Happy Blogiversary, Pin Junkie!! Celebrating with a Super-linky-party!

 The Pin Junkie is celebrating it's first birthday with a huge linky party!

The Pin Junkie loves Pinterest as much as I do!  I know Pinterest seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it thing, but here at Adventures with Jude, we LOVE it!!  I think it's awesome because it's so visually oriented.  Give me a thousand word description, and I'm clueless.  Give me a picture, and I'm there!   I can find ideas for the boys' lessons, and Luke can help himself to brainstorming ideas.  Pin Junkie is dedicated to sharing - and trying - as much of the great stuff on Pinterest as possible!

I'm so excited to be co-hosting the birthday party!  This is always one of my favorite parties to link up with, and this week, there are 21 bloggers co-hosting!  That means when you link up here today, your post will be seen on not just The Pin Junkie, but also on all the blogs listed below.  Please stop by and say hello to as many as you can!

That means when you link your project here, it will be seen on more than 21 blogs, and Pinterest boards, etc. so if you have a post that's on your heart to share, now's the time!  Crafts, recipes, projects - if you have done it, you can link it!  Share your favorites with us -- they might just become somebody else's new favorite project.

Link Party Rules

The rules for this link party are easy!
Here's what you need to know:

1.  Please follow your host & co-hosts!

2.  Link back to this party in some way.

2.  Link up something YOU made - it can be a craft, recipe, or project as long as YOU made it. (No giveaways, contests, or link parties please).

3.  Link directly to a specific post - not your main blog (Keep it family friendly, please)

4.  Show some love by visiting some of the other links and HAVE FUN!

©2012- 2013 Adventures with Jude. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://adventureswithjude.com

Mom's Monday Mingle - Co-host!

Have you considered sponsoring Naptime Review but was unsure?

Check out the FREE 2 week trial ad as well as the VIP spot.

VIP's get a whole month of hosting free!!!

Just want to host a week or 2?

Email

julie_marling@yahoo.com

and we can get you scheduled.

Love to have you on my sidebar.

While you are there check out my new lower priced packages.

Click here to get started!

Tweet

RULES:

1. Please FOLLOW each hostess (They are 1-4 in the link up)

Naptime Review-Hostess

Janie's Confessions of A Mommyaholic- VIP Host

Adventures with Jude- VIP Host

Mama's High Strung- Co-Host

2. Leave a comment if you are new and want us to return the follow.

3. Grab the button and display it on your sidebar or link it to the post.

4. Have fun and meet new friends!

©2012- 2013 Adventures with Jude. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://adventureswithjude.com

Mom's Monday Mingle (Co-host)

Have you considered sponsoring Naptime Review but was unsure?

Check out the FREE 2 week trial ad as well as the VIP spot.

VIP's get a whole month of hosting free!!!

Just want to host a week or 2?

Email

julie_marling@yahoo.com

and we can get you scheduled.

Love to have you on my sidebar.

While you are there check out my new lower priced packages.

Click here to get started!

Tweet

RULES:

1. Please FOLLOW each hostess (They are 1-3 in the link up)

Naptime Review-Hostess

Janie's Confessions of A Mommyaholic- VIP Host

Adventures with Jude- VIP Host

2. Leave a comment if you are new and want us to return the follow.

3. Grab the button and display it on your sidebar or link it to the post.

4. Have fun and meet new friends!

 ©2012- 2013 Adventures with Jude. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://adventureswithjude.com

N is for Nihongo

We are far from polyglots in this house.  I have a less-than-rudimentary command of foreign languages.  I took five years' worth of Spanish in high school and college, and remember enough vocabulary and grammar to have a basic conversation with my high school freshman.  My Spanish "translates" well enough that I can read a prayer book in Latin, and order dinner at a restaurant in Rome.  I can guess at enough German to understand the Pennsylvania Deitch smattered though an Amish-theme novel without using the glossary, and, courtesy a college dormmate, can write my name in Cyrillic.   My command of Far Eastern languages is pretty much limited to episodes of Kai-lan (Ni hao!!) and subtitled original Iron Chef episodes.   Neal will admit his command of foreign languages isn't much better, and the other kids are learning Spanish but are far from fluent.

Jude doesn't speak foreign languages, either.  Heck, even his American Sign Language vocabulary is limited and adapted by his lack of fine motor skills!  His verbal language articulation is abysmal, and he even has been diagnosed with Phonological disorder.  Phonics is incredibly hard for him.  He is pretty good at pointing out letters - if asked, "Where is the <letter>?" he can indicate it, but if asked "What does this letter say?" odds are good either he will mispronounce it (for example, substituting /b/ for /p/) or just flat out get it wrong (/b/ for /r/).   He knows about 2/3 of the alphabet at any given time, but the 2/3 he knows today isn't necessarily the same as 2/3 that he knew yesterday or will know tomorrow.  He also has a very difficult time figuring out the sounds at the beginning or end of a word, and often drops sounds (or even entire syllables) when speaking.  All of this underscores the irony of his YouTube playlist:  despite struggling so much with articulating and isolating sounds, he loves watching videos in other languages.  He will spend hours on the iPad, watching episodes of cartoons in other languages.

We've walked by him watching episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in Greek.  He's mesmerized. 

H Giatros Daisy  (Dr. Daisy, MD)

At first, I thought it was the novelty of the foreign language.  They are episodes that he has seen over and over, so he knows "what comes next."  It's easy for him to follow the activity, so the voice dub is just "noise."

But then we saw him watching Disney cartoons dubbed in German. 

 Goofy wie man ein Rockstar wird!

(Goofy - How to become a rock star!)

Still, they were familiar characters.  So we thought maybe he could figure out the gist of things with the actions?

But then he started watching user-made Power Rangers episodes in Japanese. This is one of his favorite videos. It's watching somebody build a toy.  I assume he has no idea what they are saying - as far as I know, he can't read the subtitles either.  But I hear the theme song at least four or five times each day:

I'm out of explanations, folks.  I can't make any sense of it.  He enjoys it, though.


I've chosen "Nihongo," the Japanese people's word for their language, as our Letter N theme and am linking up again with Blogging through the Alphabet.   Come see what others find as their N-initialed inspiration.  Multumesc for stopping by!

PS - That's "thank you" in Romanian.  Jude does know three words in that language. The other two are Mamae and Tatae (Romanian for "grandmother" and "grandfather").  Jude's godfather is originally from Romania, and those are the nicknames Jude calls Uncle John's parents.

Ketchup toast

I am loving how independent Jude is getting.  This morning, he made his own breakfast almost completely by himself.   I've mentioned before that  ketchup toast is his favorite breakfast.  The toast is really little more than a vehicle for eating the ketchup -- if it were up to him, he'd eat it from a bowl like soup.  (However, he does NOT like tomato soup.  Of course.)  Lately, he's been able to make his own toast.  Today, he needed help opening the twist tie on the bread bag, and then to reach the ketchup out of the cabinet, but most days, he doesn't even need help with those -- if the big boys have made sandwiches for lunch, the tie is already off and the ketchup is on the counter.  Once he had his mis en place, he was off.  He loves helping to cook, but is especially proud when he can do it "all by himself."  Sometimes it gets a little messy when he wants to help but doesn't want to listen, so I'm hopeful that as he learns, "Listen and you can do it yourself," he will listen more so he can do more things on his own.

How to make ketchup toast.  

 by Jude, age 5
(dictated to and commentary by Mom)

Ingredients:
Bread
Ketchup

1. Make toast

Place bread in toaster and push lever down to start toasting cycle.

Adjust setting so the dial does not pass two.  (This is the part where sometimes he needs supervision, if he's in a "If two is good, seven is better!" mood. On our toaster, unless it's frozen bread, anything past "between 3 and 4" quickly becomes charcoal.)

 

 When toast "pops," use center lever to lift bread out of toaster slots. 

 
  Remove bread from toaster.

Return all levers to original positions.  It's an optional step, because restarting the toaster will reset it, but for Mr. OCD...they go back.

2. Add ketchup

Apply ketchup to each piece of bread.

Put pieces of bread together into a sandwich and gently squish to ensure equal and relatively even ketchup distribution across the toasted surface.

Open sandwich to check for ketchup coverage. Add more, if desired, and repeat "The Squish."

3. Eat!

 

Sharing our breakfast today with others!

First Day - December

We spent the First Day of December packing up and driving home from Disney World.

M-I-C you again real soon, Mickey! 

We're linking up with Journey to Josie for her "First Day" series - It's "A day in our life, captured once a month."