you say something he likes, he nods enthusiastically. When his answer is no, you'll either get a hesitant head shake or a bowed chin + pouty bottom lip + puppy dog eyes response.

Photo courtesy of Random Alice Productions

From the back seat...

"Mommy, here's the sound of a flower trying to open in winter: "Nnnnnnghuh!""

(explosion of giggles)

Where does she come up with this stuff?

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week was fairly normal.  The one thing out of the ordinary was that we went to the Cheese Festival in Arthur IL.  It was fun.  Alice was on three separate cheese curling teams, and one of those teams (not ours) came in third place over all.  They were tied for first until the sudden death tie breaker round.  After that we went to the park and had a picnic.  It was a lot of fun, except for the heat.  It was 95+ degrees.  Sorry no pictures in this post,  Susan is downloading the pictures from our camera to the computer, so hopefully the will show up in a post soon.