Another sleepover

Friday, November 1:  Brendan and I got to have a sleepover tonight! Yes! I picked him up from school, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items (like some yummy baked chicken that we combined with our pasta and broccoli for dinner), and then we were home. 

 Brendan and I almost NEVER are wanting for something to do here at my house. Brendan is not a difficult to please person. He is relaxed, happy, plays well independently, etc. So tonight, we just laid back and hung out together. We had been looking at lighthouse pictures on my computer (ones I had taken and filed under the appropriate lighthouse name), and then Brendan asked me to print out on of my lighthouse pictures that I had altered to make it look like a drawing.

Brendan said he wanted to "copy" it. He prefaced that remark with this one: "My handwriting is terrible, grandma. It's really bad." Oh.my.heart. This dearest little child feels "troubled" about his handwriting. He commented that "it's really hard for me." I think that's why Brendan wanted to "copy" this lighthouse. He sat at my table for the longest time, just observing lines and colors and then he started copying what he saw. Isn't he precious? He was very pleased with his trees and grass (I told him they were WONDERFUL), but not as pleased with the lighthouse ... but by the time he got to the lighthouse part, he was pretty tired. It WAS past his bedtime but he wasn't really willing to go to bed quite yet. 

 I suggested we play trains. He built a track (the oval one), and I built some track too ...

 Brendan returned to his drawing ...

... but then he set himself free to play.

 I love to watch Brendan play. He has such a great imagination. 

We read some good books too: (1)  "FARM," by Elisha Cooper (really fun story, great illustrations too) (2)  "What's New at the Zoo?" by Phyllis Newman. Cute illustrations (Travis Foster), but the story was not very compelling; okay, but not great.  (3)  "There's a Bear on my Chair," by Ross Collins, which was simple, but sweet. We also went back to Jack Hanna's "Awesome Animal Almanac" and laughed ourselves silly. And per Brendan's request, we re-read "Sweet Pea & Friends: The Sheep Over" and loved it just as much this week as last.

For bedtime, Brendan requested that we watch Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving--but I couldn't find it on Netflix OR Amazon. However, I did find Charlie Brown and the Mayflower (which Brendan said was part of the other movie), so we watched that together. It was very well done, informative and fun to watch. Brendan is like a walking early American encyclopedia and filled in all kinds of other interesting information as the video went along. His memory and his ability to retain details is pretty impressive. SO ... what a NICE SLEEPOVER we had! Brendan was sleeping by about 10:00 (on a sleeping bag here in the main room), and I slept on the couch so that we could be together. Love him so much.