Yates Foursome

“T” Day: On T day we ate toast for breakfast, trail mix for a snack, tuna triangles and tomatoes for lunch, and Toppers pizza for dinner. We thought of friends named Tabor, Twichell, Teutschman, Theo, Tori. We thought of characters Thomas the Tank, Tow, Tom, Tex (from Cars), Tigger, and Timothy (from Dumbo). We thought of states Texas and Tennessee. We played with the spinning Tic-Tac-Toe game at the park. We went shopping at Target. We also thought of turtle, table, top, toes, teeth, tummy, tea, tee, two, three, ten, twenty, twelve, tractor, the, truck, train, tracks, think, tickle, tag, time, toy, trumpet, and tennis.

“U” Day: Our animal coloring page had a unicorn today. We unpacked our Easter decorations. We talked about uncles, umbrellas, underwear, undershirts, uniforms, unicycles, under, up, and upside-down. We baked a pineapple upside-down cake, but the boys wouldn’t try it. We had Uncrustables peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but they didn’t want those either. Oh, well.

“V” Day: We made sure to eat our vitamins and vegetables today. I also made the boys vanilla milk. They said they liked it, but they didn’t drink very much. Later Caleb said he didn’t like it and wanted chocolate milk instead. We watched VeggieTales videos. When Daddy asked what we were going to do today, Mommy said, “Go on a vacation!” because that’s a V word, but we didn’t really. We just went to MOPs and baseball practice. We also thought of V words like victory, vehicle, van, Volkswagan, violin, vacuum, volcano, Vanessa, voice, vest, volleyball, vision, violet, Venezuela, visitor, veterinarian, and even a Spanish word we learned from Dora, vamanos.

“W” Day: For breakfast the boys had whole-wheat waffles with whipped cream. Wow! That’s a lot of Ws. We thought of W names of people, characters, and states: Will, Wyatt, Winnie, Wendy, Wall-E, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, West Virginia. We noticed a lot of homonym W words like: wait/weight, where/wear, way/weigh, whine/wine, weather/whether, woe/whoa, waste/waist. We noticed lots of question words: why, when, where, who, what. We also thought of woodpecker, walrus, window, wheel, water, world, wild, whale, wave, whoosh, win, white, wiggly, worm, welcome, whip, well, wish, wonderful, wizard, wax, worship, whistle, wash, warp, warthog, worry, whirlpool, wet, while, WOW!

“X” Day: We have a kids video that talks about the “lonely letters” and we think X is probably the “loneliest”. There’s x-ray and xylophone, but that’s about all we know. So we tried to find things with X in it. We had Kix cereal for breakfast and trail mix for a snack. There’s Tex from Cars and Rex from Toy Story. We saw our friend Maddox at church today. We remembered X marks the spot and gave each other X’s and O’s before bedtime.

“K” Day: We had Kix cereal for breakfast and tried a kiwi fruit, but we didn’t like it. Talked about flying a kite…. And we did fly mini kites at the park for a while. Very fun. We thought of kangaroo, kitten, koala, kindness, Kayla, Kaylee, Kenya, Kazakstan, Kyrgystan, Korea, knee, knife. We read stories called, The Knee-High Man, How the Kangaroo got its Tail, and Kayoku and the Crane. We’re having kielbasa and ketchup and kernels of corn for dinner.

“L” Day: Today is St. Patrick’s Day and I was going to skip doing a letter today because I had other St. Patrick’s Day activities planned, but Micah sill wanted to do L today. It works out well since Leprechaun starts with L, and we had Lucky Charms cereal for breakfast. We tried to think of things that start with L and are green and thought of: Leprechaun, limes, limeade, leaves, lilypads, lollipops, lettuce. Other L words: limo, Lamborghini, line, lips, leg, Louisiana, Liberia, Laos, Luigi, lion, leopard, ladybug, list, love, listen, little, Larry. For St. Paddy’s Day we also found and picked a couple clovers on our walk, put some carnations in green and orange water to see them change color, made shamrock shape cookies with green sugar sprinkles, had shamrock shaped sandwiches, green milk, limeade, and rainbow fruit salad for lunch, had a hunt for gold coins (yellow cardstock circles) in the living room, and found the pot of gold/treasure (tissue box filled with toy bead necklaces, plastic coins, and chocolate coins) at the end of the (curling ribbon) rainbow. Books we have with L words: Micah at Legoland, Larry Learns to Listen, Little Einsteins, Ten Little Ladybugs, Lion King, I Love my Family. Songs we thought of with L words: Lollipop, Little Is Much, I Love my Lips. Some L dinner foods for today: lima beans, lettuce (salad), and lime Jello.

“G” Day: We ate green grapes and guava nectar at breakfast, granola bars, graham cracker and peanut butter sandwiches, Gatorade, and gummy lifesavers candies for snacks, and guacamole at dinner. We played with our GeoTrax trains in the garage. We thought of other G words like grasshopper, gorilla, gum, grass, goggles, guy, gallop, go, giraffe, Grandma, Grandpa, & Great-Grandma.

“H” Day: We had honeydew melon with breakfast and honey-nut granola bars for snack and hamburgers for lunch. We went to the “Happiest Place on Earth” and while we were driving there thought of lots of H words like hippo, horse, hay, hotel, heaven, happy, Hot Wheels, hat, head, heart, hair, hand, hips, Hawaii, Honda, hungry, Hungary. After the morning at California Adventure we met Grandma & Grandpa Yates for lunch in Downtown Disney and they took the boys home with them, so our Letter of the Day project was on hold for a couple days.

“I” Day: After the boys got home again, the next day was “I” day. The coloring pages had an iguana on them today. The boys have lost interest in coloring every day. Maybe if we use markers or colored pencils or watercolor paints instead of just crayons they will get into it again. We had ice cream for dessert after dinner. We thought of I words like igloo, island, In N Out, ice cubes, Icee, ice, icicle, Indiana, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, ill, India, Iceland, Indonesia, ivy, iris, Israel, Ireland, and insect.

“J” Day: We drank juice and ate Jello and jerky today. The boys didn’t like the jerky, but at least they tasted it. Caleb jumped in the jumper. We thought of lots of J names like Joseph, James, John, Jillian, Jay-Jay, Jacob, Joshua, and Jesus. Other J words we thought of were jellyfish, jelly, jam, jacks, jet, jolly, juggle, joker, and Jericho.

So, the other day we went for a walk in the rain with boots and jackets and umbrellas. As we were walking Micah said “Umbrella starts with U.” I said, “That’s right. Should U be the letter of the day?” Micah said, “No, E” I asked, “What starts with E?” Micah said, “Egg”. I said “Oh, so we should eat eggs today like maybe an egg sandwich for lunch?” Then Micah said, “No, P is the letter of the day” I said, “What start with P?” Micah said “Peanut butter” (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are his favorite food). So P became the letter of the day and we had peanut butter sandwiches and pizza and peaches and pineapples and pretzels and peanuts for lunch and snacks. We forgot to eat our pickles though.

The next day I asked Micah what the letter of the day should be and he said “A”. So I asked if we should start at the beginning of the alphabet and do a letter a day and he said yes. So that’s what we’re going to try to do. So, for “A” Day, we ate almonds and apples and American cheese for a snack and avocado tortillas for dinner. We thought of other “A” words like alligator, ant, anteater, acorn, axe, apricot, and more.

“B” Day. They had bread for a snack and peanut butter and bread sandwiches and baby carrots and beef summer sausage for lunch. Too bad we were out of bananas. We played with our toy bowling set. We baked some bread in the breadmaker. We thought of lots of “B” words like balloon, bubbles, backyard, back, bottom, bones, books, blocks, ball, bat, bear, basketball, baseball, blue, black, bee, blanket, bake, and more. The boys also watched the second half of “Beauty and the Beast”. (They watched the first half a couple days before.)

We plan to do a letter of the day coloring page each day and put them all together to make an alphabet book when we’re done. I also want to try to eat at least one food beginning with the letter of the day and hope that maybe they will help shop for the foods as the letter days approach and may be willing to try some new things like kiwi or zucchini.

“C” Day: The boys had Cheerios cereal and OJ for breakfast and I had a mini bagel with cream cheese and chocolate instant breakfast. We had Kimotion this morning so didn’t get a lot of time to do “C” activities. Cooking would have been good, or playing with cars. Actually they did play with cars at Kimotion today since it was the last week of session potluck and free play. On the way home we talked about things starting with C and especially names that start with C like Caleb, Christy, Cisco, Cassidy, Claire, Christian, Christopher, Cathy, Charlie. Caleb had already colored his “C” coloring page a while back because we had started with the letters in their name at first. So when Caleb went to naps, Micah colored (hey! Coloring is a good “c” activity) his “C” page and then we did a little activity from our “getting ready for Kindergarten” book. After naps the boys had cashews, chocolate chips, Cheetos chips, graham crackers and carrots for a snack. Then we went to the grocery store to get some necessities and stock up on some special foods for the next few letter days. We had chicken, corn, carrots, cucumber, and croutons at dinner and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. And thought of more “c” words like crocodile, cow, crow, come, comb, cat, cup, cuckoo clock, cap, confused, church, Cubbie, cavity, and more. They also watched a Boz video story called “Counting on God’s Love.”

“D” Day: We had donuts and dried dates for breakfast. Caleb liked the dates but Micah didn’t. At least he tried one. We listened to Disney music in the car on the way to my MOPs steering meeting. Micah said, “hey, this reminds me, we should go to Disneyland for D day.” I said that was a good idea but we didn’t have time today because of my meeting and Micah’s t-ball practice. Then he said maybe we can do it the next D day because after we get to Z we’re going to start over. We’ll see about starting over; with how it’s going so far, I wouldn’t mind, but we’ll see if they are still into it by the end. For lunch we met Daddy at Del Taco, then listened to more Disney music on the way home. When Caleb went to naps Micah chose a Diego and Dora book to read before his turn to take a nap. We’ll have Doritos and more donuts for snack and maybe they’ll have hot dogs for dinner. Mom & Dad are having date night for D day: going out to dinner and to see “The Producers” at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center. We did the donut & Doritos snack on the way to t-ball practice and noted that Dodgers starts with D too. They also colored their D coloring pages: dog and dolphin. We thought of Disney characters Dumbo, Doc, & Dopey. Each day I’m thinking of more things to add and think about starting with the letter of the day. First it was foods & words, then activities & movies/videos, then names, then music, then Disney characters, then books. We also like to think about states and countries that start with the letter.

“E” Day: The boys had Eggo waffles and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then we went down Erringer Rd. to Micah’s t-ball game. We noticed signs for entrances and exits along the way. After t-ball we headed to the LA Zoo to meet the Teutschmans. On the way we talked about E words and names like Eeyore, Elmo, Ernie, Emily, Elijah, echo. At the zoo we saw the elephant from a distance through the construction on his exhibit. We also saw a giant eland, the largest kind of antelope. The boys thought of eels as another E animal that we saw at the aquarium, but I don’t think they have them at the zoo. For lunch we had hard cooked eggs (“white eggs” as the boys call them). At home again Micah colored his “eagle” coloring page, but Caleb didn’t feel like coloring today. We had Pecos Pasta made with elbow macaroni for dinner, and thought of two other parts of the body that start with e: ear and eye.

“F” day: I made French toast for breakfast, we had frankfurters at church for lunch, and fruit and fruit snacks for snack. Caleb wanted me to color his frog green for him and Micah colored his fish green and orange. We went for a walk after dinner and ran fast, and saw a flag and a Ford. While getting ready for bed with baths and stories we thought of other f words like fire, friend, family, fox, finger, foot, face, flip-flop, food, Flo, Fred, Father, foolish, full, and more. While brushing teeth we noticed floss and fluoride fit too. We read a story about Mickey & Goofy called Fool’s Gold.

On February 22 we drove up to Frazier Park to find some snow to play in for a couple hours. This was the second time the boys had seen snow, but the first time they really had fun in it. They thought it was funny to step in deep snow and sink down in it. Caleb fell down a lot, but I think at least some of the time it was on purpose. We borrowed some sleds and went sledding down a hill. Caleb went with Daddy first but his second time down the hill he went by himself. Micah went down by himself from the first time. We also made a snowman and threw snowballs and even ate some snow. Micah kept licking the snow off his mittens. We spent about two hours playing, and it was going to be getting dark soon so we headed home. We had a great time and the boys can’t wait to go back. I hope we can squeeze in another trip this winter before the snow is gone. This is a photo of Micah & Caleb when we first got to the snow.