Slowly, slowly getting back on track!

Well, we're starting to settle in. Everything is unpacked... except the school books. I've started that, and I'm hoping it will be done by next week. Then maybe I can make a plan. In the mean time, we're keeping busy, and Crumpet is definitely learning.

In an effort to cut down on t.v. watching, I set up a shelf in the living room with all of our kid friendly games. (There are more somewhere - hopefully the school boxes??) I don't know if it's the location of the games, or if Crumpet has just come to an age where he loves games, but we play them a LOT now.
I found a game called Traffic Jam by Discovery Toys at a consignment sale in the spring. It's a strategy game in which the goal is to lay out vehicle cards and make a road system, with everyone trying to block the other players with roadblocks like fallen trees or floods. Crumpet doesn't really understand the strategy yet, but he loves building the roads and working with the cars.

We love Hullabaloo by Cranium, even when it's just the 2 of us playing. You lay out all of the different mats, which are different colors and shapes. Each has a different picture. The machine calls out instructions and you move to different mats until the machine announces which mat is a winner, if you're standing on it. It gets pretty silly, and we giggle a lot. It's great with more kids.

We have been baking a lot. I am so excited to have a kitchen and my dishes - I just can't stop! (I am definitely struggling to get back on track with my healthy eating and exercising, after a month of eating out and living in a hotel...)

Nature:

We have been discovering lots of interesting "wildlife" around our home. Here's a gecko... in my living room.

There are really big snails around here.

The bigger boys across the street from us showed us some good spots to find huge snails, slugs, lizards, crabs and itty bitty frogs. Aren't boys great? We've also found some really odd, huge bees. I thought one was a hummingbird at first!

We have gone on some neat nature hikes through rainforests. Amazing plants, lots of coconuts!

Crumpet has also been doing lots of bike riding. He is doing a lot better here, than at our old house. The roads are flat and there are plenty of sidewalks in our neighborhood.

We are enjoying the fact that there are some really huge ships that pull in around the little island that we live on. There is a huge international Navy exercise going on right now, so there are even more than usual.
Math:

We're reading the book Candy Counting by Lisa McCourt from the library. It's a book of word problems about candy. Crumpet doesn't really understand a lot of it, but he loves counting the candy, and I'm happy to expose him to word problems in a fun way.

Social: We went to our library story hour this week, and other than the fact that I locked my keys in the car, it was great. It was farm week, and we were greeted at the door by a librarian dressed as a cow. There were songs and finger plays, fun stories, and a craft at the end. Oops, forgot to take a picture of it for the blog. It was a chicken picture made up of a variety of shapes - really cute. Anyway, I was thrilled because the Georgia story hours were always pretty disappointing.

Crumpet has always been shy and it tends to make him so nervous around kids that he gets mean. We were finally making progress on this in Georgia, but when we got here the anger returned. We've had a couple of tough weeks, but this week, he started actively seeking out other kids and asking for our help with initiating play. So he is starting to make a few friends, and things are looking up. Phew.

I've been reading other blogs but having trouble commenting due to a new computer system that we're using. But I'll get up to speed with that soon too. It's been fun to get caught up with everyone - I missed having access to the bloggy mama world!